And once we admit potential as ontologically real, we also re-introduce the idea of inherent directionality — Wayfarer

This "inherent directionality", within ontological potential, is why apokrisis' claim that physics speaks of "pure chance", and absolute necessity, is false. Physics never gets to "pure chance", nor do physicists assume such a thing. Apokrisis does, and some other cosmologists do, but that's not physics. Physicists have to deal with the reality of the less-than-ideal, which confronts them at every event. Pure chance and absolute necessity is never a part of that. The mathematics applied, of course, assumes ideals, but this does not equate with "the ontology of modern physics", it would be more properly called "the ontology of modern mathematics". But it's not common to base ontology solely in mathematical axioms, because these deliberately do not account for the reality of less-than-ideal physical world.


Are you claiming that some AI told you that Ontic Structural Realism is the ontology of modern physics? I think that AI needs some fine tuning in relation to its biases.

You just get angrier as the years go past.

Again, just check out what I already told you seven years ago. Long before AI was around to deal with one's more mundane intellectual chores.

Inspired by the twists and turns of modern physics with its foundations in permutation symmetries, structural realism has become a big thing in metaphysics. The slogan is “relations without relata”. Reality exists by conjuring itself up out of a pure holism of relations.

It's controversial because of course there must be something concrete, individual and material to be related, right?....

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4383/of-relata-and-relations-grounding-structural-realism/p1

But again, please understand what I see as the fundamental category error in this formulation. By casting the non-physical in terms of 'spiritual/supernatural objects', you are already framing it within the paradigm of objectivism - the assumption that whatever is real, is, or could be, an object of cognition....empiricist presuppositions ... — Wayfarer

I brought up the "spiritual/supernatural" because there are common beliefs about it, and my purpose was to explain what it means to be physical.

So you question objectivism. I don't see any reason why I would. Sure, it's a backgound assumption, so add it to the set of physicalist postulates, and we still get a coherent theory. Coherence is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for truth.

This is a metaphilosophical point concerning questions about how philosophy itself is conceived. — Wayfarer

A meta-analysis would be great, but I don't think you're doing that. Rather, you're presenting
an alternative paradigm. I'll try to understand if it is coherent, but also if it answers more questions than it raises.

All that in mind, “the nature of being” can be understood very differently. In phenomenological (and also Indian) philosophy, being is participatory: something we are always already enacting, not a detached object of analysis — Wayfarer

How does our "participation" in existence differ from the participation of the sun? The sun has had a key role in the development of life on earth. Of course, it wasn't by choice.

Do you objectify the sun? Does it exist independently of you? It's not clear if the question is answerable in your paradigm.

The challenge is that we are so immersed in this orientation that we don’t see it; it provides the spectacles through which questions are viewed. Philosophy, to my mind, means learning to look at those spectacles, not only through them. — Wayfarer

All paradigms (spectacles) are interpretive frameworks, including a paradigm of "participatory existence".

But the upshot is, there are things that are subjectively real, that is, can only be known first-person, but which are as foundational as any purported 'atomic objects of cognition'. This is what we designate Being, which includes the irreducible fact of the subject to whom the objective world is disclosed. — Wayfarer

The term, "subjectively real" seems problematic. The "contents" of my mind (my mental states) are objectively real - but known only to me. If I'm interpreting you correctly, you are simply suggesting the converse of objectivism. I'm waiting to hear some epistemic virtues, besides "possible".

nothing is said about what is spiritual, that might only be because, with Wittgenstein, there is 'that of which we cannot speak', but which is nevertheless of foundational significance in philosophy. But the upshot is, there are things that are subjectively real, that is, can only be known first-person, but which are as foundational as any purported 'atomic objects of cognition'. This is what we designate Being, which includes the irreducible fact of the subject to whom the objective world is disclosed. — Wayfarer

One must assume the "spiritual" exists in order to consider it of significance. I get it, that you referred to it being foundational to philosophy- but in that respect, philosophy's foundation was a product of its time. It's moved on, for good reasons. I gather that you're challenging the direction it took, but swimming against the current is extremely challenging.

my take on universals is that they are intrinsic to the way in which the mind assimilates and interprets sensory experience. Intellectual abstractions, the grasp of abstract relations and qualities, are what binds rational conceptions together to form coherent ideas. But these are neither 'in the world' nor mere pyschological constructs, they are universal structures of intelligibility disclosed through consciousness. (As you've mentioned Edward Feser's blog, see his Think, McFly, Think.) — Wayfarer

I've previously read the Feser article. The general problem I have with it is that he framed thinking in a paradigm incompatible with materialism, and then showed how it's incompatible with materislism.

The paradigm is potentially useful, and probably coherent - but it didn't help me understand your stance on universals. I get it, that the abstractions aren't in the world (outside our minds) and you regard this mental aspect as irreducible, but the concept of each universal has something to do with the world outside ourselves - does it not? I claim that the universal "90 degrees" that I conceptualize is exhibited in the walls of my room. The abstraction is distinct from the walls that exhibit it, but it describes an aspect of the walls- and this same as aspect is exhibited in many places. This exhibition/instantistion is omitted from your account.

Even the competing interpretations are trying to account for the fact of observer-dependency, — Wayfarer

No. The interpretations account for the measurements. Referring to this as "observer dependency" implies there's something special in the relation between a human observer and the quantum system being measured. The more objective description is "entanglement" - which occurs when a quantum system interacts with a classical object.

What is real, is a range of possibilities expressed by the wave-function (ψ), which are condensed into a single value by registration or measurement (the so-called 'wavefunction collapse' — Wayfarer

I disagree with your claim that "what is real is a range of possibilities". The possibilities you refer to are predictions of what will be measured, when complementary properties (like position and momentum) are measured. What is real is the quantum system. Were there no entanglements with a classical object (such as occurs with a measurement) the system would continue down the deterministic path of its wave function.

This does imply there's an aspect of reality that seems inscrutable: what is happening when entanglements occur. Is the wavefunction collapsing? Is there a branching to many worlds? Are there remote, hidden variables? All we can do is engage in metaphysical speculation.

So when you write that “particulars are reducible … all the way down to atomic states of affairs,” you’re really invoking a metaphysical picture inherited from classical physics. But precisely that picture is what quantum mechanics has called into question, forcing contemporary physicalism to uncouple itself from physics as such. Which, again, implies that Armstrong's 'atomic facts' are conceptual placeholders. — Wayfarer

Again: no. Physicalism doesn't depend on particles being the ontological ground. According to current physics, quantum fields are more fundamental than particles. Quantum fields fit the state-of-affairs model: they are particulars with properties and relations to other quantum fields.

[

There a great many problems with your claims, but they boil down to you (and possibly some) physicists making metaphysical claims. The actual science is independent of all the metaphysical claims you made.

One more thing: you imply that there's some consensus on some particular metaphysical model (among physicists? Among philosophers?) I sincerely doubt that. I know it's not true of philosophers - a majority embrace, or lean toward, physicalism.

This is why physicalism is a very problematic perspective. Mathematical axioms assume the existence of mathematical objects. — Metaphysician Undercover

The fact that the language of mathematics treats abstractions as "existing" does not entail that they do.

This indicates that what you state as the approach of physicalism, "physicalism defers to physics the identification of what exists", is mistaken. — Metaphysician Undercover

A physicist making a claim about the ontological status of mathematical abstractions is doing metaphysics, not physics. It's a question that cannot be settled by empirical evidence or scientific methodology.

how anyone portrays the ontology of modern physics is just a matter of personal preference. — Metaphysician Undercover

Agreed.

