Excellent question. To digress, as I so often do, there's an article I refer to , Quantum mysteries dissolve if possibilities are realities, which echoes an idea spelled out by Werner Heisenberg - that quantum states exist as unrealised potentialities, 'res potentia', one of which is actualised by the measurement process. It's the idea that the unmanifested or potential reality is actualised through measurement.

Excellent question. To digress, as I so often do, there's an article I refer to , Quantum mysteries dissolve if possibilities are realities, which echoes an idea spelled out by Werner Heisenberg - that quantum states exist as unrealized potentialities, 'res potentia', one of which is actualized by the measurement process. It's the idea that the unmanifested or potential reality is actualized through measurement. — Wayfarer

Big debate in quantum theory, does the measurement discern the actual property (location, momentum) or does the measurement, observation, interaction (itself) create the actual from the range of potential possibilities. I following process think of these things as events and thus think there is no exact location or property until the interaction takes place. I do not think this process however is confined to human measurement and instrumentation but that these interactions (collapses, potential to actual) are occurring all the time between events and processes thus the more seemingly concrete macro world we largely live in and observe.

I do not think this process however is confined to human measurement and instrumentation but that these interactions (collapses, potential to actual) are occurring all the time between events and processes thus the more seemingly concrete macro world we largely live in and observe. — prothero

That's the process of decoherence. It explains why we don't ever find a cat that is at once dead and alive, but it still doesn't totally solve the observer problem. What interests me in this context is the role of observation in the actualisation of potential.

I don't see the observer (human I presume) interaction or measurement as being any different than all the interactions that are occurring all the time in nature. Why would they be?
We agree on the way our minds structure and interpret reality for us, we disagree on to what degree we create reality external to our minds (seemingly consequential for you, for me just an effect on our understanding fairly trivial as to its effect on the external world itself)..

You mean, the in itself, right?

I think another area of disagreement is our access to the "ding an sic}. You seem to think we are pretty much excluded from Knowledge about it. I don't envision us as cut off in that way, we arise from the world, we are embedded in the world, we have to navigate it to survive and thus I think our "representation" is pretty accurate. Just as subjective experience is as much part of nature (and philosophy) as scientific investigation, we are part of nature not isolated from it..

many deep questions involved. I’ll revert to my initial post - material reality is an aspect of cognitive experience.

//although I will mention the title of the Whitehead article I mentioned yesterday, which I believe is a quote from the man himself - ‘ Apart from the Experiences of Subjects There Is Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Bare Nothingness’,//

//although I will mention the title of the Whitehead article I mentioned yesterday, which I believe is a quote from the man himself - ‘ Apart from the Experiences of Subjects There Is Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, Bare Nothingness’,// — Wayfarer

Ah, yes, but for whitehead every event (actual occasion) is a subject onto itself, there are no vacuous entities. He does not mean just humans' and .higher forms of life. :grin: Isolated quotes lack context.

I know they do, but the article from which that line was taken was very detailed — many thousands of words — and it spells out what that remark means in considerable depth.

I understand Whitehead's point, which is made quite explicit in that sentence: that there are no objects that exist in their own right, apart from or independent of any subject. I also understand that, for Whitehead, subjects are not necessarily human — or even organic — but are what he calls ‘actual occasions of experience’, which are the fundamental units of reality. So his aim is to restore subjectivity — the subject — which had been excluded or bracketed out by post-Cartesian dualism. He seeks to disclose subjectivity as a fundamental constituent of existence.

I understand and respect that project, but I would say I’m approaching the same issue from a different orientation. I’m criticizing the notion that objects possess inherent existence independently of any mind, as well — but whereas Whitehead’s approach is ontological (concerned with the constituents of being), the approach I’m exploring is epistemological (concerned with the conditions of knowing). That’s why I align more closely with a Kantian perspective.

While both philosophers are deeply engaged with the relationship between mind and world, Kant approaches it by asking how the mind structures experience and knowledge, whereas Whitehead approaches it by proposing that the world itself is composed of proto-subjective events or ‘prehensions’ at every level of reality.

But I'm open to considering it in more detail. And also exploring parallels between Whitehead and other pan-experientialist approaches.

but whereas Whitehead’s approach is ontological (concerned with the constituents of being), the approach I’m exploring is epistemological (concerned with the conditions of knowing). That’s why I align more closely with a Kantian perspective.

While both philosophers are deeply engaged with the relationship between mind and world, Kant approaches it by asking how the mind structures experience and knowledge, whereas Whitehead approaches it by proposing that the world itself is composed of proto-subjective events or ‘prehensions’ at every level of reality. — Wayfarer

You can try David Skrbina "Panpsychism in the West" for a survey or David Ray Griffin writings on Whitehead and panexperientialism. It is a pretty significant difference there between Kant and human minds and epistemology and Whitehead with subjectivity as an ontological feature of all of the fundamental constituents of reality "actual occasions". Kant I do not think would entertain panpsychism in any form as an explanation of human mind whereas Whitehead sees primitive experience as a fundamental feature of all of reality and process.

Kant I do not think would entertain panpsychism in any form as an explanation of human mind whereas Whitehead sees primitive experience as a fundamental feature of all of reality and process. — prothero

I read a book by David Ray Griffin, (although was later dissappointed to learn he was a 9/11 conspiracy theorist.)

The view I'm advocating also draws on Buddhism, specifically a 1955 book called The Central Philosophy of Buddhism, T R V Murti. Murti draws comparisons between Buddhist 'middle way' (madhyamaka) philosophy and Kant, Hegel, Bradley and other idealist philosophers.

