The abstract if-then facts that I've mentioned as examples, including the Slitheytove & Jaberwockey syllogism, and the fact that, if the additive associative axiom is true then 2+2=4 (...with 1, 2, 3 & 4 defined in in an obvious natural way, in terms of the multiplicative identity and addition), will be found to be true, by anyone, in any other sub-universe of a multiverse that we're in, or in any possibility-world.

That makes it difficult to claim that those abstract if-then facts are our creation,and that we're prior to them.

Anyway, whatever your opinion on that, it's still correct to say that there are abstract if-then facts. That's undeniable and uncontroversial.

What would you say is the difference between abstract and concrete facts? — Janus

A "concrete" fact is a fact about a physical thing or event in the possibilitiy-world in which the speaker resides.

And the word "actual", as I and some others define it, means:

"Part of, or comprising, the possibility-world in which the speaker resides."

Maybe the difficult-to-accept part is that our seemingly "real, concrete and physical" world is a complex system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals.

But i remind you that anything that can be said about our physical world can be said as an if-then fact, and also as the hypothetical "if " premise, or the "then" conclusion. that's part of an if-then fact. There's no reason to believe that our world is other than a system of if-thens. ...a world of "If", rather than a world of "Is".

Michael Ossipoff

An "if-then fact" is exclusively a linguistically formulated fact. I experience the world as has been, is being and could be; only the last is possibility or "if" rather than "is". Only language enables the apprehension of the future, of possibility. So, I see no reason to think the provenance of "if-then" extends beyond language.

A cat knows that if it waits patiently by a gopher hole, then it might get a chance to catch the gopher. A cat doesn't have language.

If-then facts are true for, and known by, animals that don't have language.

Michael Ossipoff

What we don't know is whether this means that reality consists of abstract facts. — Janus

Reality doesn't consist of abstract facts.

Neither metaphysics, nor anything described by metaphysics covers, explains or describes Reality.

However, uncontroversially, there's a complex system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals (the hypothetical propositions that are their "if " premise and "then" conclusion, and the hypothetical things that those propositions are about), whose events and relations are those in your experience.

You can say that we don't know if that's all that our world is. What can be said, however, is that there's no reason to believe that our world is other than that. And it can be said that any other metaphysical system, as a brute fact, unverifiably and unfalsifiably duplicating that logical system's events and relations, is superflous.

Michael Ossipoff

Let me further answer this:

An "if-then fact" is exclusively a linguistically formulated fact. I experience the world as has been, is being and could be; only the last is possibility or "if" rather than "is". Only language enables the apprehension of the future, of possibility. So, I see no reason to think the provenance of "if-then" extends beyond language. — Janus

First, though I've been saying that any fact about our physical world can be stated as an if-then fact. But it isn't necessary to mention statements. I should, instead, say that any fact about our physical world implies and corresponds to an if-then fact.

One objection to my proposal is a claim that abstract facts are created by us, and don't have existence independent from us. ...that abstract facts are inextricably bound-up with us the experiencers.

That's fine, because my metaphysics is an Anti-Realism, about the individual's life-experience possibility-story.

So, saying that abstract facts are in relation to our experience, rather than being independently existent doesn't contradict my metaphysical proposal.

I said that there are abstract if-then facts. You can't say that there aren't abstract if-then facts.

But, aside from that, for another thing:

The fact that the abstract facts are the same for everyone, and would be the same for someone living on another planet, or in another galaxy, or in a very distant part of our universe, or in a different sub-universe of a physically-inter-related multiverse that we're in, or even in different, physically-unrelated possibility-worlds--that makes it difficult to say that the abstract facts are created by us, and that otherwise, without us, they "aren't".

No, the fact that all these observers, in all these worlds, would agree with my Slitheytoves & Jaberwockeys abstract if-then fact, and likewise the abstract if-then fact that, if the additive associative axiom is true, then 2+2=4 (based on a reasonable, obvious and natural definition of 1, 2, 3, & 4, in terms of the multiplicative identity and addition)...Because of those, and all the other abstract facts that are obviously true for anyone anywhere--then those facts obviously "are". They're true everywhere, in every world, for everyone.

As I've said, the if-then facts that comprise your life-experience possibility-story aren't really different from all the other abstract if-then facts. So, objectively, calling a fact meaningful or valid only if's part of someone's experience is animal-chauvinistic.

So that's why I say that absolute Anti-Realism is out of the question.