So two guys who ran the risks of heresy charges and book bans unless they made a show of still being good Catholics. Their moves towards materialist explanations had to be publicly renounced — apokrisis

It is true that Descartes had to forego the publication of some of his works for fear of religious persecution, and that the trial of Galileo was arguably the marker of the ‘scientific revolution’. But I don’t think that the ‘Cartesian division’ that I referred to was solely a result of those political pressures. Another major impetus was epistemological, with Galileo’s recognition of the importance of the Platonic dianoia and with his identification of the so-called ‘primary attributes’ of bodies - those attributes being just the ones ideally suited to his new physics. Obviously a contestable argument, but this division is where the pervasive notion of the ‘purposelessness’ of matter (and hence the Cosmos) originated. Meaning, purpose and intentionality was 'subjectivized' with the external world being conceived in purely mechanical and quantitative terms.

The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop. — Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, Pp 35-36

But you’re spot on in saying that the fear of religion was a factor. And it remains a motivation for the continual re-definition of physicalist explanations in light of the implausibllty of lumpen materialism, whilst trying to avoid the hazards of anything that sounds 'spiritual'.

I brought up the "spiritual/supernatural" because there are common beliefs about it, and my purpose was to explain what it means to be physical. — Relativist

I understand that - what is physical is defined in contrast with or distinct from what is supernatural or spiritual. That's a part of my point - it is an aspect of the 'Cartesian division' which I've already referred to. I'm trying to explain what is wrong with the expresssion 'spiritual/supernatural objects' by saying that terminology comes from a kind of conceptual confusion which can be traced back to Descartes' 'res cogitans' ('thinking thing'). The attempt to objectify or think of 'the spiritual' (whatever it may or may not be) in such objective terms is a category error (which Gilbert Ryle also said in Concept of Mind, in relation to Descartes.) There is no objective existent which corresponds with 'spirit' because (again whether it is real or not) it transcends the subject-object division. (Which is why mystical practices are aimed at deprecating the sense of 'otherness' or self-identification which characterises egoic existence.)

How does our "participation" in existence differ from the participation of the sun? — Relativist

The sun, to our knowledge, is not a rational sentient being, as are we.

The idea of participatory ontology is part of cognitive scientist John Vervaeke's roadmap. There are four ways of knowing: propositional, perspectival, procedural and participatory (ref.)Participatory knowledge is the knowledge of what it’s like to occupy a role in your environment or relationships. Vervaeke considers this to be the most profound of the four types of knowledge. It involves being in a deep, transformative relationship with the world, participating fully in something that is wider than you.

It is not just knowing about, but knowing through active engagement and transformation within specific contexts or environments. It shapes and is shaped by the interaction between the person and the world, influencing one’s identity and sense of belonging.

This kind of knowledge is experiential and co-creative, often seen in the dynamics of relationships, culture, and community participation.

A large part of Vervaeke's analysis is how our immersion in propositional knowiedge, at the expence of other forms of knowing, results in just that sense of separateness and division, which, I would argue, philosophy proper is aimed at ameliorating (for which see Pierre Hadot's writings on philosophy as a way of life).

Of course, this is all light years away from David Armstrong's physicalism. I know, he was Head of Department where I studied undergrad philosophy. (Can't speak highly enough however of Associate Prof, Keith Campbell, who's 'Philosophy of Matter' course was a highlight of my degree studies.)

I gather that you're challenging the direction it took, but swimming against the current is extremely challenging. — Relativist

You're telling me! :rofl:

Referring to this as "observer dependency" implies there's something special in the relation between a human observer and the quantum system being measured. The more objective description is "entanglement" - which occurs when a quantum system interacts with a classical object. — Relativist

The 2022 Physics Nobel was about this. Indeed, “observer dependency” could be rephrased more precisely as “measurement-dependency” or “interaction-dependency” - but it still marks a break from naïve objectivism (where objects are assumed to have definite properties regardless of measurement).

The Nobel presentations also did not try to “resolve” what “real” means in the sense of ontology. The experimental results deepen the mystery, and many interpretations still vie for supremacy.

And then, there's the all-too-obvious point that all such measuring devices and instruments are extensions of human sensory abilities. 'The apparatus has no meaning unless the human observer understands it and interprets its reading,' as Schrödinger put it.

the concept of each universal has something to do with the world outside ourselves - does it not? I claim that the universal "90 degrees" that I conceptualize is exhibited in the walls of my room. The abstraction is distinct from the walls that exhibit it, but it describes an aspect of the walls- and this same as aspect is exhibited in many places. — Relativist

Of course it does. But again I'm trying to draw attention to the implied understanding in your framing of the issue, of the separateness of mind and world. Universals, in the medieval account, are the way in which the intelligible features of the world are absorbed by intellect. As I put it in Idealism in Context:

Aquinas, building on Aristotle, maintained that true knowledge arises from a real union between knower and known. As Aristotle put it, “the soul (psuchē) is, in a way, all things,” meaning that the intellect becomes what it knows by receiving the form of the known object. Aquinas elaborated this with the principle that “the thing known is in the knower according to the mode of the knower.” In this view, to know something is not simply to construct a mental representation of it, but to participate in its form — to take into oneself, immaterially, the essence of what the thing is. (Here one may discern an echo of that inward unity — a kind of at-one-ness between subject and object — that contemplative traditions across cultures have long sought, not through discursive analysis but through direct insight.) Such noetic insight, unlike sensory knowledge, disengages the form of the particular from its individuating material conditions, allowing the intellect to apprehend it in its universality. This process — abstraction— is not merely a mental filtering but a form of participatory knowing: the intellect is conformed to the particular, and that conformity gives rise to true insight. Thus, knowledge is not an external mapping of the world but an assimilation, a union that bridges the gap between subject and object through shared intelligibility.

So, participatory knowledge, again. The way in which this type of realism fell out of favour, to be replaced by nominalism and empiricism, is the subject of a fascinating book, The Theological Origins of Modernity, M A Gillespie. And that's also related to epochal changes in consciousness.

I know there's a lot to take on in all of this, but your questioning is causing me to recap what I've been studying. I know it's very different to the Anglo analytic philosophy.

Quantum fields fit the state-of-affairs model: they are particulars with properties and relations to other quantum fields. — Relativist

That’s precisely the issue: the category “states of affairs” is elastic enough to accommodate whatever physics happens to throw up. It’s not doing explanatory work so much as retrofitting itself to whatever the latest theory says exists.

The actual science is independent of all the metaphysical claims you made. — Relativist

Utter bollocks. But go ahead and back your assertion up with the argument that might sustain it. :up:

One more thing: you imply that there's some consensus on some particular metaphysical model (among physicists? Among philosophers?) I sincerely doubt that. I know it's not true of philosophers — Relativist

You are not sounding sufficiently familiar with either the metaphysics or the physics. But prove me wrong if you like.

You just get angrier as the years go past. — apokrisis

You confuse a sense of humour for anger. Perhaps it's not a socially acceptable form of humour, but how does poking fun at someone, or ridiculing them, imply anger to you?

Again, just check out what I already told you seven years ago. Long before AI was around to deal with one's more mundane intellectual chores. — apokrisis

That statement really doesn't support your case. And repeating the same assertion you made seven years ago only indicates your unwillingness to adapt, and that your prejudice is well entrenched.

You are simply assuming the reality of the mathematical ideals which physicists apply (symmetries etc.). And you show complete disregard for the fact that the world which physicists apply these ideals to, reveals itself through empirical observation, to be fundamentally incompatible with those ideals. This has been pointed out to you many times, but you continue in ignorance.

it's just another form of physicalism, which by its very nature, ignores large tracts of empirical evidence, in an attempt to stuff the square peg (reality) into the round hole (physicalism).

The fact that the language of mathematics treats abstractions as "existing" does not entail that they do. — Relativist

Are you saying that the axioms of mathematics are irrelevant to the meaning of mathematical symbols, that mathematicians can interpret the rules however they want?

A physicist making a claim about the ontological status of mathematical abstractions is doing metaphysics, not physics. It's a question that cannot be settled by empirical evidence or scientific methodology. — Relativist

But you said explicitly ""physicalism defers to physics the identification of what exists". Therefore you (as physicalist) are assigning to physics, the responsibility of judging whether mathematical objects exist or not.