The problematic that Buddhism begins with is not the nature of the constituents of reality, but the cause of dukkha (usually translated as 'suffering'). Within that framework, the nature and relation of subjective and objective reality is resolved in a completely different way to Whitehead's. It does not posit any kind of pan-experiential elementary constituents. My interpretation is that subjectivity emerges with the formation of organic life. Even very rudimentary life-forms possess a kind of subjectivity, if not subjective awareness in the sense humans do. Schopenhauer puts it like this, speaking in terms of the evolution of life (and bearing in mind, this was published before the Origin of Species):

each more highly organised state of matter has succeeded a cruder state: so that the lower animals existed before men, fishes before land animals, plants before fishes, and the unorganised before all that is organised; that, consequently, the original mass had to pass through a long series of changes before the first eye could be opened. And yet, the existence of this whole world remains ever dependent upon the first eye that opened, even if it were that of an insect. For such an eye is a necessary condition of the possibility of knowledge, and the whole world exists only in and for knowledge, and without it is not even thinkable. The world is entirely idea, and as such demands the knowing subject as the supporter of its existence. This long course of time itself, filled with innumerable changes, through which matter rose from form to form till at last the first percipient creature appeared,—this whole time itself is only thinkable in the identity of a consciousness whose succession of ideas, whose form of knowing it is, and apart from which, it loses all meaning and is nothing at all.

The point I'm pressing is that, outside our consciousness of time, space, matter, and so on, the whole notion of existence or non-existence is meaningless. We know, of course, that there was an immense period of time prior to the evolution of h.sapiens (which is where this discussion started) - but Schopenhauer is pointing out that this whole conception is meaningful within the framework provided by the observing mind. So, while it's empirically true that the world existed prior to the evolution of h.sapiens, the true nature of that existence is unknowable apart from the cognitive and theoretical framework within which we imagine it. Hence, with Whitehead, I agree that 'outside the subject there is nothing', but within a different explanatory framework to the one he proposes.

Schopenhauer goes on:

Thus we see, on the one hand, the existence of the whole world necessarily dependent upon the first conscious being, however undeveloped it may be; on the other hand, this conscious being just as necessarily entirely dependent upon a long chain of causes and effects which have preceded it, and in which it itself appears as a small link. These two contradictory points of view, to each of which we are led with the same necessity, we might again call an antinomy in our faculty of knowledge… The necessary contradiction which at last presents itself to us here, finds its solution in the fact that, to use Kant’s phraseology, time, space, and causality do not belong to the thing-in-itself (i.e. the world as it is independently of perception), but only to its phenomena, of which they are the form; which in my language means this: The objective world, the world as idea, is not the only side of the world, but merely its outward side; and it has an entirely different side—the side of its inmost nature—its kernel—the thing-in-itself… But the world as idea… only appears with the opening of the first eye. Without this medium of knowledge it cannot be, and therefore it was not before it. But without that eye, that is to say, outside of knowledge, there was also no before, no time. Thus time has no beginning, but all beginning is in time.

Murti's book points out the many parallels between Kant's 'antinomies of reason' and the Buddha's 'unanswereable questions' (i.e. whether the world is eternal, whether the mind and the body are the same or different, among other things.) So in this framework it is not necessary to posit a speculative 'pan-subjectivity'. It starts and ends with insight into the world-making activities of the mind.

This article is presented quite well. I will point out three things:

1.

Emergent properties are known to be partially independent from their grounds because they have attributes and functions not present in their grounds. Chief among these distinct attributes and functions is intent. Intent is a function of the designing mind that thinks strategically about “that which is not yet but will be.”

Are they known as such? This is a topic of huge debate. The author might be interested in Jaegwon Kim's monographs. He is considered to have offered a devastating critique of the idea of anything like "strong emergence" under a supervenience metaphysics. But this article avoids the problem of "how do chemicals interacting cause first person experiences, emotions, intentionality, sensory experience," with this appeal to emergence, while still seemingly embracing a substance metaphysics of supervenience. This would be something to address to make the argument tighter. Process metaphysics is often suggested as a potential avenue around this, but process metaphysics rejects supervenience (and might not be considered "materialism" in the normal sense).

Weak emergence is pretty much just data compression, so it doesn't solve the problem here at all.

Second, as a number of authors have pointed out, whatever emerges from strong emergence is in some sense fundamental because it cannot be accounted for by what it emerges from. So, even if the mental is a product of strong emergence, it would not seem to be the case that it could be adequately explained in terms of neurons. It would rather be the case that neurons, etc. are a prerequisite for mental phenomena, but cannot fully explain them. That is, physical sciences couldn't fully explain mental life. Would that still count as what the author means by "materialism?"

This is a tension, since arguably this is exactly what people mean by "non-material" many times, right? This leads to...

2. Material and non-material are never defined. This makes it difficult to understand what exactly is being argued against or for. The main explanation of what the non-material must entail sounds like substance dualism. This is a popular punching bag, but not a popular position. It might be good to take on some more popular positions as a means of clarifying what the positive position is, or just clarifying the positive position. That the body is a cause of experienced isn't really denied by many metaphysical theories, so the basics that get outlined don't clarify this much.

3. The brain in the vat example seems to actually stress the idea that brains don't cause consciousness on their own. Any brain locked in vacuum will be a dead brain. Brains only ever produce consciousness in bodies, outside of sci-fi situations bordering on magic. They need a constant exchange of energy, information, and causes across their boundaries to produce any experience at all. Bodies also only produce experience within a very narrow range of environmental conditions. They won't do so on a star, in space, or at the bottom of the sea. So it's really a much larger physical system that is required to account for even tiny intervals of mental life. And these include elements outside the body.

