That's a bit dire. I didn't say there was no such thing as a shared world, or that we can never decide how to talk about it meaningfully. I just meant that, taken out of any context, the term "the world" is going to refer to different things for different people. If you and I, or anyone else, want to introduce the term into a conversation, it would be a good idea to first agree on some rough reference. We could locate our usage on a map of well-known usages, such as physicalism, idealism, intersubjectivity, Platonism, et al.

I would say there's no wrong way to do this -- it's only a term -- we just need to stipulate how we'll use it. Then we can indeed talk about our shared world, and if it turns out that our way of using the term isn't as perspicuous as we wanted it to be, we can revise. — J

When someone says that "world" is going to mean different things for different people then you're saying that all qualifiers for "world" are up for debate, including "shared". You could be a solipsist for all I know.

Terms are not really the issue. It is what we are referring to with those words that is the issue. We might use different terms to refer to the same thing, or maybe the boundaries of our terms might overlap in some way. So what if I were to define the world as everything that was, is and will be?

I'm not sure if this line of questioning is going to be useful. Suffice to say, I am a monist and a determinist, so am going to view the world as seamless where there are no "physical" boundaries with the mental. Causes and reasons are the same thing from different views. One monist might say everything is physical. Another might say that everything is mental, or ideas. I like to try to merge the best of the two together and say that everything is information. The world consists of deterministic causal relations - information.

OK, so if we were going to continue conversing, I'd have a pretty good idea what you meant by "world," and could phrase my own thoughts accordingly.

You could be a solipsist for all I know. — Harry Hindu

Or a Communist! :wink:

I think the point is that we'd have to talk about it, and find out whether our ideas of a "shared world" are congruent. It's not so much a debate that's needed, about whose construal is better -- that might come later. We can't debate if we don't first figure out what we're talking about. And it's been my observation that very ordinary terms like "shared" become complex when we enter the Philosophy Room, hence requiring discussion.

I am pretty sure I had almost this same conversation re reasons versus causes with ↪J, using the stop sign example. Maybe it was a stop light :rofl: — Count Timothy von Icarus

Great minds think alike :cool:

I would just suggest that a difficulty here is that "causes" is often used very narrowly, as always referring to a linear temporal sequence (either as extrinsic ordering, or a sort of intrinsic computation-like process), but also very broadly as encompassing the former, but also all "reasons." Or, causes might also be used narrowly in a counterfactual sense. "Reasons" often tend to include a notion of final and formal causality that is excluded from more narrow formulations of "cause." — Count Timothy von Icarus

It depends on how we want to look at causes. Causes are an interaction of two or more things (like a broken tree limb and a window, or like a stop sign, a car and a driver) to create a new set of circumstances - an effect (the broken window, or stopping at a stop sign). Physicists often describe it as a transfer of energy. We should also consider that every effect is also a cause of subsequent effects, and that our current goal is what makes us focus on specific parts of the ongoing causal chain of events - that the boundaries between a cause and its effects are arbitrarily dependent upon the current goal in the mind.

You can raise your hand, or I can do it for you. Both of our wills are the causes of your hand being raised. You might resist me in which case it would be both a battle of wills and of strength, but our comparative strengths only come into play if our wills are still battling - I intend on raising your arm, while you intend on resisting. How can a will cause anything? If a will can be a cause why can't a reason?

So, it's tricky. Lift is a "cause of flight," but you won't find the "principle of lift" as an observable particular in any instance of flight. Likewise, moral principles are causes of people's actions, but you won't find them wandering about the world. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not sure if I'd agree that lift is a cause of flight. It seems to me to be part of what flight is. If you are flying you have lift. A cause would be what preceded the act of flying, just as what preceded the act of stopping at a stop sign. The cause of flight is the interaction of wings and air before one declares flight has been achieved. At what point in the process of running, flapping ones wings and jumping in the air does one achieve the effect of flight? It seems to me that lift is something you have already achieved to say that you are flying - not something that preceded the act of flying.

Just because we don't see moral principles "wandering about the world" (and I assume you mean wandering around independently of minds) does not mean that moral principles do not exist in the world.
They do - as mental constructs, or reasons, for determining one's actions. Morals exist only as characteristics of minds, just as ripeness only exists as a characteristic of of fruit. We don't see ripeness wandering about the world either. If that were the case the world would be a fruit, or the world a mind in the case of morals. They are properties of specific things in the world, like minds and fruit, not properties of the world itself.

