And, if nothing else, for alerting us to the word 'pleonasm', which I, for one, had never previously encountered :clap: — Wayfarer
It must be a matter of self-organised Becoming rather than merely brute Being. — apokrisis
Is Infinite Reason, Infinite Thought, or Infinite Spirit (as per Hegel) simply a biased form of abstract anthropocentric terminology being used to try to humanize a transcendent reality which, in fact, may be better described as being nothing more than a completely non-rational, thoughtless, blind Will-to-Live (as per Schopenhauer)? — charles ferraro
Since this organizing agent, the whole, the being, cannot exist prior in time to itself (that would be contradictory), it cannot be assigned the role of the cause of itself, nor can it be responsible for the "Becoming" of itself. — Metaphysician Undercover
Finality lies in the future and acts as an organising constraint on its own past. It sifts pure possibility as the ultimate destiny. — apokrisis
To reverse the temporal order of cause and effect is simple contradiction — Metaphysician Undercover
To reverse the temporal order of cause and effect is simple contradiction, unless you are no longer talking about causation. — Metaphysician Undercover
What about the final cause? The final cause of a match is fire, in that matches only exist for the purpose of starting a fire. The match exists before the fire, but the fire is the final cause of the match, being the reason for its existence. — Wayfarer
'(Why is he walking about?' we say, 'To be healthy', and having said that, we think we have assigned the cause.) The same is true also of all the intermediate steps which are brought about through the action of something else as means toward the end, e.g. reduction of flesh, purging, drugs, surgical instruments, are means toward health. All these things are 'for the sake of'' the end, though they differ from one another in that some are activities others instruments. — Aristotle, Physics 194b
Now you can choose other interpretations - like Many Worlds. But they ought to be even more offensive. — apokrisis
So the end (mental intention) is the (final) cause of the means, and the means are the (efficient) cause of the physical object produced. — Metaphysician Undercover
Paul Davies, a theoretical physicist at the Australian Centre for Astrobiology at Macquarie University in Sydney, suggests another possibility: The universe might actually be able to fine-tune itself. If you assume the laws of physics do not reside outside the physical universe, but rather are part of it, they can only be as precise as can be calculated from the total information content of the universe. The universe's information content is limited by its size, so just after the Big Bang, while the universe was still infinitesimally small, there may have been wiggle room, or imprecision, in the laws of nature.
And room for retrocausality. If it exists, the presence of conscious observers later in history could exert an influence on those first moments, shaping the laws of physics to be favorable for life. This may seem circular: Life exists to make the universe suitable for life. If causality works both forward and backward, however, consistency between the past and the future is all that matters. "It offends our common-sense view of the world, but there's nothing to prevent causal influences from going both ways in time," Davies says. "If the conditions necessary for life are somehow written into the universe at the Big Bang, there must be some sort of two-way link." — Science hopes to change events that have already occured
And room for retrocausality. If it exists, the presence of conscious observers later in history could exert an influence on those first moments, shaping the laws of physics to be favorable for life. — Science hopes to change events that have already occured
if the theories are faulty then you wouldn’t be receiving these distant disturbing ideas over the technological marvel of the internet. — apokrisis
But what is for certain is that the existence of the Universe has zero to do with human consciousness, or any kind of idealist schtick. — apokrisis
I think that's consistent with what I said. It's a teleological process, i.e. working towards an end or outcome. In this case, a plausible step towards the 'end or outcome' is just the emergence of rational sentient beings such as h. sapiens. This also ties in with the cosmic anthropic principle. — Wayfarer
than a completely non-rational, thoughtless, blind Will-to-Live (as per Schopenhauer) — charles ferraro
No, it doesn't make me feel better. Because this was not my intention. Neither was my intention to force you to acknowledge it, as it seems you did. Your response shows that you still don't understand what pleonasm is, as this is evident from the quotation marks you put around the word as well as characterizing it ironically as infamous. You have misjudged my corrective remark as a criticism. Sorry about that.OK, If it makes you feel better: Thanks for noticing my infamous "pleonasm." — charles ferraro
This incompatibility between free will, and Newton's first law, has no affect on the marvel of the internet, but it means that physics, in it's acceptance of this law, is incapable of understanding that part of reality which provides us with free will. — Metaphysician Undercover
Was one correct and the other incorrect? — charles ferraro
Reason as an absolute? — Constance
Or the attempt to explore its limit, don’tcha think? — apokrisis
So you can see there is no way out of this impossibility of affirming in language something that is not language. Language, its signifiers, can only be self referencing. UNLESS: Reason really IS grounded in some impossible ultimate language reality, like Hegel's. If this were true, and it is not impossible that it is, then what we say and think could be significant in the Hegelian way. But how to go about this, that is, at least giving this idea the minimal presumption of "truth"? — Constance
Only one way I see: Take the Kierkegaardian motion of the eternal present (Witt approved), and consider that even here, standing, if you will, in the light of a phenomenological reduction, and all schools in abeyance (as Walt Whitman put it): this present, I submit, is undeniable, notwithstanding post modern, post hermeneutical objections, yet there we stand, eidetically aware! Question: Is this actually happening? Is it a finite event? Or is it infinite. — Constance
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