The author sort of gets at this, I just think it undermines the early framing of things largely in terms of neurons. Neurons are important, necessary, but apparently not sufficient for experience. You always need a body and an environment. These can just be more variable, but still must comport to a very narrow range in the grand scheme of things.

Finally, some views of "materialism" rolled out by physicists are so thoroughly mathematized that they seem more like idealism. This is just another reason why 'materialism' needs to be defined. Otherwise, it seems vulnerable to Hemple's dilemma and the charge that " material" is just a vague term for "real."

I’m also making the point that this suggests that the domain of possibility exceeds and is different to the domain of actuality - again, something which recent history abundantly illustrates. — Wayfarer

Do you think that within the domain of possibility, there is a social reality such that P1 (possibility one) holds a conversation with P2 (possibility two)?

If we conclude social reality doesn't attach itself to possibility, must we also conclude possibility is emergent from human conversation?

You seem to acknowledge mind cannot be uncoupled from brain.

If you do make this acknowledgement, then consider the following transitive argument: If mind cannot be uncoupled from brain, then possibility cannot be uncoupled from brain.

Do you think that within the domain of possibility, there is a social reality such that P1 (possibility one) holds a conversation with P2 (possibility two)? — ucarr

I can't really make sense of that question. There are no discrete domains in that sense. The textbook example I referred to is the role of observation in quantum physics and the fact that the act of observation or registration precipitates a particular outcome from an indeterminate range of possibilities.

In a more general sense, we are able to consider possibilities and find ways to realise them - make them real, in other words.

You seem to acknowledge mind cannot be uncoupled from brain. — ucarr

And you seem always determined to argue that 'the physical is fundamental.' So far, I'm not persuaded, but then again I've never accepted physicalism as a philosophy.

The textbook example I referred to is the role of observation in quantum physics and the fact that the act of observation or registration precipitates a particular outcome from an indeterminate range of possibilities. — Wayfarer

Your reply here shows you making good sense of my question. You show that observable phenomena are the result of crosstalk in the sense of conversation between sentients; the object-subject dance; the organizational formatting of consciousness vis-á-vis the unmediated glut of possibility.

There are no discrete domains in that sense. — Wayfarer

Correct. Consciousness is always a blooming tangle of inter-weaving gravitations not strictly local.

In a more general sense, we are able to consider possibilities and find ways to realise them - make them real, in other words. — Wayfarer

Yes. You describe how a sentient like you brings the organizational formatting of consciousness to the unmanaged glut of the fundamentals.

And you seem always determined to argue that 'the physical is fundamental.' — Wayfarer

What's fundamental is the pairing of brain_mind. Given one means given the other. IFF.

@ucarr

Just as the time compression of abstract thought makes mental constructs seem timeless, the time dilation of absential materialism makes intentional constructs seem immaterial. The time compression of abstract thought is to the time dilation of absential materialism as the discrete boundaries of the particle form are to the probability clouds of the waveform. — ucarr

Your section on time is the part I found the most interesting of this reflection. "time compression/dilation", in the context of your equation for material reality, reminds me of Kant. Actually your schema generally reminds me of Kant, for that matter -- the material reality outside of the senses to the senses to the physical mind to the mental correlate to the concept to the sentence -- and were this to continue in that vein your time compression/dilation would take place somewhere in-between the neural correlates to the mental and the mental.

Only you do go a step further and equate basically everything with material reality, even the supervening mental correlates.

That'd probably be the part that's hardest for me to wrap my mind around. I have often thought of how to naturalize Kant, but ultimately gave it up because it just always seemed to go a step too far for what is written. And once naturalized you end back in the antinomies of freedom/causation, for instance -- the noumenal took care of the "beyond" in his system. How would you account for such an antinomy using your equation? Or would it just be set aside as uninteresting?

...your equation for material reality, reminds me of Kant. Actually your schema generally reminds me of Kant... — Moliere

Only you do go a step further and equate basically everything with material reality, even the supervening mental correlates. — Moliere

And once naturalized you end back in the antinomies of freedom/causation, for instance -- the noumenal took care of the "beyond" in his system. How would you account for such an antinomy using your equation? — Moliere

I should let your feedback marinate in my memory for a few days, but I'm motivated to share right now my capsule thought that the apparent contradiction between symmetry_causation on the one side and change-of-form_conservation on the other, or, in a single word, truth, resembles a yin-yang interweave.

I say this to show I'm not a reductive materialist. I think material thing_abstract thought are a matched set, as in p→q. I'm endeavoring to think about the relationship being best expressed by a⟺b. There's an IFF about the two modes of being, but maybe there's something wrong with this characterization.

I see light from thinking thus: the subvenience of the brain grounds the supervenience of the mind, and vice versa. I fear this too is a faulty characterization, but I take my daily comfort from believing that the two modes are equally omnipresent and indispensable and they, along with consciousness, are at all times essential to existence.

From here I proceed to thinking all systems of existence are both physical and consciousness-bearing.

Physics without thought has no order; thought without physics has no meaning.

I doubt the hard work revolves around the either/or binary. I think it hovers around the interrelations connecting the two modes. Perhaps the fine details of these interrelations merge into Wittgenstein’s silence.

I see that my title is misleading; my assumption is that perception of material reality assumes abstract thought and, abstract thought assumes material reality.