If you now claim that the physicist steps outside the boundaries of one's discipline, into metaphysics, in doing this, and ought not do this, then this implies that physicalism is absolutely incapable of making that judgement. The metaphysician who is physicalist leaves that judgement to the physicist to make, but then admits that the physicist is not qualified to make that judgement.

Agreed. — Relativist

i don't see how you can agree with me on this point, yet still believe that "physicalism" is the best ontology. By admitting that there is not one single ontology which supports physics as its grounding, you also allow that "physicalism" as an individual ontological base, will have internal incompatibility. That implies incoherency between various factions, but intrinsic within the overall "physicalism". Don't you think it would be better to choose one or the other form of physicalism, and adhere solely to those principles to avoid incoherency, or even better, to avoid physicalism altogether?

This actually relates directly to what you said above, about "the language of mathematics". We commonly allow interpretive variance in relation to mathematical axioms, as if interpretation is irrelevant. This allows for a wider range of applicability, that's what intentional ambiguity is useful for, a wider range of interpretation, therefore extended applicability. But it is ambiguity, and ambiguity is problematic when it comes to grounding. i suggest that you consider that this ambiguity contributes to the fact that there is a wide range of incompatible ontologies which consider themselves each to be a form of physicalism. This is because there is a range of different ways we can interpret the axioms which are indispensable to our understanding of the physics of the world.

The observations you refer to are entirely within a temporal context, such that for any observed object, X, we observed a time (Tp) prior to its existence. So we can conclude that the state of affairs at Tp necessarily had the potential to produce X.

Your inductive inference applies to all cases in which an object comes into existence from a state of affairs in which it did not exist. It does not apply to an initial state of affairs (Si); because there was no prior time at which Si did not exist. There's no objective reason to believe an initial, uncaused, physical state of affairs could not have existed.

I have just conclusively shown that your argument is non-sequitur.
— Relativist

No, you have just presented me with an irrelevant and false proposition, that an initial state of affairs is required. — Metaphysician Undercover

See the part in bold, above. My assertion was modest: an initial state of affairs is possible. Your claim required it to be impossible: it was inductive inference, so treating it as an ironclad truth committed the Black Swan fallacy. By presenting an alternative you hadn't considered, I conclusively proved your conclusion false. You have now attempted to prove there to be an unrelated reason to deny the possibility of an initial state, to rationalize your error:

The irrationality of an initial state of affairs, in the absolute sense, with no prior time, demonstrates that any proposed initial state, itself requires a prior cause.

Now you're attempting to prove an initial, physical state is impossible based on determinism (the premise that every state of the universe was caused by a prior state). Determinism in the universe is a consequence of natural law (e.g. thermodynamics, among others). If you were to claim that natural law necessitates prior causes for every physical state then you would be committing the fallacy of composition: assuming that a principle (or law) that apply to parts also apply to the whole. So you have to depend on metaphysical law. Let's examine.

It is conceivable that there is metaphysical law that mirrors determinism, so we should agree that it is conceptually possible. Something that is conceptually possible is a candidate for being metaphysically possible. However, an initial state is also conceptually possible: we can conceptualize something just existing by brute fact*. So an initial state is at least a conceptual possibility, and therefore also a candidate for being metaphysically possible.

So we have two contradictory metaphysical claims. Both are conceivable, neither is provable (short of making additional assumptions*), but one must be false. Reasoning can take us no further - so you can't rationally claim to show an initial state is metaphysically impossible.

I could go further and show that an infinite past is logically impossible, but it's not necessary since I've already thoroughly refuted your claim.

BTW, An uncaused, initial state of affairs does not rule out God. An intentional creator is logically and conceptually possible*.

That is exactly the case with the proposed "Big Bang". It must be either reduced to a nonphysical mathematical "singularity" as the initial state (which is irrational because its a mathematical, nonphysical "state"), or else understood as having a prior cause, God or some other sort of universe creating mechanism.

Your understanding of the big bang theory is flawed. The theory of the big bang is based on general relativity: the size of the (currently) visible universe approaches zero at increasingly earlier states. So there's a mathematical limit of 0 size and infinite density. This entails a mathematical singularity - from which physicists infer general relativity breaks down. They also note that below a certain radius, quantum effects would dominate. This is currently unanalyzable because there is no accepted theory that reconciles general relativity and quantum mechanics.

There are a variety of hypotheses about "pre-big bang" conditions, and what laws would apply. At this point, it is impossible to know, but your claim is a contrivance to "prove" what you already believe.
________________
* If you are schooled in other deistic arguments, you will next claim that brute facts are metaphysically impossible. If you choose to do that, please make an effort to identify the metaphysical assumptions you are making. Every deistic argument depends on metaphysical assumptions, and this is why it is impossible to prove God's existence - those assumptions can always be denied; they cannot be proven. The same is true of trying to prove God's non-existence. I recognize this, and that's why I defend my beliefs as an inference to best explanation.

The actual science is independent of all the metaphysical claims you made.
— Relativist

Utter bollocks. But go ahead and back your assertion up with the argument that might sustain it — apokrisis

You responded to one of my posts with a set of unsupported assertions that were contrary to things I had said. Now you expect me to prove you wrong. I'm not playing that game.

If your intent was to simply state disagreement, consider it duly noted. If you'd like to defend your claims, feel free. Otherwise we can just agree to disagree.

If your intent was to simply state disagreement, consider it duly noted. — Relativist

Don't be so touchy. I simply pointed out that physics does deal in "abstract objects and physical objects" and so physicalists – as those committed to a metaphysics of natural causes – mostly only deny the existence of "supernatural objects".

I then explained myself as to what I meant. Where you are speaking about objects, I would instead talk about causes. Or even better, the modal distinction between chance and necessity.

So physics combines the absolute abstract necessity of the laws of symmetry with a notion of materiality that is as reduced as much as possible to pure contingency. And this is the approach that has worked out spectacularly.

Physicalism is not materialism as such. It is the deflation of materialism that Aristotle first proposed – as a metaphysical-level argument – in his hylomorphic theory of substantial being.

Talk of "abstract objects and physical objects" is misleading as any kind of object is based on the idea of the substantial being that physicalism – as a naturalistic account – is meant to be deflating. If you call yourself a materialist, you are already losing. If you want to make sense of being a physicalist, you do this by showing you accept the reality of mathematical structure in combination with the matching reality of the degrees of freedom that a global state of contraint leaves contingent or undefined.

Hence why quantum physicists joke about operating under the Totalitarian Principle. "Everything not forbidden is compulsory". This gets at the structural realism that has become the basic ontological commitment of the physicist.

For instance, if special relativity constrains all quantum action under Poincare invariance, then a great deal is forbidden in terms of vacuum fluctuations. And yet also, contrariwise, absolute freedom is then granted to the gauge symmetries available within that global state of SR constraint. Under quantum field theory, you can have SO(3) symmetry broken down into SU(2). And if reality can break in that fashion, it must do. Which is lucky for us as we can exist. There can be quantum fields organised by SU(2) that start spitting out fluctuations which become the kind of fundamental matter described by the Standard Model.

I mention Ontic Structural Realism as now the fact of metaphysics catching up with the physics and excitedly explaining the modal distinction of chance and necessity on which this physicalism stands.

Folk may have the impression that physics exists to cash in the metaphysics of Greek atomism. And to be fair, that is what really inspired Newton and his mates.

But this was just a stepping stone. Now physics is firmly based on the hylomorphism of symmetry and fluctuation. Structures of constraint and the degrees of freedom they also have no choice but to form. Or the physics of relativity coupled to the physics of the quantum.

A coupling that seems the new mystery. But then again, only if you make the metaphysical mistake of expecting ancient atomism to apply to the description of gravity and not step back to think about the Planck scale in properly hylomorphic terms.

For anyone interested, current email update from John Vervaeke. It discusses some of the themes we’ve been looking at in this and other threads.