Understandably, if there is no choice or decision -- if one adopts a hardcore physicalism or determinism -- then the distinction rather collapses. — J

Not necessarily. I am a determinist and a free-will Libertarian. How do I reconcile the two? I see freedom as having access to as much information as possible. By having access to as much information as possible, you are able to make more informed decisions. By having access to more information, you might choose differently, or you at least have the power to choose differently than you would have if you didn't have the information.

Many people make this assertion that determinism implies that you have the feeling of being forced into something you didn't want to. I say that determinism implies that you have a feeling of naturally choosing what decision is best. Your decisions and actions would feel natural, not forced, if determinism is the case. You always make the best decision with the information you have at that moment. It is only your fear of the consequences that you cannot foresee that make it feel forced. Thinking that you should have chosen differently only comes after the consequences have been realized (after you have more information).

I'm not sure if I'd agree that lift is a cause of flight.

Fair enough, I'd agree in a sense. A principle is something that unifies a diverse number of causes. It is what makes many instances of lift, natural selection, etc. the "same" whilst obviously being different in each instance, thus allowing for "the many" to be known through a unifying "one" (e.g. entomologists can know insects well, even though there are 60 million individual insects for each human, and one never closely observes even a tiny fraction of these).

The particulars need not have absolute priority though (either epistemically or ontologically). For instance, the difficulty in saying that "infection" is never the cause of infectious disease, but only individual interactions between viruses/bacteria and cells, is that this itself can be further broken down. We could also have the demand that virus/cell interaction is always really caused by molecular interactions. This is the drive towards reductionism/smallism. Yet it has to make certain assumptions, for instance, that wholes are always nothing more than the sum of their parts, else the continued decomposition ceases to be warranted. And, while smallism is not prima facie anymore reasonable than "bigism" from an ontological point of view, it is also unwarranted from an epistemic point of view, given that even the basics of molecular structure cannot be reduced to physics.

I'll thow out here the difference between linear (temporal) causal series, which are accidental, and hierarchical causal series. The first is the classic example of one domino knocking over another, or a ball breaking a window. The second is the example of a book resting on a table, or a chandelier hanging from a ceiling. For the book to be on the table, the table had to be there. This has to be true at every moment or interval; there is a vertical—as opposed to horizontal—element to efficient causation.

Likewise, the chandelier hangs due to its linkage with the ceiling at each moment. Neither the ceiling nor the table are dependent upon the book or chandelier sitting/hanging on them, but there is dependence (priority) in the other direction. So even efficient causes have these different elements of priority and posteriority that help our analysis. The plane is generating lift at each interval, unless it is stalling (this is a larger principle of fluid dynamics). And at each interval it has to be the case that fluid dynamics is such that lift works in this way (formal causality). Or, for another example, we could consider human decisionmaking. Man being man (a particular whole) is always prior to man making a decision as man, and this is a sort of vertical priority that affects both efficient and formal causes.

Not necessarily. I am a determinist and a free-will Libertarian. How do I reconcile the two? I see freedom as having access to as much information as possible. By having access to as much information as possible, you are able to make more informed decisions. By having access to more information, you might choose differently, or you at least have the power to choose differently than you would have if you didn't have the information.

Many people make this assertion that determinism implies that you have the feeling of being forced into something you didn't want to. I say that determinism implies that you have a feeling of naturally choosing what decision is best. Your decisions and actions would feel natural, not forced, if determinism is the case. You always make the best decision with the information you have at that moment. It is only your fear of the consequences that you cannot foresee that make it feel forced. Thinking that you should have chosen differently only comes after the consequences have been realized (after you have more information).

Why would this not be comptiablism?

Anyhow, you highlight a very important element that is missing from many considerations of freedom, both the idea that ignorance is a limit on freedom, and the idea that freedom involves understanding why one acts. I tend to want to frame liberty in terms of (relative) self-determination and self-governance (as opposed to being undetermined).