But it's also true that your life-experience possibility-story is completely independent of anything else, facts or systems of them, outside it, and that story is about your experience. ...justifying a subjective-based, individual-experienced-based metaphysics. ...which could, in terms of already-used language, be described as Eliminative Ontic Structural Anti-Realism..

That subjective story isn't everything, but it's completely independent of anything else, self-contained.. ...even though its system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts are only a subset of all of the abstract if-then facts that are.

Michael Ossipoff

Whatever it is that we formulate in terms of "if-then" may be thought to be in a certain restricted sense "true for and known by animals".

We could even say the same of the valley; 'if it rains the valley will be eroded'. This addresses only possibilty though and says nothing about what is or what has been. On this account it is not conceptually adequate to underpin a comprehensive metaphysics.

Whatever it is that we formulate in terms of "if-then" may be thought to be in a certain restricted sense "true for and known by animals".

We could even say the same of the valley; 'if it rains the valley will be eroded'. — Janus

Not if it only rains once, with a few seconds of drizzle.

This addresses only possibility though and says nothing about what is or what has been. On this account it is not conceptually adequate to underpin a comprehensive metaphysics.

Of course not. I wouldn't consider basing a metaphysics on just one fact, least of all a questionable fact like that.

I spoke of a complex system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals.

I'll say this again in case you didn't see the other posts where I said it:

A set of hypothetical physical quantity-values, and a hypothetical relation among them (called a "physical law"), are parts of the "if" premise of an if-then fact.

...except that one of those quantity-values can be taken as the "then" conclusion of that if-then fact.

I gave an everyday example of how any fact about this physical world implies and corresponds to an if-then fact.

The world can be completely described in conditional grammar. We tend to believe our convenient declarative indicative grammar too much.

Instead of a world of "Is", infinitely-many worlds of "If".

Michael Ossipoff

I won't engage further if you are going to respond with (deliberately?) stupid, uncharitable interpretations.

I won't engage further if you are going to respond with (deliberately?) stupid, uncharitable interpretations. — Janus

Yes, sorry about the answer to an obvious misinterpretation of what you were saying.

It was deliberate in the sense that I knew that I was replying to something that you didn't mean. But it wasn't intentional in the sense of trying to be evasive, or not wanting to give a straight answer to what you said. I wasn't pretending to not know what you meant. I didn't know what you meant.

I honestly didn't understand the objection. I didn't understand what you meant.

Of course you didn't mean what I implied and answered about, so maybe it would have been better to just express that I didn't understand the objection.

You said:

We could even say the same of the valley; 'if it rains the valley will be eroded'. This addresses only possibilty though and says nothing about what is or what has been.

On this account it is not conceptually adequate to underpin a comprehensive metaphysics. — Janus

You're saying that if-thens can't be the basis of a metaphysics, because they aren't about what is or has been.

I claim that some of them are.

How does the fact that there's a green car out in front relate to an if-then fact. Well,if you look out the front window, then you'll experience that a green car is visible to you..

Maybe that sounds contrived, because we don't always say things that way, but it's a genuine implication and correspondence between facts.

To use my usual example, the fact that there's a traffic-roundabout at the intersection of 34th & Vine, implies and corresponds to the if-then fact that, if you go to 34th & Vine, then you'll encounter a traffic-roundabout.

As I've been saying, any fact about our physical world implies and corresponds to an if-then fact.

In my reply, I said:

A set of hypothetical physical quantity-values, and a hypothetical relation among them (called a "physical law"), are parts of the "if" premise of an if-then fact.

...except that one of those quantity-values can be taken as the "then" conclusion of that if-then fact.

Of course the world of your experience, when closely investigated and examined (by the physicists whose discoveries come into our experience via articles, but also in your direct physical experience), consists of a complex and intricate system of such facts. Of course time is one of the hypothetical quantities that many physical laws relate.

I'm suggesting that there's no reason to believe that the world of your experience consists of other than that.

Also, any fact about what is, can be rightly regarded as the "if" premise or the "then" conclusion of an if-then fact. ...or of course both, with respect to different if-then facts.

An if-then fact relates two hypothetical propositions. One is true if the other is true.

So, in addition to the fact that any fact about the physical world implies and corresponds to an if-then fact, it's also true that any fact about the physical world is one of the two hypothetical propositions that some if-then fact relates.

A fact that something is, isn't, of itself, an if-then fact, but it's one of the two hypothetical propositions that an if-then fact relates...the "if" premise or the "then" conclusion. It's part of an if-then fact.

"There's a green car out in front, parked in your parking-space.".

If someone parks their Green car in front of your house, then there will be a green car out in front.

