↪Nickolasgaspar I'm using "chaos" in the context of an exchange with Yohan. Read in context the meaning is clear: not conforming to the laws of nature. Do laws of nature conform to some other (more general ... ad infinitum) laws of nature? If you think so, explain it to me. If they don't, then the laws of nature are, in these terms, chaotic. — 180 Proof

I won't debate the issue any more. Honestly I am confused about which of us are right.
But I'd like to ask. How do axioms like the law of non-contradiction fit into chaotic natural law? How can manifest reality conform to disorderly laws?

Edit. I guess I kind of get it. They would not be disorderly relative to manifest reality. Just in and of themselves....

If metaphysic – philosophy – ever produced truth-apt statements which describe or explain physical reality, then the sciences would have been wholly redundant and never have developed as independent theoretical practices. — 180 Proof

You’ve misunderstood. My point was that methodological naturalism is fine, but too often that is taken to mean a classical notion of physical reality is proven by science to be correct, or the best we can get.

However, that classical picture only tries to cover material/efficient cause. It parks formal and final cause on the sidelines. I favour a science-based naturalism that attempts to engage with the larger holistic causal picture.

How do axioms like the law of non-contradiction fit into chaotic natural law? — Yohan

Well, chaotic =/= contradictory ...

How can manifest reality conform to disorderly laws?

"Manifest reality" is "disorderly" (e.g. second law of thermodynamics, etc).

That clarifies things a bit. In all your posts, apo, I've missed till now that you are a latter-day Aristotlean (cum Peircean). However, I am not. As a Spinozist (cum Epicurean), like him (them) I also dispense with "final causes" and conceive of "formal causes" as synonymous with (non-manifest) 'laws of nature' (i.e. natura naturans); as you point out, 'a metaphysics – in my understanding plural-aspect holism – consistent with methodological naturalism'.

I favour a science-based naturalism that attempts to engage with the larger holistic causal picture. — apokrisis

Keeping all options open, I see! So, your position is that anything's possible!.

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. — Mark Twain

But, the question of all questions is, is everything probable?

Keeping all options open, I see! So, your position is that anything's possible — TheMadFool

In fact I take the opposite position that something exists because everything was not possible. Reality is what is left over after all the other possibilities cancelled each other away by being contradictory.

I recently offered the example of a wheel. You can make a wheel any shape you like. It could be as irregular as you choose. But constrained by the purpose of getting yourself somewhere efficiently, you too will wind up designing a circular wheel.

But, the question of all questions is, is everything probable? — TheMadFool

Symmetry principles are pretty good at telling us what is probable.

I've missed till now that you are a latter-day Aristotlean (cum Peircean). — 180 Proof

Oddly enough, Peirce wound up thinking Spinoza was the nearest to being a proper pragmatist like himself - on the basis of being a realist rather than a nominalist! At least according to - https://revistas.pucsp.br/cognitiofilosofia/article/download/20978/15446/0

The likelihood of him walking past doesn’t change just because you’re talking about him
— Possibility

I'm not saying my talking about Will Smith affected the probability of him walking by. That's silly. I'm saying he could've walked by me at any time in a 24 hour period (1440 minutes) but that he appeared when I was talking about him (for 5 minute) is improbable. Do the math.

1440 - 5 = 1435

P(Will Smith walking by when I'm not talking about him) = 1435/1440

P(Will Smith walking by when I'm talking about him) = 5/1440 — TheMadFool

But we’re not talking about the abstract probability of an event occurring or not occurring within 24 hours here. The event is relatively improbable, sure. But it’s as improbable as any other specified five minute period.

P(Will Smith walking by during a 5min period when you’re talking about him) = 5/1440

P(Will Smith walking by during a 5min period when you’re not talking about him) = 5/1440

This is not about him walking by, then, but about his appearance: you noticing him walking by, which has more to do with how your attention is distributed during that five minute period.

Where A = attention directed toward qualitative aspects of the concept ‘Will Smith’ during a 5min period, then

A(talking about Will Smith) > A(not talking about Will Smith)

So, given that the probability of Will Smith walking by during any 5min period is equally negligible, then the remote probability of attention directed toward Will Smith walking by during any 5min period is relatively higher when talking (or thinking) about Will Smith during that same 5min period, than not talking about Will Smith.

