an almost irrational/irresponsible prescription of an initial reduction of a whopping 25% borders on criminal, or at best incompetent in my opinion. — gloaming

Agreed.

I'd say more than borders on criminal.

Is criminal, based on the account of events that I described in my previous post here, and the doctors' profit motive in keeping a patient sick, in order to have a cash-cow. ...the reason why a successful gentle symptom-free taper is unacceptable to most doctors.

Michael Ossipoff

What your girlfriend is going through infuriates me with the medical community.

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Yes, it has infuritated me, and greatly disappointed me too. But it’s reassuring to know that I’m not the only one who notices that high-handed, uncaring dishonesty among “care” providers.
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My Dr and I talked about this reduction by 30%, for three months and finally off the med completely. Benzos, Opiates and all their cousins qualify for this indiscriminate reduction that is determined by numbers and not the patient sitting in front of the Doctor.

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Yes, the doctor can sit there and play “power” with someone else’s suffering and damage-risk. …and say, “I’m going to lower your dosage 25%.” It’s easy for him or her, because he or she isn’t the one taking the risk or suffering the withdrawal-symptoms.

he said if you really want to quit, just stop taking it.

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Easy for him to say, when he isn’t having the withdrawal symptoms.

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My Mom who was a nurse for half her life from Level 1 Trauma center nurse to Cardiac ICU, KNEW better than to tell someone on Oxy for 2.5 yrs to just quit, without tapering was malpractice and she went to his office and let it be known that she was filing with the state about his treatment.

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Yes, we’re considering pursuing a malpractice case against the doctor who, when replacing her previous doctor when he retired, told Janet that he was only going to prescribe a 50% lower Xanax dosage.
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He’s interrupted and interfered with a completely successful taper…a completely symptom-free gentle taper that had already reduced Janet’s Zoloft use by 43% (the doctor had told us to taper Zoloft first, and then Xanax).
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…and he imposed an involuntary sudden, abrupt 50% withdrawal from Xanax, which has caused convulsions, sleep-loss, and who knows what other adverse internal effects.
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If that isn’t malpractice, then what is?
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One rule that my Psych and current Doc agree with is that you only change one med at a time and let that settle before messing with any other med the patient might be taking

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Unfortunately Janet’s doctors don’t understand that.
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Here’s the accurate, realistic account of what happened:
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When Janet first agreed to take the Zoloft and Xanax, no one told her that she’d become addicted and then later be cold-turkeyed off them, with convulsions and sleep-loss, etc.
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She began the use of those prescribed drugs in good faith, trusting the doctors who advised it.
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Now, what’s this??: She has to get someone’s permission in order to keep taking those drugs that were pushed on her, addicting her to them?
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“First we promote them to you, and then, when you’re addicted, you have to get our permission to be allowed to have them?”
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“…permission that we won’t give, so that you’ll have to have convulsions and sleep-loss. So that you’ll be sick, and have to make more appointments, profitable to us, so that we can help you with your symptoms and make more money off of you.”
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In the words of the doctor who replaced her retiring doctor, and imposed the 50% withdrawal:
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“It’s going to be hard on you.”
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…but what did she do to deserve that?
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It couldn’t be any more obvious that there’ something very wrong morally here.
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Michael Ossipoff

Yes, if the taper's halving-time would have to be comparable to your current life-expectancy, then there'd be a case to leave things as they are.

Janet will be 70 next year. (I'm 73). In addition to her age, she has a delicate and sensitive nervous-system, due to childhood Scarlet-Fever and Rheumatic Fever. Due to vulnerability from those fevers, the physical stress of childbirth, in a previous marriage, caused a sudden onset of Spamodic Dysphonia, which persists to this day. ...demonstrating that, with her vulnerable nervous-system, physical stress (of which forcible Xanax withdrawal is an instance) can do a lot of harm to her.

The important thing is that you (Bitter Crank) are fortunate to have a doctor who isn't insisting on cold-turkeying (fast-withdrawing) you from the drugs. You don't know how fortunate that is until you have the involuntary-fast-withdrawal doctors like Janet has been suffering from.

I suggest that it's very important to not let any of your doctors know that you've even considered tapering-off, because that could trigger a forced involuntary withholding of the drugs. That situation is the last thing that you want.

Michael Ossipoff

There's one particularly big conflict of interest: If someone is feeling sick, having convulsions, during the doctor's "taper", they're advised to make an appointment, so that that oh-so-caring doctor can help the patient with his/her pain and suffering.

In order to have that, there has to be pain and suffering. People who are well aren't profitable to a doctor. If the patient is kept a bit sick, then the doctor has a cash-cow. There's no money in someone who doesn't need a doctor.

More tomorrow.

Michael Ossipoff

Whatever you do, don't even consider cold-turkey, or the kind of fast withdrawal that doctors seem to like so much.

If the choice were between staying on one of those drugs, or else doing a doctor's fast, symptom-ridden tapers, then I'd stay on the drug. All the medical articles that I've found on the web agree that a fast withdrawal is a lot more dangerous than the drug.

Of course I'd suggest a very gradual taper, with a halving-time that's comparable to the the habituation-time, the duration you've been getting habituated to the drug.

I don't claim to have medical knowledge, but I fear that doctors have something else too--a profit motive conflict of interest.

So I can only speak from the particular version of common-sense that's from my experiences.If you've been on Effexor for 13 years, and something similar before that (for how long before?), then doesn't that mean that, to be on the safe side, all of that combined duration should be counted in the habituation-time?

Should the habituation-time be considered to be 20 or 30 years? If so, then shouldn't the halving-time be at least a fairly good fraction of that? A one-year halving time works fine for Janet with Zoloft, which she'd been on for about 2 years when she started the taper. I don't know--does that suggest a halving-time of half the habituation-time, as a reasonable tentative, experimental starting taper?

...until such time as there are any withdrawal symptoms. The whole point of the gentle gradual taper is that there aren't supposed to be any withdrawal symptoms. I'm not a doctor, but I bet that a halving-time equal to half of the habituation-time might be symptom-free. ...as it has been for Janet.

Of course if the halving-time is going to be 10 or 15 years, and if you're going to live significantly longer than that, you definitely benefit from the taper.

One thing I want to add: it might, at first, seem as if a long halving-time doesn't offer much reward. But that isn't so. It does offer reward. During Janet's taper (before her doctors took it away by imposing their own cold-turkey on her), we'd been marking, on the calendar, the number of pills to take each day. There'll be two pill-amounts that you alternate between. Well, in the space of a month, the pattern of (say) the 3-pill days and the 2-pill days will change a few times during that month. June started with 3-2-2-3 as the pattern of 2-pill and 3-pill days. But, around mid-month there started being 3-2-2-2-3, which was soon alternating with 3-2-2-3. By the end of the month, 3-2-2-2-2-3 starts to show up.

And that's with a whole year as the halving-time.

My point is that the results are very visible and noticeable on the calendar.

...and that, if the halving-time is well-chosen, the calendar is the only thing that reminds you that you're in a taper at all...because there are absolutely no withdrawal symptoms whatsoever.

Michael Ossipoff

I'd said:

I had an un-matched parenthesis typo in my formula for d.. That has been fixed in an edit.

No, there was no error. It was right the first time. I've changed it back in another edit.

Michael Ossipoff

I'd said:

We can mention a hypothetical computer-program. If that hypothetical program that we’re discussing hasn’t been written on paper, is it any less a computer-program? Need it be in a computer, or even on paper? …or even completely discussed?"

Tom said:

The computer program for reality...

There's no computer program for reality unless you're asserting that this physical universe is all of reality. But there's a logical system/computer-program for this physical world.

A Materialist, by definition believes that this physical universe (including any multiverse that our Big-Bang Universe is part of) is all of reality. ...and tends to assert it as an established fact.

I'd said:

The physicist Michael Faraday, in 1844, pointed out that our experience and science’s observations are about relation. …logical and mathematical structural relation. He pointed out that there’s no particular reason to believe in the independent, objective existence of the “stuff” that those relations are about.

Tom asked:

Did Faraday really say that?

Yes.

I got the quote from a book by Tim Holt. I doubt very much that Holt made it up.

(Holt's book addressed the question of why there's something instead of nothing, and its title consists of a wording of that question. The book consists of interviews with advocates of various metaphysicsess, and sometimes meta-metaphysical suggestions and impressions, with Holt's comments.)

