Although, speaking of 'atomic facts', and as Buddhist philosophy has now been introduced, Buddhism has a psycho-philosophical schema, known as abhidamma (sanskrit abhidarma) comprising a voluminous account of the atomic facts ('dhammas') of existence. It is a confusing aspect of Buddhism, that the term 'dhamma' (dharma) means both the overall teaching of Buddhism, and also the minutae of experience. But this is due to the inherently phenomenological nature of Buddhist philosophy, in that a 'dhamma' is a 'momentary atom of experience', rather than an enduring particle of matter. Abhidhamma nevertheless gave rise to an elaborate theory of 'Buddhist atomism' in the early period, even down to the purported, minute temporal duration of each moment. This comprises a detailed scholastic catalogue of the types of 'moments of experience' that arise according to the various causes and conditions as explained in the 'chain of dependent origination' (noted above. Scholars have noted similarities with A.N. Whitehead's process philosophy, although the convergences ought not to be over-stressed.)

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. — Relativist

If you're not interested in discussing it further, I'm ok with that. :up:

Although you charge me with vagueness, I can’t help noticing that physicalism itself is equally vague, if not more so. When it defines “physical” as “whatever physics will someday describe,” or as a “state of affairs” (which in practice means “whatever happens to be the case”), how is that not vague? My point all along has been that consciousness and experience are foundational: they are the ground of all science and philosophy. If that doesn’t fit into the the physicalist frame, that may say more about the limits of the frame. These are nearer to metacognitive arguments—about the conditions that make science and philosophy possible in the first place—than to statements of purported facts, which is the only kind your framework recognises.

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. — Nishijima-Roshi, Three Philosophies and One Reality

This runs into a problem when science tells us matter is shaped by a thermodynamic purpose. The Big Bang could happen as it was a grand carving out of the very Heat Sink it was throwing itself headlong into. The Universe expands so it can cool, and cools so it can expand. Some material crud forms in the midst of all that once the temperature has dropped to a few degrees from absolute zero and distance has grown so that planets are only moderately warmed by the dying fusion embers that is their local star.

Then civilisation and culture can rise up out of the biofilm that starts to coat a rocky planet with a convenient temperature. You get little critters and then clever apes. A narrative game starts up that leads to a technological one. You get a lot of talk about values as the way to coordinate a bunch of people using an easily sharable social algorithms. Little aphorisms like the Golden Mean and "do unto others". It helps bind the people to the authority of a value system if they believe it is not just pragmatically optional but absolute and damnable by hell fire. Or perhaps instead penalised by coming back in the next life to try over from the level of a bug or mushroom.

Hey, when faced with the strained metaphysics used to bolster ontic idealism, I do start to see the advantages of nihilism.

If civilisation and culture want values and meaning, do they really have to commit to idealism and its absolutism? Can't a sorry old pragmatist like me not have values and meaning without all the claptrap? Just living a productive life and enjoying it?

Can't a sorry old pragmatist like me not have values and meaning without all the claptrap? Just living a productive life and enjoying it? — apokrisis

If that's what you value, knock your socks off! :grin:

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. — Relativist

Of course, I said the proof is "irrefutable", I didn't say it was "undeniable". As you've aptly demonstrated, anyone can deny anything, no matter how irrefutable it is. All they need to do is fabricate a completely fictitious, imaginary "logical possibility", claim that they believe this "possibility" instead, and start denying. But denying it does not refute it, so I continue to believe that it is irrefutable.

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. — Relativist

I'll repeat myself. All empirical evidence indicates that any, and every, "physical state of affairs" is posterior in time, to the potential for that state. Since this is known with the highest degree of certitude possible, then we can conclude that any proposed "initial state of affairs that was physical" (simply interpreted as 'first physical thing') necessarily had a cause which was actual, and prior to it in time. That's a nonphysical cause. This conclusion requires the further premise that something actual is required, as cause, to produce any actuality from potential.

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? — Relativist

I don't dispute (B), the "physical initial state". The point though, is that the argument demonstrates that an actual cause of such a thing is necessary. The potential for that initial physical state, by itself, does not suffice as the cause of it. That actual cause is something nonphysical, and what is commonly referred to as God.

Apokrisis will insist that a cause is not necessary, that the physical initial state just sprang into existence from infinite potential, as a quantum fluctuation, or some type of symmetry breaking. But this is irrational for the reasons I explained above. In a realm of infinite possibility there would be nothing which could actualize (select) one possibility (quantum fluctuation or symmetry breaking) instead of the others, all possibilities being balanced and equally possible.

When the argument of "chance occurrence", random event, abiogenesis, etc., is taken to the extreme, such as when it is taken to explain the very existence of "the physical universe", its irrationality becomes extremely evident. It's a matter of saying that something comes from nothing, where "nothing" is replaced with "potential". The physical universe comes from the potential for it. But this requires that we make "potential" into something real, and the only way to do this is to assign to it some degree of actuality, which is not physical. So we assume the actual existence of the nonphysical.

This runs into a problem when science tells us matter is shaped by a thermodynamic purpose. The Big Bang could happen as it was a grand carving out of the very Heat Sink it was throwing itself headlong into. The Universe expands so it can cool, and cools so it can expand. — apokrisis

I can't help but notice the teleological implications in this expression - purpose, 'throwing itself ' 'so it can...'. All intentional language. Maybe that's what came back into physicalism with semiotics, but it sounds idealist to me.

perhaps instead penalised by coming back in the next life to try over from the level of a bug or mushroom. — apokrisis

In Buddhist lore, there is no God handing out penalties. Everything that befalls one is one's own doing - that's what karma means. But it also says those who behave like animals may indeed end up being one.

Can't a sorry old pragmatist like me not have values and meaning without all the claptrap? — apokrisis

I'm sorry you thought my post was 'claptrap'. I intended it as a sincere attempt to make a serious philosophical point.

What, about the passage you quoted, suggests either? — Wayfarer

Its...

Matter alone has no value. — Nishijima-Roshi, Three Philosophies and One Reality

In logic, the corollary of that is that value alone has no matter. And that is absolutist talk, matey!

As a relativist or dichotomist, I would says "matter" might be regarded as a state of minimal value, and "value" as a state of minimal matter. This phrasing makes clear my ontic commitment. I am speaking of matter and value as now the connected limits of a dynamical balance. Reality is to be found in between these limiting ideas. Reality is always some hylomorphic mix of matter and value – if that is the terminology you insist on using.