Physics without thought has no order; thought without physics has no meaning. — ucarr

Thought without physics still has the substrate for physics, which is experienced phenomena. Thought is always about something, always has its object. The physical is just a hisotricallycontingent abstraction constructed out of our experience with phenomenally perceived objects. Two hundred years from now our sciences may no longer need the concepts of physics or the physical object, but they will still be about phenomenal objects.

Two hundred years from now our sciences may no longer need the concepts of physics or the physical object, but they will still be about phenomenal objects. — Joshs

The "what" and the "how."

The "what," ultimately, is axiomatic. There it is before you. No analysis can justify it being there before you. Logic might justify how it came to be there before you, but the fact of its presence before you lies beyond the reach of continuity. So, Heisenberg and Gödel alert us to the incompleteness of continuity.

The "how" is a narrative that distributes the "what." Herein lies meaningful continuity. When we seek answers, we seek a story that supplies those answers. The greatness of a story lies within the "how," not within the "what." A great story about mediocre things is more momentous than a mediocre story about great things.

The mystery of narrative lies in the "now" not being eternal but rather incomplete.

The Now

Every story is a journey to the now; no story ever gets there.

So, the symmetry of mind and matter is such that we never get to the essence of a thing, and we never get to the end of a story. On graph paper this symmetry might look like two parabolas approaching but never touching.

The "what," ultimately, is axiomatic. There it is before you. No analysis can justify it being there before you. Logic might justify how it came to be there before you, but the fact of its presence before you lies beyond the reach of continuity. So, Heisenberg and Gödel alert us to the incompleteness of continuity.

The "how" is a narrative that distributes the "what." Herein lies meaningful continuity. When we seek answers, we seek a story that supplies those answers. The greatness of a story lies within the "how," not within the "what — ucarr

I think this distinction between the what and the how is very important. It is what allows us to see that meaning is finite. It is not just that, as Gödel asserted, each axiomatic system grounds itself within a more encompassing system ad infinitum, but that the changes over time in the stories and narratives we use to interpret experience aren’t logically derivable from each other. They dont fit one within the other in an infinite regress, but follow one another as a change of subject.

The "what," ultimately, is axiomatic. There it is before you. No analysis can justify it being there before you. Logic might justify how it came to be there before you, but the fact of its presence before you lies beyond the reach of continuity. So, Heisenberg and Gödel alert us to the incompleteness of continuity.

The "how" is a narrative that distributes the "what." Herein lies meaningful continuity. When we seek answers, we seek a story that supplies those answers. The greatness of a story lies within the "how," not within the "what." A great story about mediocre things is more momentous than a mediocre story about great things. — ucarr

What is the "you" in this explanation, and what is the relation of "stands before it" - spatial, temporal, etc.? If you are describing a view doesn't that mean realism is the case? If solipsism is the case, then it would not be proper to call it a view, but reality itself with the only continuity being the loop of causation within itself. Continuity would be complete if solipsism is the case.

If solipsism is the case, then why does the "what" appear as the view of an external world if it isn't? It appears that way axiomatically. I respond to the "what" instinctively in a way that treats it as an external world. The instincts become part of the "what". The instinctive analysis and logic (integrating the "what" with another part of the "what" (memories (retained "whats")) (why do similar "whats" axiomatically integrate with similar memories) is part of the "what" as well.

How can one say that there is an incompleteness of continuity when one can predict which direction the causal continuity will go within one's own mind (perceiving, reasoning, etc. reasons precede and support conclusions) by using logic that can be applied to there being continuity beyond the mind that produces predictable "whats" in the same way that using logic to explain only the continuity of the mind will produce predictable results - conclusions will always follow reasons, etc.?

If I fail to apply logic to only the continuity of the goings on within the "what" then I fail to achieve predictable results within the "what" itself.

I think this distinction between the what and the how is very important. It is what allows us to see that meaning is finite. It is not just that, as Gödel asserted, each axiomatic system grounds itself within a more encompassing system ad infinitum, but that the changes over time in the stories and narratives we use to interpret experience aren’t logically derivable from each other. They dont fit one within the other in an infinite regress, but follow one another as a change of subject. — Joshs

I think the more important distinction that needs to cleared up is the "you" and the "what stands before it".

What is the "you" in this explanation, and what is the relation of "stands before it" - spatial, temporal, etc.? — Harry Hindu

The "you" is a sentient being with an enduring point of view evolving as a personal history and a capacity for abstract thought preserved in memory.

The “you” and the “what” both occupy spacetime in a relationship allowing the “you” to have an empirical experience perceiving the “what.”

If you are describing a view doesn't that mean realism is the case? — Harry Hindu

By "realism" I understand you to refer to an aspect of empirical experience that I define thus: If you know what a thing is (you know the measurements of its dimensions) and where it is (you know where a thing is positioned by measuring the relationship of its spatial dimensions to the spatial dimensions of things around it), then you know the reality of the thing.

If solipsism is the case, then it would not be proper to call it a view, but reality itself with the only continuity being the loop of causation within itself. — Harry Hindu

I hold the view that in the instance of sentience -- one of my assumptions fundamental to my claims herein -- self-awareness makes the self an object of its sentience; this is the personal history extending from the "I experience things, and I know I experience things." phenomenon. Since solipsism assumes sentience, and therefore self-awareness and its attendant self-objectification, then the sentient maintains a view of itself. I think your, "...reality itself with the only continuity being the loop of causation within itself." excludes sentience and therefore precludes solipsism. This state of reality reads like Kant's noumenal realm, a realm that strikes me as the set of axiomatically real things, i.e., brute existential facts.

