a description is not what it describes — tim wood

A description is a fiction unless it is adequate to some reality.

Non-human things are not human things. — tim wood

Are not humans part of nature? If we have real ends, then ends exist in nature, and the only question is their extent of application.

But do you agree with my limitation on teleology? It may help if you distinguish "nature" from human nature - perhaps one as genus, the other as species. — tim wood

I agree that we are part of nature, not the whole of nature. That does not mean that seeds lack a determinate potential (telos) to become mature plants.

Nowhere in this is the idea that any bird ever "wanted" to leave, say, Northern Saskatchewan and fly to Tierra del Fuego - and back. But teleology, in invoking purpose and attributing it to the living thing, supposes exactly this. — tim wood

I think this confuses purpose and conscious purpose. Aristotelian teleology is not limited to conscious purpose. The telos of a seed is the mature plant it can become. It need have no knowledge of its end.

I was never a biology student (and neither were you, AFAIK), — SophistiCat

Actually, my brother Gary was a world-famous biologist (and philosophical naturalist), and we had many detailed discussions on these issues.

You know, when you write something as obnoxious as that, one is discouraged from reading further. — SophistiCat

By not engaging, you confirm me in my position that we are discussing a faith position, not a rational conclusion.

The biologists long-standing confusion would be removed if all end-directed systems were described by some other term, e.g., 'teleonomic', in order to emphasize that recognition and description of end-directedness does not carry a commitment to Aristotelian teleology as an efficient causal principle.

Talk about fighting straw men! Aristotle never claimed ends were efficient causes. The author lacks the most rudimentary understanding of Aristotle's four "causes." Take building a house as an example. The final cause or end (telos) of house building is, say, to provide shelter. The formal cause is the plan of the house -- how its parts are arranged to effect that end. The material cause is the parts assembled according to that plan. The efficient cause is the building crew that assembles the parts according to the plan to effect the end. No "cause" is in conflict with any other, nor does any "cause" alone explain the building of the house. Specifically, the goal of providing shelter is not the building crew -- as implied by the quotation above.

Changing name of goal directed explanation from "teleologic" to "teleonomic" does no more than force one to Google two terms when one would do nicely.

Pittendrigh's purpose was to enable biologists who had become overly cautious about goal-oriented language to have a way of discussing the goals and orientations of an organism's behaviors without inadvertently invoking teleology.

This is very amusing! Pittendrigh, a biological organism, is assigned the goal of preventing the inadvertent invocation of goals in biological organisms. On what rational grounds would anyone, including the author, want to avoid goal talk? Clearly the author sees the rationality of Pittendrigh having, and acting upon, a goal. This is a clear case of performance belying doctrine.

evolutionary research has found no evidence whatsoever for a "goal-seeking" of evolutionary lines, as postulated in that kind of teleology which sees "plan and design" in nature. The harmony of the living universe, so far as it exists, is an a posteriori product of natural selection.

On the contrary, as explained in my article, evolutionary biology has discovered copious evidence of goal seeking. First, the existence of numerous examples of convergent evolution shows that certain biological forms are naturally preferred over others. Second, the advent of refractory toolkit genes before there is any evolutionary pressure for their latent modes of expression provides us with many examples of means being laid down before they are required to effect their ends. Third, the discovery of punctuated equilibrium in evolution shows that there are "ends" ecosystems tend to and remain at in response to new environmental circumstances. Of course, these phenomena are explained by the normal operation of the laws of nature, but the operation of adequate means is evidence for, rather than against, the existence of ends.

Kant's position is that, even though we cannot know whether there are final causes in nature, we are constrained by the peculiar nature of the human understanding to view organisms teleologically. Thus the Kantian view sees teleology as a necessary principle for the study of organisms, but only as a regulative principle, and with no ontological implications.

The entire structure of Kantian philosophy has been rebutted by modern physics. Kant saw space, time, and time-sequenced causality as forms of thought necessarily imposed on reality by the mind. That makes alternate understandings of space, time and causality literally unthinkable. Yet, Special Relativity falsifies this by conceiving space and time in radically different ways. Similarly, the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum theory, whether true or false, rejects the universality of causality in nature -- showing that a revised understanding of causality is not unthinkable. Thus, space, time and causality are not forms of thought imposed a priori, but empirically derived concepts. The fact that many biologists question teleology shows that it, too, is not an a priori form, but empirically derived.

Of course, what is empirically derived has ontological implications. Whatever informs the mind is existentially adequate to so inform it.

the biological hypothesis that organisms have an innate tendency to evolve in a definite direction towards some goal (teleology) due to some internal mechanism or 'driving force'.

Clearly, this is part of the picture. The laws of nature and refractory toolkit genes are internal principles that partly determine the line evolutionary development will take. Another major factor is the set of challenges imposed by the environment. As we now know, evolution is not a matter of endless and aimless genetic drift, but of the rapid convergence on a new stasis described by the theory of punctuated equilibrium.

My view is that methodological naturalism certainly must put aside or bracket out any consideration of an overarching purpose or intentionality. — Wayfarer

Why? If humans are natural and teleological explanation applies to us, why should methodological naturalism exclude it a priori? This seems a very arbitrary dogma. It is far better to take an empirical approach and let nature tell us the limits of goal seeking.