Why Our Modern Worldview Limits Your Understanding of Reality

Ontic Structural Realism as now the fact of metaphysics catching up with the physics — apokrisis

From what I’ve read, ontic structural realism is the attempt to rescue scientism from the wreckage of materialism. It has no interest in the nature and plights of existence as lived, but only in the abstract representation of physical forces. It’s like the Vienna Circle 2.0.

From what I’ve read, ontic structural realism is the attempt to rescue scientism from the wreckage of materialism. It has no interest in the nature and plights of existence as lived, but only in the abstract representation of physical forces. It’s like the Vienna Circle 2.0. — Wayfarer

I'm well aware of how you read things. Science is always scientism. Nature must include the supernatural. Plug in the algorithm and print out the conclusion without further thought.

This question points to the problem that arises when dichotomies are taken to be features of your worldview—as if they disclose the very structure of reality and the limits of what can be known.

One of the most prominent is the fact-value split—and it leads to what William Desmond called “default atheism.” — Wayfarer

Well dichotomies do disclose the limits of what can be the case. And fact-value is not a well-formed dichotomy. It is just a broken dualism.

Idealism is fatuous as it imagines the world made perfect under a set of guiding values like good, truth, beauty, the divine. But what kind of plan is that? How can monotonic personal values be turned into real world facts? What social or ecological structure – what natural structure – could implement this hope?

Sure, you can speak of the aspiration. But where is the delivery, the execution? If you listen to idealists, their idea of a plan is to either wait until you die and get transported up to Heaven, or else undergo some form of ego-death down here on Earth. Everyone stop everything you are doing and cease being a striving individual engaged with the daily business of living. Meditate to medicate.

In practice, only pragmatism works at all. Steering some balance between complementary limits. Formulate a system of values that is dichotomistically framed. One judged by the facts that are its outcomes. The facts that you then either want to leave alone or the facts you want to think about how to change.

Idealism points the mind off into the never-never. Placeless notions of perfection. Pragmatism is what lives down here on the surface of the Earth. Focus on the dichotomies we need to negotiate and we can come up with plans based on reason and evidence.

Idealism is fatuous as it imagines the world made perfect under a set of guiding values like good, truth, beauty, the divine. — apokrisis

Ever read Schopenhauer? Yours is the man-in-the-street version of idealism, which is 'the hope that everything will turn out for the best'. Idealism properly understood is the mainstream of Western philosophy, beginning with Plato. It understands mind as fundamental to existence, not as a material constituent but as the faculty through which and by which whatever we are to know is disclosed. Your attitude embodies just the false dichotomy that Vervaeke is describing, between 'pragmatist physicalism and unrealistic idealism'. In reality, idealist philosophy is perfectly capable of both realism and pragmatism, where that is called for, but it also sees something beyond the physical.

The caricature of idealism as 'placeless notions of perfection' is simply false. Schopenhauer, for example, was not an optimist but a pessimist, yet still an idealist in the sense that the world is representation, grounded in will. Likewise, Kant’s transcendental idealism or Hegel’s absolute idealism were not about escaping into Never-Never Land but about showing that reality is only intelligible because it is already structured by reason.

Pragmatism doesn’t escape this. William James and C S Peirce both recognised that our practices of inquiry are already shot through with values—truth, coherence, what works. That’s why the supposed fact–value dichotomy is broken: there are no 'brute facts' apart from a horizon of meaning in which they matter. In fact, Peirce himself appears in encyclopaedia entries under the heading of "objective idealism" — a fact you always reject because it doesn’t suit the physicalist attitude you want to buttress with selective borrowings from his philosophy.

So what you’re doing is just restating the very dichotomy Vervaeke critiques. You’re setting up 'pragmatism vs. idealism' as if they were exclusive alternatives, whereas the real point is that the framework of such dichotomies is what constrains thought in the first place. They are poles in a dialectic, not exclusive and exhaustive truth-claims.

My assertion was modest: an initial state of affairs is possible. — Relativist

That does not affect the argument. You just switched terminology from the existence of a physical thing, to a "state of affairs". By the inductive principle, the potential for each "state of affairs" is prior in time to that state of affairs. And, it needs an actual cause. Therefore even the proposed "initial state of affairs" has an actual cause which is prior to it.

Apokrisis avoids the cosmological argument by claiming that an actual physical state of affairs can come into existence from infinite possibility, as some sort of symmetry breaking. But this is illogical to believe that something actual could all of a sudden pop out of infinite possibility, a random fluctuation could suddenly occur in an infinite symmetry.

The nature of possibility is that each distinct possibility is possible. In infinite possibility each must be equally probable to allow that all are possible. Therefore not one could ever come into existence over another unless something selects, and actualizes one rather than the others. This is the issue, an actuality which causes one rather than the others is necessary. If possibility was infinite, then every possibility would be equal in that sense, and not one actual state of affairs could ever arise over the others, because that infinite possibility denies any actuality, and an actuality is required as cause.

By presenting an alternative you hadn't considered, I conclusively proved your conclusion false. — Relativist

You haven't presented any alternative. You only irrationally denied the inductive logic as black swan fallacy. However, there is no black swan fallacy here, because all experience and all physical evidence points to the truth of the premise. I agree that we can never know anything with absolute certainty, as you've been arguing, but this inductive conclusion we know with the highest degree of certainty of anything. You could argue that all knowledge concerning the physical world falls to the black swan fallacy, but you've already denied extreme skepticism, indicating that we can believe some facts. So if you reject this inductive premise, you're a hypocrite, rejecting it only because you do not want to face the reality of the conclusion it produces.

However, an initial state is also conceptually possible: we can conceptualize something just existing by brute fact*. — Relativist

This is false. We have an idea of what "existing" means. And, it is derived from our observations of the physical world. If we move to "conceptualize something existing by brute fact", then we violate, or contradict the meaning of "existing" which is supported by observations of our world.

Of course one might stipulate, like in the case of mathematical axioms, what "existing" means, and proceed to a conceptualization of something which exists simply because it is posited as existing, but what good would that do? This conceptualized existing thing, which exists because it is posited as existing by brute fact, would be something completely distinct and unrelated to the actual physical existence which we know. That is the problem with the difference between axiomatized ideals, and the real physical world, which 've been describing.

How is that ideal "something existing by brute fact" in anyway useful to this argument? It's like saying that you can posit a "possible world" which is completely different from the actual world, and use this to refute my description of the actual world. But this possible world is completely irrelevant, unless you can demonstrate some relation. That's the thing with fiction, we can make up whatever we want, including something which exists just by brute fact. But the fiction is irrelevant to our knowledge of the actual world, until you can show it to have some bearing.

So we have two contradictory metaphysical claims. Both are conceivable, neither is provable (short of making additional assumptions*), but one must be false. Reasoning can take us no further - so you can't rationally claim to show an initial state is metaphysically impossible. — Relativist

Again, this is false. Yes, we have two contradictory metaphysical claims. However, mine is proven through reference to the actual physical world, and the strongest inductive principle which we can know. Yours is just a fictitious "possible world" which has no bearing on our actual physical world, which you only proposed as an alternative to mine because you are afraid to face the reality of the actual world.

I could go further and show that an infinite past is logically impossible, but it's not necessary since I've already thoroughly refuted your claim. — Relativist

Your supposed refutation is like this: I can imagine a possible world which is completely different from your description of our actual world. Therefore your description of our world lacks the necessity required to be a true description, and your argument based on this descriptive premise is thereby refuted as unsound.

What you actually need to do to prove that the premise is untrue, is to demonstrate how it is inconsistent with the actual world. Thinking up an imaginary world which is different from my description, and claiming that the actual world could be like this instead of like my description, does not show my premise to be untrue.

Your understanding of the big bang theory is flawed. The theory of the big bang is based on general relativity: the size of the (currently) visible universe approaches zero at increasingly earlier states. So there's a mathematical limit of 0 size and infinite density. This entails a mathematical singularity - from which physicists infer general relativity breaks down. They also note that below a certain radius, quantum effects would dominate. This is currently unanalyzable because there is no accepted theory that reconciles general relativity and quantum mechanics. — Relativist

i don't see the flaw. You've just said almost the very same thing as me in a different way. The mathematical singularity is the mathematical ideal i referred to.