Continuity would be complete if solipsism is the case. — Harry Hindu

Within Kant's noumenal realm of things in themselves, I think continuity is a phenomenon more precisely labeled circularity: "I'm a chair because I'm a chair because..."

If solipsism is the case, then why does the "what" appear as the view of an external world if it isn't? — Harry Hindu

Again, I think sentients view themselves objectively towards building a personal history.

It appears that way axiomatically. I respond to the "what" instinctively in a way that treats it as an external world. The instincts become part of the "what". The instinctive analysis and logic (integrating the "what" with another part of the "what" (memories (retained "whats")) (why do similar "whats" axiomatically integrate with similar memories) is part of the "what" as well. — Harry Hindu

I understand you to be saying the "what" is configured in solipsism such that,

...it would not be proper to call it a view, but reality itself with the only continuity being the loop of causation within itself. Continuity would be complete if solipsism is the case. — Harry Hindu

If brute existential facts are circular, as I suppose, then continuity would not be an issue in the absence of sentience, and moreover, subjectivity (which thrives upon continuity) would be a non-starter in the absence of the possibility of solipsism.

By you saying,

...why does the "what" appear as the view of an external world if it isn't? — Harry Hindu

I understand you to mean continuity, in the context of solipsism, being a solitary loop of causation within itself, cannot be external, and thus cannot be perceived. If, as I think, solipsism includes self-objectivity, then it’s either paradoxical, i.e., it objectifies and externalizes the solitary self – this because solipsism assumes sentience and, in turn, sentience assumes self-awareness – or it’s self-effacing and thus, by definition, cannot exist.

I respond to the "what" instinctively in a way that treats it as an external world. The instincts become part of the "what". The instinctive analysis and logic (integrating the "what" with another part of the "what" (memories (retained "whats")) (why do similar "whats" axiomatically integrate with similar memories) is part of the "what" as well. — Harry Hindu

These details, being one with,

...why does the "what" appear as the view of an external world if it isn't? — Harry Hindu

Firstly, I respond by repeating my argument directly above. Secondly, I respond by invoking Russell's Paradox. The upshot of this paradox is seeing that for set theory, the scope of comprehension cannot logically support itself without restriction. There is no set that contains everything. There can be no unification of everything into oneness. Perhaps you say the universe is not a set. Well, I too say it's not a set. I justify my claim by saying existence is incomplete. Moreover, I say existence, by its nature, preserves its incompleteness strategically. For these reasons, I claim there is no complete continuity. Were that possible, there could be unification of everything into oneness.

Let's look at Russell's Paradox in relation to solipsism. Consider the set of all sets not members of themselves. Well, if this set is not a member of itself, then it meets the criterion for being a member of itself, and thereby it meets the criterion for not being a member of itself. This time-zero logical pendulum swing between two contradictory states of being places the set within the realm of undefined. Well, undefined is a pretty good synonym for incomplete.

Any postulation of an all-inclusive oneness must, by definition, contain this undefined state as mandated by the paradoxicality of the unrestricted scope of comprehension, i.e., cosmic oneness. For these reasons, Russell's Paradox stands as the principle argument for a) strategic incompleteness of creation and for b) cosmic oneness impossible.

The Now, being an essential part of strategic incompleteness, herein needs to be defined. It's not the everlasting, but rather the ever-present with a stipulation: the ever-present is always here but never completely approachable. That's the heart of strategic incompletion. The world is a story always approaching The Now but never arriving, and that's a good thing.

How can one say that there is an incompleteness of continuity when one can predict which direction the causal continuity will go within one's own mind (perceiving, reasoning, etc. reasons precede and support conclusions) by using logic that can be applied to there being continuity beyond the mind that produces predictable "whats" in the same way that using logic to explain only the continuity of the mind will produce predictable results - conclusions will always follow reasons, etc.? — Harry Hindu

I respond to,

... by using logic that can be applied to there being continuity beyond the mind... — Harry Hindu

with

Physics without thought has no order... — ucarr

I respond to

How can one say that there is an incompleteness of continuity when one can predict which direction the causal continuity will go within one's own mind (perceiving, reasoning, etc. reasons precede and support conclusions)... — Harry Hindu

with

It is not just that, as Gödel asserted, each axiomatic system grounds itself within a more encompassing system ad infinitum, but that the changes over time in the stories and narratives we use to interpret experience aren’t logically derivable from each other. They dont fit one within the other in an infinite regress, but follow one another as a change of subject. — Joshs

If I fail to apply logic to only the continuity of the goings on within the "what" then I fail to achieve predictable results within the "what" itself. — Harry Hindu

As I read your "if_then" conjunction, I find that the continuity of the statement is broken by a non-sequitur in the "then" part.

Also, I note that you partition "what" into a phenomenal "what" followed by a noumenal "what." If by the partition you intend to distinguish thoughts of the mind from brute existential facts of the world, then I say you can't effect such a partition. We can only "enter" the noumenal realm through the lens of the mind.

I think this distinction between the what and the how is very important. It is what allows us to see that meaning is finite. It is not just that, as Gödel asserted, each axiomatic system grounds itself within a more encompassing system ad infinitum, but that the changes over time in the stories and narratives we use to interpret experience aren’t logically derivable from each other. They dont fit one within the other in an infinite regress, but follow one another as a change of subject. — Joshs

I think the more important distinction that needs to cleared up is the "you" and the "what stands before it". — Harry Hindu

I hope my comments here have done some clearing up of the "you" and the "what."