I agree with your closing. Ultra-Darwinism is ultra irrational.

Simply, as description, it can't be. And as explanation in human terms, it cannot be (because the subjects are not human). — tim wood

It seems that you are offering no argument, merely a claim. If humans are part of nature (and why should we not be?) then goal orientation is part of nature, and the only question is its range of application.

The existent, that which operates in reality, behind teleological explanation is some form of intentionality -- either a law of nature, or a committed human intention.

As for the truth of teleology as an explanation, the only question is: Is teleology adequate to reality. Obviously no human truth is exhaustive, but many provided us with insights adequate to various intellectual needs. The fact that we can use teleology to predict how a hungry spider will respond to an insect being caught in its web (while we still can't model it neural net adequately to make the same prediction), shows that teleological explanation is often adequate to reality.

In biology in general, though, it's built into the way we talk about organisms. We think of them as causally closed systems. — frank

As the teleological nature of biology is baked into the laws of nature, there is no question of going outside of the natural order. So, again, this is not an either/or issue. It is a matter of viewing the same data from various perspectives. Still, thinking of anything in a certain way, say as a causally closed system, does not make them that way.

Thank you for the kind words.

Are you saying that teleology doesn't entail vitalism since it is consistent, on your view, with "physical determinism"? Are you thus committed to defend a form of compatibilism regarding teleology and (nomological or physicalist) determinism? — Pierre-Normand

Yes, I see teleology as compatible with physical determinism, which says, essentially, that ends are implicit is present states and the laws of nature. However, this has to be contextualized by two other positions I have defended on this form:
(1) That natural science is self-limited to objective physicality by the Fundamental Abstraction of science. This leaves natural science bereft of data on the subject as an intentional agent. So, the physical sciences lack the data and concepts to connect what they know of the physical world to the intentional operations of knowing subjects. Thus, we have no rational basis for extending conclusions about the purely physical to questions involving human intentionality.
(2) That the laws of nature are a species of intentionality:
(a) They and committed human intentions are the only known species in the genus of logical propagators.
(b) They and committed human intentions both are intentional in virtue of exhibiting Brentano's essential characteristic of "aboutness." Just as my intention of getting to the store is about by arriving at the store, so the laws of nature are about the final states they effect.

So, my commitment to determinism in the realm of physics does not commit me to determinism in the realm of intentional operations of knowing subjects.

Evolution offers a triumph over teleology by providing a causal explanation for teleology, thus clarifying the primacy of causality over teleology. — Hanover

How does it establish primacy? Human beings are part of nature and are clearly goal-seeking organisms. In us, goals have a clear primacy. I first decide to go to the store, then employ the means (mechanisms) required to effect getting to the store. If my car is not working, I may walk, take a bus, or call a Lyft or taxi. It is because of this temporal and dynamical primacy that finality is called "the cause of causes." The same is seen in other organisms, but with less variety. The end of obtaining food is prior to spiders spinning webs. The desire to mate is prior to mating behavior.

As mentioned in the OP, specific capabilities, such as the ability to develop wrists (found in Tiktaalik roseae, a 375 million year old fossil land-exploring fish), vision (encoded in Pax6, which controls vision in organisms as diverse as verte­brates, mol­lusks, and fruit flies) or specific beak and jaw forms (diverse expressions of BMP4), are latent in toolkit genes, but unexpres­sed until needed. In other words, toolkit genes develop adaptive flexibility before the environmental pressure to express that flexibility.

The only priority I see is epistemological. We developed an understanding of physics and chemistry before we understood evo-devo.

If I want to know why the bird flies south in the winter, and all I am told are the details related to how the bird's neurons fire and muscles contract, surely I know less than if I'm told "so he can find food when it gets cold." — Hanover

And surely you know more if you are told both. Remember, I am not saying that mechanism and teleology are opposed. My thesis is that they are complimentary. I think it is fair to say that the need for adequate nutrition drove the evolution of the animals' migratory capabilities, rather than say that the advent of migratory capabilities led to migrate.

if I want to know why the bird wants to eat and I keep asking these "why" questions, at some point I'm going to resort to causality (namely evolution). — Hanover

I suggest you read Aristotle's discussion of his four "causes" in Metaphysics A, 3-7. As he makes clear, "why" is not a univocal question. It can seek a variety of distinct modes of explanation. You can tell me all of the mechanisms involved in eating, but I would still have no idea what purposes these mechanisms serve.

If one took a different approach and thought of teleological explanations as primary, one would demand to know the purpose of one's life, not just demand a recitation of the meandering path that led one to one's dead end job — Hanover

Yes, one would. The purpose of life is one of the main questions driving philosophical reflection and religious meditation. Further, while why anyone in particular ended up in a dead-end job is outside the purview of scientific thinking, which deals with universals, it is surely explained by the ends or motives that led them to take the job.