It sort of works from a systems point of view as value does speak to purpose or telos. But form is also important as purposes have to be embodied as causal structures – structures of constraint. When you call something good, or beautiful, or divine, or whatever, the question becomes, well what is the shape of that? What does that look like in practice?

Even Plato's realm of ideas had this hierarchical structure. The universal notion of the Good anchoring the Universe of mathematical forms that gave structure to the concept of the ultimately optimal. The sub-realm of triangles gets to know what its best – most beautiful and regular – shape is. Then all the triangles that are increasingly ugly and mishappen in some way. Down to the truly crappy triangles being scratched out with a twig in the sand.

Absolutist talk sounds important and impressive. But it equivocates.

If you parse this phrase carefully, what function is "alone" serving? Does matter have no value after it has been emptied of value, and so some value had to have been there all along? Just as little as possible. Matter becomes defined as a state of infinitesimal value, and then that seeming so close to zero, we can forget to ask how matter might enjoy both some kind of value and also no kind of value in the same breath.

Idealism can shrink its inconsistencies very small with coy wording. Yet always the equivocation lurks.

In logic, the corollary of that is that value alone has no matter. And that is absolutist talk, matey! — apokrisis

I'm surprised you say that. What, then, of the corrollary I noted from Wittgenstein? Him also?

I think it maps perfectly well against the 'cartesian division' that I already noted - the fact that according to early modern science, '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.' I'm not saying that your pansemiotic metaphysics adheres to that, but I think it's a fair characterisation of the mainstream scientific worldview, at least until quite recently. The objective sciences deal with quantitative measurement, whereas values are qualitative judgements. That is the origin of Hume’s is-ought problem. It could quite easily be argued that the whole point of biosemiotic philosophy was to ameliorate this division. This ought not to be controversial.

When you call something good, or beautiful, or divine, or whatever, the question becomes, well what is the shape of that? What does that look like in practice? — apokrisis

In pre-modern philosophy that is the subject explored by Pierre Hadot. But let’s not lose sight of the thread - it was you that introduced the Buddhist chain of dependent origination to the conversation, in association with several other schools of thought. I sought to elaborate on that, in respect of the claim that life and mind can be completely understood in thermodynamic terms. So I pointed out that Buddhist philosophy would not agree with that; that human existence cannot be regarded solely in those terms. But that as to why not, it is not through positing some ‘non-physical existent’. I realise it’s a subtle and difficult point to get across, but it was not made idly, it can be supported with reference to sources, hence the mention of Nishijima, who was no ‘idealist absolutist’.

The objective sciences deal with quantitative measurement, whereas values are qualitative judgements. — Wayfarer

I don’t agree but it’s not an issue. You are talking here about epistemic idealism and that’s near enough pragmatism. We are modellers of reality and so always on the side of subjectivity in that sense. No problem there.

It’s how you slide into ontic idealism which I question. I appreciate that you do make an effort to bat for idealism. But the pattern seems to be that one minute we are talking about cognition as a useful way of constructing “the world” - an embodied model of the world as it is from a point of view that includes an “us” as its centre - and the next you assume that an ontological argument has been made. That this “us” is more than just a figment or avatar of that world modelling activity. Suddenly something that was an agreed part of the epistemic process has broken free and exists in its own unplaced realm outside the pragmatic modelling relation an organism has with it’s environment.

I sought to elaborate on that, in respect of the claim that life and mind can be completely understood in thermodynamic terms. — Wayfarer

But that’s not what I say. What I say is that life and mind are so grounded in the task of navigating entropic flows that it would be hard to escape this most basic reasons for evolving a body and a mind.

Humans - as social organisms - could perhaps have the complexity to rise above the world in some way. Yet look close at human history and one doesn’t see that. There is a lot of talk about high flying ideals, yet all the social activity cashes out in creating a machinery of exponential growth.

it can be supported with reference to sources, hence the mention of Nishijima, who was no ‘idealist absolutist — Wayfarer

So where does value come from in this telling? Is it on the side of the epistemic relation between an organism and its world, or is it something more - an ontological level break between the realm of matter and the realm of ideas?

So what is this something else other than matter which exists in this Universe? — Nishijima-Roshi, Three Philosophies and One Reality

Exactly. Walk me through it.

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

Your source equivocates. That is what I pointed out. Is the qualification that spirit is only used figuratively meant to walk us back from the ontic to the epistemic? We talk as if value and meaning are separate from material being and yet share the same Universe, but that separateness is then just a figure of speech?

Are we walking idealism all the way back to semiosis - which indeed says physical systems share the world with organismic systems? Entropy can be regulated by information. Clearly I would be happy with that and only want to claim that semiosis is the well worked out scientific theory that now makes good this epistemic version of idealism.

But you appear to want to defend some version of ontic idealism. And your sources likewise equivocate at the crucial point.

But you appear to want to defend some version of ontic idealism. — apokrisis

You, yourself, actually "defend some version of ontic idealism". I'm surprised that you still haven't come to recognize this. Your first principle, absolute potential, the symmetry which is the foundation for symmetry-breaking, is nothing but an ideal. Therefore you place the ideal as prior to everything. That is common to physicalism, as physics leans heavily on mathematical ideals.

This is actually what happened to "materialism" over the years. People would grasp "matter" as the first principle of the material world, without realizing that "matter" was simply an ideal, as Berkeley demonstrated. Then materialism was reducible to idealism, and Marx demonstrated that the inversion of this is also true. The result is that materialism and idealism are actually equivalent. Aristotle demonstrated this as well.

I don’t take issue with physicalism because you hold it, but because I believe it’s a mistaken philosophical view. — Wayfarer

Remember that I never set out to convince you physicalism is true. My objectives were to help you understand it, and to provide my justification for believing it.

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.

Your reasons seem to boil down to fact that it's inconsistent with your other beliefs. It's perfectly reasonable to interpret new information in terms of one's background beliefs, and it's justified to to reject a proposal on that basis. But this rejection is subjective: epistemically contingent on your particular background beliefs (subsumed in your overall noetic structure).

But this means YOUR reasons to reject it do not falsify MY beliefs. And vice versa: my reasons to reject your position are epistemically contingent upon my background beliefs. The difference is that I recognize this contingency - and that's why I can respect your position. You overlook this contingency, and hence you conflate your subjective basis for rejecting physicalism with an objective falsification.