The "you" is a sentient being with an enduring point of view evolving as a personal history and a capacity for abstract thought preserved in memory.

The “you” and the “what” both occupy spacetime in a relationship allowing the “you” to have an empirical experience perceiving the “what.” — ucarr

But isn't all this a "how" of the "what"?

By "realism" I understand you to refer to an aspect of empirical experience that I define thus: If you know what a thing is (you know the measurements of its dimensions) and where it is (you know where a thing is positioned by measuring the relationship of its spatial dimensions to the spatial dimensions of things around it), then you know the reality of the thing. — ucarr

By realism, I mean the idea that there is a mind-independent world - a "how" to the "what". In other words, "the what stands before the you" is a statement made only after one has provided a type of "how" to the "what". The "you" would also be a "how" in trying to make sense of the "what". Another type of "how" would be solipsism. If solipsism were the case, there would be no you with a what standing before it. You and the what would be one and the same if solipsism were the case.

Since solipsism assumes sentience, and therefore self-awareness and its attendant self-objectification, then the sentient maintains a view of itself. I think your, "...reality itself with the only continuity being the loop of causation within itself." excludes sentience and therefore precludes solipsism. This state of reality reads like Kant's noumenal realm, a realm that strikes me as the set of axiomatically real things, i.e., brute existential facts. — ucarr

Exactly. Solipsism is a possible "how" to the "what". The way I interpreted your "what" is simply an acknowledgement that something exists (axiomatic), and the "how" is an explanation as to the nature of what and the why it exists in the first place (solipsism and realism are possible explanations of the "what" - the thing that exists). Whether the "what" is a mind (solipsism) or a world (realism) is all laid out by the "how". So talking about awareness and sentience already assumes that the "what" is a mind. What I meant by, "reality itself with the only continuity being the loop of causation within itself" was that if solipsism is the case, then the "what" is all that exists and all continuity would be contained within it. Realism is the notion that the "what" is not all that exists.

Firstly, I respond by repeating my argument directly above. Secondly, I respond by invoking Russell's Paradox. The upshot of this paradox is seeing that for set theory, the scope of comprehension cannot logically support itself without restriction. There is no set that contains everything. There can be no unification of everything into oneness. Perhaps you say the universe is not a set. Well, I too say it's not a set. I justify my claim by saying existence is incomplete. Moreover, I say existence, by its nature, preserves its incompleteness strategically. For these reasons, I claim there is no complete continuity. Were that possible, there could be unification of everything into oneness. — ucarr

What does "everything" mean if not putting all things under one category - everything? And doesn't "everything" imply that there are no things external to it because it includes ALL things - everywhere and everywhen. If existence is eternal, "existence" would simply be synonymous with "everything". Doesn't solipsism imply that the "what" is all there is? Isn't this why the "you", and by extension "self-awareness" (awareness of "you") in solipsism is really just part of the "how"? Solipsism is simply trying to make sense of the "what" and uses terms like "you" and "self-awareness" as the "how" to explain the nature of "what". The issue is in the instinctive, axiomatic nature of explaining the "what" in the first place. Explanation appears to be an inherent part of the "what". Maybe I'm wrong and it is part of the "how".

That's the heart of strategic incompletion. The world is a story always approaching The Now but never arriving, and that's a good thing. — ucarr

I don't really understand how it's a paradox. Everything is all things and would be illogical to include everything as part of itself. Everything, by definition, is all things so would be an improper use of language to then assert that everything is part of something rather than all things, or that everything should refer to itself. It seems to me that the paradox is really the result of a misuse of language.

But isn't all this a "how" of the "what"? — Harry Hindu

Yes. Like the inter-relationship between the waveform and the particle, the what and the how do not comprise a hard binary isolating one from the other. A writer can easily write a narrative of the how of the what, or the what of the how. The link between the objective and the subjective is bi-directional.

The issue is in the instinctive, axiomatic nature of explaining the "what" in the first place. — Harry Hindu

By realism, I mean the idea that there is a mind-independent world - a "how" to the "what". In other words, "the what stands before the you" is a statement made only after one has provided a type of "how" to the "what". The "you" would also be a "how" in trying to make sense of the "what". Another type of "how" would be solipsism. If solipsism were the case, there would be no you with a what standing before it. You and the what would be one and the same if solipsism were the case. — Harry Hindu

If I parallel how and what with means and goal, then I read your above statement as an example of the use of mind-independent world to argue for a state of a system which assumes that state of a system. You're arguing for what you already assume to be the case. You distinguish realism from solipsism by assuming mind-independence. If this distinction is re-assigned to moot status, then neither mind-independence nor solipsim are known to exist.

In your elaboration of solipsism, your argue against a distinct self by means of a concept of absolute self. Solipsism and self-awareness-zero seem to me to be mutually exclusive.

Whether the "what" is a mind (solipsism) or a world (realism) is all laid out by the "how". So talking about awareness and sentience already assumes that the "what" is a mind. — Harry Hindu

I think your separation of mind and world is far too binary; the distinction is too discrete. Since the brain is a switching system that assembles cognition-aggregates from various sources, it can only be subsumed into what status, i.e., goal status in a state of unconsciousness. But, consciousness is the brain's function, so brain as a brute existential fact without separation from same into emergent mind is an unnatural and manipulated state of the system for the sake of making an argument for

reality itself with the only continuity being the loop of causation within itself — Harry Hindu

Everything is all things and would be illogical to include everything as part of itself. — Harry Hindu

By saying this you imply everything is not part of itself and thus you imply everything is not everything; this is a replication of Russell's Paradox. If it's true one can't refute Russell's Paradox with respect to everything conceptualized as a unity, then there's evidence the paradox is insuperable. If the paradox is insuperable, that implies the system cannot be closed because, by definition, anything closed has an exterior and is thus superable.