And isn't that where the theological/scientific compatibility arises, where the theologian finally concedes the existence of evolution, but then asks for what great purpose did our Creator implement the existence of evolution? — Hanover

No, not really. Historically, the compatibility of science and theology can be traced back at least to the doctrine of the two books in which God reveals Himself: the book of revelation and the book of nature. Medieval Christendom promoted science as a way of understanding God via His work. (See, e.g., James Hannam, The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution.)

'Real' is like saying a computer game is real, but not ultimately real — TWI

Please, define "ultimately real." If you are talking about God as the ultimate reality, then I would agree..

How can you offer an argument from authority, when you do not even believe the authority is real?

We have an idea <reality> which we form as a result of our experience. That idea signifies what it is that we encounter in experience. So, to say what we experience is not real is to say that what we experience is not what we experience -- it is an oxymoron and a contradiction in terms. It uses the term "real" in a sentence without thinking what it really means. That is why I asked you to define real.

Is "angst" a problem that philosophy faces and has to remedy? — Posty McPostface

If the angst has a rational basis, philosophy can deal with it. Usually it has a neurochemical basis that is more likely to yield to cognitive therapy and/or pharmaceutical treatment.

“There’s no reason to believe that your life and experience are other than that hypothetical logical system that I call your hypothetical life-experience-story.” — Michael Ossipoff[/i]
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I think this requires argument.
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Well, when I say that there’s no reason to believe something, then the burden is on someone who disagrees, to produce a reason to believe it. — Michael Ossipoff

Despite the negative phrasing, you are claiming "your life and experience are ... your hypothetical life-experience-story." By refusing to provide an argument in support of this peculiar view, you leave the impression that you have none.

On the realist side, I have provided a number of arguments that you have chosen not to respond to. So, There is no point in continuing to discuss a position that has no support with a person who will not respond to counter arguments.

Since the the time of the Greeks, people have recognized invariant principles explaining changing phenomena. I think that is what Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan:was saying in your quotation.

There is a vast difference between being real, and being the ultimate reality. To be real, something need only be able o act in some way -- any way -- to be ultimate is to be the end of the line in some relevant sense, as God is.

But, back to my question:

If it constrains our existence and choices, if it forms the very fabric of the lived world, then how, precisely, does it differ from reality? If there is no discernible, experiential, difference between A and B, then what does it mean to say A is not B -- that this so-called "dream" is not reality? — Dfpolis

My real question is:

If it constrains our existence and choices, if it forms the very fabric of the lived world, then how, precisely, does it differ from reality? If there is no discernible, experiential, difference between A and B, then what does it mean to say A is not B -- that this so-called "dream" is not reality? — Dfpolis

We only know what dreams are when we they are viewed from the vantage point of wakefulness. — TWI

Not quite. I, for example, am a lucid dreamer. I know when I am dreaming, and if I do not like how a dream is going, I wake myself up. So, when we are talking about dreams in the context of skepticism, we are not talking about actual dreams, but something that is not a dream at all. So, what is it? It seems to me it is undefined -- hiding behind an equivocal use of "dream," but actually not a dream at all. If it is something we cannot wake from, if it constrains our existence and choices, if it forms the very fabric of the lived world, then how, precisely, does it differ from reality? If there is no discernible, experiential, difference between A and B, then what does it mean to say A is not B -- that this so-called "dream" is not reality? It seems to me that such claims are utterly meaningless.

I think the "illogic" of the quantum world is baggage brought the seers of paradox, not presented to us by reality.

What you are talking about is not knowing the present. It is making predictions about the future.

The objective world we seem to occupy could all be an illusion or dream, we don't know, — TWI

We do know. I know what dreams are. They span but a short time. What is an illusion except something that is not real, but what we mean by "real" is the world we know via experience. So to say reality is not real is a further abuse of language.

To think reality is an illusion is to say it is not reality -- again a contradiction in terms. Still, we know that whatever informs our experience has the power to so inform it -- because nothing can do what it cannot do.

So, what is it that we don't know? We don't know what reality can do beyond informing us as it does. So, we form hypotheses. Descartes entertained the hypothesis that it could also act as an evil spirit -- a demon. Others suggest we are a brain in a vat or a simulation. All such hypotheses are unfalsifiable, and so unscientific. Science offers falsifiable hypotheses such as general relativity and quantum field theory.

So, I admit that we do not know the deep structure of material reality, but we have a methodology that prefers falsifiable to unfalsifiable hypotheses and we have made a great deal of progress by applying that methodology.

But,we do know! "Knowing" names a human activity. To say we do not know is an abuse of language. It is effectively saying that we do not do what we do.

Of course, we can discuss what kind of activity "knowing" names, but that is an empirical question, and one that we cannot engage in unless we know relevant evidence.

Why would you believe that? It seems to me that if we are informed, there must be something adequate to informing us at work.

it's impossible to experience it as it occurs. — TWI

But don't we experience it as it occurs within us?

Yes, time reflects the continuity of the change it measures.

I think that few, if any, who claim to know what is, claim that we know it exhaustively. We all realize that there is a delay between the emission of information and its reception. If you read the Medieval Scholastic accounts of sensation, you will see extended discussions of the "sensible species" which was their term for the carrier of sensible information. At the say tine, they did not blush at saying that we know what is.