If you happen to think you are rejecting it on some meta-ontological principles, so they rise above subjective judgement, then state these principles and be prepared to show how they apply to your theory.

The term "physicalism" is used largely for historical reasons. These are discussed in the SEP article on physicalism. Personally, I make sense of it by considering proper subsets of the sorts of things commonly treated as existing: spiritual/supernatural objects (e.g. angels), abstract objects, and physical objects. Physicalists deny the existence of the first two. — 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. — Wayfarer

What categories should I have used when explaining how "I made sense" of the meaning of "physical"- after you indicated I'd "left the meaning of 'physical' indeterminate"? I referenced categories of hypothetical objects that many take for granted:

-supernatural/spiritual objects- a common belief about God and angels
-abstract objects - a common belief of platonists

So again, this expresses only how I make sense of it. That's apparently inadequate for you because you have different view - but it's a view you haven't explained. You seem to be implying we should treat "spiritual or supernatural" differently - not as objects, but as -------what? You haven't said. Don't leave it "indeterminate" and vague.

Although you charge me with vagueness, I can’t help noticing that physicalism itself is equally vague, if not more so. When it defines “physical” as “whatever physics will someday describe,” or as a “state of affairs” (which in practice means “whatever happens to be the case”), how is that not vague? — Wayfarer

You're either being disingenuous or you didn't make an effort to understand what I said. I precisely defined the way "state of affairs" is used in the ontology, distinguishing it from the common use of the term: 1) as a term that applies to everything that exists, from the foundational to the most complex; 2) that it consists of a particular, with its properties and relations

State of affairs (so defined) is the most fundamental concept in the ontology. Armstrong labelled his book, "A World of States of Affairs".

I referenced this model when referring to immanent universals, and pointed out that quantum fields fit the model. The ontology hangs together quite consistenly, and if you don't see that - then you were premature in dropping the topic. There's nothing vague about the ontology itself, so any perceived vagueness could be cleared up. No one's compelling you to pursue it further, but recognize the folly of trying to falsify something you don't understand.

I did not say, "physical is what physics would someday describe". I said that an idealized, complete, perfect physics would do so (I also said this is unachieveable). I described this in terms of everything in existence being causally connected- this being the basis for my claim about a complete, perfected physics. If that wasn't sufficiently clear, you could have asked - but that was when you'd decided you didn't have anything more to say about it. I will offer this- my definition of naturalism:

Naturalism is a metaphysical system that assumes as a first principle that the natural world comprises the totality of reality. The natural world consists of ourselves, the world that is reflected in our senses, and everything that is causally connected through laws of nature.

You naively complained (in effect) that physicalism didn't provide a catalog what exists, but you have said very little about what you believe exists. You suggested that maybe the moon doesn't exist when we aren't looking at it! I get the phenomonolgy point, but we're talking ontology- are you not willing to commit to the existence of the objects of ordinary experience? Do you deny the existence of astronomical objects? Do you propose skepticism on everything other than your mind? This lack of clarity is considerably broader than the finer points of physicalism.

I am left wondering: do you deny the existence of objects, and types of objects, that have been identified by physics to date? I mean this in the falibilist terms associated with science, but also in terms of being justified as belief by the strength of its epistemology.

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. — Wayfarer

You don't need to put it in scientific terms, but you need to be as "determinate" as you expected me to be. So far, you've made no specific claims (other than the implication that you believe your mind exists), just vague allusions. I haven't noticed any specific claims about what exists. If I've overlooked it, remind me. If you can't do this is straightforward terms, then understand why this is problematic.

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. — Wayfarer

You're being unreasonable. You had said, "It involves being in a deep, transformative relationship with the world, participating fully in something that is wider than you."

Why would I think this "transformative relationship" involves something more than a change to the mind that is involved, and the impact we have through our actions? The sentence makes perfect sense in those terms. I did suspect you had something more in mind, but I shouldn't have to guess.

My point of view: we are part of the world; part of the earthly ecosphere. So OF COURSE we are participants. This much is consistent with naturalism. So describe what you mean about this participation that renders it inconsistent with naturalism.

we do not see the phenomenon 'in itself', as it is, independently of our observation of it. We're involved in producing the outcome. — Wayfarer

We're only involved in producing the contents of our minds. And we have employed our minds to get an understanding of what exists outside of it. Are you suggesting this is futile? I don't think you are, but it's consistent with your vague claims. If you agree it's not futile, then what IS your point?

[Quote 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.[/quote]
This seems like a vague reference to your vague cocept of "participatory' . Is there anything outside your mind that you commit to existing? Is it justified to believe there are planetary systems in Andromeda? If so, how do we "participate" with these?

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. — Wayfarer

Of course it requires a perspectival shift, but you need to explain this alternate perspective! Vague allusions doesn't do it. Vague reference to phenomenonlogy doesn't do it whe you also haven't acknowledged the actual existence of anything external to yourself. I expect you do, but if so- explain how we can know this despite the phenomenology. This is why it's vague.

[b)You've provided no reason to think this is a false distinction[/b]
— 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. — Wayfarer

No, you did not provide a reason. You merely suggested there's an alternative perspective that makes different distinctions. You would need to outline this perspective, the distinctions it makes, and explain how it's superior (not just different).

Since you acknowledge it's a difficult point, don't blame me for being the obstacle to understanding. You've treated my questions as obstinacy, but all I'm doing is reflecting back how I interpret what you said. You haven't given me an alternative, interpretive framework.

But you also need to establish some common ground, such as by identifying some things we both agree exist.

State of affairs (so defined) is the most fundamental concept in the ontology. — Relativist

Your definition of "state of affairs", as stated in your reply to me, does not support your claim that it is the most fundamental concept in ontology. Your definition can be broken down in analysis into two distinct aspects, objects and their relations. These are two very different concepts, and since "state of affairs" is made up of these two, they are each more fundamental than "state of affairs".

Further, you determined another feature of reality, the potential for change, which was necessary for your ontology. This implies that time is another fundamental concept in ontology. You have provided no argument to demonstrate that "state of affairs" is more fundamental than "time".

Your definition of "state of affairs", as stated in your reply to me, does not support your claim that it is the most fundamental concept in ontology. — Metaphysician Undercover

I hadn't discussed "state of affairs" ontology with you, so had not used the term that way.