I'll thow out here the difference between linear (temporal) causal series, which are accidental, and hierarchical causal series. The first is the classic example of one domino knocking over another, or a ball breaking a window. The second is the example of a book resting on a table, or a chandelier hanging from a ceiling. For the book to be on the table, the table had to be there. This has to be true at every moment or interval; there is a vertical—as opposed to horizontal—element to efficient causation. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not just a table, but a person that put the book on the table. A cause is not necessarily just two interacting things, it could be a multitude of things interacting. Can you explain how the book came to be on the table by just explaining the table? Can you explain how a murder occurred if you only explain the interaction between a victim and the weapon? How would you know if the person was murdered or committed suicide?

Likewise, the chandelier hangs due to its linkage with the ceiling at each moment. Neither the ceiling nor the table are dependent upon the book or chandelier sitting/hanging on them, but there is dependence (priority) in the other direction. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It also hangs due to gravity. If there was no gravity the chandelier would float and not hang. I think the issue here is you're simply leaving out ALL the necessary causes that preceded an effect (like our observation).

Why would this not be comptiablism — Count Timothy von Icarus

It may, but I'm not concerned with labels - only what makes sense which might not always fit neatly in one philosophical "framework" that we've given a name as many philosophical frameworks have holes in them that an opposing view might fill but has holes itself.

I tend to want to frame liberty in terms of (relative) self-determination and self-governance (as opposed to being undetermined) — Count Timothy von Icarus

Which you can only have by having access to information.

It also hangs due to gravity

Exactly. Gravity, the weak force, electromagnetism, etc. must be what they are at every moment.

If there was no gravity the chandelier would float and not hang. I think the issue here is you're simply leaving out ALL the necessary causes that preceded an effect (like our observation).

Right, the examples are just there to show the difference between the linear (horizontal) series and hierarchical (vertical series), and the difference between metaphysical and temporal priority/posteriority, not to claim the dominoes falling have "one cause."

Which you can only have by having access to information.

Exactly, although this is necessary but not always sufficient. One tendency I've noticed in modern philosophical anthropology is that it tends to play down the possibility of "weakness of will." The idea being that is science could only "tell us what to do clearly," our issues would be solved (e.g., Sam Harris, Stephen Pinker, Francis Fukuyama, etc.). I think this stems from the liberal presumption that, barring major dysfunction or misfortune, all people achieve a similar baseline level of freedom and self-determination by age 18 simply through natural maturation, which is quite different from Epictetus' claim that most masters are in fact slaves to their passions and appetites.

Right, the examples are just there to show the difference between the linear (horizontal) series and hierarchical (vertical series), and the difference between metaphysical and temporal priority/posteriority, not to claim the dominoes falling have "one cause." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm trying to understand your notion of hierarchical (vertical series). I only see causation as temporal. Upper vs lower levels of reality do not play a causal role on each other. They are simply different views of the same thing - in that the different levels are a projection, not how the world really is. The world is seamless and it is our goals that break up reality into regional spaces (views). It's not that the top has influence on the bottom. It is that the bottom and the top are merely different views of the same thing (zoomed in vs zoomed out).

Anyway, I'll go on: my point – maybe not quite the OP's – is not that "logic is inherent in existence" but, parsimoniously, that logic is existence (i.e. 'universes' themselves are logico-computable processes ...) about / from which we (can) derive abbreviated syntaxes & formulae ... — 180 Proof

Consider this empirical support for transitive inference by nonhuman animals:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0376635708000818]



@tom111 @Banno @Wayfarer @T Clark @kindred

Consider this empirical support for transitive inference by nonhuman animals: — 180 Proof

As long as there are minds to do logic then logic can be said to exist. Doing logic then seems to be a property of minds.

Without minds planets would still revolve around the sun in a logical ways held in place by laws of physics. The planet itself does not compute paths or such things, its obeying laws which it cannot know exist.

It’s only in minds that these laws can be inferred and deduced.

Doing logic then seems to be a property of minds. — kindred

And minds are governed – constrained – by laws of nature so that, in actuality, logic is also "a property of" nature. Nonhuman animals do not 'invent' transitive inferencing: they embody it (since their "minds" are embodied) in nature.

Laws of nature are logical, there’s no denying that. So to say that logic is embedded in nature is a totally valid. Perhaps it’s not necessary to separate the two.

All things however, embody the laws of nature, living or non-living yet logic as an activity only came to be when minds developed in the world.

So you’re right logic is a property of the laws of nature but in answer to the OP of where it came from it’s not so much where (nature) but when (evolution).