So your liver is internal?

That just doesn't seem to be how it is being used. — Banno

Yes the liver is internal to the body. How else do you think the notions of internal and exteranl originated, and continue to be analogously used, if not as referring to inside and outside of bodies or containers?

The differentiation of Being and things is also explicit in Heidegger:

The formidable task that Heidegger sets himself in Being and Time is to respond to the question ‘What is Being’? This ‘Question of Being’ has a long heritage in the Western philosophical tradition, but for Heidegger, to merely ask what is Being? is problematic, as that emphasis tends to objectify Being as a ‘thing' – that is to say, it separates off ‘Being’ (whatever it is) from the questioner of Being. ” — Heidegger's Ways of Being


Bolds added. I see the effort to equate being with the simply existent as an attempt to short-circuit the whole question of 'the meaning of being'. — Wayfarer

He also differentiated notions of existence.

Existentiell and existential are key terms in Martin Heidegger's early philosophy. Existentiell refers to the aspects of the world which are identifiable as particular delimited questions or issues, whereas existential refers to Being as such, which permeates all things, so to speak, and can not be delimited in such a way as to be susceptible to factual knowledge. In general it can be said that "existentiell" refers to a "what", a materially describable reality, whereas "existential" refers to structures inherent in any possible world. In other words, the term "existentiell" refers to an ontic determination, whereas "existential" refers to an ontological determination.[1]

From here

You say "The differentiation of Being and things is also explicit in Heidegger. Note you didn't say that "the differentiation of beings and things is also explicit in Heidegger". You could have correctly said 'the differentiation of existence and existents is also explicit in Heidegger". I keep pointing this out to you ad nauseum and you always just ignore it, presumably because it doesn't suit you to acknowledge a counterpoint you cannot address reasonably.

All things that are, conceptually speaking, are be-ings just as long as they continue to be. There are sentient beings and insentient beings, just as there are sentient existents and insentient existents or sentient things and insentient things.

In terms of "internal" and "external", there are a few ways of considering it. If substance/property dualism is true then the "external" world is the material stuff, and the "internal" world is the immaterial stuff. If idealism is true then everything is "internal" and nothing is "external". If materialism is true then the "internal" world is the matter that constitutes our minds and the "external" world is everything else. — Michael

It seems that the notion of external and internal derives form the idea of things being internal or external to the body. Our bodies are experienced and understood as being in the world, but the world is not experienced as being in our bodies. Both substances and properties (apart from the substance and properties of our bodies themselves) are experienced and understood as being external to our bodies also.

If idealism were true that would not change; the experience would remain exactly the same even if the understanding changed. Unless you are speaking of solipsism, If the world were thought to be fundamentally mind our minds would still be understood to be in that universal mind, and yet that whole mind (which would include, but would not be limited to, the minds of others) would not be understood to be in my mind,

Any way, it's probably better to think in terms of dependence than in terms of internal/external if you want to arrive at coherent models of different metaphysical speculations.

Maybe you can succinctly explain to me, Janus – what Wayfarer obviously can't (re: ↪180 Proof
) – the function of "transcendental idealism" in contrast to "empirical realism". — 180 Proof

I'm no Kant scholar,180, but I've got a little time this morning, so I'll give it a go. As far as I know the idea that we have access only to appearances goes back to Locke, and prior to Kant was developed by Hume and Berkeley in quite different ways. Berkeley posited that what we experience as the external world is a reality implanted in our minds by God, and Hume responded by saying that all we can know is the play of sensory phenomena and ideas, a position which leads to a particular kind of skepticism about causation and the nature of the external world. It is that skepticism which Kant sought to overcome

This observation that we have access only to appearances is open to different ways of framing it, but the basic idea is that we only have access to our personal and collective experiences and judgements. But if our experience were unconstrained by anything "outside" it, then it would be impossible to explain how we and even animals share a common world wherein it can be observed that we all (or most of us at least) respond in ways that suggest that there is a real world full of real things that is revealed to our senses. It is on account of that that Kant posits empirical realism.

However, we are able to imagine that how the world is for us is not necessarily how it is "in itself". and it might even plausibly follow, since our experience consists of "representations" that are mediated by concepts and judgements, that the world in itself cannot be the same as it is for us. We can even wonder if the world in itself could possibly be anything determinate at all.