Anyway, there is very good reason to accept that the mathematical structure of our theories correspond to features of reality.

Did I say otherwise? Yes, the mathematical and logical relational structure is (at least) a "feature of [physical] reality", (...or all of it), and there's no reason to believe that our physical world consists of other than that logical and mathematical relational structure.

Oops! If Tom meant other than what I said above, then he forgot to share with us his "very good reason".

Michael Ossipoff

I can not understand this claim. Software without hardware is for me a nonsense like mind without brain or a "substantiation" of functions.

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We can mention a hypothetical computer-program. If that hypothetical program that we’re discussing hasn’t been written on paper, is it any less a computer-program? Need it be in a computer, or even on paper? …or even completely discussed?
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It’s software without hardware. Is there a possible computer program that can accomplish a certain achievement? If so, then there is that program, though it hasn’t been written on paper, or even completely discussed.
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No, I’m not necessarily saying that it’s “real” or “existent”, whatever that would mean. …only that “there is” it, in the sense that it’s a hypothetical computer-program that can be mentioned.
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So yes, there can certainly be software without hardware.
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I’d said:
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But it's curious how so many people can believe that transistor-switchings somewhere can create a world, but that a world couldn't consist of the system of abstract facts itself .

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You replied:
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I do not understand what do you mean by "system of abstract facts itself".

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You haven’t heard my pitch yet.
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This will be the short-version. I say more about it in some of my posts to the “A few metaphysical replies” thread, at the Metaphysics and Epistemology” sub-forum at this website. (I don’t know if that thread is still on the first page of that sub-forum’s thread-list. If not, it’s on one of the subsequent pages).
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I meant that the program’s world-simulation can be regarded as a system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts about that world’s component things.
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The physicist Michael Faraday, in 1844, pointed out that our experience and science’s observations are about relation. …logical and mathematical structural relation. He pointed out that there’s no particular reason to believe in the independent, objective existence of the “stuff” that those relations are about.
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There’s no physics experiment that can establish anything other than that logical & mathematical structural relation.
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Any fact about this physical world corresponds to, implies, and can be said as, an if-then fact. Any supposed “fact” about this physical world is a proposition that’s (at least part of) the antecedent of some implications (if-then facts), and is the consequent of other implications.
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In other words, as Faraday pointed out, all that is established by observations of this physical world are if-then facts about hypothetical propositions about hypothetical things. I don’t claim that any of the antecedents of those if-then facts are true.
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I make no claims about “real” or “existent”.
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A set of hypothetical physical-quantity values, and a hypothetical relation among them (called a “physical law”) together comprise the antecedent of an abstract implication (if-then fact). …except that one of those hypothetical physical quantity values can be taken as the consequent of that implication.
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A proved mathematical theorem is an if-then fact whose antecedent includes (at least) a set of mathematical axioms.
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As for how this relates to the simulation-theory:
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The system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts that I refer to “is there” in the sense that we can speak of it. No one denies that “there is” it, in that sense. I don’t claim any other reality or existence for it.
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“There is” it, in that sense, whether or not anyone anywhere is duplicating it in the running of a computer-program. Though a computer simulation could duplicate, display or illustrate such a system, for some audience, it can’t make that logical system, because you can’t make what there already is.
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That’s why the simulation-theory is nonsense.
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Michael Ossipoff

Yup. Simulation is of something... — creativesoul

It goes without saying, as a truism, that any simulation is a simulation of something.

An argument against, or criticism of, what I said would need to be a lot more specific.

Michael Ossipoff

Through our available evidence our consciousnesses is an emergent property from our physiology. — Kamikaze Butter

Belief in such a consciousness, separate from body, but somehow "emergent" from it, is Spiritualist delusion.

For the purposes of the physical story, "consciousness" can be defined as the property of being a purposefully-responsive device that is similar enough to the speaker that the speaker feels enough kinship with it to say that it's "conscious".

Circular, but unavoidably so, because it's an individual subjective matter where you draw the line.

You're a purposefully-responsive device, in principle not significantly qualitatively different from a Roomba or a mousetrap.

Michael Ossipoff

As for metaphysics, of course it can't be proven that one metaphysics is true, and the others are false, because, for one thing, most are designed to unfalsifiably predict the same world and observations.

But some principles that apply to science also apply to metaphysics:

Definitions should be explicit, and consistently used.

A need for assumptions and one or more brute-facts discredits a metaphysics.

...as do unverifiability and unfalsifiability.

It doesn't prove it false, but it discredits it.

For example, Materialism doesn't hold up well by those standards.

My uncontroversial metaphysics does.

Michael Ossipoff
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The "simulation" theory is nonsense.

Have any of you read anything by or about Frank Tippler? He's been a strong advocate of the simulation theory, but, at an earlier time, he was saying that our physical world could be a computer program that doesn't need a computer. That was when he was right.

And it's another way of saying what I've been saying here.

Writing a computer program on paper, entering it into a computer, running the program in the computer--means nothing. Do you really believe that transistor-switchings somewhere have some magical effect of creating a world? The fact that the program has been written on paper, and maybe entered into a computer, and maybe run on the computer...Those things didn't make that hypothetical possibility-story about a world. That was already "there" as a system of inter-referring abstract facts.

The writing-down of the program, the entering of it into a computer, and the running of the program on the computer had nothing to do with it.

A computer somewhere, in some world, could duplicate our world, or your life-experience. It could display it on a screen or hologram for some other-worldly audience. But it certainly couldn't make that story. The story, the hypothetical possibility-story, was already there, as a system of inter-referring abstract facts.

But it's curious how so many people can believe that transistor-switchings somewhere can create a world, but that a world couldn't consist of the system of abstract facts itself. ....because you believe that there must be some objective "physical" basis for it somewhere, in the form of a physical computer whose running makes the world. And you don't even have a problem with believing that the physical world in which that computer exists is, itself, created by still another computer somewhere else. ...as long as it all depends on an actual physical world somewhere, even if in infinite regress.

Michael Ossipoff

There’s much to say about this, because there are many answers to each of the various arguments.
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There are probably many people who have the life-view that you describe, but who don’t articulate it.
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No doubt about it, you describe a genuinely unhappy way of living. But it isn’t necessary to live like that.
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You insist that that unhappy situation is in the nature of life itself, and is in the nature of how things are. Do you realize what a strong claim that is? You’d need to support that assumption.
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You’re making an assumption, and all assumptions are subject to question.
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You spoke of “absurdity”. Much to say about that, and this will just be a brief comment here. Often, people call something “absurd”, merely because they don’t understand it.
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For one thing, you’d need to be specific about what you mean by “absurd”. “Unexplained”?
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You feel that our being in a life is “absurd”, by which maybe you mean “unexplained”. Others have explanations for it. I claim that it’s explainable, and I’ve suggested an explanation.
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In any case, you might want to at least consider that there might be an explanation.
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But you have an implacable, not-subject-to-question assumption that it’s bad. Don’t you perceive something questionable about that?
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Sure, life is precarious. Life is full of striving. What fraction of hatched fish, tadpoles, insects and spiders survive to adulthood? I don’t know, but it’s a small fraction. Of course the problem isn’t limited to those animals either. Death and loss are part of life.
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But responding to that by rejecting life is, for one thing, just unrealistic, because, like it or not, you’re in a life.
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Surely it’s clear to you that rejection and complaining, by itself, isn’t productive. Look for the reason for being in a life, if you want to, but just calling it “absurd” (explanation-less and reason-less) is unsupported. You’re starting from an unsupported conclusion as a first premise.
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Your all-encompassing pessimism calls for some justification. Where does it come from? How do you justify it?
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You’ve better clarified what you mean by “structural”. You’re talking about societal-structure. Of course societal-structure is bad. Personally, I regard it as quite hopeless. But then you seem to want to instead apply that to “how thing are”, in some more general sense, as opposed to merely the societal situation. Where’s the support or justification for that leap?
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When I was a kid, of course my life, and that of kids in general, was governed by a system that of course was created and run by adults, in school, family, societal background in general. There’s the obvious question: “Whom was that for??” Nominally, the control and governing of the kids was for them, Nonsense. It certainly wasn’t for me. It was farsical, and it was absurd.
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But that’s about a system made and run by people. It’s not about Reality, or how-things-are, in some sense more general than societal.
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You’re jumping to broad philosophical conclusions about a problem that’s only a matter of a bad societal system and an unhappy individual lifestyle.
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(I wrote a 1st version of this reply, and, seemingly it got deleted, and I wrote a 2nd version, and then found that the 1st version was still there after-all. So I combined the 2 versions, deleting the dupicated parts. I mention this in case there remain undeleted duplications.)