It understands mind as fundamental to existence, not as a material constituent but as the faculty through which and by which whatever we are to know is disclosed. — Wayfarer

As always, you confuse epistemology with ontology. There is what is and then how we could know.

Putting the two together is pragmatism/semiosis. Pulling them apart into a realm of ideas and a realm of materials is dualism.

And you keep leaning on semiotics and believing it is leading you to idealism. You see it as a sword to smite materialism.

But no. It is the sword to smite Cartesian dualism. So time to learn how to grasp its handle rather than grab it by the blade.

That’s why the supposed fact–value dichotomy is broken: there are no 'brute facts' apart from a horizon of meaning in which they matter. — Wayfarer

As a pragmatist, I can speak to epistemic method. And as a semiotician, I can then speak to the way that cashes out as my ontic commitments. They become related as two sides of the one coin.

You don’t seem to get the neat logic of what Peirce was actually up to here. He fixed the confusion that you keep reverting to.

You’re setting up 'pragmatism vs. idealism' as if they were exclusive alternatives, — Wayfarer

Clearly I’m not. At least I am certainly clear and you are not as yet. You are confusing pragmatism for materialism as idealism demands that as its perfect enemy. Pragmatism did the other thing of subsuming both camps into its broader holism.

Putting the two together is pragmatism/semiosis. — apokrisis

Putting the two together is ambiguity and equivocation.

You don’t seem to get the neat logic of what Peirce was actually up to here. — apokrisis

Peirce, like Wittgenstein whom some say derived ideas from Peirce, was a master of ambiguity.

The term, "subjectively real" seems problematic. The "contents" of my mind (my mental states) are objectively real - but known only to me. If I'm interpreting you correctly, you are simply suggesting the converse of objectivism. — Relativist

I think this interpretation is really a symptom of the old Cartesian division between mind and world, self and other. We inherit, both innately and culturally, the sense of being a private self “inside” the body facing an “external” world of objects. Within that picture, “subjective” ends up meaning personal, private, even arbitrary, while “objective” means whatever any observer can check third-person.

But what I mean by “subjective” is not the merely personal. It refers to the structures of experience through which reality is disclosed to consciousness — what phenomenology calls ipseity, or subject-hood. Every sentient being is a subject of experience in this sense. The personal is what’s idiosyncratic to me alone, but subjectivity is foundational and shared. Without it, there could be no experience of reality at all. But we tend not see it, because it is the assumed endogenous background to everything we say and do.

And you keep leaning on semiotics and believing it is leading you to idealism. You see it as a sword to smite materialism. — apokrisis

There’s no need to cast this in terms of “swords” and “smite.” I appreciate that you pointed me toward biosemiotics in the first place; thanks to your contributions, I’ve read a bit, including Marcello Barbieri’s Short History of Biosemiotics. What stood out to me is that biosemiotics is not a monolithic discipline. Barbieri distinguishes between at least three schools—Copenhagen, Tartu, and Code biology—each of which interprets the relation between symbols and physics differently. Hoffmeyer emphasizes semiosis as an emergent property of life, Barbieri stresses codes as rules not derivable from physics alone.

That’s why I don’t see semiotics as simply a “sword for idealism.” What it shows is that meaning, coding, and interpretation can’t be captured by physical causation on its own. That opens a space where physicalism doesn’t have the last word, and where the epistemic/ontological split really matters. And phenomenological biology is also significant, with the way that it identifies the emergence of intentional actions in biology as the ground of 'ipseity' or what becomes fully developed in h.sapiens as the sense of self. All of that kind of thinking can be understood as naturalist without necessarily being physicalist. That is the province of enactivism or embodied cognition, which I'm sure you're familiar with, and which I think has at least an idealist element in it, in recognising the ineliminable role of the subject.

What you actually need to do to prove that the premise is untrue, — Metaphysician Undercover

On the contary. You assumed the burden of proof when you said:

I believe the cosmological argument provides irrefutable proof of God — Metaphysician Undercover

An "irrefutable proof" can't simply establish that the conclusion is possibly true; it must show that the conclusion is necessarily true. My burden is easy: I merely need to show that one of your premises is possibly false.

If you don't understand that, then you don't understand logic.

That does not affect the argument. You just switched terminology from the existence of a physical thing, to a "state of affairs". By the inductive principle, the potential for each "state of affairs" is prior in time to that state of affairs. And, it needs an actual cause. Therefore even the proposed "initial state of affairs" has an actual cause which is prior to it. — Metaphysician Undercover

By "state" or "state of affairs", I am referring to the the totality of existence at a point of time. This would include all physical things and all gods (if they exist). What I've shown is that: it is possible that there was an initial state of affairs even if no gods exist.

You now claim an initial state of affairs "needs" an actual cause. Your burden is to show it logically impossible for something to exist uncaused. You can't. You're simply assuming it. I noted that deistic "proofs" depend on unproveable metaphysical assumptions.

By presenting an alternative you hadn't considered, I conclusively proved your conclusion false.
— Relativist

You haven't presented any alternative. You only irrationally denied the inductive logic as black swan fallacy. However, there is no black swan fallacy here, because all experience and all physical evidence points to the truth of the premise — Metaphysician Undercover

And to think: you called ME a "dimwit".

If only white swans have been seen, one might infer that only white swans exist. But it's fallacious to conclude it is impossible for other colors of swans to exist. This is known as "the problem of induction

I profess to be a "law realist": that laws of nature actually exist, and this explains why we see regularities in nature. But law realism is a metaphysical hypothesis; I do not claim it is proven by the evidence - I only say that I judge it to be the best explanation of the evidence. I don't know how you account for the regularities in nature, but however you do- it can only be hypothesis.

In infinite possibility each must be equally probable to allow that all are possible. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is mathematically incorrect. An infinite set of possibilities could fit any probability distribution.

However, an initial state is also conceptually possible: we can conceptualize something just existing by brute fact*.
— Relativist

This is false. We have an idea of what "existing" means. And, it is derived from our observations of the physical world. If we move to "conceptualize something existing by brute fact", then we violate, or contradict the meaning of "existing" which is supported by observations of our world. — Metaphysician Undercover

There are various ideas about what it means to exist. My position is that existence entails objects which have intrinsic properties and that has relations to all other objects (at least indirectly). A brute fact initial state would have properties that accounted for its potential to develop into subsequent states of affairs. IOW: it initiates (=causes) the subsequent causal chain that you misinterpret.

I bolded "my position" to highlight the fact that I not claiming to prove to you I'm necessarily correct. But you need to prove my stated position to be impossible, given that you claimed to be able to prove God's existence.

Of course one might stipulate, like in the case of mathematical axioms, what "existing" means, and proceed to a conceptualization of something which exists simply because it is posited as existing, but what good would that do? This conceptualized existing thing, which exists because it is posited as existing by brute fact, would be something completely distinct and unrelated to the actual physical existence which we know — Metaphysician Undercover

Nope. The initial state is causally linked to everything that exists.

Again, this is false. Yes, we have two contradictory metaphysical claims. However, mine is proven through reference to the actual physical world, and the strongest inductive principle which we can know — Metaphysician Undercover

An initial state is a black swan: it falsifies your inductive inference, and you haven't proven an initial state impossible.

Your understanding of the big bang theory is flawed. The theory of the big bang is based on general relativity: the size of the (currently) visible universe approaches zero at increasingly earlier states. So there's a mathematical limit of 0 size and infinite density. This entails a mathematical singularity - from which physicists infer general relativity breaks down. They also note that below a certain radius, quantum effects would dominate. This is currently unanalyzable because there is no accepted theory that reconciles general relativity and quantum mechanics.
— Relativist

i don't see the flaw — Metaphysician Undercover

Then watch this short video by cosmologist Sean Carroll:
https://youtube.com/shorts/uDB0_oIDUds?si=I6d3GYd3nhDtPKMC

What stood out to me is that biosemiotics is not a monolithic discipline. — Wayfarer

No discipline involving inquiry could be monolithic. It has to be riven at every scale by its dichotomies - its dialectical factions.