Part of this was certainly based on the experience of persistence and the dynamic continuity of physical reality. But, I think, another part if it, clearly seen in Aristotelian philosophy going back to the Categories, is a far more expansive view of being that you seem to be taking. Action has always been seen by Aristotelians as inhering in the being that acts. Thus, the Aristotelian tradition sees beings not only as the core object thought of by materialists, but also as that object's radiance of action.

Aristotle was perceptive enough to see that in sensation as well as in cognitive perception, subject and object are linked by an indivisible identity. The object being sensed by me is identically me sensing the object. The object being known by me is identically me knowing the object. As he discusses at length in De Anima, both sensation and perceptual cognition involve the joint actualization of two potentials in a single act (or event). The act of sensing simultaneously actualizes both the object's sensibility and the subject's power to sense. The act of perceptual cognition simultaneously actualizes both the object's intelligibility and the subject's capacity to be informed.

We can see this in the neuroscience of perception. My neural representation of a being is identically the the being's modification of my neural state. For example, the light scattered by an object (its sensible species) modifies the state of rods and cone and cones in my retina. That modified state is identically mine visual image and the object's modification of my retinal state. This dual citizenship continues in effect as the neural signal propagates to the various centers of visual processing in my brain. The information is both mine and the object's continuing action within me. It is literally an existential penetration of me by the being I am perceiving.

So, the projection of being I'm aware of is identically the being's concurrent dynamical projection with in (its existential penetration of) me. Of course, the present information, existing concurrent within me, has a past origin, but that is hardly surprising to any student of nature. Whatever is now bears the imprint of a history going back to the big bang.

Socialism is the doctrine that the means of production should be owned in common, not by a few. So, we could all have shares in GM, but we could not trade them. It is the economic equivalent of direct democracy. We could still hire workers, directors and CEOs all at different wages. We could also buy and sell real and personal property, have savings, etc.

there's no reason to believe that any of the antecedents of any particular ones of those implications are true. — Michael Ossipoff

Then there is no point in proceeding, as I am engaged in the search for truth. I have no interest in hypotheticals that explain posits that might not even be true to begin with.

I will note for the present that Godel has shown that claims of consistency for arithmetic. and systems that can be arithmetically represented, cannot be proven.

Godel showed that, in any logical system complex enough to have arithmetic, there are true propositions that can’t be proven. — Michael Ossipoff

He showed many things. The inability to prove consistency is one of them. It ended Hilbert's program of deriving math from logic. The inability to prove consistency means that there is no justification for assuming your hypothetical life stories are consistent. If they can be inconsistent, why should I give them any credence?

Your life-experience story is self-consistent because there are no mutually-inconsistent facts, or propositions that are both true and false — Michael Ossipoff

Wy point is this is an unjustified faith claim. Perhaps part of my Hypothetical Life Story (HLS) assumes I did something that violates the laws of physics (which you think is impossible). For example, in my HLS, I may have made a decision which I think was free and you think is precluded by the laws of physics. Wouldn't that be an implicit contradiction for you? Or in my HLS I visit a glacier that should not have existed given how global warming works in my HLS. You see, contradictions need not be blatant, they can be subtle. So, it is important to have some justification for thinking that a HLS is self-consistent. As a result of Godel's work there can be none.

I didn’t say that Realism is inconsistent. But your experience is subjective, ... — Michael Ossipoff

My point is not that realism is consistent, but that there is an ontological justification for its consistency, while there is none for your HLSs.

As for subjectivity, all knowledge is both subjective and objective. There is no knowing without both a knowing subject and a known object. I am happy to agree that experience is subjective because that is not an argument against it also being objective.

But I think we agree that your experience can’t be inconsistent. — Michael Ossipoff

Good. But, why do you think this? I think it's consistent because I see it as an experience of being. What do you think is the reason for its consistency?

I live in a world that is actual

Of course, if we use the following useful definition of “actual”:
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“Consisting of, or part of, the physical world in which the speaker resides.” — Michael Ossipoff

Or if we say that something is actual if it can act in any way. In either case, I do not live in a world that does not exist -- as you suggested.

That’s why, in 1840, physicist Michael Faraday pointed out that there’s no reason to believe that this physical world consists of other than a system of mathematical and logical structural-relation. …with the Materialists’ objectively-existent “stuff “ being no more real or necessary than phlogiston. — Michael Ossipoff

Faraday was a great physicist, but that did not qualify him as a philosopher. Mathematics is an abstraction that cannot be applied unless there is something beyond itself to apply it to. It is what the abstract relations describe (that in which they are instantiated) that Faraday forgot.

I know it is actual because it acts to inform me.

Of course…in your experience-story. — Michael Ossipoff

I do not disown my experience, but I'm making two additional points (1) In acting to inform me, objects act and so meet the condition to exist simpliciter, (2) if we did not share common experiences, we could not communicate.

I don’t know what it means to say that God isn’t natural — Michael Ossipoff

It means that God, while operative in nature, transcends nature, and so is not a part of nature.