.I agree that you're prematurely dismissing what others say.

You're describing a life-perspective that undeniably causes unhappiness, but you're making it into an unquestioned alleged description of how things really are. They aren't.

You don't agree with this, but the problem isn't with life, or Reality. It's with your attitude toward life..

But we find ourselves in a life. That, too, is just how it is. Rejecting it is unrealistic. Anger against it is pointless.

So we're in a life. Instead of just saying it's absurd, why not listen to people's explanations. I say that our being in a life is explainable, and I've told a good explanation.

I say it comes down to you being someone who wanted, needed, or was otherwise predisposed to, life. Why are you in a life? Undeniably, uncontroversially, there's a hypothetical life-experience possibility-story about the life-experience of someone just like you (You, actually).

Michael Ossipoff

You spend too much time worrying about it, instead of just doing things that you like. Alright, you like bemoaning life, but you're deceiving yourself if you convince yourself that that's all that you like.

And even "simply enduring and coping" isn't without likeable aspects. — Michael Ossipoff


This doesn't address the structural suffering. I'm sorry but it doesn't. I do appreciate your sincerity and passion. — schopenhauer1

Which part of the above quotes of what I said sounded passionate? :D

But I admit that what I post is sincere, and I realize that that isn't generally the case with other posters here.

The "structural suffering" is doctrinal suffering. It's your conceptual suffering about your conceptual doctrinal notion of life. Is it the same as that "Existential angst" that we hear about? I suppose that a person can make himself miserable if he tries. But you wouldn't do it if you didn't like it. You've adopted it as a philosophy of life, right?

No one can dissuade you from something you like.

Speaking of sincerity, it sounds as if you're being blatantly insincere with yourself. Maybe you already know that, but maybe not.

I addressed the matters that seemed relevant. I can't say what's relevant within the doctrine that you're working from. But if the structural suffering that you speak of isn't being understood, then maybe you can clarify and explain it better.

You were earlier saying that someone is trying to force you to entertain yourself.

I did address your "instrumentality" comments. I agreed that instrumentality is a lousy, self-deceived way to live, and it's no surprise that it's making you unhappy. So ditch it.

You said that I'm sincere. I hope that you're not, and that what you're saying is just a schtick.

Michael Ossipoff

If much of life is about "getting it right", then there is something inherently wrong with it. The minute someone has complaints about life not being fulfilling, the immediate response is to suggest a new hobby, club, group, sport, etc. as if just getting into a routine of non-work activities is the answer to the lack at the heart of things. The assumption here is that to live modern life properly and in balance, one has to "get it right". The fact that we are born to hone in on "getting it right" is troubling. It is also not recognizing that there may not be a "getting it right". There is simply enduring and coping. Again, troubling. — schopenhauer1

There needn't be an emphasis on "getting it right."

What's it all for, ultimately, other than itself?

There are things you like. If you convince yourself otherwise, then, you're definitely getting it wrong--about an obvious fact about yourself.

You spend too much time worrying about it, instead of just doing things that you like. Alright, you like bemoaning life, but you're deceiving yourself if you convince yourself that that's all that you like.

And even "simply enduring and coping" isn't without likeable aspects.

You've adopted unmitigated pessimism as an un-questioned doctrine. Doctrinal assumptions need to be questioned.

Can't you let go of doctrine?

Michael Ossipoff

What means to die? Personally, i don t think that i will truly die; because that matter that i am (the body), will become something different, like ground, worms or whatever and that in our time that we perceive, will become another, something (like combining my atoms with another ones resulting something). — OareCine

It's true that you'll never die, but it's got nothing to do with the persistence of your carcass or its atoms.

You won't die. You'll go to sleep. "To sleep, perchance to dream", as Shakespeare pointed out.

The nature of that dream depends on your predispositions.

I suggest that if, at the end of this life, the reason why you're in a life remains, then you'll be in a life again.

You'll go to sleep, and then later you'll find yourself in a life starting out, quite bewildered, with very little or no idea of anything that came before.

In fact, in that next life, any such thing as previous lives will be, not only unknowable, but also completely indeterminate, neither true or not true. ...just as it is now.

But humans are more than a biological body that will become another kind of matter.

Yes.

There is consciousness...and i don t know what is it

It's (You're) the experiencer and protagonist of your life-experience story, an "insubstantial" hypothetical story, which is entirely for you and about your experience.

, but how consciousness dies?

No.

Well, i am not kinda into religious beliefs or life after death but they are welcome just to see another perspective.

Religion is outside the verbal discussion & description realm of metaphysics.

Aristotle said that Good is the basis of what is. Not an assertion, but an impression, and that isn't discussable, describable, provable, arguable or assertable--in other words, isn't metaphysical.

About suicide... There is no reason to live if you don t agree with people that are against suicide.

I disagree.

There's a reason why you're in a life.

(It's because there's a hypothetical life-experience story with you someone like you (You, actually) as its protagonist. ...someone who needs, wants, or at least is predisposed to, life.)

So you're here, in a life, to address those needs, wants, inclinations and predispositions.

That's true regardless of whom you agree with or disagree with.

I wonder why suicide is so obsessive.

It's sometimes mistakenly perceived as a tempting evasion. Evasion won't get you anywhere. You're here for a reason, and that doesn't consist of evading. Suicide is a big mistake, and only makes things significantly worse.

(Ending one's life for a justifiable medical reason, because of a significant material medical loss of life-quality--I don't call that "suicide".)

Is that I want to see what is it after death

If you get there by suicide, I assure you that you won't like what it's like.

or just i was disappointed in life

Life can include (apparent) loss.

Life just starting out is new, bewildering, intense, and, at that time, we pretty-much don't know what we're doing, especially in regards to protecting ourselves in a hostile environment.

Life just starting out is vulnerable. (...and of course some vulnerability to harm and loss remain throughout life too.) Throughout the animal and plant kingdoms, new life often doesn't make it. That's just how it is.

Life just starting out...we all had/were that. Maybe we made it, maybe not. That's just one life. In reality, there's no such thing as losing or missing anything. As I discuss in other postings, it's all insubstantial and hypothetical anyway, so what's to lose?

Nisargadatta said that, from the point of view of the sage, nothing has ever happened..

There was a song ("The Rock and Roll Gypsies") in 1966 that said:

"To the motherless children who ride, on the shadowless highway of night,

"It's all just a game, it's all just the same, for the winner takes nothing and the loser gets all that remains."

...which could be considered a '60s re-wording of what I was saying above in this post.

Disappointment is the result of unrealistic expectations.

What do you think is dying?

There's no dying...just going to sleep.

Becoming something else?

I suggest that, for most people, it eventually leads into a next life, in which you won't remember the previous one.

A passing between two worlds or many others?

Sure, sequentially, according to Hinduism and Buddhism (and which i agree with).

Complete nothingness like you came from nothing

Emphatically no. There's no experience of complete nothingness. You never experience an absense of experience.

(you don t remember what you were before birth, if you were.

Quite so. Newness and bewilderment, without clear memory of a past.

Suicide is like the tool for discovering what is it after „death”

If you find out in that way, you won't like what you find.

Everyone will find out what the end of life is like, when it's time to.

When it's time for it, that going to sleep isn't a bad thing at all.

or is an act of courage or cowardice

I woudn't call it either of those things.

...because you were not satisfied with your life?

There are people at this forum who express that dis-satisfaction. Of course you aren't satisfied. That's why you were born. It's why you're in a life. Most people probably won't really be satisfied at the end of this life either, and that's ok. But, in each life, we deal with the situation as best we can, to meet our needs and to live right, to the extent that we're able..

But, emphatically, it wouldn't accomplish anything to reject life. That certainly isn't what we're here for.

Hindusm says that life doesn't and needn't have any purpose or reason other than "Lila", which means "Play".

...but of course right-living means living considerately too.

It's said that we keep returning to a life for as long as we lack personal life-completion, and perfection of lifestyle. ...which, for most of us, is many lifetimes away. No problem.