So by the time you can name the first dozen such factions of a discipline, then you are probably starting to explore it properly.

That opens a space where physicalism doesn’t have the last word, and where the epistemic/ontological split really matters. — Wayfarer

Well yes. But you omit the faction that unites information and entropy under dissipative structure theory. Folk like Pattee who directly tackle the symbol grounding issue and show how biology works.

Biosemiosis is a theory of life and mind. If you haven’t solved biology, you are not really ready for the neurobiology or sociocultural levels of biosemiosis.

All of that kind of thinking can be understood as naturalist without necessarily being physicalist. — Wayfarer

Well actually you would want to drill down to the level of biophysics now that science has got the tools to explore that. That is what really made biosemiosis - of the dissipative structure stripe - credible.

That is the province of enactivism or embodied cognition, which I'm sure you're familiar with, — Wayfarer

Wrote books on it. But once again, don’t confuse the epistemic lessons of enactivism with the ontological tradition that is idealism.

Of course we neurobiologically and socioculturally construct our worlds. But the world is still out there and deserves its own best scientific account. The best such account that can then include us in that general physicalist explanation is biosemiosis. The story of how epistemic creatures could arise as Nature’s way of accelerating its entropy flow.

Folk like Pattee who directly tackle the symbol grounding issue and show how biology works. — apokrisis

The concept of Biosemiotics requires making a distinction between two categories, the material or physical world and the symbolic or semantic world. The problem is that there is no obvious way to connect the two categories. ...I have not solved this problem… All I can do is set up the problem clearly by specifying the minimum logical and physical conditions necessary. — Howard Pattee, Physics and Metaphysics of Biosemiosis

The story of how epistemic creatures could arise as Nature’s way of accelerating its entropy flow. — apokrisis

Nihilism.

Then watch this short video by cosmologist Sean Carroll... — Relativist

There's an anecdote I sometimes tell. During the 1950's the then Pope Pius XXIV said:

Indeed, it seems that the science of today, by going back in one leap millions of centuries, has succeeded in being a witness to that primordial Fiat Lux, when, out of nothing, there burst forth with matter a sea of light and radiation [... Thus modern science has confirmed] with the concreteness of physical proofs the contingency of the universe and the well-founded deduction that about that time the cosmos issued from the hand of the Creator.

Lemaître was reportedly horrified by that intervention and was later able, with the assistance of Father Daniel O’Connell, the director of the Vatican Observatory, to convince the Pope not make any further public statements on religious or philosophical interpretations of matters concerning physical cosmology.

According to the theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Paul Dirac,

Once when I was talking with Lemaître about [his cosmological theory] and feeling stimulated by the grandeur of the picture that he has given us, I told him that I thought cosmology was the branch of science that lies closest to religion. However Lemaître did not agree with me. After thinking it over he suggested psychology as lying closest to religion. — Wikipedia

What impressed me about this was the fact that Lemaître was, as you will know, a Catholic priest, and yet he was horrified by the Pope's suggestion that his cosmological theory had anything to say about the articles of the faith. He would obviously have no time for the endless debates about the matter that occupy the Internet. That, and that he had the temerity to have the Pope advised to stop saying something, and that the Pope complied, signifying his respect for scientific opinion.

On the contary. You assumed the burden of proof when you said: — Relativist

I have the proof which I believe is irrefutable. You dispute the truth of one of my premises. The burden is on you to demonstrate that the premise is false.

An "irrefutable proof" can't simply establish that the conclusion is possibly true; it must show that the conclusion is necessarily true. My burden is easy: I merely need to show that one of your premises is possibly false. — Relativist

You are speaking nonsense. To show my argument is unsound you need to demonstrate that the premise is not true, that is your burden. Otherwise, any argue may be refuted with the proposal of an imaginary "possible" premise which contradicts that of the argument. That is extreme skepticism, which you've already rejected as irrational. Therefore, if you desire to refute the argument, the burden is on you to show that the premise is in fact false, not just insist that there is a possible world in which the premise would be false.

If you don't understand that, then you don't understand logic. — Relativist

I understand refutation, and I also understand sophistry, which is what you appear to use logic for.

I profess to be a "law realist": that laws of nature actually exist, and this explains why we see regularities in nature. — Relativist

In no way does assuming that laws of nature actually exist explain why we see regularities in nature. This is because "explanation" requires that you show how natural things would have access to these "laws", would be able to read and interpret them, and have the urge to obey them.

To claim that there are laws of nature out there somewhere, and I don't have to say where they are, or how it is that things can understand these laws and obey them, does not explain anything about the regularities of nature. All you appear to be saying is that we describe natural activities according to laws, therefore there must be prescriptive laws which correspond with our descriptive laws, and natural things are obeying these prescriptive laws.

An infinite set of possibilities could fit any probability distribution. — Relativist

That's incorrect, it fits every set of probability distribution. If one is the correct distribution, the others are excluded as impossible. Therefore it is necessary to understand that it fits "every" set of probability distribution, not "any" one set. Other wise you misunderstand the meaning of "infinite set of possibilities". It is every possibility, not any possibility.

This is clear evidence of the way you behave. A small, intentional ignorance, turns everything around for you. Then you hope that I don't notice your sophistry. Just like above, you try to turn the burden of "refutation" around onto the person making the argument, by claiming that the criteria for "refutation" is to assert that the person making the argument hasn't demonstrate with absolute certainty that all the premises are impossible to be false. Your sophistry knows no bounds, as you've enabled yourself to refute any argument you want, with that simple assertion, simply through your sophistic manipulation of the meaning of "infinite set of possibilities".

There are various ideas about what it means to exist. My position is that existence entails objects which have intrinsic properties and that has relations to all other objects (at least indirectly). A brute fact initial state would have properties that accounted for its potential to develop into subsequent states of affairs. IOW: it initiates (=causes) the subsequent causal chain that you misinterpret. — Relativist

You state "what it means to exist", as a state. Then you propose "potential to develop into subsequent states". But this "potential" is not included in your definition of "exist", it is dependent on something else, time. However, "time" is not included as something which exists. Therefore you have a hidden premise, "time". We have "exist" according to your position, and also time, which is something which according to your position does not exist, but it is still necessary for you to account for the reality of things. Therefore you sneak it in as a hidden premise. This is the sophistry which you practise.

The initial state is causally linked to everything that exists. — Relativist

Sure it is, through your hidden premise of time, which according to your definition of "exists" does not exist. How do you account for the reality of time? You clearly need it for your argument, yet it escapes your definition of something which exists.

I have the proof which I believe is irrefutable. You dispute the truth of one of my premises. The burden is on you to demonstrate that the premise is false. — Metaphysician Undercover

So you're just making the modest claim that the argument convinces you of god's existence. You are not claiming that it constitutes undeniable proof that no rational person could deny.

Nevertheless, I did explain why it might be false: the possibility that there was an initial state of affairs that was physical (no gods). So there are at least 2 logically valid explanations for the existence of the universe: (A) God ; or (B) a physical initial state.

You haven't proven (B) false, so you should acknowledge that it is possibly true, and that this implies God possibly does not exist. Do you acknowledge this?

Furthermore, I don’t think it’s helpful to frame this as though my philosophical outlook simply reduces to my personality or my particular “areas of concern” which is essentially a form of ad hominem argument. I — Wayfarer

An hominem would be an irrational judgement that your reasoning was rooted in something about you that has little or logical relation to the matter at hand. My comment was based on giving you the benefit of the doubt that your judgement is rooted in your noetic structure (the sum total of a person's beliefs, plus the relationships between those beliefs, plus the relationships or the relations between those beliefs)

Our noetic structure will always constitute the lens through which we make epistemic judgements. We all do this - there's no negative connotations. It's does not imply irrationality. I respect that your noetic structure differs from mine, and would not suggest this means you're objectively wrong.