For Kant this claim that the transcendental nature of the world in itself is inaccessible entails that it cannot be anything but an idea for us (since we cannot rationally believe after the advent of this critical realization of the role the mind plays in structuring empirical reality, that our senses reveal the mind-independent nature of the world in itself). For Kant this opens to way to faith, to the deliverances of practical reason, to belief in "freedom, immortality and God".

In answer to @Mww regarding the idea that Kant claims the objects of the empirical world must affect our senses pre-cognitively as shapes, I would ask why it could not be, in line with modern physics, that pre-cognitively the "in itself' is a field of differing energetic intensities that gives rise to the perception of entities and objects of diverse shapes and forms; that the in-itself has no "shape" as we conceive of shape.

It seems to me that we don't, and cannot, know for sure. For all we know Berkeley might have been right after all. Not to say I think he was.I like to think about different views and what they entail and imply, but I prefer to resist any tendency to adopt any of them.



As I said before, Kant's thinking, like everyone else's, is dualistic, but I see no reason to believe that he was a committed substance dualist.

In accordance with general usage I see no reason to think that 'being' is not synonymous with 'existence' and 'beings' is not synonymous with 'existents'.

I hope you awoke flush with happiness. — Wayfarer


I don't think anyone commented on this. Maybe I missed it. I wish I'd thought of it. — T Clark

I noticed it but did not wish I had thought of it. I think it is best to leave bad jokes, like sleeping drunks, undisturbed.

I think you've laid out the distinction between DR and IR nicely. My only objection is to the terms "inside" and "outside".

So, I would say DR posits that we have unmediated access to a mind-independent reality, whereas IR posits that we have unmediated access only to a mind-mediated reality.

The mind-mediated reality is also determined in pre-cognitive ways by a mind-independent actuality that cannot be real for us, even though we cannot but think of it as being real in itself.

(Take a look at the poem currently pinned to my profile page.) — Wayfarer

You added the reference to the Emily Dickinson poem after my initial response and your reference to it reminds me of a point I've made many times in conversations with you: that poems do not explain, they evoke. (By the way I very much like that poem, and Emily Dickinson is one of my favorite poets).

Maybe you can succinctly explain to me, Janus – what Wayfarer obviously can't (re: ↪180 Proof
) – the function of "transcendental idealism" in contrast to "empirical realism". — 180 Proof

Probably @Mww would be a better candidate for that task. I will come back to respond to this as greater length and to all the responses I've received. but I have little time for the next few days. I'll be interested to see what unfolds in this discussion in the meantime.

That makes sense to me.

:up:

As it happens, though, you are not just an insignificant speck, you are every insignificant speck, and every sentient being for all time. So make yourself comfortable, because you're going to be here a while. — unenlightened

Is that an enlightened form of solipsism? If so, you are not living down to your name :razz:

Whereas I see it in terms of the quest. — Wayfarer

That's very romantic. Good luck trying to explain something that is beyond human experience and understanding in terms of human experience and understanding.

So now we need Kant and Quantum and relativistics and Husserl to explain dinosaurs. — Banno

:lol: No we need them to make it appear difficult to explain dinosaurs. Maybe dinosaurs were conscious subjects and so there was time in their time. :wink:

I agree that we don't know the transcendental, in the sense of the independent-of-our-experience-and-understanding, conditions for the existence of that experience and understanding. I just think the attempt to frame that mystery in terms of mind or matter, or any of our categories of understanding, or their absence, is a fool's errand. I think it's better to acknowledge the limits of our understanding, and leave the great mystery wide open, not primarily to make way for faith, but simply for the sake of honest assessment.

As to faith, I think any of us is free to believe whatever we want, or need, to, provided we don't force our ideas on others. I'm no fan of philosophical correctness in any of its guises.

I thought the same. But I think that the OP doesn't want to identify them at all, just remark on how some groups use them in bad faith. He used the example of politicians or government agencies that "overrated" some artworks instead of valuing aesthetics. — javi2541997

The government agencies might just be proposing a different aesthetic. It brings up the question as to just what aesthetics deals with. The simple, perhaps naive, answer would be "beauty". But the idea of aesthetics is tied to the idea of non-ethical value judgement and the question is what exactly are we valuing if not beauty? Could it be aliveness or relevance to living experience? Not all artworks are beautiful in any straightforward sense; some that are considered great may even be grotesque.

But do either of them tell us anything about space? — Mww

No more than our experience of matter tells us anything "ultimate" about matter I guess.