If this is a language entanglement, then common sense supports taking recourse to the understanding language doesn’t completely represent the existential (existence is insuperable and therefore not closed), and perhaps in part that’s because the existential is incomplete.

By saying this you imply everything is not part of itself and thus you imply everything is not everything; this is a replication of Russell's Paradox. — ucarr

This is not what I'm implying when I use those words, and I don't know anyone that does imply that when using the term, "everything". It is only a misuse of language that allows one to create the paradox. "Everything" is not a thing and therefore would not be included in "all things". A theory of everything would be able to predict why there is a theory of everything.

"Everything" could be implying "infinity" and "eternity" here. Everything does not imply either a closed or open system. It merely refers to all things. By definition, "everything" does not include "everything", it is merely a scribble that refers to everything that exists - whether we are aware of it's existence or not is a different matter.

Everything is all things and would be illogical to include everything as part of itself. — Harry Hindu

By saying this you imply everything is not part of itself and thus you imply everything is not everything; this is a replication of Russell's Paradox. — ucarr

This is not what I'm implying when I use those words, and I don't know anyone that does imply that when using the term, "everything". It is only a misuse of language that allows one to create the paradox. — Harry Hindu

Your sentence in bold makes a declaration about a phenomenon pertaining to language usage: paradox. This usage happens, it's real, it exists. This fact gives us reason to believe paradoxical language exists and therefore should be included in a collection of everything. The more important question pertains to whether or not paradoxical language refers to anything external to language. Some evidence that paradoxical physics is real beyond the scope of language is provided by QM, but some thinkers reject existence of superposition beyond Schrödinger's equation because we never see it in nature. If the math works as a description of nature, why should its existential veracity be rejected?

QM has a high rate of verification in nature, so the question of paradoxical physics is unresolved.

Logicians saw nothing wrong with unrestricted comprehension for set theory until Russell's Paradox. To me this indicates pre-Russell logicians believing a set containing itself permissible in nature at the level of abstract thought.

Our general question here pertains to how a thing is related to itself. This relationship is a fundamental part of consciousness because it's rooted in self-awareness. In my being aware of myself, am I not wholly aware of my whole self? If my whole self is not a part of myself, my thinking to the contrary seems to example Ryle's category error: I'm walking around on the university campus looking for the university which, wholly speaking, is not a part of the campus. I'm duped by my own fallacy of putting the university into the wrong category, itself. Let's see now, there's a physics building that's part of the university; to that I can add the biology building, and then the English department; when does the growing aggregate of parts reach the point where the calculus segregates the parts from the whole of the university? If my whole self is not part of itself, then that's a non-local distribution of the whole self beyond itself, and thus necessarily the self cannot be complete and self-contained, and thus we're back to the superposition of one thing two places at once. QM tantalizes us with the moot possibility of the reality of self-contradiction and thus identity fundamentally non-local.

I know your commitment to the misuse of language argument stands firm against my ruminations here.

Regarding the possibility of mind-independence, picture yourself placing a phone call to a close friend. You hope the friend will answer, thus making a conversation you deem important immediately possible. If solipsism is real, and thus no mind-independence, then why doesn't your mind know whether or not your friend will answer at a given moment in time? If the phone conversation is but a product of your mind, shouldn't your mind know when to call for an answer? Beyond that, why doesn't your mind, all-powerful in creating what you perceive as real, create everything exactly as it wishes? Why should your mind ever tolerate any degree of uncertainty?

If, by these arguments, we lean towards belief in mind-independent reality, then how does the mind of the observer of the what undermine the brute fact and independence of the what?

On the flip side, if the self of the mind is one with its context of reality, and no subject/object separation is possible, how is consciousness possible?

Suppose I argue that you know the what you perceive exists beyond your perception because you question whether or not it might exist in independence? Isn't your ability to question the what's independence contingent upon your general uncertainty about many things? If your mind projects all of reality, how could it ever want for anything it has capacity to conceive of?

Your sentence in bold makes a declaration about a phenomenon pertaining to language usage: paradox. This usage happens, it's real, it exists. This fact gives us reason to believe paradoxical language exists and therefore should be included in a collection of everything. — ucarr

Here you seem to be making a distinction between what "everything" refers to and what "paradox" refers to. Yes, paradoxes exist. Paradoxes are a misuse of language. Misuses of language are real events. They are part of everything, but everything is not part of everything.

QM has a high rate of verification in nature, so the question of paradoxical physics is unresolved. — ucarr

QM reveals paradoxes in our descriptions and understanding of the universe, and is not representative of a fundamental nature of reality, but is representative of our ignorance. QM does not fit into our everyday experience of the world. The paradox just means that we haven't been able to reconcile classical physics with QM, but I think we eventually will, and I believe it will come with a better description of consciousness than the ones we currently have. What does QM say about the existence of other people and their minds (observers/measurers)? Isn't Schrodinger's cat an observer?