Contrast this with the fact that you do not give me the same benefit of the doubt, and openly disrespect my views. And you do this despite your failure to identify a single legitimate flaw in my position. You seem to conflate a reason that you reject something with a knock-down refutation of it.

I respect that your noetic structure differs from mine, and would not suggest this means you're objectively wrong. — Relativist

Fair enough, mistake on my part. However I don’t take issue with physicalism because you hold it, but because I believe it’s a mistaken philosophical view. I believe I’ve given you many grounds on which I and others believe physicalism to be a mistaken philosophical view, but that you don’t recognize the arguments.

I understand that - what is physical is defined in contrast with or distinct from what is supernatural or spiritual. That's a part of my point - it is an aspect of the 'Cartesian division' which I've already referred to. I'm trying to explain what is wrong with the expresssion 'spiritual/supernatural objects...' — Wayfarer

Why does it matter, if it's a category that maps to an empty set?

There is no objective existent which corresponds with 'spirit' because (again whether it is real or not) it transcends the subject-object division. — Wayfarer

That's an ontological claim: you seem to agree there are no spiritual objects, but hint that "spiritual" applies in some vague way to at some vague things. Stop being vague and describe what you mean, and explain why I should accept your claims.

Vagueness is suspicious: it tends to be both unconvincing and incorrigible. Unconvincing, because of the lack of clarity needed to analyze and evaluate it. Incorrigible because one can twist the vague meanings on the fly in order to counter objections.

There are four ways of knowing: propositional, perspectival, procedural and participatory (ref.)Participatory knowledge is the knowledge of what it’s like to occupy a role in your environment or relationships. Vervaeke considers this to be the most profound of the four types of knowledge. It involves being in a deep, transformative relationship with the world, participating fully in something that is wider than you. — Wayfarer

The only thing being "transformed" is the mind of the person, not the external world. Sure: we are actors in the world, and this seems important because it could positively influence our behaviour - protecting the environment, the welfare of other species, etc. However, this is an epistemological paradigm with moral overtones. It doesn't falsify the ontology I'm defending; nor does it entail an alternative one. Rather - it reenforces the utility of fit-for-purpose paradigms.

Of course, this is all light years away from David Armstrong's physicalism — Wayfarer

So is also the sensory evaluation of wine, economics, and architecture. Each topic is explored and discussed within their respective frameworks. Assemble a group of people with similar education on one of these topics and they can have a meaningful discussion, despite having different religions and ethnic backgrounds, because they share the same topic-central basis. I think Trump is a narcissistic, amoral criminal, irrespective of the ontological grounding of these characteristics. I suspect your views aren't too different.

it still marks a break from naïve objectivism (where objects are assumed to have definite properties regardless of measurement). — Wayfarer

There are still definite properties, but these properties are not simple, scalar numbers. Indeed this is at odds with the way we perceive, and interact with, the world.

And then, there's the all-too-obvious point that all such measuring devices and instruments are extensions of human sensory abilities. 'The apparatus has no meaning unless the human observer understands it and interprets its reading,' as Schrödinger put it. — Wayfarer

But "meaning" is only intra-mental. It influences how we interact with the world outside our minds, but there's no direct ontological relation between this "meaning" (whatever the ontology of it) and the system it applies to. Furthermore, false understandings influence our interactions just as much as accurate ones.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be latching onto the
"consciousness causes collapse" interpretation of QM to argue for a more direct quasi-magical role for consciousness in the world-at-large. This certainly can't be treated as evidence in support of your point of view because you're selecting it BECAUSE it's consistent with your point of view.

I'm trying to draw attention to the implied understanding in your framing of the issue, of the separateness of mind and world. Universals, in the medieval account, are the way in which the intelligible features of the world are absorbed by intellect — Wayfarer

You've provided no reason to think this is a false distinction. Meaning/understanding are intra-mental.

I accounted for our perceiving of universals through the way of abstraction. This process does help us understand aspects of the world, and I've acknowledged that the mental state.associated with a 90 degree angle is distinct from the actual relation between walls. But the words we use are referring to a quality that is actually present in the wall-wall system that is also present in other systems irrespective of whether they have been perceived. It is that quality that is the universal. The walls have no ontological dependence on the perception, the abstraction, nor the general understanding we have. Feel free to argue otherwise, but don't gloss over the ontological (or at least perceived) qualities of the things we are perceiving. If my implied objectification is problematic for you, then give me an account in your terms - including the de-objectification.

Aquinas, building on Aristotle, maintained that true knowledge arises from a real union between knower and known.... Thus, knowledge is not an external mapping of the world but an assimilation, a union that bridges the gap between subject and object through shared intelligibility.

I see this as a poetic description of the processes of abstracting and understanding, perfectly consistent, in essentials, with my less unpoetic rendition. If you think I'm missing something, then spell it out. As noted: vagueness hurts your case.

That’s precisely the issue: the category “states of affairs” is elastic enough to accommodate whatever physics happens to throw up. It’s not doing explanatory work so much as retrofitting itself to whatever the latest theory says exists. — Wayfarer

LOL! Of course it is sufficiently "elastic"! The specifics are a matter for empirical investigation. The notion that everything that exists is a state of affairs IS explanatory - it tells us something about the nature of existence: properties (color, electric charge, mass, ...) aren't existents; neither are relations (electromagnetic attraction, distance, angle...). Further, there's an acknowledgement that there are universals; nominalism is rejected; foundational tropes are rejected.

There are other implications: it is contrary to the notion essentialism and natural kinds. It accounts for the nature of individual identity. And, of course, it accounts for natural laws, which in turn account for regularities in nature.

In short: it explains what a metaphysical system needs to explain. It doesn't need to explain or predict the objects that physics explains and predicts.

Any metaphysical system that failed to be sufficiently "elastic" to fit accepted science would be FALSIFIED by science. Not because science is necessarily right, but because it is the best available means of identifying what exists, thanks to its strong epistemological methodology.

Nihilism. — Wayfarer

A silly retort. My semiotic approach starts with accepting that life and mind exist by being in a modelling relation with the world. So that can be considered a variety of epistemic idealism. Peirce of course used Kant as a launch point.

So life and mind are fully part of Nature and entrained to its thermodynamic constraints. Genes and neurons are the obvious physical basis of a relation based on codes, information, symbols – habits of interpretance. Biology and neurobiology can tell us all about the way ideas can shape the world.

Biophysics provided the last missing piece when it showed that there is a convergence zone at the semi-classical nanoscale of chemistry where biological information can switch the physical flows of entropy at "no cost". Or at least the flicking of the switch has a single standard small cost – the cost of an ATP molecule or two – to cause some organic chemical change picked freely from an almost infinite library of such reactions. Any organic molecule you want, we can make it. All same price. You pay $1 please.

So as a variety of epistemic idealism, semiosis is different as it fully cashes out in a rational account of what is taking place at the point where ideas interact with the world. There is no longer any explanatory gap that ontic idealism can exploit. Not even the tiniest one.

And rather than being a species of Nihilism, this biological and neurobiological level semiosis paves the way for the more interesting and complex case that is the linguistic and mathematical semiosis on which human social and cultural order is based. Semiosis based on publicly sourced and shared code in the form of words and numbers.

So say you are concerned with some philosophical notion like "values". You want to know how values as an idea can exist somewhere in an uncaring and Darwinian world. You want to argue that because Scientism leaves no clear place for them, therefore – any real argument being omitted here – ontic idealism applies. Values are somehow part of the great Platonic absolute. Its own realm of the good, the true, the beautiful, the perfect, the divine, the right. A collection of things of that kind which are the shiny objects in the eternal kingdom of pure ideas.

Well actually you don't want to be so specific about what ontology you mean to commit to at this point. Best to keep it vague otherwise it all starts to fall apart under critical analysis. The important thing is that "values" supports the notion that to the degree science bangs on about the material basis of Being, it is missing "what matters most".