But since you brought it up, I didn't say "it was the most fundamental thing in ontology". I said it was the most fundamental think in Armstrong's physicalist ontology.

Your definition can be broken down in analysis into two distinct aspects, objects and their relations. These are two very different concepts, and since "state of affairs" is made up of these two, they are each more fundamental than "state of affairs". — Metaphysician Undercover

You don't understand what a state of affairs is in Armstrong's ontology. I'm not interested in taking the time to explain it with you, but you can get a sense of it in the Wikipedia Article on Armstrong.

Your first principle, absolute potential, the symmetry which is the foundation for symmetry-breaking, is nothing but an ideal. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well firstness is actually vagueness in Peirce’s logic-based approach. That to which the PNC does not apply. And therefore where the symmetry breaking of a dichotomy can start.

So unformed potential and unactualised form would “exist” together in the less than nothing that would be a logical vagueness. The absolute potential is the potential for the emergence of a hylomorphic order in a co-arising fashion. The metaphysics is more subtle than you appreciate.

This implies that time is another fundamental concept in ontology. You have provided no argument to demonstrate that "state of affairs" is more fundamental than "time". — Metaphysician Undercover

Likewise, change can start to become definite only to the degree that stability starts to become definite. So to ground that as a metalogic of existence, you need to start of in some state of radical indeterminacy such as an Apeiron or Vagueness.

An everythingness that is a nothingness and so is prior to any somethingness in that it defines what needs to start happening to get anything going. The Apeiron must begin to separate out or symmetric break in the counter directions that are the forming of stabilising constraints and dynamical degrees of freedom. Time can get going as changes can be made that are also constructing a collective history.

I hadn't discussed "state of affairs" ontology with you, so had not used the term that way. — Relativist

You definitely discussed "state of affairs" ontology with me, in your reference to an initial state of affairs. You even defined it for me:

By "state" or "state of affairs", I am referring to the the totality of existence at a point of time.

...

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). — Relativist

See, "state of affairs" implies objects and relations, two distinct fundamental ontological concepts. Then you go on to talk about the potential for change, in the future, which implies another fundamental ontological concept, the passing of time:

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

How can you deny what you yourself wrote?

The absolute potential is the potential for the emergence of a hylomorphic order in a co-arising fashion. — apokrisis

This is the point I take exception to, by way of Aristotle's cosmological argument. With the cosmological argument he denies the concept of "prime matter", as physically impossible.

If the potential is truly absolute, then there is nothing actual, as anything actual would be a constraint to the possibility. But without something actual, to act as the cause, the emergence of something, anything, is impossible.

Time can get going as changes can be made that are also constructing a collective history. — apokrisis

How could time emerge? Isn't emergence a temporal concept, something which happens over time? It seems self-contradicting to talk about time getting started as changes happen.

You definitely discussed "state of affairs" ontology with me, in your reference to an initial state of affairs. You even defined it for me:

By "state" or "state of affairs", I am referring to the the totality of existence at a point of time — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes I did, and this is not the definition used by Armstrong. That's why I said:

I hadn't discussed "state of affairs" ontology with you, so had not used the term that way. — Relativist

So where does value come from in this telling? Is it on the side of the epistemic relation between an organism and its world, or is it something more - an ontological level break between the realm of matter and the realm of ideas? — apokrisis

The Buddhist goal is nibbana (Nirvāṇa), liberation from the cycle of re-birth. Everything in the Buddhist world is calbrated against that. It is the subject of the eightfold path and Four Truths.

But here is where Nishijima's Mahāyāna background is philosophically significant. Early Buddhism was dualistic in that worldly existence was to be shunned. It was a strictly renunciate religion. Mahāyāna was a later development in Buddhist history, associated with the figure of Nāgārjuna (although its precise origins are a bit of a mystery.) But for Mahāyāna, Nirvāṇa is not a separate realm to Saṃsāra, and there are not two separate realms (Theravada Buddhism doesn't accept this.) In Mahāyāna, 'Nirvāṇa is Saṃsāra released, and Saṃsāra is Nirvāṇa grasped'. The Bodhisattva doesn't leave the world behind, but is voluntarily born out of compassion, not out of the compulsion and grasping that drives the cycle for other beings.

This is why, in Buddhist iconography, in the graphic illustration of the 'wheel of life and death', the Buddha is depicted as outside all of the 'six realms', but in some representations, also inside each of them.

Also I would call attention to this phrase 'epistemic relation of self and world.' One point I noticed in Buddhist Studies, is the expression 'self-and-world' is frequently encountered in the Pali Buddhist texts as a kind of single unit of meaning ('self-and-world') This is understood as 'co-arising' or 'co-dependent', actually, one of the sources of the ideas in The Embodied Mind, as Franscisco Varela absorbed this from Buddhism. That is due, as noted above, to the phenomenological aspect of Buddhism, which never looses sight the relationship between experience and being (also why The Embodied Mind presents a kind of hybrid of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology and Buddhist praxis.)

We talk as if value and meaning are separate from material being and yet share the same Universe, but that separateness is then just a figure of speech? — apokrisis

Nishijima is not equivocating so much as refusing both horns of a dilemma which is forced on us by the dualism of mind and matter. Value and meaning are real, but not due to there being a 'non-material substance'. That’s why Nishijima calls “spirit” a figure of speech - to stop us turning it into a metaphysical theory. This is why I keep returning to the 'Cartesian Division'. You yourself might not hold to it, but you can't deny that it is a major current in today's culture - the separation of mind (res cogitans) and matter (res extensa), which results in the reification of mind as a kind of 'thinking substance'. ('Reification' comes directly from the root 'res'.) So 'spirit' is not any kind of object, thing or substance so much as a figurative way of referring to the source of value and meaning. What is that source? I think that here, a deep sense of not knowing the answer to that question is required. It's not something inside of our conceptual nets. Hence Wittgenstein, 'the sense of the world lies outside the world'.

Aristotle's cosmological argument. With the cosmological argument he denies the concept of "prime matter", as physically impossible. — Metaphysician Undercover

I've told you different too many times to count. But these days AI can take the labour out of refuting your theological nonsense.

No, the premise that Aristotle denies "prime matter" as physically impossible is incorrect. In fact, the doctrine of prime matter is fundamental to Aristotle's cosmology and his understanding of how change occurs in the world. The claim that Aristotle rejected it might be a misunderstanding or a conflation with later arguments.