But of course it’s just that we don’t mean the same thing by “natural”. I don’t know what you mean by it. — Michael Ossipoff

By "nature" I mean all physically observable existents and their dynamics -- and as I said before, by an "existent," I mean anything that can act in any way. By "dynamics" I mean the principles guiding observable change.

While I am not a naturalist, I see no need to avoid an well-defined terminology. It is a type of genetic fallacy because it may have originated with some group with whom we may disagree. Nonetheless, I do not thnk that most of the language I use with respect to physical reality so originates.

Right, your inference is about the nature of what you experience. …an inference that this physical world that you experience has objective existence (whatever that would mean).. — Michael Ossipoff

I have said what it means to exist -- it is the ability to act in any way. So, whatever exists with respect to anything, exists simpliciter. I think we have exhausted the topic of "inferring" reality. You have not responded to the points I have made, so there is no point in my repeating them.

It’s just that the physical world, including us animals, is basically as it was taught to us. — Michael Ossipoff

Exactly, and truth is the adequacy of what we think to what is. Case closed.

But, along with the Materialists, you want to make a metaphysics of that. You want to make this physical universe a metaphysical brute-fact. — Michael Ossipoff

I don't even know why you are saying this. I see the physical universe as contingent at every point of space-time and so in need of a concurrent explanation. Further, I see the line of concurrent explanation terminating in a necessary, self-explaining being, commonly called God. So, I see no brute facts, and consider the very concept of a brute fact antithetical to science. Please do not persist in giving a false account of my position.

I recognize that intuition rebels against a suggestion that all that’s describable is just hypothetical. But there’s no physics-experiment that can establish otherwise — Michael Ossipoff

I didn't think you were a logical positivist or a physicalist. We both know that physics is not the only approach to truth. I have explained why there is no dynamic separation between subjects and their objects and how experience links them by a partial identity. You have chosen not to dispute my analysis.

It’s my impression, largely from metaphysics, that Reality, what-is, is good. …and that there’s good intent behind what-is. …and that Reality is benevolence itself. — Michael Ossipoff

I am happy to agree with you here.

”If there hadn’t been apples, it would have been something else edible, because we animals couldn’t live without edible things” — Michael Ossipoff
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This argument is inconsistent with your worldview. How can you know that we are animals in need of food except by experience?

You aren’t an anti-evolutionist, are you? — Michael Ossipoff

I accept the science of evolution while rejecting the naturalist spin on evolution as an example of order emerging from mindless randomness. That is not the point. Evolution is known by reflecting on our experience of reality. As you think experience does not give us reality, you have no reason to believe that we are animals, let alone evolved animals.

How would such an animal grow and reproduce without taking-in material? — Michael Ossipoff

How do you know any of this, except by experience? Besides, if your life is one hypothetical story, and mine quite another, there is no reason for us to have any common experience or share any common knowledge or beliefs. What makes it possible for us to communicate is that we share the same objective reality. Absent that, why should we have any common ground?

You’re making inferences, assumptions, about the nature of your surroundings — Michael Ossipoff

Of course I am, but their existence and their capacity to inform me are not among my inferences.

I don’t know the meaning of that terminology. I haven’t read the author that you’ve referred to. — Michael Ossipoff

That is why I explained the difference to you. Ideas do not need to be know before they can signify. Other kinds of signs do. Since we do not first know we have an idea of x, we can't infer the existence of x from "I have an idea of x." Instead it works the other way. We know x (by experience) and then infer that to know x I must have an idea of x. If you want a reference, look at Henry Veatch, Intentional Logic.

In what context, other than its own, do you want or believe this physical universe to be “existent” or “real”? — Michael Ossipoff
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I know it is objective in all contexts.

.…such as…? — Michael Ossipoff

In the context of the lived world, science, philosophy, theology, human relations, morality, etc, etc."

There is no reason to think the quarterback's choice does not modify the laws of nature [physics?] and many reasons to think it does.
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Name one. — Michael Ossipoff

1. Physical acts are consequent on intentional commitments. If physics applied invariantly, what we thought could not result in physical effects.
2. The causal invariant in intentional actions is the goal (which is intentional) not a physical trajectory. When I decide to go to the store, I may envision a path, but if the preplanned path is blocked, I will find another to attain my goal. Mechanism is backward looking, teleology forward looking. So, my goal rather than my physical trajectory determines by motion.
3. It has been experimentally confirmed, beyond a statistical doubt, that human intentional can modify "random" physical processes.
4. On the other side, as I have argued in many posts on this forum, the fundamental abstraction of physics limits is realm of application to purely physical objects -- excluding any operations of the intending subject. So, we have no reason to expect that human acts of will are adequately described by physics.

Each of us influences this physical world. …but not by changing its physical laws. — Michael Ossipoff

This is self-contradictory. If the laws are unmodified by human action, the state of the world before we are conceived, together with the laws of nature, determine all future states. If future states are fully determined before we exist, we can have no influence on them

I don’t know what there is to “back up” about physics, other than that it’s been useful in describing the relations among the things and events of the physical world. — Michael Ossipoff

What needs justification is the application of physics outside of its verified realm of application, viz. its application to human intentionality. Physics has nothing to say about meaning or intent because they are not part of its ontology. (By the ontology of physics I mean the things it deals with such as space, time, mass, fields and dynamical laws.)