But semiosis happily puts human values back in the actual world. Humans have formed a sociocultural level of organismic being. We exist by modelling the world in terms of our collective narrative and technological habits. We can mine nature to build civilisations. These world narratives or Umwelts could be deemed useful fictions – epistemic idealism – but they work. They set up a feedback loop that results in a compounding growth in human civilisation.

And the more rational and scientific we become, the more we accelerate that production of human richness and variety. The better we get at harnessing the resources of nature and building whatever idea of paradise we might have in mind.

Of course, "values" then become a problem if we start changing the world so fast that we haven't had enough time to update that way of looking at the world in a way that remains pragmatically useful. Like if we still saddle ourselves with Platonic or Cartesian forms of ontic idealism and value absolutism.

But hey. The science on semiosis is in. The grounds for pragmatism are secured. One can move on and join the modern world – engage with it from a vantage point that has the right ideas about it and about us.

Do you still dismiss that as Nihilism?

I understand that - what is physical is defined in contrast with or distinct from what is supernatural or spiritual. That's a part of my point - it is an aspect of the 'Cartesian division' which I've already referred to. I'm trying to explain what is wrong with the expresssion 'spiritual/supernatural objects...'
— Wayfarer

Why does it matter, if it's a category that maps to an empty set? — Relativist

The argument is that the reference to "spiritual/supernatural objects" is a category error. That by declaring the 'spiritual or supernatural' to consist of 'objects' you are making it an empty set.

Of course it sounds vague when what you want is something very specific, determinable by scientific enquiry, an 'atomic fact'. Questions of this kind are always elusive, that's why the positivists wanted to declare them all meaningless as a matter of principle. They're difficult in a way different to technical and scientific questions.

The only thing being "transformed" is the mind of the person, not the external world. — Relativist

There, again, is your belief that the world is a certain way, that it has a determinate existence external to your cognition of it. But this is just what has been called into question by both cognitive science and quantum physics.

you seem to be latching onto the "consciousness causes collapse" interpretation of QM — Relativist

The linked article says it postulates that 'consciousness is the main mechanism behind the process of measurement'. I say that too is a categorical error - consciousness is not a mechanism nor one cause in a sequence of events. The way I put it is that the act of observation or measurement is ineliminable - cannot be eliminated - in the derivation of an observational outcome. This is why quantum physics calls objectivity into question - not because consciousness is 'a factor' or 'a mechanism'.

I'm essentially arguing that quantum mechanics shows us the limits of the subject/object distinction that classical physics assumed. This is closer to what philosophers like Bohr and Heisenberg were getting at - that the measurement problem isn't a technical issue to be solved but a conceptual lesson about the nature of physical knowledge itself. Hence that Bohr aphorism I already quoted. Here's another one: 'In our description of nature, the purpose is not to disclose the real essence of the phenomena but only to track down, so far as it is possible, relations between the manifold aspects of our experience.' Do you see the Kantian implications of this statement? That we do not see the phenomenon 'in itself', as it is, independently of our observation of it. We're involved in producing the outcome. Whereas in classical physics, we're at arms length from the outcome, we can maintain that sense of separateness which objectivity requires. But that sense of scientific detachment and objectivity, is also very much a cultural artifact, typical of a very specific period in history and culture. It is also where objectivist physicalism is located.

The fact that you will invariably interpret this as being a causal sequence where consciousness is one thing, the effect another, is the same issue as treating the spiritual or supernatural as 'an object'. As I said, requires perspectival shift to see why.

You've provided no reason to think this is a false distinction — Relativist

I just have! I'm trying to convey a difficult point about the nature and limitations of objective thought, but everything I'm saying is interpolated into an idiom within which only what is considered objective is admissable. Consequently, we're 'talking past' one another. Much of analytical philosophy is propositional in nature - propositions built around a lexicon of states-of-affairs, properties, and the like (hence the interminable and circular threads on 'jtb'). Participatory and perspectival knowing are different to that. They're more characteristic of tradional philosophies, in existential and spiritual practices, ways-of-being in the world.

I'll hasten to add, I'm no exemplar of the philosophic sage who has mastered such 'ways of being' and what they entail. By no means. But I at least recognise them.

So life and mind are fully part of Nature and entrained to its thermodynamic constraints. — apokrisis

You did mention

Paticcasamuppada as your Buddhist mates would say. — apokrisis

Let's unpack that, for those unfamiliar with the terminology. Paṭiccasamuppāda (Pali Buddhism) and Pratītyasamutpāda (Sanskrit Buddhism) refers to the 'chain of dependent co-arising'. It is a causal chain, comprising 12 steps (nidanas) the details of which are too voluminous to summarize here. It is casually expressed as 'This being, that becomes; this ceasing, that fades away'. It begins with 'avidya', meaning ignorance (literally 'not seeing') and unfolds through this 12-step sequence comprising in part mental formations, name and form, feelings, cravings, and so on (wikipedia entry.) It is represented iconographically as the Bhavachakra, the 'wheel of life and death'. There is also a reverse formulation, with the negation of each of the 12 links, culminating in nibbana which is release from the wheel of life and death.

Within this lexion, materialism or physicalism are designated ucchedavāda (nihilist) the view that the subject is nothing other than the body, and that death is annihilation. At the opposite extreme is sassatavāda, the view that there is an eternal I or self that is reborn in perpetuity. In the Buddha's culture, there was widespread (though not universal) belief in reincarnation, so the 'eternalists' were those who believed that by virtuous practices, they could secure an un-ending sequence of propitious re-births in the future. (I'm inclined to think that this also describes populist Christian views of Heaven.)

So implicity within all of this, there is a beyond life-and-death. But it would be a mistake to conceive of it as 'something that exists'. A Sōtō Zen master, for whom I have great respect, put it like this:

Buddhists believe in the Universe. The Universe is, according to philosophers who base their beliefs on idealism, a place of the spirit. Other philosophers whose beliefs are based on a materialistic view, say that the Universe is composed of the matter we see in front of our eyes. Buddhist philosophy takes a view which is neither idealistic nor materialistic; Buddhists do not believe that the Universe is composed of only matter. They believe that there is something else other than matter. But there is a difficulty here; if we use a concept like spirit to describe that something else other than matter, people are prone to interpret Buddhism as some form of spiritualistic religion and think that Buddhists must therefore believe in the actual existence of spirit. So it becomes very important to understand the Buddhist view of the concept spirit.

I am careful to refer to spirit as a concept here because in fact Buddhism does not believe in the actual existence of spirit. So what is this something else other than matter which exists in this Universe? If we think that there is a something which actually exists other than matter, our understanding will not be correct; nothing physical exists outside of matter.

Buddhists believe in the existence of the Universe. Some people explain the Universe as a universe based on matter. But there also exists something which we call value or meaning. A Universe consisting only of matter leaves no room for value or meaning in civilizations and cultures. Matter alone has no value. We can say that the Universe is constructed with matter, but we must also say that matter works for some purpose.

So in our understanding of the Universe we should recognize the existence of something other than matter. We can call that something spirit, but if we do we should remember that in Buddhism, the word spirit is a figurative expression for value or meaning. We do not say that spirit exists in reality; we use the concept only figuratively. — Nishijima-Roshi, Three Philosophies and One Reality

I'm struck by the similarity to one of the aphorisms at the end of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus:

The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it there is no value—and if there were, it would be of no value.

If there is a value which is of value, it must lie outside all happening and being-so. For all happening and being-so is accidental.

What makes it non-accidental cannot lie in the world, for otherwise this would again be accidental.

It must lie outside the world. — 6.41

But what could lie outside the world? From our viewpoint, nothing. But that is not the 'nothing' of nihilism. It is 'that of which we cannot speak'.

But semiosis happily puts human values back in the actual world. — apokrisis

I grant that, it has a lot in common with phenomologists and existentialists, and I've learned and am learning a lot from it. It's a big improvement on lumpen materialism. But as you will often acknowledge, it envisages no end to the existence apart from its physical dissolution.