Evidently, in previous lives, if there were any, there was some way in which you hadn't achieved life-completion or lifestyle-perfection--there was something incomplete about your lives. So you're here again. So we just do our best while here.

Michael Ossipoff

I've been doing a lot of thinking on what consciousness is and how it may arise, I'm going to share my ideas and you can feel free to try and disprove them or discuss it further.

So to make his brief, I believe that consciousness arises whenever energy flows through matter or is in matter. Energy flowing or being in different parts of the brain activates different forms of consciousness. No energy flow, similar to when we are asleep means no consciousness.

To further extend on this idea, this would mean that computers would also have to be conscious, since it is indeed energy flowing through matter (the circuits).

Energy flowing in different parts of the computer would give rise to different forms of consciousness (qualia?).

Perhaps I'm wrong but feel free to share your thoughts, thanks in advance. — Amadeus

As for defining consciousness in the physical-story:

It seems to me that you're defining it too broadly.

I sometimes define consciousness as the property of being a purposefully-responsive device that is sufficiently similar to the speaker that the speaker feels enough kinship with it to call it "conscious".

Circular?Sure, because the line is arbitrary.

You're a purposefully-responsive device, like a mousetrap, and not different from a mousetrap in a philosophically-significant qualitative way.

So what your model is lacking is the distinction between beings and devices. — Wayfarer

There's no meaningful qualitative distinction.

But that definition, in terms of the physical-story, is really a misleading distraction, and sounds like Eliminative Physicalism, which I don't subscribe to. I feel that my above-stated definition, though accurate in its own terms, starts from the wrong point of view.

So I'd rather answer that Consciousness is what's primary in each person's metaphysical world. As I discuss in "A few metaphysical replies", there are abstract if-then facts, and complex systems of them, such as your life-experience possibility-story, of which you're the protagonist. It's just a hypothetical story, but it's about and for you, because it's your experience-story.

It's only a hypothetical story, but what could be more central and primary than the Consciousness that is the protagonist and experiencer of that hypothetical story...a complementary component of it, but also its primary center, of your whole metaphysical world..

An "insubstantial" metaphysical world? ...whatever that would mean, when applied to the context of your life.

I don't claim to talk about the full answer, because I don't believe that there's such a thing in terms of words, discussion, description, concepts. Metaphysics can be precise, unambiguous and uncontroversial, within its own province, which is the limited province of words.

Michael Ossipoff



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Yes, I posted here because I wanted to find out what answers and objections can be made to the metaphysics that I propose.

It "seemed like a good idea at the time."

Well, I did find out what objections people come up with, and sincerely-felt objections deserve answers. As you suggested, it could be, and was supposed to be, a co-operative non-inimical effort. If I'm mistaken about something--if there's an objection or consideration that I've missed or under-rated-- then I want to hear about it. That's the (potential) value of a philosophical forum.

But, when one finds out what discussion here consists of--people angrily defending their doctrines and superstitions, using the worst Internet tactics--one realizes that participation doesn't really serve a purpose.

Usually people don't visit here and approach the topics as I've been doing, and now, of course, it's evident why that is--as you suggested. People here are doing something else, and really it's best to just leave them to it.

Well, I visited here to find out, and I did.

That doesn't necessarily mean that I won't finish a few replies in "A few metaphysical replies", or a few other threads. Why? Just to properly finish the questionable Quixotic project that I started when I started posting here.

Michael Ossipoff

Actually, metaphysics can be a precise and unambiguous subject, Definite, uncontroversial things can be said, but here the discussion is instead, sloppy, centered on juvenile name-calling, etc., and, as I said, characterized by rancor on the part of people who are losing their argument.

As in science, metaphysical discussion needs explicit, precise and consistent definitions, avoidance of brute-facts, assumptions, and unverifiable, unfalsifiable propositions.

Good luck finding that here.

Michael Ossipoff

What's the use of discussing philosophy without definitions? — Tomseltje

The point of that would be to sound fashionable and win arguments by being the loudest and rudest.

You're right. I've noticed, and experienced, a blatant lack of definitions in arguments. ...for example in my thread "A few metaphyscal replies".

For instance, someone (he knows who he is) criticized me for not making the necessary distinction between logical facts and "substantive" facts. So I asked what he meant by "substantive".

...No answer. But just an angry, rancorous departure from the discussion. "When you ask me what I mean, and I don't have an answer about what I mean, then it's pointless to even try to talk to you!."

Something like that. In other words, declare yourself the winner and depart the conversation, when asked for a definition of a term you used but can't define. ...when asked what it is that you're trying to say.

It's happened again and again here. Different forms, different versions, different people, but the same thing.

Long on rancor, but short on being clear about what we mean, or defining our terms.

So what do some people here do instead of defining their terms when they talk?

Well, hemming, hawing, speculating, and dancing around the subject (whatever it may be).

Philosophical discussion and investigation it isn't. What is it? Some kind of one-upmanship game,
seemingly scored according to who can be rudest and most rancorous.

Michael Ossipoff

I said I was going to post more thoroughly and systematically about “How can something completely hypothetical seem so non-conditionally real?”. But first I’d like to say a few more things about the claim that “there are abstract facts, in the sense that we can refer to and speak of them” is a brute-fact in my metaphysics:

1. When we say that a metaphysics (such as Materialism) posits a brute-fact, we’re saying that the proponent of that metaphysics expects you to believe the brute-fact without justification. Then I’ll remind that I’m not asking anyone to take my word for it that there are abstract facts, in the sense that we can mention or refer to them. That’s common knowledge, and I’ve used it as a premise in the argument for my metaphysics.

2. What if I can’t explain why there are abstract facts, in the sense stated above? It would be like saying that I can’t explain why there’s metaphysics. Is that somehow a fault of my metaphysical proposal? I’ve been saying all along that I make no claim that words, concepts, discussion and description cover &/or explain all that is.

So, if there being abstract facts, in the sense that we can mention or refer to them, or if there being metaphysics, were unexplainable by me, that would be fine, because I make no claim that words can explain everything.

3, But, as I’ve also said, we should try to explain as much as possible within metaphysics.

I suggest that maybe the claim that an explanation is needed and lacking for why there are abstract facts, in the sense that we can mention or refer to them, can be answered.

This has been discussed here before.

In reply to a claim that there could have not been any abstract facts, someone answered that if there were no facts, it would be a fact that there are no facts.

Someone else then countered that there could have been just one fact, a fact that there are no facts other than that one fact that there are no facts other than itself.

For one thing, that would be an unexplained brute-fact.

But I’ve suggested what sounds to me like a better answer:

When bringing up abstract facts, and a complex system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts (implication-facts), I’ve emphasized that they’re completely independent of any larger context, any context other than their own local inter-referring context. …and any sort of external permission or medium.

If you appreciate the completeness of that independence, then you’ll understand why it would be meaningless to say that there could have been some global prohibition or negation of all possible abstract facts. To believe in such a thing implies a belief in some kind of universal global propagating-medium for permission, or a common-context for all facts, like some kind of potting-soil. There’s no reason to believe in such a thing.

And if someone wanted to say that facts only exist for an experiencer, that’s fine, because the system of facts that I’m talking about is with respect to an experiencer. I’ve been saying that the experiencer is primary and central in the subjective metaphysics that I propose, and that all of the facts in your experience-story are with respect to, about, and for your experience and you.

(But, though the system that I speak of, your life-experience possibility-story, is experiencer-based, I’ve also said that I don’t support the animal-chauvinism of a belief that your experience-possibility-story’s abstract-facts are really, in principle, different from all the other abstract facts.

In an earlier post, some time ago, I gave a few other reasons for saying that.

But that’s another issue, maybe controversial, and is separate from my main metaphysical proposal.)
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How could something completely hypothetical seem so non-conditionally factual?:

That’s the main objection to my metaphysical proposal.

For one thing, as a character, even if the primary character, the protagonist, of your experience-possibility-story, of course it’s apparently factual to you. It’s a story about your experience. You perceive the experience, not the fact that it’s a hypothetical story. What else would you expect in an experience story?

Unfalisifable proposition? I remind you that the complex systems of inter-referring abstract facts that I’ve referred to are uncontroversially-inevitable. In contrast, for example, the Materialist explanation for your world posits a genuinely unverifiable and unfalsifiable brute-fact.

But many people might still perceive a sticking-point regarding the relation and reconciling between the uncontroversially-inevitable logical system, and your perception of non-conditional physical facts. I’m guessing that’s what has been meant by the expressed-issue about “substantive” vs logical facts.