I still do not know what you mean by "describable" in "describable metaphysics."

On further reflection, everyone is entitled to use language consistent with their positions. I certainly do.

What is objectionable is damping down other perspectives on the basis of being "mentalistic." I would think the vast literature on experience offers the possibility of substantially enriching the concept of subjectivities. Cutting off or restricting this avenue of elaboration as "mentalistic," with no further justification, is what seems prejudicial.

I'm loathe to talk about subjectivities in terms of 'experiences', which reeks of a mentalistic vocabulary that I'd prefer to be expunged if at all possible. — StreetlightX

I have no problem with adding new perspectives, such as that of subjectivities, to my repertoire. The exclusion of "mentalistic" language moves in the opposite direction. Like the deprecating usage of "supernatural," it seems designed to prejudice discussions without the need to address the relevant issues rationally.

When I say that our experience-stories consist of complex systems of inter-referring abstract implications about hypothetical propositions about hypothetical things, with one of the many consistent configurations of mutually-consistent hypothetical truth-values for those hypothetical propositions... — Michael Ossipoff

This is not a complete sentence. You may wish to edit it.

I will note for the present that Godel has shown that claims of consistency for arithmetic. and systems that can be arithmetically represented, cannot be proven. So, you philosophy has a very shaky foundation if it is based on the assumption of self-consistency. By way of contrast, the consistency of realism is based on the fact that one cannot instantiate a contradiction. So, as long as we abstract our principles from reality, they are guaranteed to be self-consistent.

Why should I waste my time on worlds that do not exist?

You mean other than because you live in one? — Michael Ossipoff

I live in a world that is actual, not hypothetical. I know it is actual because it acts to inform me. By way of contrast, I am the one informing hypothetical worlds.

I look forward to your fuller response.

There’s no reason to believe that your life and experience are other than that hypothetical logical system that I call your hypothetical life-experience-story. — Michael Ossipoff

I think this requires argument. You need to say why some propositions only are hypothetical, and what it is to be true. If you refuse to specify what you mean by truth, then how can anyone know if they agree or disagree with you?

Also, why do you refrain from saying what experience exists? What do you man by "existing"?

Any “fact” in this physical world implies and corresponds to an implication — Michael Ossipoff

More fundamentally, it corresponds to a possible human experience. I only "encounter" the roundabout because I experience it. This makes experience fundamental.

A true mathematical theorem is an implication whose antecedent includes at least a set of mathematical axioms. — Michael Ossipoff

What if the axioms are false? How would we know they are true or false?

Instead of one world of “Is”…
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…infinitely-many worlds of “If”. — Michael Ossipoff

Why should I waste my time on worlds that do not exist?

We’re used to declarative, indicative, grammar because it’s convenient. But conditional grammar adequately describes our physical world. We tend to unduly believe our grammar. — Michael Ossipoff

We use such grammar because it expresses what we actually think. Your conjecture that life is hypothetical is not what most people actually think. So, the burden is on you to convince us that what we think is wrong.

I suggest that Consciousness is primary in the describable realm, or at least in its own part(s) of it. — Michael Ossipoff

How would you describe consciousness? (I do not mean the contents of consciousness, but that which makes us aware of those contents.)

Of course consistency in your story requires that there be evidence of a physical mechanism for the origin of the physical animal that you are. — Michael Ossipoff

I think it would be consistent, but false, to say I had no parents. It is only because we know what is true from experience that we know (not hypothesize) that we have parents.

I am happy to answer your questions.

what do you mean by “”objectively existent”, “objectively real”, “actual”, “substantial”, or “substantive”? — Michael Ossipoff

By existent, I mean able to act in any way. Objects (potentially or actually) are one pole of the subject- object relation we call knowing. To be an object is to be able to inform a subject -- in other words, to be intelligible. To be a subject is to be able to be aware of intelligibility.

A substance is an ostensible unity. As such, it has various notes of intelligibility that we can predicate of it.

Actual means operative -- able to act at the present time. It is opposed to potential, which means immanent, but not yet operative. It is also opposed to fictional, which means that the corresponding idea has a sense or meaning, but no operative referent.

2. In what context, other than its own, or the context of our lives, do you want or believe this physical universe to be real &/or existent? — Michael Ossipoff

It is not a matter of my wanting or believing that the physical universe is operative. I am directly aware that it operates on me to inform me that it is and what it is -- whether I want it to or not, and whether I choose to believe it or not. So, its reality is not context dependent.

Continuous waves have infinite degrees of freedom, at least in the abstract.

I have not heard of treating a photon as an observer.

No, I think the MWI is based on an error (thinking the bulk matter of the brain is subject to linear dynamics, just like quanta in isolation).

Yes, I think the wave function collapses because detectors are made of bulk matter and buk matter has nonlinear dynamics that cannot support super positions.

I don’t have an argument with your statement that spiritual reality is unnatural, because I don’t know what you mean by spiritual reality. — Michael Ossipoff

It is not relevant to our present discussion, but by "spiritual" here I mean a reality with no intrinsic dependence on matter.