As long as appears in “objects appear extended” means objects are presented to us as being extended. Or, objects make their appearance to our senses by being extended. And not…objects look to us like they are extended. Only in this distinction does ↪Wayfarer
’s A369 quote make sense, and indeed the conception of spatial extension itself, re: “… outer appearances (if their reality is conceded)…”. — Mww

I'm not clear what the distinction would be between "objects are presented to us as being extended" and "objects appear extended". "Objects make their appearance to our sense by being extended" seems ambiguous and could be interpreted to mean that they really are extended and that on account of that they can make their appearance to our senses.

I would say that our senses are not pre-cognitively affected by objects, but that we interpret whatever it is that affects our senses pre-cognitively as objects. But alas, sometimes it all just seems like a word-game.

I am saying that the fact there was a time before humans existed is an empirical fact supported by the fossil record and an abundance of geological and paleontological data which can be observed. Iis that not so? — Wayfarer

I would agree that it is generally considered to be a fact, but I think that, strictly speaking, it is an inference to the best explanation for fossils.

I wanted you to address the meaning of the claim. To repeat my question, we cannot mean that there was time, in the human subjective sense, prior to humans, so what do we mean when we say there was time prior to humans?

There was a time prior to humans, but time itself is not completely objective - it is in some fundamental sense dependent on the observer. That is what I had hoped to convey with the quotation from Paul Davies, who says that the passage of time is reliant on there being an observer, and that if the state of the universe is described in the equations of quantum cosmology, then time simply 'drops out'. This 'observer dependency' is what ultimately undermines physicalism, as physicalism presumes that the objects of physics are real independently of any mind. It is also at the basis of the overall 'observer problem' in physics generally. — Wayfarer

So, the above doesn't answer the question as to how there could be time prior to humans if time is observer-dependent and there were no suitable observers back then? We can't even say there was a "back then" because that presupposes time.

I understand the idea that time is irrelevant to QM, but how can you consistently argue that QM tells us anything about the observer-independent universe if QM itself is observer-dependent? I don't see how you can justify claiming that there is no observer-independent universe from the fact (if it is a fact) that QM is observer dependent either. As far as I know it is not by any means uncontroversial that it must be a conscious subject that collapses the wave function.

I would have hoped that, given the challenging nature of the issue that this is about as clear as it can be made. If that will not suffice, then I won't press it any further. (I'm also intrigued that Kant appears to concede dualism in that passage.) — Wayfarer

I don't read that as Kant conceding dualism, but as saying that we only know that matter is "valid for appearance" meaning that we don't know if it has any existence beyond that (or what it could even mean to say it does). There is of course the basic dualistic character of Kant's philosophy in the sense of phenomena/ noumena or for us/ in itself, but that just reflects the ineliminably dualistic nature of all our thinking, and in no way entails substance dualism.

I am simply pointing to the many problems with causation. — Banno

Then what are they? — L'éléphant

It's hard to imagine, since all our explanations are given either in terms of causes or reasons. Might be problems just regarding some parts of physics.

:lol:

I said that it is a matter of empirical fact. — Wayfarer

But it's not an empirical fact. Emprical facts are observables. So, what is it?

I'm not asking you to explain time, I'm asking you what you mean by time if you are positing it as something different than the subjective experience of duration, and the subjective understanding of time as 'past, present, future'.

It is obvious that there was not such a time prior to human life. So, I am asking you what you mean by saying that there was a time prior to humans.

That is at odds with many of the objections you raise, but then, maybe it's just for the sake of argument. — Wayfarer

If you think I have contradicted myself then quote some examples. I mean what I say and I do not say anything "just for the sake of argument". Of course you can disagree with what I say, but you need to present actual arguments for your disagreement, that directly address whatever arguments or claims I am making. Have you considered the possibility that you have misunderstood?

And yet again this response of yours is not a response to anything I've actually said, but is just another expression of your own attitudes, kind of an aside. You seem to be incapable of imagining that someone might be aware of all the "facts' you are and yet disagree with you; you always seem to jump to the conclusion that they must have misunderstood.

I said earlier in this thread, my main aim is to argue that humans are intrinsic to the universe, not an accidental byproduct.. That remains the case. In earlier times that would be an assumed implication of religious mythology, now it has to be established on the basis of philosophy. — Wayfarer

Philosophy cannot definitively establish anything. You should know that. Humans are intrinsic to the universe as it is experienced and understood by humans, we know that because it is tautologically true. It is not a religious question either since religions cannot establish objective facts, and "humans are intrinsic to the universe", if taken to mean something beyond that above-mentioned tautology, is a purportedly objective fact. How could such a thing ever be definitively established if not by science? (And scientific theories are not facts in any case, no matter how little reason we might think we have to doubt them).