Unsurprisingly, animals are designed to perceive and identify (non-conditional) “facts” about their surroundings. If it’s raining and cold, an animal might stay in its burrow or house (depending on what kind of an animal it is).

It’s practical, pragmatic and evolutionarily-adaptive for that organism to take that rain and cold as a “fact”, for the purpose of, and in the context of, its decision-making.

There’d be no adaptive advantage for that animal to regard it otherwise.

As I said, we use indicative/declarative grammar because it’s useful, not because it’s philosophically-supported. Conditional grammar describes the uncontroversially-inevitble implication-facts (if-then facts).

Evolutionarily-adaptive behavioral pragmatism vs philosophical explanation—do you really perceive a conflict between them?

Surely you’re familiar with the fact that, in physics, closer examination has shown that things are very different, radically-different, from how they previously appeared.

That’s even in physics. Why should you expect less in metaphysics?

So, if an uncontroversial metaphysics free of assumptions and brute-facts suggests that things aren’t quite what they seem in ordinary life, as opposed to in metaphysical discussion, should that really be surprising, given the lessons from physics about the fallibility of initial impressions and intuition?

For that matter, an authority on quantum-mechanics said that QM lays to rest the notion of an objective physical “reality”.

(When I quoted that before, someone asked for the source of the quote, and I supplied it. Do I have to find it again each time?)

Michael Ossipoff

Some further comments about the "contradiction":

"Real" and "Reality" are used with respect to contexts,and need to be interpreted contextually. ...aside from not even being metaphsically-defined.

For example, from the first introduction of my proposal here, I've been saying that of course this physical world is real in the context of our lives, and that our lives are real in their own context.

Likewise, I've been saying that a system of inter-referring abstract implication-facts about hypothetical propositions about hypothetical things needn't have any reality or existence other than in its own inter-referring context, and that I make no claim that it does.

I've been consistently saying that there's no particular reason to believe that either has any objective reality or existence, and that I make no claim that they do. ...though I don't know exactly what "objective reality" would mean.

There's obviously a worldly, everyday "reality' (and a storybook "reality", with respect to some storybook's story). That worldly, everyday reality is underlain by a different metaphysical "reality". ...without claiming objective reality, or "reality" as meant more demandingly in philosophical discussion, for either,.

So, as I said, the "contradiction" objection was a desperate and shabby grasp-at-straws.

Michael Ossipoff

Like one or two other people on this site, it seems that as soon as you are caught out in a contradiction, rather than rethink your position, you simply change the meanings of words. — MetaphysicsNow

Sorry, you didn't catch me in a contradiction.

My position on the matter of whether or not the abstract-facts are "real" has been consistent. I've been consistently saying that I don't claim any objective reality for them, or for anything based on them.

People often speak of the story-reality in a story, or a "dream reality". When doing so, then don't mean that those "realities" are objective reality. Whether you like it or not, "reality" is used with different meanings. It often refers to something with less than objective reality. It often refers to something that the speaker regards as unreal.

You're grasping at straws. Nice try.

Michael Ossipoff

"

"But they're the metaphysical reality that underlies our pragmatic experiential world and life"--Michael Ossipoff

Presumably by the "they" you mean your if-then facts. You seem to be contradicting yourself directly when you then go on and say.

"I make no claim for any reality or existence for the abstract if-then facts, or the infinitely-many systems of them.". — MetaphysicsNow

You mean because, in the first of those two quotes, I used the word "reality".

In that sentence, I didn't mean "reality" literally, and I didn't mean to imply objective reality. I didn't mean to imply that those abstract implications are real in some sense. I shouldn't have used that word,

I don't claim that there's any reality to anything described or explained by metaphysics. ...including the abstract if-then facts that are the structural basis of our lives and world.

Of course obviously our lives and world, are "real" in their own context, just as each of those complex systems of inter-referring abstract if-then facts about hypothetical propositions neither needs nor has any reality other than in its own inter-referring context, I don't claim objective reality or existence for those things.

Michael Ossipoff

So your metaphysics includes both non-if-then-facts and if-then-facts. — jkg20

Well, as for the non-if-then facts of our daily lives, I don;t call that part of my metaphysics. The apparent non-conditional facts of our lives are just how we animals are designed to deal with our world in which we must live. Practicality, not metaphysics.

For the former, their truth consists in some kind of relationship to the way things are

Not how things really, metaphysically, are.

Their truth isn't metaphysical. But, if I were to swear in court that what I'm about to say is true, and is the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and I know that there's no reason to believe that any of it is metaphysically true, that doesn't mean that I'm violating my oath and committing perjury, because it's understood that, in court, they aren't talking about metaphysical truth. It's only about what could be called "worldly truth".

Aside from that, Nisargadatta said that anything that can be said is a lie (because, of course, words can't accurately describe Reality), even in metaphysics.

(and I leave open that the way things are might in part be determined by our ways of coming to find out about them, and thus allow for both materialistic, idealistic and pragmatist metaphysics).

Pragmatic worldly "truth" I don't call metaphysics. As for Materialism, as I said, I don't claim to have proof that it isn't superflously true as an unverifialbe, unfalsifiable brute-fact...alongside and duplicating the events and relations of my proposed logical system..

For the latter, their truth consists in the logical relations between propositions used to express the non-if-then-facts.

I wouldn't say it that way. When you referred to the latter, you're referring to metaphysical if-then facts. I wouldn't say that they're used to express the non-if-then facts of our everyday experience and pragmatic life. But they're the metaphysical reality that underlies our pragmatic experential world and life.

So even here we seem to have introduced another non-if-then-fact: there are logical relations between propositions. Since your metaphysics depends on the existence of these relationships, how do you account for their existence? Is it just a brute non-if-then-fact?

Sure, that's the other objection to my proposal, with a difficultly-explained answer.But it isn't as difficult as your first objection ("How could something completely hypothetical seem so non-conditionally factual and real?")

I've been answering this 2nd objection as follows:

I make no claim for any reality or existence for the abstract if-then facts, or the infinitely-many systems of them.

What's their reality got to do with anything?

About the "existence" of those abstract if-then facts, "there are" those facts in the sense that we can mention them and state them (though we of course can't state all of them, partly due to time limitations).

That's the only "existence" I claim for them.

Can that be called a "brute-fact", if the only "existence" that I claim for them is their discussability and mentionability by us?

I'm not saying that those if-then facts have any other existence or reality. So, if that's a brute-fact, then it's a particularly un-blatant one.

And, if their metnionability and discussability is a brute-fact, it's a universally-agreed one.

I guess maybe you could call it a special kind of completely uncontroversial brute-fact. Remember, I don't claim that words can describe or explain everything. I don't claim that metaphysics can explain or cover all of Reality,

How could anyone tell an ultimate explanation, if words can't describe or explain Reality?

My proposal is only for a metaphysical explanation for what metaphysically is. Words can't explain why there's metaphysics, and the abstract if-thens at its basis. So, in that sense, a metaphysics can only be a description, not a complete explanation.

The inability to explain why there's metaphysics and why there are abstract facts that we can mention and discuss...That isn't a fault peculiar to my metaphysics. It's in the nature of metaphysics, because words can't explain, describe or cover all of Reality.

You can call this a cop-out and an evasion, but if pressed for an explanation of that completely uncontroversial "brute-fact", I'd say that its "explanation" can only be meta-metaphysical, by which I mean inaccessible to words.

A few modern philosophers have expressed agreement with Aristotle, about his meta-metaphysical suggestion that Good is the basis of what is.

I've been emphasizing that each one of the infinitely-many systems of inter-referring abstract logical if-then facts about hypothetical propositions about hypothetical things is quite independent of anything outside it. ...and neither has nor needs any "reality" in any frame of reference or context other than its own inter-referring context.

I'd like to comment more about your other, first, objection, but I'd like to discuss that in a separate post, because each of these two objections deserves its own post.

So I have more to say, about your 1st objection "How can something completely hypothetical seem so non-conditionally factual and real?". I might be able to discuss that in a post this afternoon, but tomorrow is more likely.

Michael Ossipoff

When I spoke of a "practical perception of" non-conditional facts--even though abstract implications are the metaphysical structural, mechanical, basis of what mataphysically is....

...and even though Faraday pointed out that there's no reason to believe in the Materialist's objectively-existent stuff or things...