I have thought about the post which you wrote on the importance of attention and I believe that it is important but it is not just attention to the outer aspects of experience. In seeing the meaningful connections it is about the parallels within the outer world and the experience of thoughts. It may be that many people do not make links and some may not even remember their thoughts clearly enough.

I come from the perspective of noticing and remembering my thoughts. I had many experiences during adolescence, which were clear premonitions. I won't go into detail because some of them were extremely unpleasant as they were premonitions of people dying, and the individuals died shortly afterwards. At the time, I even started to worry that it was my fault that the people were dying. Fortunately, I discovered Jung's writings and it made a lot of sense.

I think that it is hard to know how far to go with Jung's theory, but it does seem to show that we can perceive patterns and it does seem to me to go beyond the physical world. I think that attention is important but it is a way of going beyond ordinary daily experience. — Jack Cummins

I do think that it’s at least possible to direct our qualitative attention narrowly or broadly and in consolidated or interrelational structures in each moment (with practise), but that this then impacts on the effort/intensity and diversity we can bring to that attention. And by attention I’m certainly not referring only to the outer world, but also to our thoughts, feelings and intentions, and how they change in relation to each other.

I’m with you that some people may not notice or remember their thoughts. My son prefers to attend narrowly to consolidated structures - he acts decisively in the face of uncertainty, is systematic or mathematical in his process, and yet draws a blank when asked to retrace his thinking or consider alternatives. My daughter prefers to attend more broadly to interrelational structures - she is often paralysed by uncertainty, yet is well aware of her thinking process, and can track her thoughts from origin to conclusion, including exploration of paths not taken. It’s much more of a concerted effort for my son to notice or remember his thoughts, let alone critique them. But it’s much more of a concerted effort for my daughter to determine a course of action and take it.

I think part and parcel of a more open awareness is worrying about unconsolidated possibilities that capture our attention for one affective reason or another. This seems to be what occurred with your premonitions. I’m not familiar with Jung’s theories, but I think we need to develop accurate methodologies to both open our awareness of the world and consolidate towards reliable, effective action, rather than simply go with our preference every time. That way leads to ignorance, isolation and exclusion.

I am not convinced that anything to do with Will Smith is meaningful. And this is the difficulty; one is liable to be struck by coincidences even when they are not meaningful. So much stuff happens in the course of a normal day that accidental meaningless coincidences are to be expected. We see patterns because bla bla harmless false positives...

So start again with much more strict criteria for meaning and you will be closer to what Jung intended, which was something more like a deep structure to human experience at the psycho-spiritual level.

I am not sure how Will Smith has become the focus in the thread. I see synchronicity as being more an aspect of the psycho-spiritual experience. My own premonitions weren't pleasant but it did give me awareness of interconnectedness and patterns within nature and life. More recently, I do have some synchronicities and they are usually more pleasant. Often, what happens is that I am out and think I see someone and get close up and realise it is not them. A short while later, I really meet the person who I had mistaken a stranger for. It is not as if I am always mistaking strangers for people who I know so I do find it unusual.

Often, what happens is that I am out and think I see someone and get close up and realise it is not them. A short while later, I really meet the person who I had mistaken a stranger for. — Jack Cummins

Ok. What does that mean? What makes it a meaningful coincidence rather than just a coincidence.

It is a kind of foreshadowing of meeting the person I know in a premonitionary way. The premonitions I had as a teenager were scary though, such as the death of the headmaster at school, the deaths of two people in church and of the father of someone I barely knew, and several others. I had a few strange ones as an adult. For example, I kept having fears that one of my friends was going to kill himself even though he had not mentioned this to me at all and, then, he really did.

Also, when I have spoken to some people I know about my experience of premonitions, some have admitted to having some themselves. I wonder if more people have these but simply don't talk about them because it is a bit out of the norm to speak of such matters.

I don't think we are in same library, yet alone on the same page. I don't think I can engage with you.

I have been reading your ideas on chaos. I think that it is especially relevant to the idea of chance. As far as I am aware chaos theory is about a background of chaos, but with some emergence of order amidst this. I am not sure how correct chaos theory is, but it does seem to me that there is some underlying interplay within life between chaos, uncertainty and some emergent order. We may ask why does one thing happen rather than something else?