That said you also need to explain clearly what you mean by saying that humans are intrinsic to the universe, and then provide a cogent argument for why we should believe that.

It's not a trivial matter. There was a time before humans existed, as is well attested by empirical science. But the entire framework within which empirical science depends is first and foremost noetic or intellectual. 'From a phenomenological perspective, in everyday life, we see the objects of our experience such as physical objects, other people, and even ideas as simply real and straightforwardly existent. In other words, they are “just there.” We don’t question their existence; we view them as facts. — Wayfarer

Are they not facts of human experience? I mean, what else could they be? On the other hand I'm finding it difficult to see how "a time before humans existed? could be a fact of human experience. It is an inference to the best explanation for the discoveries of the paleontologists. You haven't answered the critical question as to what you mean by time, that I posed for you earlier.

You seem to be unaware or to have forgotten that I have read Husserl (and Heidegger) (although quite a few years ago now) and am reasonably familiar with their ideas, so I don't understand what purpose you think there could be in going over old ground as though I am a novice and as though we haven't covered it countless times.

The "natural attitude", the naive belief that there is an external world which we look out onto through our eyes, as though they are windows, is the attitude which he thought must be bracketed in order to go "to the things themselves" meaning to investigate just how they are as experienced.

We've been over this so many times, and yet you don't seem to realize I am well aware of the central arguments of phenomenology. I keep acknowledging that I think the empirical world, as conceived, and to some extent as experienced, is a collective representation, so I fail to see what purpose you think there might be in lecturing me about ideas which I am probably more familiar with than you are.

The essence of it is simply that the world, as we experience and understand it, cannot justifiably be said to exist independently of us. Right, we already have that down (and have for a very long time) so... what's next? What further conclusions are you going to justifiably derive from that epistemological/ phenomenological fact about the human condition?

You respond directly and on its own terms to so little that I write in these conversations that I am left wondering whether you even read what I say to you.

I submit that this supports the Kantian assertion that 'time is one of the forms of our sensibility', rather than something that exists objectively and independently of any observer. Which is not to deny the empirical fact that there was a time before human beings existed, as Kant was also an empirical realist. — Wayfarer

It depends on what you mean by 'time'. If it is taken to mean the subjective sense of duration, or the conception of past present and future, then of course it cannot exist independently of subjects by definition. Beyond that, how would we know?

What could it then mean to say that there was a time before human beings existed? Are you able to say?

Can we agree on properties that give beauty or harmony in objects, humans, artworks and phenomena? — Eros1982

Perhaps, but good luck trying to identify just what they are.

I was referring to Descartes' use of the term 'res' in 'res cogitans'. The Latin term 'res' is translated as thing or object. You claimed not to be able to see where the conflation of 'substance' in the sense meant by 'ousia' in Aristotelian philosophy, and 'substance' in the everyday meaning of 'material with uniform properties' originated. I'm saying that it originated with Cartesian dualism. — Wayfarer

I don't recall claiming not to be able to see where the purported conflation originated, since I don't think there is any such conflation. The way I see it, the modern use of "substance" has little in common with Aristotle's notion of substance.

For Aristotle every thing is a substance and this includes animate and inanimate beings. So substance for Aristotle can be equated with being; to be is to be a substance (with attributes or "accidents" as Aristotle's idea is usually translated as far as I know).

Descartes wanted to claim there are two kinds of being: physical being and mental being, so his notion of substance in that sense, is kind of like making the distinction between beings and being.

So the modern usage of substance has more in common with Descartes' usage, except that it is now mostly denied that there is any mental being, and asserted that there is only physical being.



Yes I should have said "not inconsistent with general or philosophical usage".

I think you are placing too much significance on the etymology; many "general idea" (as opposed to "specific object") words have multiple usages, and translation is never an exact science.

The more common original usages seem to be legal, where for example 'matter' has a different meaning than 'matter as substance'. Descartes apparently intended it to mean substance, but he obviously didn't conceive of substance just as matter, because he also conceived of mind as a substance. It is arguable that Spinoza thought of substance (deus sive natura) as being and its modes as beings.