If there's a green car parked in your parking-space out in front, then your parking space that it occupies won't be available for you to park your own car.

So, 1)Any fact about our physical world implies and corresponds to an if-then fact, and 2) That fact is also part of an if-then fact (one of the two hypothetical propositions that an if-then fact relates). In fact, it's the "if" premise of various if-then facts, and it's the "then" conclusion of other if-then facts.

We don't ordinarily speak in terms of if-thens,but all of the facts about our world imply some if-then facts, and are parts of other if-then facts..

...whether in physics, or the everyday experienced facts.

There's no reason to believe that your experience is other than a complex system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts about hypothetical propositions...your life-experience possibiity-story.

Of course the basic requirement for your experience-story is that it be self-consistent, non-contradictory. Your own direct experience, and the discoveries of physicists, coming into our experience via articles and books, are of things that are consistent with your life having started.

Sometimes there have been seeming inconsistencies, physical findings that contradicted known physics: The Michaelson-Morely experiment result. The black-body radiation energy-wavelength curve, The seemingly anomalous rotation of apsides of the orbit of the planet Mercury. Those things were later found consistent with an improved system of physical laws

Now there's the unexplained acceleration of the recession-rates of the more distant galaxies.

Because any seeming inconsistency might later be reconciled with new physics, maybe it's impossible to prove that a physical world is self-inconsistent.

No one doubts that the unexplained acceleration of the recession-rates of the more distant galaxies will be explained by new physics--or could in principle, if physicists can advance far enough.

As for the past, what is found out about the past, too, must be consistent with the current state of affairs that you experience. For instance, when physicists study the history of the Earth, the solar-system, the galaxy, and the universe, what they find is of course consistent with the fact of your own existence.

Have I answered your objection?

Michael Ossipoff



















.

How does the fact that there's a green car out in front relate to an if-then fact. Well,if you look out the front window, then you'll experience that a green car is visible to you.. — Michael Ossipoff

It seems to me that that conflates what is: 'the green car out front' with a possibility: 'that I will look at it'.

Your other examples seem to be no different. An example you didn't give 'if there is a green car out front, then someone must have parked it there" might seem to be a counterexample that addresses the past; but this is merely apparent. On analysis we can see that this is merely an inductive inference. The car could have gotten there any number of ways, no matter how unlikely. Also it reflects that fact that, for us epistemologically speaking, it actually invokes a possible future in which we come to discover how the car got there.

It seems to me that that conflates what is: 'the green car out front' with a possibility: 'that I will look at it'.

You're using the meaning of "conflate" that means "confuse".

You're saying that I'm confusing what is, with a possibility. ...the green car out in front, with the possibility that I'll look at it.

Well, I only said "If you look out the front window."

"If you look out the front window" is the "if " premise of the if-then fact.

I'm saying that "There's a green car out in the parking space out in front" implies and corresponds with "If you look out the window, a green car will be visible to you in your parking space out in front."

But no,I'm not confusing "There's a green car out in front" with "You'll look at it". Yes, I'm relating "There's a green car out in front" with an if-then fact whose "if " premise is "If you look out the front window."

— Janus

An example you didn't give 'if there is a green car out front, then someone must have parked it there" might seem to be a counterexample that addresses the past; but this is merely apparent. On analysis we can see that this is merely an inductive inference. The car could have gotten there any number of ways, no matter how unlikely.

Yes, and so I didn't say, "If there's a green car out in front then someone must have parked it there." Maybe it just accidentally rolled out of the steep driveway across the street, when someone didn't set the parking-brake.

So yes, that proposition wouldn't be true, and I didn't state it..

Also it reflects that fact that, for us epistemologically speaking, it actually invokes a possible future in which we come to discover how the car got there.

As you said, it wouldn't be a true proposition, and I didn't state it. As for how the car got there, that's a matter that my comments didn't address. I did say that if it's there then your parking-space won't be available to you, and that if someone parks it there, it will be there (well, for a while at least).

Michael Ossipoff

But no,I'm not confusing "There's a green car out in front" with "You'll look at it". Yes, I'm relating "There's a green car out in front" with an if-then fact whose "if " premise is "If you look out the front window." — Janus

"If you look out the front window" bears no relationship to the present or the past, but only the future; so the example seems inapt to your point.

The idea 'if-then' seems only to be applicable to possibility, and it thus yields only an impoverished ontology and cannot be a basis for any comprehensive metaphysics. This also entails that the very notion of an "if-then fact" whether abstract or otherwise, would seem to be incoherent, since there are no future facts.