I agree with you about the problematic nature of methodological naturalism. I think that some of the issues about chance and determinism and our perception of it do go back to our metaphysical assumptions. I believe that many people are going in the direction of science for explanations, but all the underlying theories begin with metaphysics at some level.

Well, anything that demands the calculation of statistical possibilities is related to each other in a degree.
This "background of chaos" you are referring has to do with our inability to know initial conditions and non local variables in most of the quantum systems we try to measure. So again we don't really deal with "chaos" in a colloquial sense(chaos behind order) but probably with limits in our nature and methods of investigation.

And this leads us to your agreement with apokrisis on Methodological Naturalism. Methodological Naturalism(MN) doesn't have a "problematic nature". A problematic nature would be if it was based in arbitrary metaphysical principles (like many worldviews) that in turn produced unfalsifiable metaphysical speculations.
MN is NOT a metaphysical worldview. Its an Epistemic Acknowledgement of our Limits as empirical beings based on the rules principles and criteria of Logic.
MN identifies our limits on verifying or falsifying claims free of fallacies or assumptions and doesn't accept unverifiable causal agents in any of our Descriptions.
In short MN's limits are based on human limits to produce absolute proofs or to investigate hypothesized and unfalsifiable realms or agents.
MN's principles are not based on arbitrary philosophical principles but on Pragmatic Necessity of our limits in observing, testing and verifying our theoretical frameworks.

Every mental concepts needs a "piece of theory" and in the case of MN it begins by accepting metaphysical presuppositions based on direct observations (we share a common reality,this reality displays mental and physical properties with a specific contingency, by making objective evaluations we can produce credible knowledge claims etc).
Those presuppositions may be unprovable but they are not arbitrary, they are objectively verified every single time we use them and most importantly they have predictive and practical value (instrumental value).

So we need to understand that the "problematic nature" is our intellectual and methodological limitations..MN just acknowledges that problems, works with anything available and produces the best job compared to any philosophical set of principles out there.

Those presuppositions may be unprovable but they are not arbitrary, they are objectively verified every single time we use them and most importantly they have predictive and practical value (instrumental value). — Nickolasgaspar

I’m fine with methodological naturalism as a fallback position. But it is a little much to claim the virtues of being both objective and instrumental.

A pragmatist would remind that we are only after all modelling the world, and doing that with a vested interest.

In fact I take the opposite position that something exists because everything was not possible. Reality is what is left over after all the other possibilities cancelled each other away by being contradictory — apokrisis

That's a thought I had not long ago. Nothingness is, literally, the apotheosis of potential - with not a thing in nothing, there can be no contradictions and thus, anything's possible.

That's all I have to say for now. Good day. Do leave a comment if it's all the same to you.

The paradigm of chaos theory is the water wave. waves at sea propagate in a predictable and consistent manner, at a constant speed, and the movement of water molecules as the wave passes is consistent and roughly circular. But when the wave reaches the beach, it breaks and the movement becomes chaotic.

One can see thus, how on one hand the chaotic movement of gas molecules gives rise to the order of constant pressure, and on the other, how the ordered movement of the wave produces the chaotic event of the breaker.

It is a kind of foreshadowing of meeting the person I know in a premonitionary way. — Jack Cummins

Right, so one might understand it as a backward causation if such a thing were possible; the meeting in the future sets up an expectation in the mind in the past. Which would make sense if there were a spiritual aspect to consciousness that is beyond time. And since we already have no satisfactory physical theory of consciousness anyway, we need not rule it out a priori.

That's about as far as I can go with it, except to suggest that such premonitions might well be proportional to the 'importance' in terms of communication, of the future meeting. This would explain why premonitions about horse races are fairly rare.

if by "vested interest" you mean surviving and flourishing by having access to the most accurate mental model of reality...then sure I will agree! MN provides the best view to observe, study, test and evaluate our frameworks that attempt to describe the reality of our Raw Cataleptic Impressions.
Objectivism is and insturmentalism are important values for Methodological Naturalism. We can easily verify they are not as you said "a little much to claim" by just watching the standards of Science (objective independent verification) and the produced outcome (Testable predictions and technical applications). For those you don't know, MN is the philosophical backbone of Science.
So none of the rest of our philosophical worldviews have the power to fuel our epistemology like MN has been doing the last ~500 years.
With those facts in mind I can point out that your objections are unfounded but I am willing to challenge this conclusion if you are able to provide Objective, Empirical evidence for this not being the case.

it breaks and the movement becomes chaotic. — unenlightened

It appears chaotic to the observer. If we had the technology to track every single interaction we would observe that none of the interactions defy the laws of nature.
After all this was the definition someone (I don't remember who) gave about "chaos".