It is not inconsistent with general usage to think of a thing as a being. This is shown by the perceived need to distinguish living beings from non-living beings, sentient beings from insentient beings.

The word has many usages, just as 'thing' and 'matter' do:


being
1 of 4
noun
be·​ing ˈbē(-i)ŋ
Synonyms of being
1
a
: the quality or state of having existence
a social movement that came into being in the 1960s
artistic form comes into being only when two elements are successfully fused—
Carlos Lynes
b(1)
: something that is conceivable and hence capable of existing
(2)
: something that actually exists
(3)
: the totality of existing things
c
: conscious existence : life
2
: the qualities that constitute an existent thing : essence
I knew it was true in the core of my being.
especially : personality
3
: a living thing
sentient beings
a mythical being
especially : person
a very sexual being

From here

But with respect to the projection of existence you’re asking about, though, there are serious contradictions if we deny the existence of the world before human experience, which at least allows us to project that it did, but the fact remains, we cannot possibly know the fact of it in the same fashion by which we know apodeitically that stupid-ass tree has three branches. — Mww

For me the way around such contradictions would be to say that if we had been around a hundred and fifty million years ago we would have seen the dinosaurs. The question about what the world would be like without any percipients in it seems unanswerable, even incoherent,

As to the tree, if you ask me how I know it has three branches, I can just point to the tree and say "How many branches do you see?". (By the way, that's a pretty pathetic example of a tree. and maybe that's what you were referring to with your "stupid-ass". But if you asked me to demonstrate that the tree has a stupid ass, I am completely at a loss).

He does say that. Then demonstrates how it is impossible, iff a certain set of conditions are in fact the case. If they aren’t, well…..time for another demonstration of a different kind, and we find ourselves faced with stuff like logical positivism, OLP and quantum mechanics, in which case…..errr, you know…..we imagine we know what we’re talking about. — Mww

I don't know about QM but LP and OLP certainly imagine that they know what they're talking about; but then they don't talk about anything much out of the ordinary, so they are liable to put you to sleep. I'm not convinced anyone knows what QM is talking about, or even whether it is talking at all.

With the "degrees of separation" thing I actually had in mind the simple fact that objects appear extended to us, and saying that to my way of thinking extension just is spatiality. Of course the negative spaces between objects is just as important as the objects themselves, and is often, or even mostly, filled with other objects.

What is the direct translation of ‘res’ in ‘res cogitans’ (Descartes)? — Wayfarer

Do you mean as opposed to indirect translation? :wink:

As far as I know it means "thing" or "being"; so you have res extensa: extended thing or being and res cogitans: thinking thing or being.

Nice summation!

The problem is that logic cannot be coherntly thought to be subordinate to God.

In other words God cannot logically be omnipotent, and in Spinoza's system is as subject to necessity as nature is. Spinoza"s god is not conscious and does not possess free will.

I think one has to study Spinoza directly in order to better comprehend the nuances and depths of his conceptions which are not nearly as Anselmian (i.e. of Catholic scholasticism) as Copelston's mention of "the ontological argument" might suggest. — 180 Proof

I agree. :100:

I interpret this phrase to mean that, as God is the sole real substance (or subject), then causal relations are subordinate to logical dependence. What we see as contingent is in reality strictly determined by God's omnipotence of which logical necessity is a manifestation.

I think nowadays it is customary to say that logical necessity and physical causation are not bound in such a way, and in fact are not even necessarily connected, although I'm not sure about that. — Wayfarer

The conflation of substance with subject is completely alien to Spinoza, and I can't think of anywhere else it could be found. The closest I can think of would be Whitehead, but then he rejects the notion of substance and posits process as fundamental instead, so that won't fit either.

Since Spinoza was a strict determinist, there seems to be a sense in which it could be said that everything that happens follows necessarily from God's/ Nature's nature. But that would not amount to an equation of logical and causal necessity as far as I can see at a cursory glance. And again I am not aware of any philosophy wherein the two are equated.

That such acts do have a physical cause is understood by neuroscience. I don't subscribe to the "spooky" libertarian, absolutist notion of free will, because it entails dualism, and I see insoluble problems with that model.

Which reduces to….the specified existence is outside human experience and judgement, but the claim is not. — Mww

Exactly! The question is, though, do we merely imagine that we know what we are talking about with such projections?