Aristotle's cosmological argument....
Aristotle's cosmological argument, centered on the existence of a "Prime Mover," is distinct from the concept of prime matter. The argument is primarily developed in his works Physics and Metaphysics and can be summarized as follows:

Observation of motion: Aristotle observed that all things in the world are in motion or change. For Aristotle, "motion" is a broader concept than just change of place; it includes any kind of change, such as a substance's potential becoming actualized.

The need for a mover: Any object that is moved is moved by another. This means that for any change, there must be an external "mover" or cause that actualizes the potential for that change.
The impossibility of an infinite regress: Aristotle argued that an infinite chain of "moved movers" is impossible. He contended that such a series would have no ultimate source of motion, and therefore, no motion would occur at all.

Conclusion: the Unmoved Mover: To avoid an infinite regress, there must be a first, unmoved mover that initiates all motion without being moved itself. This unmoved mover is pure actuality, without any potentiality, and is the ultimate, uncaused source of all change in the universe.

Aristotle's concept of prime matter....
Prime matter is not something Aristotle's argument disproves; it is a core component of his philosophy.
The substratum of change: Aristotle developed his theory of matter and form to explain substantial change—the coming-to-be and passing-away of substances. When, for example, a living thing dies and decays, what is it that persists through this change? Prime matter is the answer. It is the underlying, featureless substratum that remains when one substance changes into another.

Pure potentiality: Prime matter is described as pure potentiality, meaning it has the capacity to take on any substantial form. It is never found alone, separate from form, because all physical objects are a composite of matter and form. An object's form is what gives it its specific nature and properties.

Physical reality: Far from being physically impossible, prime matter is the very thing that makes physical reality intelligible for Aristotle. Without it, change would involve something coming from nothing, which Aristotle rejected based on the work of his predecessor, Parmenides.

Medieval interpretation and clarification....
It is important to distinguish Aristotle's original ideas from how later philosophers, like Thomas Aquinas, adopted and adapted them for theological purposes.
Theology and creation: While Aristotle viewed the universe as eternal and the Prime Mover as simply sustaining an eternal motion, theologians like Aquinas used Aristotle's argument to support the idea of a creating God.

Prime matter and God: In this medieval framework, prime matter was also part of God's creation, unlike in Aristotle's original conception where the universe (and its matter) was eternal. However, even in this later tradition, prime matter is not dismissed as impossible. Instead, its existence as pure potentiality, requiring a form to be actual, highlights its complete dependency on a more fundamental cause—God—for its existence.

If the potential is truly absolute, then there is nothing actual, as anything actual would be a constraint to the possibility. But without something actual, to act as the cause, the emergence of something, anything, is impossible. — Metaphysician Undercover

Exactly, potentiality is without constraint. But events demonstrate that constraints can emerge in conjunction with their degrees of freedom – the actualising step that creates now a sea of concrete possibilities.

Once you have the thing of a fluctuation – an action that also has some direction – then everything starts to get going.

No action, no direction. No direction, no action. But actions in a direction? A whole flood of them. Complexity can start evolving.

How could time emerge? Isn't emergence a temporal concept, something which happens over time? It seems self-contradicting to talk about time getting started as changes happen. — Metaphysician Undercover

Time would evolve as cosmology tells us. It develops complex structure through the growth of topological order. As the Big Bang expands and cools, it undergoes a rapid sequence of thermal changes.

In the beginning, all the fluctuations are stuck at the speed of light. They experience maximum time dilation and length contraction – or rather, this relativistic dichotomy can't even apply yet.

Then you get the Higgs mechanism breaking this relativistic symmetry. Now suddenly it is meaningful to talk about objects at rest. Particles that move slower than c. Mass that lags behind the radiation setting the pace. A new topological phase where time has gained a whole new complex structure.

Time changes character quite radically. And it passes through other topological stages too with inflation, or when it is a quark-gluon plasma that may have Higgs mass and yet is still effectively relativistic.

So what is time when you step right back from the physics? It is a duration. A beat that lasts the distance of a cycle. A Planck-scale rotation in its Planck-scale expanse. The fundamental unit of ħ or the quantum unit of action. The spinning on the Poincare invariant spot that defines the gauge fundamental particle. The first moment defined in terms of the symmetry breaking of rotation from translation and thus the birth of concrete dimensionality itself.

So yes, time is emergent. But physics likes to keep thing simple. Unless you are asking cosmological-level questions, you don't need to worry about all the messy topological details I've just mentioned. They were pretty much done and dusted in the first billionth of a second anyway. After the first few minutes, all the kinks were well and truly vanishing in the rear view mirror.

But this means YOUR reasons to reject it do not falsify MY beliefs. And vice versa: my reasons to reject your position are epistemically contingent upon my background beliefs. The difference is that I recognize this contingency - and that's why I can respect your position. You overlook this contingency, and hence you conflate your subjective basis for rejecting physicalism with an objective falsification. — Relativist

But this is precisely the meaning of 'relativism'. It is 'what is right for me' and 'what is right for you.' You have your reasons, and I mine. It is kind of obligatory in a pluralist culture but it needs to be seen for what it is.

Furthermore, my arguments against physicalism have been mainly metacognitive (based on arguments from the structure of cognition) and transcendental (in a neo-kantian sense) rather than objective.

What categories should I have used when explaining how "I made sense" of the meaning of "physical"- after you indicated I'd "left the meaning of 'physical' indeterminate"? I referenced categories of hypothetical objects that many take for granted:

-supernatural/spiritual objects- a common belief about God and angels
-abstract objects - a common belief of platonists — Relativist

Are persons objects? When you interact with your loved ones, are you interacting with objects? Persons can be treated as objects for some purposes — demographics, epidemiology, or even grammar — but ordinarily we relate to them as beings, with an “I–Thou” relation rather than an “I–It.” If divine beings are real, they would be real in the same way — as beings, not as objects.

The very division between “natural” and “supernatural” is a historical artifact. The Royal Society’s 1660s charter explicitly forbade research into “metaphysik,” consigning questions about spirit, angels, and the divine to the Church. Science defined itself by excluding those domains, and physicalism inherits that exclusion. So when you define “physical” in contrast with “spiritual/supernatural objects,” you are already working within that modern boundary — one which is itself the result of a particular history, not an inevitable metaphysical truth. Our sense of what is real is often defined within the bounds of what is scientifically verifiable in principle. That’s why we tend to assume that if something is to be considered real, it must be an object. But that’s very much a feature of our culture, shaped by the scientific revolution. Other philosophical traditions don’t take objectivity as the sole criterion.