...That gets some support from Vedantist spiritual-teachers who speak of a sense in which our factual world is illusory.

(...though of course it's real enough in its own context and the context of our lives.)

Nisargadatta said that, from the point-of-view of the Sage, nothing has ever happened.

Michael Ossipoff

I didn’t say that there are no non-if-then facts in our experience.

I said that every fact about the physical world (in our experience, of course) implies, corresponds to, and can be said as, an if-then fact.

(I like to call an implication an “if-then fact”, because everyone knows what that means, where “implication” might not be clear to people who haven’t read about logic terms. I’m sorry if that non-standard term has caused trouble, but it’s understandable to more people.)

I also said that every fact about the physical world is (at least part of) the antecedent of some if-then facts, and is the consequent of other if-then facts.

That was a mis-wording, and I apologize if it led to justified mis-understanding of what I meant. Here’s what I meant:

Every fact about the physical world (in your experience, of course) corresponds to a proposition that is (at least part of) the antecedent of some if-then facts, and is the consequent of other if-then facts.

In particular, if the physical fact that you experience is F, then the proposition that I’m referring to is the proposition that F. The proposition about F…the proposition “F is a fact”.

When I first started stating my metaphysics, that mis-wording was a bit of sloppiness that has remained in the proposition…until when I’m correcting it now.

Someone, at this point, could say that now I’m introducing a new metaphysical brute-fact that every physical fact corresponds to, and is underlain by, a proposition about that fact.

Not so.

The if-then facts about those propositions are uncontroversially inevitably there, and that’s no unexplained brute-fact.

Then what about the perceived, experienced, non-if-then facts? What’s their explanation?

Well, doesn’t it go without saying that, for efficiently dealing with its situation in its world, an animal would do better to treat what it has to deal with as facts? …and therefore to perceive it as facts? What would be the point of a wood-rat being a philosopher instead of a practical wood-rat? Surely, humans, too, are designed by evolution to be practical before philosophical in that regard, as their initial default interpretation of their world.

I’ve been saying that we’re used to declarative/indicative grammar, though conditional grammar describes the inevitable complex system of logical if-then facts (implications) whose events and relations comprise our life-experience possibility-story.

To reply to another comment in the post that I’m replying to:

Of course your experience doesn’t need experimental evidence. Your experience is all the evidence you need or have.

But, because so many people worship science and measurement, I said that there’s no experimental evidence or measurement establishing that your experience consists of other than (a system of implications, and a practical perception of unconditional facts corresponding to…) a hypothetical system of inter-referring hypothetical if-then facts (implications) about hypothetical propositions about hypothetical things.

To answer something else that you said:

Maybe metaphysics can be done without (any?) if-then facts. Of course it goes without saying that there are many metaphysicses, and innumerable conceivably-say-able ones. Nearly all of them make assumptions and posit brute-facts. Mine is different in that regard.

Michael Ossipoff

Now, if you want to argue that there is no genuine distinction between logical truth and substantive truth, that might be an interesting discussion to have.

— jkg20
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But, for Janus, the matter isn’t subject to discussion, but is instead a matter of doctrine.
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Janus says:
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There is certainly a logical distinction between logical truth and substantive truth.

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Maybe Janus means that, if there were some kind of metaphysical truth that differs from other metaphysical truth by being “substantive” (whatever that would mean), then it would be different from metaphysical truth that’s not “substantive”. :D
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Anyway, what, exactly, does Janus mean by “substantial”?
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Janus isn’t saying.
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One might want to argue, as MO does, that there is no genuine metaphysical or ontological distinction, but then such a metaphysical argument could hardly be "non-controversial", as MO so mistakenly claims his metaphysics is.

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Janus is confusing two different meanings for “uncontroversial”.
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My metaphysics is controversial in the sense that there are many who’d want to disagree with it because it isn’t consistent with what they already believe. By that meaning, there’s little that isn’t “controversial”.
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Then what’s uncontroversial about it?:
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That there are abstract facts, in the sense that they can be stated.
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That therefore there are also infinitely-many complex systems of inter-referring abstract facts consisting of implications, about hypothetical propositions about hypothetical things.
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That, among that infinity of such complex logical systems, there inevitably is one whose events and relations are those of your experience.
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That there’s no experimental evidence that your experience is other than that.
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…given, for example, that every fact about this physical world implies, corresponds to and can be said as an implication.
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...and is at least part of the antecedent of some implications, and is the consequent of other implications.
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That’s what’s uncontroversial.
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As I’ve said, I can’t prove that the Materialist’s fundamentally, “objectively”, “substantially”, “concretely” existent universe, and its “objectively”, “substantially”, and “concretely” existent things, and stuff, don’t superfluously exist, as an unverifiable and unfalsifiable brute-fact, alongside of, and duplicating the events and relations of, the uncontroversially-inevitable logical system that I’ve described.
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↪Michael Ossipoff
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So, you obviously deny the indispensable logical distinction between semantic facts and substantive facts

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I haven’t been speaking of communication.
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Facts are states of affairs (or obtaining states of affairs, if you believe that there’s such a thing as a “state of affairs” that doesn’t obtain) that consist of one or more properties of one or more things, or a relation among two or more things. (Those things are often referred to as “objects”.)
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There’s no way of knowing if a fact, by that definition (actually a combination of two definitions) can be “insubstantive” as Janus means “substantive”.
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Janus hasn’t said what he means by “substantive”. I looked for a definition of “substantive fact”, but didn’t find one. Janus hasn’t shared with us just what it is that is lacking from a fact that isn’t “substantive”.
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, because it allows you to continue believing in your own sophistry.

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“Sophistry” means “subtly deceptive argument”. Calling a proposal “sophistry” isn’t the same as specifying a an incorrect statement or unsupported conclusion in it.
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While Janus has been continually spouting angry namecalling language, he has been invited to specify a particular error, mis-statement, or unsupported conclusion. He hasn’t done so.
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Janus evidently is a believer in namecalling as a tactic to depend on, and evidently a believer in the common Internet notion that the one who does the most namecalling is right.
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…your lack of cogent argument!

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So there. Janus refutes my argument by saying that it isn’t cogent. :D
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I thought that it would be necessary to show that one of the argument’s premises is false, or that the statement of why the premises imply the conclusion contains at least one error, fallacy, incorrect statement, or unsupported conclusion.
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Contrary to what Janus seems to want to imply, there isn’t consensus about his interpretation of “truth”. There are “minimal”, “deflationary” and “redundancy” interpretations of “truth”, and there’s widely divergent philosophical opinion on the interpretation and meaning of “truth”.
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Here’s something I found that seems to say what Janus is saying:
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Main articles: Logical truth, Criteria of truth, and Truth value
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Logic is concerned with the patterns in reason that can help tell us if a proposition is true or not. However, logic does not deal with truth in the absolute sense, as for instance a metaphysician does.

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But could that “absolute sense” for metaphysical truth be illusory? Sure. I suggest that there’s no reason to believe in it. …aside from the fact that it’s unclear what is even meant by it.
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I suggest that it’s unduly presumptuous for “the metaphysician” to claim to speak of “absolute truth”.
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Logicians use formal languages to express the truths which they are concerned with, and as such there is only truth under some interpretation or truth within some logical system.
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A logical truth (also called an analytic truth or a necessary truth) is a statement which is true in all possible worlds[46] or under all possible interpretations, as contrasted to a fact (also called a synthetic claim or a contingency) which is only true in this world as it has historically unfolded.

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That meaning for “fact” is more limited than the widely accepted definition of fact as a state of affairs, or an obtaining state of affairs, or as a combination of one or more properties of one or more things, or a relation among things….which definitions don’t say anything about validity or applicability only in only one world or only under one possible interpretation.
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Maybe “obtaining” is being used to mean “referring or applying only to our own particular world”, like the widely accepted meaning of “actual”.
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There are abstract implications that don’t only refer to our world (but which might refer to it too). So, if “obtaining” means “referring or applying only to our own particular world”, then the word “obtaining” is unnecessarily limiting in a definition of “fact”.
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Maybe that “absolute truth” that’s being referred to as opposed to “logical truth” is what I’ve been calling “meta-metaphysics”. Maybe that’s what philosophical articles mean by “meta-logic” too.
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Meta-metaphysics, as I mean it, doesn’t lend itself to description and discussion, argument or assertion.
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…and of course isn’t part of metaphysical discussion.
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I haven’t claimed that logical truth covers, applies to and describes all of Reality, all that is. …only that it covers, applies to and describes metaphysics and the things of metaphysics (because I define metaphysics by the applicability of words, discussion, and complete description to it and its things).