So, yes, I think we can project the concept, but not in that context; we invoke the category of necessity in the former, but possibility in the latter. — Mww

So it seems that Kant could have said that the empirical world, time and space and all, possibly exist outside of human experience and judgement, whereas they necessarily exist within that context?

If I were to go all nit-picky, on ya, quibble-y even, I’d bring to your attention that no experience is spatial. They are temporal, as you said. Experience is of representations of objects in space, but not of space itself, which can never be represented in us. — Mww

I think we do perceive dimension, or degrees of separation, which just is space, so it seems I disagree here.

It's good when someone actually engages with their interlocutors, and so I've enjoyed our conversation too, as usual.

Sure - I agree.

But our knowing or not knowing has no impact on the number of branches on the tree. It either has three branches, or not. That is, the better approach used here is realist, not anti-realist, so we can proceed with a bivalent logic. If you instead wish to drop the law of excluded middle and use a nonstandard logic, then go ahead, but I, and I guess most others, will not be joining you. — Banno

If I were one of those who subscribe to the idea that seeing the tree collapses the wave function and determines how many branches it has, which I'm not. I would disagree, which I don't. I think that the number of branches on a tree is not determined by us at all but by an independent actuality, whatever we might think that is.

That said I think the tree, like everything else, is a (non-arbitrary) collective representation, and it is within that representation, and not outside that human context, that the notion of tree, three and branches finds its sense.

An unimportant point, perhaps, but there you go. We don't seem to be disagreeing about anything that has more than the most subtle philosophical import.

If we didn't perceive the tree we wouldn't know it has three branches. So, the statement about the tree in question cannot be informedly made absent having seen it.

I think your addition of 'entirely' and 'not in any way' completely changes the meaning of what was quoted. One may perfectly accept that there is an enormous domain of objectively-verifiable fact to which we all must conform. — Wayfarer

Yes, but all that "objectively verifiable fact" and its verifiability on a strong reading of constructivism is itself constructed.

Berkeley himself frequently stated, he did not for one minute deny the reality of the objects of perception, only that they don't have the attributes that we normally credit them with. — Wayfarer

Right, for Berkeley objects of perception are not ultimately physical existents but ideas in God's mind, which means that the main attribute we credit them with, that of self-existence, would be mistaken.

But I gradually came to see that I was misunderstanding his point. It's more that our world, the 'lebenswelt' of humans, is constructed from meanings, because we interpret experience according to our cultural constructs and so on. — Wayfarer

I haven't read the book, but I think it is pretty much common sense that we experience, and understand our experience, in accordance with the various ways our constitutions and enculturations allow us to.

Fair enough: I don't have much time for Theravada Buddhism. but I agree with the poisonous snake analogy: if you just think you don't have to make any effort because you are already in nirvana, then you won't get anywhere (or even have the illusion of getting anywhere).

As to the passage you quoted, I don't see how Constructivism can be remotely equated with Berkeley's idealism. The idea that science is entirely constructed and not in any way determined by the world seems patently absurd. For a start the scientists do not construct themselves, and are not separate from the world.

Of course there is a sense in which the world is a model, a collective representation, as I like to say, but by the same token we ourselves are equally models. We model the world and ourselves. We have, or rather are models, of ourselves in a world, but the idea that the modeling is not constrained by anything outside the model is absurd.

From the fact that we cannot say what the constraints are because anything we can say will be part of the model it does not follow that there are no constraints outside of the model.

I've always thought of it being Nirvana: the point of the eight-fold path. Karma, from this vantage, would then only be a manifestation of either getting closer to Nirvana or further away from it based on actions of all kinds (mental as well as physical). — javra

Yes, but you have the idea in Buddhism that nirvana is samsara, and the notion of interdependent origination which begins with avidya or ignorance. Anyway probably best not to try to get into that.

Not to my current thinking. — javra

But it involves observation; so it's a matter of whether you think the observation must be carried out by a conscious agent or whether any physical interaction will count. Probably better not to try to get into that, either.

But again, as concerns our discussion of metaphysics, more importantly for me is the issue of whether a metaphysical system can incorporate just such day to day intents into its structure of understanding. — javra

Only if it posits a non-physical basis for reality if such intents are posited as non-physical, I would think. If non-physical then what? Mental or neutral? That said, the irreducibility of the idea of natural selection, of biology in general and human psychology in particular, to physics is not at issue, but I think that is a separate matter to the question as to whether reality is fundamentally physical or mental. I don't hold to either, and I'm not a neutral monist either. Call me a neutral non-dualist if you like, but I think the "neutral" there is kind of redundant. Perhaps you could say I'm an ignorantist.