Methodological Naturalism is the only honest philosophical position we have. ITs principles and assumptions are easily observable and verifiable and they functions as epistemic limitations to our theoretical interpretations. It acts as guard, keeping away fallacious arguments from becoming "explanations" and hence polluting our body of knowledge.
I will create a thread just for people to learn why MN is a superior position IF our goal is to accept Knowledge claims that are supported by currently available facts of reality.
It doesn't guide to absolute knowledge but it ensures that our epistemology is free of fallacious artifacts and in line with all the Basic Rules of Logic.

I recently offered the example of a wheel. You can make a wheel any shape you like. It could be as irregular as you choose. But constrained by the purpose of getting yourself somewhere efficiently, you too will wind up designing a circular wheel — apokrisis

That's deep! Convergence, as determined by matters such as convenience, efficiency, to name a few of the possibly many factors involved.

Symmetry principles are pretty good at telling us what is probable. — apokrisis

More on this please. Gracias.

I’m fine with methodological naturalism as a fallback position. — apokrisis

Careful, however, not to fall forward into a 'transcendental illusion' (no matter how "rational" it is).

I believe that many people are going in the direction of science for explanations, but all the underlying theories begin with metaphysics at some level. — Jack Cummins

Well-tested 'scientific explanations' work, Jack, independent of whatever "most people" believe or disbelieve. "Underlying theories?" You've lost me. :confused:

It appears chaotic to the observer. — Nickolasgaspar

So don't look! Really, this is a bit silly, isn't it? You reject what can be observed in favour of what we would observe if... according to the theory you are trying to demonstrate the truth of. Not very scientific or logical, I fear. But I have no problem anyway with noticing that the laws of physics do not impose any particular universal order, and are mainly statistical in nature - as witness the gas laws for instance. On the contrary, it is the laws of nature themselves that produce the conditions of stability of the wave at sea AND the chaotic dissipation of the wave energy at the shoreline.

:monkey: :up:

-"So don't look! Really, this is a bit silly, isn't it? "
-No it only sounds to you silly because you are missing the scientific observation by which the definition of chaos comes from.
I quote...again:
Chaos: "Dynamical systems whose apparently random states of disorder and irregularities are actually governed by underlying patterns and deterministic laws that are highly sensitive to initial conditions."

Chaos theory IS the study of apparently random or unpredictable behaviour in systems governed by deterministic laws.

-"You reject what can be observed in favour of what we would observe if....according to the theory you are trying to demonstrate the truth of."
-Wrong.Theories are not used to demonstrate truths but to describe causal roles and relation within a system. The systematic and methodical observations of science has provided information on the underlying deterministic laws governing these dynamic systems. Technology(new super computers) has allow us to go deeper in those systems and verify our "suspicions".

-"Not very scientific or logical, I fear."
-Yes, but I would say that for your objection... not the scientific definitions and field of study of Chaos and I hope after reading the above definitions you'll agree and understand.

-" But I have no problem anyway with noticing that the laws of physics do not impose any particular universal order, and are mainly statistical in nature - as witness the gas laws for instance."
-Sure, they can describe rules displayed by specific processes within the universal process.

-" On the contrary, it is the laws of nature themselves that produce the conditions of stability of the wave at sea AND the chaotic dissipation of the wave energy at the shoreline. "
-if by "laws of natures" you mean the rules we observe emerging in the interactions of different elements of matter with different properties then yes. Everything you see is undermined by those rules. THe difference between ordered and chaotic systems is that in the case of the later we don't have access to the initial conditions and non local variables that affect the systems... making themr appear random and disordered.

Metaphysics IS a tool of Natural Philosophy a.k.a Science.
Just because Science split from the rest of the Academia and acquired a wide set of empirical methodologies to test our epistemology that doesn't mean that Science stopped being, In principle, a Philosophical Category.
Science and Philosophy both attempt to explain the world through Theoretical models.
The theories that aren't verified yet (beyond our current knowledge) are Metaphysics for both fields.
Scientists are still awarded with PhDs (Doctor of Philosophy).
So metaphysics is an intrinsic part of Science and science is the best way to do philosophy when data are available.
Metaphysics is what scientists do when they form Hypotheses.