A proposition such as "If p and q, then p" is considered to be a logical truth because of the meaning of the symbols and words in it and not because of any fact of any particular world. They are such that they could not be untrue.

Sorry, but that doesn't make them less true, or disqualify them as facts by the definitions that I stated above.
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Anyway it isn’t possible to answer Janus, because he hasn’t been at all clear with us regarding what he means by “substantive”.
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…and hasn’t specified a particular false premise, incorrect statement, fallacy, error or unsupported conclusion in my argument for my metaphysics.

We've been hearing a lot of angry-noises about my metaphysical proposal, from Janus, for example, but no one has accepted my invitation to specify a false premise, error, fallacy, incorrect statement or unsupported conclusion.
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Michael Ossipoff

I try to avoid the word "exist", because it isn't metaphysically defined.

But of course abstract facts and objects "are there" in the sense that we can state, name and discuss them.

Sometimes, in that sense, they're said to "exist".

If that's what "exist" means, then yes abstract things exist.

To say that something "is there", or "exists", because it can be stated, named and discussed is a weak meaning for "exist", but it's enough to be a basis for a metaphysics. That abstract facts "are there" in that sense is the basis of my metaphysics, and one of the premises of my argument for it.

Michael Ossipoff

Jkg20 says:

there are no relations that relate Slitheytoves to Jaberwockeys either. There are logical relations that relatestatements about Slitheytoves to statements about Jaberwockeys.

Facts consist of relations among, or properties of, things, referred to as “objects”. Objects can be abstract objects, and needn’t have “physical” “existence”.

However, there are distinct kinds of relata and relations which concern existent things

Oops! jkg20 forgot to answer my question about what he means by “existent”.

Anyway, all relations, among whatever kinds of things, are still only relations. Relations are what are observed and measured and can be reported, described and recorded.

…and which your metaphysics remains utterly mute on

…when jkg20 can’t say what he means by it?

…because your metaphysics deals only with the logical relation between statements not the physical relations between existent things.

…but what does jkg90 mean by “existent”? Who knows.

jkg20 isn’t saying.

And physical relations are still only relations.

Physical things? As I said, any fact about the physical world implies, corresponds, to and can be said as a logical implication.

…and is (at least part of) the antecedent of some implications, and is the consequent of other logical implications.

There’s no evidence, measurement or reason to believe that the physical world consists of other than those implications.

Tell me about an experience of yours. You'll be telling about relations.

There’s physical experience, observation and measurement….of relation. A person’s experience of physical things consists of experience of their relation to that person’s body. Likewise, scientific physical observations and measurements are of relation.

Physics is about relation. As I said, in the physical world, as Faraday pointed out, there’s no evidence for other than mathematical and logical relation.

If jkg20 believes that Faraday was mistaken, and that there’s evidence that the physical world consists of other than mathematical and logical relation, then he should feel free to share with us what his evidence is.

Michael Ossipoff

Just admit that you have a scanty knowledge of number theory, — jkg20

jkg20 doesn't know what number theory is. He's been misusing that term for some time.

Here's a link to an article, from Brown University, explaining what number theory is.

https://www.math.brown.edu/~jhs/frintch1ch6.pdf

Demonstration of ignorance of the meanings of terms that one is using, and such things as run-on sentences like:

This specific issue is not about agreement or disagreement, this is about you being wrong about what one can prove in mathematics given a set of axioms. — jkg20

...demonstrate sloppiness that typically and unsurprisingly also shows itself in other ways, such as the content of what jkg20 is saying.

this is about you being wrong about what one can prove in mathematics given a set of axioms — jkg20

Oops! jkg20 forgot to say where, in particular, my proof of 2+2=4 contained an error, mis-statement or unsupported conclusion.

I showed that 2+2=4 is implied by the axiom-system that I posted a link to.

And no, it wasn't necessary to use all of those axioms.

Michael Ossipoff

The fact that someone is qualified on one subject doesn't mean that they can't be wrong about another subject, topic, issue or question.

Michael Ossipoff

Yes, reincarnation is implied if metaphysics is real.

Agreed.

You, the observing entity, the being is different from the body in the sense that body is material, it can't be aware of anything. It just works, you observe its work. And if you are beyond physical reality, death doesn't destroy you

Yes, you’re the central, fundamental and primary component of your life-experience possibility-story. In fact, you’re not just “a component” of it. Your its center, meaning, origin and reason-for-being . Its “there” because of and for you. Your experiences are its whole subject, its whole point, content, meaning and relevance.

The individual and hir (his/her) experience are primary in my metaphysics.

And yes, even as the individual that you are, death doesn’t end your experience, because obviously, in your experience, there never comes a time of no experience. Death is an increasingly deep sleep.

I’ve suggested, in agreement with Eastern tradition, that most of us don’t reach the deepest extent of that sleep, because, before that, during a less-deep absence of waking-consciousness, when subconscious emotional predispositions and inclinations remain, we find ourselves in the beginning of a life, an experience-story consistent with our predispositions and the person who are at that time, a beginning life that our experience at that time is about. …one which is consistent with the person we are at that time.

.Just like you don't feel anything while asleep but "you're still there", you experience something else. But is it something like heaven/hell

I don’t believe in the Western traditional eternal Heaven or Hell.

or do you come back to earth?

Reincarnation needn’t be to exactly the same world as the one that we left, though it seems likely to be to a very similar one.

Maybe it depends on the gravity of your mind. Maybe our minds weigh on a scale which decides the realm of existence you're in. Magic? Yes. Pure magic, not science at all.

Science is un-duly worshipped as a religion in our society.

What-is, is more remarkable than any of fiction’s magic. …and better than many people here realize.

But hey, you defy science in every sense of the word. Close your eyes and feel yourself for a moment. You'd observe you're not your thoughts, you're the one hearing those thoughts, feelings different sensations. You aren't visible, measurable or traceable. You are consciousness.

Yes, Consciousness is primary.

I mean individual Consciousness, when speaking about metaphysics. But I agree that Advaita has a valid meta-metaphysical point about the impression that there doesn't seem to be important distinction between individuals. ...and of course at a person's end-of-lives, s/he doesn't know or care that there ever was, or even could be, such things as identity or individuality (or time, events problems, situations, want, need, lack or incompletion).

Experiencing, feeling, hearing itself is a proof of something beyond physical universe. In a pure material universe, chemical machines exist but consciousness can't.

I claim that, even if Materialism were true, humans, animals, and human-duplicating robots would be conscious.
.

I mean just think about it, you could build a robot but you can never make it aware of itself.

I claim that any robot that can duplicate the actions of a human, must have the consciousness of a human. …in order to do that.

Trees, animals even babies, all have feelings and thoughts; however no one is feeling, thinking, they're just closed biological machines.

Among purposefully-responsive devices, it’s completely arbitrary where we draw the line to say what is “conscious”, or what has “feeling”.

Purposefully-responsive devices include humans, other mammals, other vertebrates including birds and reptiles, other animals, including insects, and even protozoans…and including plants, bacteria, viruses, mousetraps, refrigerator light-switches and thermostats.

We can arbitrarily draw the line wherever we feel like, regarding what is “conscious”, or what has “feeling”.

Insects obviously are conscious and have feeling, and it’s quite obvious when they feel fear. Bacteria, when they swim, swim away from what things they don’t like, and towards things they like. Plants respond purposefully, sometimes on the short timescales characteristic of animals. Viruses choose to bore into cells that they’ve determined are the kind of cell that they can use.

I’ve defined “a conscious being” as a purposefully-responsive device that is sufficiently similar to the speaker that the speaker feels kinship with it.

Michael Ossipoff

I refer you to my previous posting in which I showed how the additive-associative axiom implies 2+2=4, by a definition of some counting-numbers in terms of the multiplicative-identity and addition.

But, as I said, it's time to agree to disagree, and to discontinue this conversation.

Michael Ossipoff

As I said, there's no evidence that our physical world is other than that.

Other than what? Other than a system of relations? — jkg20

Yes.

Relations relate things to other things

...but not necessarily objectively-existent things.