As for abstract objects - I'm trying to find time to research and write on it. But the very short version, is that abstract objects - number, say - are not really objects as such, except in the metaphorical sense of being 'an object of thought'. But really there is no such thing as number.The confusion about the nature of abstracta goes back in intellectual history to the erasure of the 'scala naturae', the so-called 'Great Chain of Being'. Within this schema, there is room for different levels of existence. Intelligible objects, such as number, exist on a different level to material objects (Plato's 'dianoia' being one division on the Divided LIne). My heuristic is that they don't exist, but they're real, in that they're the same for any rational intellect. So I reject the simplistic idea that Platonism says that 'numbers exist in some ethereal domain'. There is no such 'domain' - and yet, there is a domain of natural numbers, right? 2 and 4 are in it, and the square root of minus 1 is outside it. But 'inside' and 'outside' here are metaphorical. The key point being that again, it extends the scope of what can be considered real beyond empiricism (hence the suspicion of Platonism).

I referenced this model when referring to immanent universals, and pointed out that quantum fields fit the model. The ontology hangs together quite consistenly, and if you don't see that - then you were premature in dropping the topic. There's nothing vague about the ontology itself, so any perceived vagueness could be cleared up. No one's compelling you to pursue it further, but recognize the folly of trying to falsify something you don't understand. — Relativist

Oh, please. I gave reference to an article on it. There is plenty that is 'vague about the ontology', which can be summed up in one word: uncertainty. This is based on three of the better popular books written about the subject:

• Kumar, Manjit. Quantum: Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008.
• Lindley, David. Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science. New York: Anchor Books, 2007.
• Becker, Adam. What Is Real? The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics. New York: Basic Books, 2018.

I've asked you this rhetorically before: why do these books have the sub-titles they do? Why 'the great debate about the nature of reality'? Why 'the struggle for the soul of science'? Why 'the unfinished quest'? You don't seem to grasp the enormity of the philosophical questions. In your mind, it's a nice, neat system, where 'states of affairs' can be used to label the shifting sands of scientific speculation for the purposes of argument. When the Vienna Circle members visited Niels Bohr in Copenhagen, he gave them a lecture on quantum physics. At the end, they politely applauded, but he was nonplussed when none of them asked any questions. This is when he said 'if you're not shocked by quantum physics, then you could not have understood it'.

Naturalism is a metaphysical system that assumes as a first principle that the natural world comprises the totality of reality. — Relativist

Where 'the natural world' is what can be detected by the senses (augmented by instruments) or hypothesised on the mathematical analysis of such data. But already, this excludes the observer.

Philosophy in general is the most systematic form of self-consciousness. It consists in bringing to consciousness for analysis and evaluation everything that in ordinary life is invisible because it underlies and pervades what we are consciously doing. Language, thought, consciousness itself become the explicit objects of philosophical attention instead of just serving as the medium for our lives. — Thomas Nagel, Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament

Much of which is excluded by your definition.

Household duties call, I will be back some other time.

The Buddhist goal is nibbana (Nirvāṇa), liberation from the cycle of re-birth. — Wayfarer

And is that a credible belief when we examine what it would entail? It may indeed function as a key narrative to justify and transmit the Buddhist way of life with a community of that mind. But do you really expect to die a man and come back as a monkey, frog or amoeba? Start climbing the whole damn evolutionary tree all over again, with the level of mind and selfhood that goes with that level of materially embodied cognitive structure that goes with those lifeforms, until you get to be a Tibetan monk and make the magical last step?

If it were not for its pragmatic value as a social narrative organising a particular brand of social order, you would just have to think it a whole heap of silliness. Nothing something that could be asserted with a straight face.

This is why, in Buddhist iconography, in the graphic illustration of the 'wheel of life and death', the Buddha is depicted as outside all of the 'six realms', but in some representations, also inside each of them. — Wayfarer

So the theology evolved its social logic and continued to equivocate on the metaphysical details.

That's perfectly fine if we are talking about useful fictions – the epistemic idealism that is the organising Umwelt of a sociocultural level of organismic existence. It's just a parable. Get its message and don't fuss about the credibility of the world-building.

But if you want to challenge science and its narrative, you can see the problem. Yes you can say that science is just another society-constructing narrative too. It is just as much a useful fiction. And indeed – when it runs out of control in Scientistic fashion – it gives good reason to doubt that it is even useful anymore.

But it gets a bit apples and oranges as Buddhism was a way of social organising that made sense in an agrarian context that never looked like progressing to the next level of a fossil fuel based industrial revolution.

Indeed, as the Chinese experience showed, this was a step that the social order suppressed. The Chinese were great at technology but never minded to become a technological society. Instead Confucianism arose as a philosophy of bureaucratic control – a way to hold a volatile peasant state in a persistent state of agrarian order.

So yes, science is just another mindset for building a sociological level of organismic existence. It is epistemic idealism of another brand. But in realising that idealism is the epistemology and not the ontology – getting the relation with the world the right way around – science clearly released the next level of social development.

And while times may be turbulent, ancient times were turbulent too. All the greatest mass deaths were civil wars or invasions in China, our most ancient and prosperous of civilisations.

So we are rather stuck with the reality of the human condition, no matter what is its stage of development or enlightenment. Which is why we need the muscular rationality of pragmatism. A metaphysics large enough to understand why we do what we do even as we are doing it. Not flimsy creation myths and moral codes forged in pre-industrial times.

Also I would call attention to this phrase 'epistemic relation of self and world.' One point I noticed in Buddhist Studies, is the expression 'self-and-world' is frequently encountered in the Pali Buddhist texts as a kind of single unit of meaning ('self-and-world') This is understood as 'co-arising' or 'co-dependent', actually, one of the sources of the ideas in The Embodied Mind, as Franscisco Varela absorbed this from Buddhism. That is due, as noted above, to the phenomenological aspect of Buddhism, which never looses sight the relationship between experience and being — Wayfarer

Yes, fine. But again first the statement about an epistemic relation and then the equivocating leap to an ontological interpretation.

The embodied mind is our pragmatic model of the "world" is in fact a model of the "world with a self as its central fact". So the world is rendered epistemically. And so is the self. They co-arise as a dichotomisation that produces two exactly contrasting, so exactly complementary, points of view. There is the view the world has of you, and the view you have of the world, all bound up in the one model – the one model that is the embodied structure of some thermalising organism.