@Jack Cummins, an update for you if you're interested that is.

1. You're walking down a street, thinking of nothing in particular. You look to your left and on the wall is a Coca Cola advertisement. You then bump into someone. You turn to apologize and you realize that the person in front of you is the CEO of Coca Cola. Coincidence, meaningful.

2. You and your friend are in a deli. As you chow down on the burgers you ordered, you discuss Will Smith (the actor) and his movie I am legend. Just as one of you say "Will Smith", Will Smith walks by on the sidewalk outside the deli. Coincidence, meaningful.

3. You're in your room, quite bored. You lie down on the bed and a random thought - a police car chase you saw on the idiot box. Just then, two squad vehicles zoom past your room, sirens blaring. Coincidence, meaningful. — TheMadFool

The examples I gave above are inappropriate for what I want to say but they're not a total loss in a manner of speaking.

Anyway, here's one particular scenario that elucidates the matter.

Imagine the two of us are in a restaurant and are sharing a meal together.

Possibility 1: Will Smith (the black actor) walks by. We both see him. Our conversation then drifts into his movies, his acting prowess, black actors, black history, blah, blah, blah. Nothing's amiss. This isn't synchronicity.

Possibility 2: For some reason we discuss Will Smith, say he's my favorite black thespian. As we're talking about him, Will Smith walks by the window next to which the two of us are seated. This is synchronicity.

What's the difference between possibility 1 and possibility 2? My intuition tells me that what's odd/strange/uncanny about possibility 2 is causal reversal - talking about Will Smith AND Will Smith's presence occurs as a matter of routine in the lives of hundreds of thousands of people but the usual way, the natural order, this takes place is first see Will Smith and second talk about Will Smith. In synchronicity, the situation is exactly the opposite i.e. first talk about Will Smith, second see Will Smith. This produces a causal illusion - you and I going over Will Smith's life had the amazing effect of Will Smith walking by just as we were doing so.

This scenario can be adapted to simultaneous events as causation requires for the cause to --temporally precede its effect.

Also, to cover some of the scenarios I described above, we have to also consider the fact that in some instances that fit the description of synchronicity the special nature of the event has nothing to do with causality, directly at least. In the Coca Cola example, there isn't any reason to think the Coke advertisement can/should produce the effect of meeting the CEO of Coca Cola or vice versa. Why is this synchronicity then? My hunch is that it's unexpected to the point the phrase "never in my wildest dreams" would be applicable and this in mathematical circles is what's known as extremely improbable event.

To sum it all up, synchronicity is about,

1. Cases of apparent causal reversal.

2. Highly unlikely events

3. Simultaneous events in which case causality is N/A

I hope this helps Jack Cummins

I definitely think that the foreshadowing of premonitions is connected to the nature of time and its direction of flow or arrow. When I first spent time reading about premonitions, I began reading a book by JB Priestley called, Man and Time' which suggests that time can be seen as dimension in which the details of time are placed and the nature of premonitions shows the way of stepping out into timelessness, at which everything can be seen as arising in the sequence of causal reality.

More recently, I have read Stephen Hawking's,
'A Brief History of Time', which speaks of the arrow of time and of imaginary time. He said,
'Imaginary time is indistinguishable from directions in space. If one can go north, one can turn around and head south; equally, if one can go forward in imaginary time, one ought to be turn round and go backward. This means that there can be no important difference between the forward and backwards of imaginary time. On the other hand, when one looks at "real" time, there's a very big distinction between the forward and backwards directions as we know it'. Perhaps, the nature of premonitions and experience of synchronicity involves stepping outside of what is experienced as causal reality into the dimension of imaginary time.

It is interesting that it is not easy to use premonitions for advantage, such as knowing lottery numbers. In most cases, they appear as almost useless fragments. However, I am aware of a couple of people who have said that they have experienced intuitive flashes that someone they knew was in need of some medical attention, such as a friend who I knew who had an intuition to go to see someone and found him in a diabetic coma and she was able to facilitate the necessary medical support needed.