, which, while real, is not measurable.
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So then, is it that anything that isn’t measureable (physical)? is unnatural? So you’d say that God (hypothetically, if you don’t believe there’s God) isn’t natural? …and that abstract-implications, even they’re the structural basis of the describable world, are unnatural? — Michael Ossipoff

All I am saying is that many things can be real (and natural) without being measurable. Qualia, intentions and the laws of nature are a few examples God is a special case. God is inseparable from nature, but not part of nature because nature is ontologically finite, and God is not. So, God is operative in nature, and natural in that sense, but not natural in the sense of being part of nature. Abstractions are human thoughts and so quite natural, though immaterial.

Please note that I am not a materialist. I think that there are intrinsically immaterial realities, such as God, with no dependence on material reality.

Yes there’s outward sign to justify Theism, but there are also discussions that more directly justify faith, aside from outward sign. I define faith as “trust without or aside from outward sign”. There are discussions that justify faith. — Michael Ossipoff

Just to be clear, I distinguish faith and reason, and see philosophy as dealing with what can be known by reason independently of faith.

At the same time, I think faith is real, have reflected a great deal about, it, grace, inspiration and related topics. While I would be glad to share my thoughts on these matters, I consider these reflections part of Sacred (as opposed to Natural) Theology and not part of philosophy. So, yes, I think that we can be aware of the presence of God within, but I don't think that is grist for the philosophical mill.

But, if you’re not a Materialist (“Naturalist”), then I’d suggest ditching Materialist language like “nature” and “the natural world”. — Michael Ossipoff

I see no reason to forget about nature and the natural world. While they are not the whole of reality, they are certainly an important part of it. If one is interested in knowing God, much can be learned from studying his handiwork.

You experience them, and then you infer objective existence for them. — Michael Ossipoff

No. That is not it as all. Think about how inference works. It does not create new information. It makes new connections between old information. So, If the object's existence was not already immanent in my experience, no amount of inference could inform me it exists. The very fact that the object is acting to inform me shows that it exists. How it informs me is a partial revelation of what it is -- a thing that can inform me in this way.

Experiencing is entering into a subject-object relation. Without an object, such a relation is impossible. I, as subject, bring awareness to the table. The object brings an intelligibility that will become the contents of my consciousness when I am aware of it. My being informed by the object is identically the object informing me. This Identity prevents any separation of subject and object. So there is no need to bridge a gap by some inference.

There may be incidental inference. I may decide that this object is like others I've experienced and infer properties I'm not experiencing, but filling-in gaps is not the subject-object relation of experience. It is a separate, second movement of thought.

But don’t you see that that claim about an objectively-existent physical world is what you’re arguing for? You can’t use it as an argument for itself. — Michael Ossipoff

Every line of argument needs unproven premises; however, "unproven" does not have to mean "unknown." As I have just explained, there is no separation between me being informed by the object, and the object informing me. Experience provides us with our known, but unproven premises. The analysis of experience does not prove it, but it does remove rational grounds for doubt. The lack of dynamical separation between object informing and the subject being informed removes any need for mediation or inference.

Apples are among the things and events that are in your self-consistent hypothetical life-experience-story. — Michael Ossipoff

There is no hypothesis. Hypotheses bridge ignorance. I have no need for such a bridge when apples act to inform me whenever I encounter them.

If there hadn’t been apples, it would have been something else edible, because we animals couldn’t live without edible things — Michael Ossipoff

This argument is inconsistent with your worldview. How can you know that we are animals in need of food except by experience? It is perfectly self-consistent to be a being without need of food.

No doubt infinitely-many terminologies are possible. I don’t disagree with them, but I don’t use all of them. — Michael Ossipoff

My point is not terminological, but epistemological. Saying that we only know our ideas is simply wrong -- and wrong precisely because it confuses signs that must be known in themselves before they can signify with ideas that have no reality beyond signifying.

quantum-physics in particular, is their specialty, their field. …not yours — Michael Ossipoff

Actually, I have a doctorate in theoretical physics and continue to work on its foundations -- specifically the foundations of quantum theory.

In what context, other than its own, do you want or believe this physical universe to be “existent” or “real”? — Michael Ossipoff

I know it is objective in all contexts.

It doesn’t contravene physical law. The quarterback is a physical, biologically-orignated, purposefully-responsive device. — Michael Ossipoff

There is no reason to think the quaterback's choice does not modify the laws of nature and many reasons to think it does.

In this physical world, there’s no contravention of physical law. — Michael Ossipoff

Thank you for sharing your faith in physics. Do you have an argument to back it up?

No one’s denying that Idealism and Theism don’t mean the same thing, or that they’re positions distinct from eachother. But they aren’t incompatible with eachother. — Michael Ossipoff

Agreed.

I am a philosophical theist. I am no sort of idealist.

Then, you must be a Materialist or a Dualist. I don’t think you can be a Theist and a Materialist, so doesn’t that make you a Dualist? — Michael Ossipoff

I could not possibly be a theist and a materialist. As It happens, I am not a substance dualist either. I am a moderate realist who thinks that there are physical and and intentional acts by substances that are ostensible unities.