So this is all epistemic idealism thus far. Both world and self are products of a modelling relation embodied in the structure of an organism. The doubled viewpoints that speak to each other. A world made of matter and the self made of its ideas – its wishes, hopes, plans and fears. The two sides to a pragmatically-focused relation that can be run as the "internal" model that animates the organism.

But then once you start breaking out this "self" as some kind of ontological essence or substantial being – a spirit stuff – then you have crossed a line and now need to provide a new justification for what you have started claiming.

You can pretend to wind things back in by saying, well, when I said "spirit", I was merely speaking figuratively.

But you know that you then don't. You forget that qualification and launch off into everything that a metaphysics based on dualism, spirit-stuff, value absolutism, divine essences, cycles of reincarnation and the like, would appear to warrant.

Ontic idealism in all its glory. The self-contradicting thing of a figurative narrative now being treated as the literal truth. Equivocation being the means of jumping that shark.

All empirical evidence indicates that any, and every, "physical state of affairs" is posterior in time, to the potential for that state. — Metaphysician Undercover

All the empirical evidence is for states that were preceded in time by another state, so this pattern would not apply to a hypothetical initial state.

You also fail to account for this pattern. I suggest it's because of deterministic* laws of nature that cause the prior state to become the next state. Do you agree? If not, then give me your theory.

* at least probabilistic determinism.

But do you really expect to die a man and come back as a monkey, frog or amoeba? — apokrisis

That’s rather a cartoon version of what is implied by this belief system, but then, that’s something I’ve come to expect. Yes, I do believe that death is not the end of life. It certainly is for the individual that I am. But the causes that gave rise to this life will give rise to another (something which gives me no joy). But then, nearly everything you write about what you consider religion is coloured by your distaste for it.

There was a Buddhist Studies scholar, Paul Williams, who wrote well known textbooks on Buddhism. About ten years ago, he renounced his acceptance of Buddhism, and his conversion (or reversion) to Catholicism. On the grounds that he might be ‘reborn as a cockroach’. At the time, I discussed that with Buddhist acquaintances. They were certainly not scornful of his conversion - ‘good luck to him’, was the sentiment - but they felt that the fear was completely irrational. Nobody ‘comes back as a cockroach’. It is true that in traditional Buddhist lore, the animal realm was one of the six domains in which beings take birth, but there is nothing like that kind of belief.

But then once you start breaking out this "self" as some kind of ontological essence or substantial being – a spirit stuff – then you have crossed a line and now need to provide a new justification for what you have started claiming. — apokrisis

Hence Nishijma saying that there is no such thing!

Both world and self are products of a modelling relation embodied in the structure of an organism. — apokrisis

The world is inseparable from the subject, but from a subject which is nothing but a project of the world, and the subject is inseparable from the world, but from a world which the subject itself projects — Maurice Merleau Ponty

Yes, I do believe that death is not the end of life. It certainly is for the individual that I am. But the causes that gave rise to this life will give rise to another (something which gives me no joy). — Wayfarer

So in what sense is that now any different from what the biologist would say? Except biology has the detail and removes the equivocation.

It is true that in traditional Buddhist lore, the animal realm was one of the six domains in which beings take birth, but there is nothing like that kind of belief. — Wayfarer

So again, what would reincarnation and nirvana mean in your modernist Buddhism? What are your ontic commitments that might allow me to distinguish it from everyday biological science?

Hence Nishijma saying that there is no such thing! — Wayfarer

The argument here is that you are always being accused of being vague, equivocal and confused on this key point. This is just more deflection from a question that has been clearly put. Once more, we are getting no proper answer.

Are you confessing finally to just being an epistemic idealist? And modern Buddhism is only that too? If so, great. Just be brave enough to come out and say it. And then be consistent in that position in your posting.

So in what sense is that now any different from what the biologist would say? — apokrisis

Biology is not an existential discipline. It isn’t concerned with existence as lived. I could know all there is to know about you, biologically, and yet still not understand you as a person. As for what it means to me - obviously I can’t claim to know that the cycle of life and death is real but I think there are strong grounds for believing it to be. (We’ve discussed Stevenson’s interviews with children with past life recall many times on this forum, it is universally scorned, but I think it is meaningful data. He has almost 3000 cases gathered over three decades.) My fear is that there is truth in the idea that future births are the consequence of one’s actions in this life, as I have done plenty to regret. Hence the saying in Buddhism of the ‘fortunate human birth’ - as that is the only form of life in which one is able to hear the teachings and enact them.

I’m neither vague nor deflecting on the question of the meaning of ‘Nirvāṇa’. On one hand, I obviously don’t know in the first-person sense, otherwise you would be interacting with a Buddha, which I assure you is not the case. On the other hand there is voluminous literature and iconography that goes back for millenia which communicate something of the meaning of the term. And one can have glimpses of it. None of this is scientific, but then, this is a philosophy forum, not a science forum. It’s also not necessarily in conflict with science, but it is in conflict with both Christian dogma, and philosophical materialism (as there is no medium identified by which memory can be transmitted other than the physical.)

Are you confessing finally to just being an epistemic idealist? And modern Buddhism is only that too? If so, great. Just be brave enough to come out and say it. And then be consistent in that position in your posting. — apokrisis

It’s an acknowledgement, not a confession. I don’t regard epistemic idealism as a sin, even if I have many (and one thing I did retain from my upbringing is a Christian conscience.) The mind created world OP is epistemic idealism, largely based on my reading of T R V Murti ‘The Central Philosophy of Buddhism’, which compared Buddhist Madhyamaka (Middle Way) philosophy with Kant’s idealism (something that has been criticised but which I think still holds.) I’ve also been reading recently from Evan Thompson and Hans Jonas on the phenomenology of biology, which holds promise.

So I do argue that the common concept of ‘mind independence’ i.e. that the bedrock of reality comprises mind-independent objects, is oxymoronic, as objects can only be known cognitively (in line with Kant’s ‘Copernican Revolution in philosophy, that things conform to thoughts, not vice versa. ) That is why there are references to all those sources in that OP, and I dispute that it is either equivocal or vague. But that is really all I have time for now.