Introducing Buddhism is an interesting line, The ultimate telos in Buddhism (if there is one) would be karma I think. Karma is understood to be driven by craving and attachment, which are inseparable from the ideas of intentionality and purpose, but if karma determines the nature of the cosmos and explains how we all perceive the same things, then this would be seem to be unexplainable in physical terms, unless we invoked entanglement. Does entanglement inherently involve consciousness or mind?

Anyway I'm still stuck in the inability to parse the notion of telos, without incorporating purposefulness.

The tree has three branches" is very different from "I perceive the tree to have three branches". Idealism is the conflation of the two. — Banno


That is conflating various forms of Idealism. Kantian Idealism is not going to conflate that. Perhaps Berkeleyianism. In fact, Kantianism would insist on that division. — schopenhauer1

If the tree is an idea in God's mind (pace Berkeley) then it either has three branches or it doesn't. I could still misperceive the tree in that scenario. The Kantian version of its having three branches or not is down to inter-subjectivity.

I say "The tree has three branches" is about the tree, and not about anyone's perceptions, direct or otherwise. — Banno

It is about the commonly perceived tree and is either true or false, as can be confirmed inter-subjectively. If I say, "the tree I perceive has three branches" and no one else sees it as having three branches, then it would be considered to be false, because the usual conclusion would be that I am hallucinating or lying. If I say, "I perceive the tree to have three branches, that could be true about what I perceive, but not about the tree, if others do not perceive it to have three branches.

Want to clarify this: "Transcendent designer" entails there being a transcendent psyche ... that designs. Yes, physicalism can't incorporate this. I was however addressing an ultimate telos as unmoved mover of everything that is not a psyche and, hence, not a "designer". So far don't think physicalism can incorporate the latter either ... even if it does not in any way address the presence of a deity. Wouldn't mind someday being proven wrong about physicalism's aversion to teleology, though.

As to the rest, I respect your views. — javra

Cheers javra.

I think this is relevant:

I do think that, phenomenologically speaking, physicalism is kind of irrelevant, because our understanding of physicality cannot deal with intentionality, yet that doesn't lead me to posit anything non-physical or transcendent. — Janus

Our understanding of the nature of physicality cannot deal with intentionality, either in its phenomenological meaning as "aboutness" or its ordinary meaning as "purposefulness". Our own intentionality is understood to be inherently bound up with consciousness or "psyche".

So, I'm wondering how we can conceive of an "ultimate telos" without thinking of it as being purposeful. If it is just an apparent general natural tendency like entropy, I don't see why that could not be incorporated into a physicalist model.

So whether or not final causes can apply to things such as rocks, the question still is can the metaphysical model acknowledge that they apply to, at the very least, humans? — javra

I don't see why not if we acknowledge that what we think of as a "purpose" could be a constraint on possibility due to the nature of things. Something like this is how we think of the evolution of apparently designed biological forms due not to any "transcendent designer" but to natural selection.

That said, there would not seem to be any way to conceptually incorporate the notion of a transcendent designer into a physicalist model, so if that is what you mean then I think we agree.

Apo seems to think of entropy as more than merely a constraint inherent in the nature of physical existence, but as a driver that explains even human behavior. So, a kind of unconscious final cause of everything taking the quickest path to entropy.

So, I guess in that view the genesis and evolution of apparently negentropic phenomena, like biological life, is driven and explained by the "race to the bottom", so to speak. I don't share that view, as I tend to think that entropy is illegitimately projected outside the context of human experience.

So, for me the same goes for all worldviews, including physicalism, as I explained in my responses to Mww. I do think that, phenomenologically speaking, physicalism is kind of irrelevant, because our understanding of physicality cannot deal with intentionality, yet that doesn't lead me to posit anything non-physical or transcendent.

I don't expect humans to be able to understand and explain everything, because I see inherent limitations in the nature of dualistic thinking. Naturally we can't help trying to make it to overstep its limits. I see the failure to acknowledge our limitations as hubris, but many people on all sides of this debate think the idea of such limitations is anathema. In any case we will be constrained by our limitations, however limited they turn out to be in the long run, no matter what we believe or hope for.

I tend to associate it with events such as the delayed-choice quantum eraser, but there is an SEP article on it if you're interested. — javra

Cheers, I'll have a look.