Describable metaphysics only discusses the describable. I don’t claim that all of Reality is describable. — Michael Ossipoff

Certainly God is not.

I agree that we are natural beings…

I translate that as “physical beings”. — Michael Ossipoff

We are physical and intentional beings.

Thank you. I will reflect on this perspective -- try it on as it were.

Thank you for introducing subjectivities.

I have a few questions. First, would it be a reasonable summary to say that a subjectivity is a role (say being a pedestrian) that a person can engage in? I mean, would it be a mistake to speak of subjectivities if we are not dealing with persons?

Second, you say:

Now, of the various reasons why studying different subjectivities is important, chief among them are the political and ethical implications of these differing subjectivities: — StreetlightX

Since you seem to be familiar with the literature, could you give a few examples of the implications being discussed so that we could see how this projection of human activity illuminates political philosophy and ethics?

Thank you again.

Thank you.

The physical world is more "natural" than...what? Human-constructed architecture and pavement? — Michael Ossipoff

The natural world excludes spiritual reality, which, while real, is not measurable.

I also object to naturalists' use of "supernatural" as a term of derision. God is, as Aristotle saw, the logical completion of our investigation of nature.

You mentioned the objective side, but it's there only by inference from our subjective experience. — Michael Ossipoff

I disagree. We experience the objects of the lived world. We do not infer them. Locke was wrong is saying we only know our own ideas. Rather ideas are acts by which we may know objects. (My idea <apple> is just me thinking of apples.) When I an aware of an apple, I do not first know I have the concept <apple>, and then infer that there is an apple causing that idea. Rather I know the physical apple and then, in a second movement of thought, infer that my means of knowing the apple is the idea <apple>.

This is typical of the confusion between formal and instrument signs that permeates modern philosophy. Ideas are formal signs -- their only reality, the only thing they do, is signify. Text, smoke and road signs are instrumental signs. They have a primary reality of their own (ink on paper, particulate suspensions, paint on metal) and secondarily signify. We do not need to recognize that <apple> is an idea for it to signify, but we must first recognize relevant properties of instrumental signs before they can signify. If I cannot make out the letters, if I confuse smoke with dust or a cloud, or if I fail to discern the figure on the road sign, they will fail to signify.

there are physicists who are taking physicalism down by saying that the notion of an objective physical world has gone the way of phlogiston. — Michael Ossipoff

And, as I have pointed out, they are confusing objective measurability with having a determinate value. These were never the same, and to lack a determinate value is not to lack objectivity.

Of course that statement quoted from Kim is true. It's true, and it doesn't contradict Subjective Idealism or Theism. — Michael Ossipoff

No, it is false. I did not say that previously, but it is false. If I ask why the end caught the pass and follow the sequence of events back in time, I come to the quarterback's decision to throw the pass to that end rather than another receiver. That decision is an intentional, not a physical act.

Subjective Idealism and Theism are logical distinct positions. I am a philosophical theist. I am no sort of idealist.

In fact, I take it a bit farther, and point say it about metaphysics as well as physical events and causes. Substiture "describable metaphysics" for "physical states", "physical events" and "physical causes". — Michael Ossipoff

I'm unsure what you are saying here. To me, metaphysics is the science of being as being, and so deals with all reality. Obviously, any causal relations are contained within reality.

We're physical. We're physical animals in a physical world. In other words, our hypothetical life-experience-story is the story of the experience of a physical animal in a physical world. — Michael Ossipoff

I agree that we are natural beings, but I think it is important to distinguish physical and intentional operations (aka "spiritual" operations). As Brentano pointed out, intentional operations have an intrinsic "aboutness" that is not required to specify physical operations (even though physical operations are ordered to ends).

Thank you for the clarification.

Yes, one can deny that things occur for an adequate reason, but it is irrational to do so. How can anything come to pass if the conditions of its genesis are inadequate to produce it? Claiming that it can is making the absurd claim that what is inadequate is adequate

Randomness is completely irrelevant. The only relevant consideration is adequacy.

What a whomping non sequitur. The inability to know something does not entail there is no sufficient reason for something being the case. — MindForged

I think you have it backward. My claim is that that if there is no sufficient reason in reality, we cannot know that there is a sufficient reason. This was in response to your suggestion:

You might well reject the PSR as a metaphysical principle ... while still ... retain[ing] it as an Epistemic principle. — MindForged

It seems like you want to hold onto the PSR when that is the very contention that I am attempting to dismantle. — Purple Pond

All the PSR states is that every operation is the operation of something able to so operate. How can you dispute that? Do you claim that beings can perform operations they are intrinsically incapable of? Or do you claim that some operations are not acts of an operator? If you do, you are reifying non-being, because anything capable of acting in any way exists.

You might well reject the PSR as a metaphysical principle (as most scientists do) while still doing as Hume suggested and retain it as an Epistemic principle. — MindForged

Putting aside your unsupported sociological claim, yes, some people are quite irrational. How can we know there is a sufficient reason if there is no sufficient reason to know?