Logicians saw nothing wrong with unrestricted comprehension for set theory until Russell's Paradox. To me this indicates pre-Russell logicians believing a set containing itself permissible in nature at the level of abstract thought. — ucarr

Ok, at the level of abstract thought - yes, but not at the level of fundamental reality. If solipsism is the case then abstract thought is the fundamental reality. If solipsism is the case then paradoxes are an inherent part reality. Realism implies that we can be wrong about reality - that we can misunderstand and create conceptual paradoxes that are not representative of a mind-independent reality. These logicians appear to be too focused on syntax at the expense of semantics. Just because you followed the rules of some language does not necessarily mean you have actually said anything about the world. Just ask lawyers and computer programmers. They understand that words mean things and is why they try to be exact (non-paradoxical) in their use of language. Logic is only useful when it can be applied to the world and not merely a focus on the relationship between some scribbles.

Our general question here pertains to how a thing is related to itself. This relationship is a fundamental part of consciousness because it's rooted in self-awareness. In my being aware of myself, am I not wholly aware of my whole self? If my whole self is not a part of myself, my thinking to the contrary seems to example Ryle's category error: I'm walking around on the university campus looking for the university which, wholly speaking, is not a part of the campus. I'm duped by my own fallacy of putting the university into the wrong category, itself. Let's see now, there's a physics building that's part of the university; to that I can add the biology building, and then the English department; when does the growing aggregate of parts reach the point where the calculus segregates the parts from the whole of the university? If my whole self is not part of itself, then that's a non-local distribution of the whole self beyond itself, and thus necessarily the self cannot be complete and self-contained, and thus we're back to the superposition of one thing two places at once. QM tantalizes us with the moot possibility of the reality of self-contradiction and thus identity fundamentally non-local. — ucarr

Reading this made me dizzy. I have no idea what it means for a thing to be related to itself. A thing is a relation between its parts, and the boundaries of the thing are defined by the present goal in the mind. Are we attending ourselves, or a particular organ of ourselves, or our relation with other humans, or our relation with nature, etc.,? The answer lies within the current goal. Your whole self is not part of your self. It IS your self - that is what "whole" means. Your whole self is not part of itself. It is part of a society and species.

When you say you are self-aware, what are you attending - your mind, your body, etc.? What is the self that you are aware of, to even say you are aware of it? Their body is an "external" object to the mind, so we would be attending external processes. But we can turn our attention back upon itself - attending our attention, thinking about thinking, aware of awareness, kind of like how a feedback loop is created when we turn a camera-monitor system's view back upon itself, or a microphone-speaker's system back upon itself.

What is a university if not the aggregation of buildings, professors and students? The university is not part of the university, unless you're saying the idea of the university in the mind of a professor or student is part of the university. The physical university is not part of the physical university just as the abstract idea of a university is not part of the abstract idea of a university. When talking about a university or ourselves we are talking about the unity of parts that constitute these things, or we could be talking about these things are parts of a larger whole - as in the university is part of the city or state that is part of the university's name, or you are part of a society or species.

Regarding the possibility of mind-independence, picture yourself placing a phone call to a close friend. You hope the friend will answer, thus making a conversation you deem important immediately possible. If solipsism is real, and thus no mind-independence, then why doesn't your mind know whether or not your friend will answer at a given moment in time? If the phone conversation is but a product of your mind, shouldn't your mind know when to call for an answer? Beyond that, why doesn't your mind, all-powerful in creating what you perceive as real, create everything exactly as it wishes? Why should your mind ever tolerate any degree of uncertainty? — ucarr

Yes, I have thought of these same types of questions that if solipsism is the case then why can't I merely will myself to fly and be invisible to others? Why do I perceive myself always in the same position of being at the top of this same pedestal I call my body? Why do I wake up to the same world each morning that continues where I left off when I went to sleep? It seems that the will has no bearing on the rest of the current contents of my mind, and only makes sense if there is an external world that has a "will" (or wills as in other minds) separate from my own.

If, by these arguments, we lean towards belief in mind-independent reality, then how does the mind of the observer of the what undermine the brute fact and independence of the what? — ucarr

To a certain degree, we can. We have the power to change the world but there are obvious limits to our power and current understanding and descriptions of the world - that our understanding of the world is not the same as the world as it is.

On the flip side, if the self of the mind is one with its context of reality, and no subject/object separation is possible, how is consciousness possible? — ucarr

It wouldn't be. This is why solipsism ultimately resolves down to there being no mind - only a reality where "reasons" that lead to "conclusions" would be the only type of cause and effect. There would be no external causes that lead to the effect of the mind and the mind would not be a cause of changes in the external world.

Suppose I argue that you know the what you perceive exists beyond your perception because you question whether or not it might exist in independence? Isn't your ability to question the what's independence contingent upon your general uncertainty about many things? If your mind projects all of reality, how could it ever want for anything it has capacity to conceive of? — ucarr

I often bring up the idea of object permanence as a cognitive milestone that develops naturally within humans and other large-brained organisms. I think that we are born solipsists and through experience and reasoning we naturally conclude that realism is the case.

I have a thread about "Physical cannot be the cause of its own change" (you can find the related argument here); therefore, the mind is needed for change. So, the mind cannot be a byproduct of physical.

Reality is Communal

The abhorrent thought of conducting an experiment of such total isolation as described above upon a newborn invokes the condemnation appropriate for a heartless act that equals a crime against humanity.
Nothing existing (and no one) is totally alone. — Moliere

About this part of your essay, I’d like to add: To be is to be among. We are born into relationships before we ever form thoughts. Nothing exists in pure solitude—reality resists isolation. It is a web, not a wall. The dialogue we sustain throughout our journey is not ours alone; it is shared, echoed, and shaped by the experiences of others.

@ucarr

Tagging the author so he can see your comments.