Biology is not an existential discipline. It isn’t concerned with existence as lived. I could know all there is to know about you, biologically, and yet still not understand you as a person. — Wayfarer

But you were talking about biology as the general cycle of life, not about the neurobiology or sociology that might particularise me as a human individual in the modern world and not a frog or amoeba or human as part of the great mystic cycle of life …. and figuratively, spirit.

So more deflection.

We’ve discussed Stevenson’s interviews with children with past life recall many times on this forum, it is universally scorned, but I think it is meaningful data. — Wayfarer

Jesus wept. I’m out if we are now stooping to this. Anything goes as evidence as - of course - science can always be doubted. It can’t prove spirits don’t exist. Therefore … they do exist. Or how else otherwise could volumes have been written about them?

You can’t give a straight answer so only give me crooked ones.

So I do argue that the common concept of ‘mind independence’ i.e. that the bedrock of reality comprises mind-independent objects, is oxymoronic, as objects can only be known cognitively (in line with Kant’s ‘Copernican Revolution in philosophy, that things conform to thoughts, not vice versa. ) That is why there are references to all those sources in that OP, and I dispute that it is either equivocal or vague. But that is really all I have time for now. — Wayfarer

And now the flop the other way. From past life recall back to the safe ground of epistemic idealism.

Nothing vague or equivocal about that at all. :roll:

But these days AI can take the labour out of refuting your theological nonsense. — apokrisis

The only thing that this demonstrates is that whatever AI you selected clearly hasn't read or understood Aristotle, and is probably relying on some less than mediocre secondary sources. Somehow that doesn't surprise me in the least.

Exactly, potentiality is without constraint. But events demonstrate that constraints can emerge in conjunction with their degrees of freedom – the actualising step that creates now a sea of concrete possibilities.

Once you have the thing of a fluctuation – an action that also has some direction – then everything starts to get going.

No action, no direction. No direction, no action. But actions in a direction? A whole flood of them. Complexity can start evolving. — apokrisis

You haven't addressed the problem which I explained as the issue of the cosmological argument. In the condition of absolute potentiality, (infinite degrees of freedom if you prefer), there can be no actuality whatsoever, because any particular actuality would be a constraint, therefore the potentiality would be less than absolute. Aristotle affirms that if this situation ever existed, it would always exist, because any material actuality requires a prior actuality as the cause of it. Since we currently observe the reality of actuality, we can conclude that it is impossible that there ever was a situation of absolute potentiality.

That is a summary of the argument found in Bk 9 of Aristotle's Metaphysics, where he demonstrates that actuality is prior to potentiality in an absolute sense. This rules out the possibility of "prime matter", through reference to current observations of actuality. If there ever was prime matter, matter (potentiality) without form (actuality), there would always be matter without form, but this is inconsistent with what we observe today, matter with form, actuality.

If this is not what is called "the cosmological argument", then maybe you can ask your AI to point me to where i can find the true version of it. I see your current report is quite vague, saying "The argument is primarily developed in his works Physics and Metaphysics". I've read all of those referred works more than once, and find the cosmological argument, as I've stated, in metaphysics Bk 9. I'm sure the AI has not read those works even once.

Time would evolve as cosmology tells us. It develops complex structure through the growth of topological order. As the Big Bang expands and cools, it undergoes a rapid sequence of thermal changes. — apokrisis

I think highly of you apokrisis, and I conclude that you are very intelligent. But statements like this just make me wonder if you actually think about what you are saying sometimes, or if you just want to fill some space with ink. Can't you see that this doesn't make any sense?

You have a number of temporal concepts here "evolve", "develops", "growth", and "rapid sequence". All of the things referred to here require time for their occurrence. How can you seriously propose that time is generated from something which requires time.

I mean maybe cosmology tells you that, as you claim, but don't you read your cosmology with a critical mind? Cosmology is speculative, you can't just read some random articles, and conclude that it is the truth. You need to approach cosmology with a very critical attitude, to determine logical inconsistencies in the speculative hypotheses. When you see self-contradicting propositions like "time emerges", doesn't this make you want to dismiss the entire cosmology which proposes this?

In the beginning, all the fluctuations are stuck at the speed of light. They experience maximum time dilation and length contraction – or rather, this relativistic dichotomy can't even apply yet.

Then you get the Higgs mechanism breaking this relativistic symmetry. Now suddenly it is meaningful to talk about objects at rest. Particles that move slower than c. Mass that lags behind the radiation setting the pace. A new topological phase where time has gained a whole new complex structure.

Time changes character quite radically. And it passes through other topological stages too with inflation, or when it is a quark-gluon plasma that may have Higgs mass and yet is still effectively relativistic.

So what is time when you step right back from the physics? It is a duration. A beat that lasts the distance of a cycle. A Planck-scale rotation in its Planck-scale expanse. The fundamental unit of ħ or the quantum unit of action. The spinning on the Poincare invariant spot that defines the gauge fundamental particle. The first moment defined in terms of the symmetry breaking of rotation from translation and thus the birth of concrete dimensionality itself. — apokrisis

Here you go, a fine example of spilling ink. What's the point?

All the empirical evidence is for states that were preceded in time by another state, so this pattern would not apply to a hypothetical initial state — Relativist

Then obviously, the concept of "initial state" is not consistent with physical reality. Truly it's just an ideal. This concept is a hypothetical tool. it's used in systems theory, arbitrarily applied as a boundary. It really does not correspond with anything that is actually first in reality, because there is a continuity which extends from it into the preceding state. So "initial state" is only an ideal which is arbitrarily applied in practise, depending on the purpose. When applied, we always know that something preceded the proposed "initial state", but the initial state is applied as a boundary, because what is posterior to it is what is being studied.

I suggest it's because of deterministic* laws of nature that cause the prior state to become the next state. — Relativist

This doesn't even make sense to me. We describe and understand the activities of natural things through the use of laws. But laws cannot cause natural things to behave the way they do, because this would require that the things could read, interpret, and feel inclined to obey the natural laws. How does this make any sense to you, to think that natural things are somehow deciding to obey some set of laws, and act accordingly?

Do you agree? If not, then give me your theory. — Relativist

Why do i need to present you with a theory about this? Isn't it just sufficient to say that human beings simply do not know why things behave the way that they do? And, that it would be foolish to pretend that they did? What would be the point of me offering up a theory, when I readily accept as fact, that me, nor any other human being, has even the vaguest idea, or any sort of knowledge at all, concerning why things behave the way that they do.