Relations also relate hypothetical, nonexistent things to eachother. Are Slitheytoves and Jaberwockeys existent things?

If the Slitheytove content of a room consists of 2 Slitheytoves by the door, and 2 other Slitheytoves near the wall opposite the door, then there are 4 Slitheyitoves in that room.

Relations don't imply or require things.

There are abstract facts, at least in the sense that we can state and discuss them.

In mentions of abstract facts, there's no need or justification for a stipulation "...provided that there's something else with some kind of 'objective existence' ", whatever that means.

Yes, that's another question: What do you even mean when you say that there are "objectively-existent" things?

When we experience "things", our experience is of their relation to our own body, and their relation to, and comparison to, eachother.

As I've said, and as Faraday pointed out in 1844, there's no evidence for those "objectively-existent" things that you believe in...no evidence for anything other than the relations that we actually experience, observe and measure.

, so the physical world - whatever else it is - certainly includes those things that stand in relations to each other,

Of course. They're as "real" as the phiysical universe itself. Those things are part of your life-experience possibility-story.

The physical world and its things are real and existent in the context of your life-experience possibility-story.

But there's no reason to believe that they have some kind of "objective existence", whatever you mean by that.

Metaphysics needs to address the nature of the things that stand in relations to each other as well as to the nature of the relations in which they do so stand.

...and it doesn't need to make unsupported assumptions about "objective-existence" of those things, especially when you can't say what you mean by "objectively-existent".

As I've said, I can't prove that the "objectively", fundamentally, "concretely" existent world that you believe in, and its "objectively" and "concretely" existent things, and stuff, don't superflously exist as an unverifiable and unfalsifiable brute-fact, alongside of, and duplicating the events and relations of, the uncontroversially-inevitable complex system of inter-referring logical implications that I've described.

Michael Ossipoff

Suit yourself. I've amply covered the topic in previous posts to this thread..

Michael Ossipoff

I'd said:

If the truth of one proposition implies the truth of another proposition, that’s a state-of-affairs.

In other words, it’s a fact.

If it is a fact at all it is a logical or semantic fact. Paris being the capital of France is a substantive fact. See the difference? — Janus

Yes. Yours is a physical fact. You can go to Paris, and walk into the Capitol buildings from which the country is governed, and painfully stub your toe on the Capitol steps.

In a recent post, and, in fact, in all of my posts about my metaphysical proposal, I've emphasized that the notion of objective, substantive existence for this physical world and its things and its stuff, is a fiction of declarative/indicative grammar.

Check out my recent reply to jkg20, where I answer about that in more detail.

As I see it is on account of this difference that your 'argument' founders, or flounders.

I don't recognize the "substantial" or "objective" facts that you believe in, as something distinct from logical facts.

You haven't pointed to a specific false-premise, incorrect statement, or un-supported conclusion in my metaphysical proposal or my arguments for it.

Michael Ossipoff

Here's the arithmetical-axioms link that you asked for:

https://sites.math.washington.edu/~hart/m524/realprop.pdf

Michael Ossipoff

Oh, ok--I wasn't trying to evade that question or issue. I just previously didn't understand that it was being raised.

I'd said:

By "substantive truth", do you mean an alleged objective, fundamental, concrete "existence" for our physical world and its things and its stuff?

Now we are getting somewhere. Idealists and anti-realists more generally can (and have) made the distinction between substantive truth and logical truth, so no, one does not need to be a materialist in order for the distinction to make sense. You seem to be a fan of online philosophy encyclopedias
— jkg20

Without them, how could I translate what is being said by people who use their terminology?

- look up "logical truth" and see how complex a notion it is...

...or how complex it (along with everything else) is in the minds and writings of academic philosophers, who must constantly have things to write about, in order to publish, and not thereby not perish. :)

...and how various philosophers have tried to distinguish it from substantive truth. As far as I can tell, every example of if-then fact that you introduce is an example of a logical truth

Yes.

, but substantive truths are the ones that concern the empirical world (whether that world be independent of our coming to know it or not).

Isn't subjective idealism the ultimate empiricism? All that we know about the physical world is from our experience. I'm all for empiricism.

But our experience, including our physics-experiments, is experience of logical/mathematical structural relation. As I said, there's no evidence that our physical world is other than that.

Now, if you want to argue that there is no genuine distinction between logical truth and substantive truth, that might be an interesting discussion to have.

That's what I'm saying. I'm saying that objective or substantive truth about an objective substantive physical world is a fiction of our declarative/indicative grammar, and a long habit of (sometimes subconscious) Materialism.

Regarding the abstract logical implications, about hypotheticals, that I refer to, and the complex systems of inter-referring abstract implications--I'm saying that there's no reason to believe that any of the antecedents of those implications are true.

What there metaphysically, discussably, describably is, are willow-the-whisp, ethereal, insubstantial logical systems. Period (full-stop)..

Take a look at Quine's "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" for example.

I'll check it out.

Since we, as sentient beings, are in the empirical world, it is substantive truth that will have a bearing on whether or not we can be reincarnated, not logical truth.

We aren't just in the empirical world. We're each the center, and the fundamental, essential and primary component of each our empirical world.--which is a hypothetical life-experience possibility-story.whose only meaning is with respect to and in terms of us, its protagonist.

As for reincarnation, the complete insubstantiality of that hypothetical story makes reincarnation no seem so implausible. As I said, if the reason for our being in this life still obtains at the end of this life, then what does that suggest?

Anyway, though I definitely argue for my metaphysics, I don't set out to aggressively push the reincarnation issue. But I comment on it, because it is something that's discussed a fair amount.

Someone said that the matter of reincarnation doesn't matter, because we'll never know if there's reincarnation. Yes, whether we're reincarnated or not, we won't know about it. If a new life starts, we won't know about this one.

In fact, I've been saying that, not only are past lives unknowable, but they're also completely indeterminate. It isn't true that there were or weren't previous lives.

I don't agree that it won't matter. After all, our experience will be different, depending on whether or not there' s reincarnation. The fact that you won't eventually say, "Aha, he was wrong!" or "Ok, he was right." isn't important.

But either would be ok, however it is. The end of this life is sleep, and there isn't a need to believe in some account of where it leads.

I'm just saying that my metaphysics implies reincarnation. It's of interest as a matter of discussion, as a consequence of metaphysics, which makes it a philosophical topic. And, as I said, there's much discussion about it.

I regard it as a metaphysical matter, not a religious matter. I don't claim that metaphysics, discussion and description cover all that is.

If anyone says it does, remind him that no finite dictionary can non-circularly define any of its words.

Any of Reality that isn't fully discussable and describable, I'd call meta-metaphysics. It goes without saying that there's little that can be said about it. It isn't a topic for a philosophy forum, where we discuss what's discussable.

Michael Ossipoff

In answer to your question, the system of axioms that I'm using is the one that is usually used, stated and cited.

Well, I don't want to turn this into a thread about mathematical logic, but Peano arithmetic is one of the standard ways of defining the natural numbers — jkg20

I've already acknowledged that there are other arithmetical axiom systems, including at least one (that of Peano) in which associativity is a theorem instead of an axiom.

I've already acknowledged that, and I've already clarified that it's irrelevant to what I've been saying.

As I said, the arithmetical axiom system for the counting-numbers, with respect the the addition and multiplication operations, that typically and usually used, stated and cited is the one in which associativity is an axiom, not a theorem.

I'm not going to debate that.

, so I'd have to challenge you to provide a more "usually used, stated or cited" system of axioms for doing that.

See above.

In any case, you cannot define "1" this way (as you do):


Let "1" mean the multiplicative identity.


without already having defined multiplication (recursively) over the natural numbers, which means that the natural numbers need already to have been defined within your system

Incorrect.

The multiplicitive-identity axiom for the counting numbers says that there is an element of the counting-numbers (call it "1") such that, for every element, a, of the counting-numbers, a X 1 = a.

And yes, there's no reason why I can't say "Let '1' mean the multiplicative identity".

How very commendable that you like Peano arithmetic. But It doesn't bear on what I've said.

But in any case, you will not be able to infer 2+2=4 without all those axioms. MetaphysicsNow is right about that and you are wrong.

It's time to agree to disagree on that.

But I'll add that the common arithmetical axiom-system that I refer to doesn't include a definition of multiiplication or addition, but merely mentions them as two operations, with respect to which the axioms for the number systems are stated.

Michael Ossipoff