:grin: :up: :up: :up:

depends on perspective.

My perspective is from the angle of maintaining a hospitable environment. The ecosystem has developed in such a way that it doesn’t disturb this equilibrium*.
When we came along, we thought we knew better and disturbed the equilibrium for purposes of internal conflict (within social groups) power struggles and greed.
This is what the allegory of Adam and Eve is all about.

* The equilibrium does from time to time get disturbed when one, or more species hit on something more exploitative in the environment, or ecosystem. But usually, a correction is made and the equilibrium is restored.

part of the natural process.

Then it’s time for us to leave the stage then.

not the premise of the argument.

Everything follows the law of physics. We're just a few decades or centuries away from understanding them. — Copernicus

So your argument, that we are all physical beings is based on what you are hoping physics will discover some day. OK, I'm a millionaire too, based on my hopes of winning the lottery some day.

So your argument, that we are all physical beings is based on what you are hoping physics will discover some day. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course not. Laws are laws whether we understand them or not.

What is your suggestion on that?

If we leave theistic views aside, I'd say it's a complex process that we're too early to understand. The same way the universe came into being or formed planets and oceans and lives. — Copernicus

If you only provide two options: physicalist and theistic and you jettison theism, then physicalism by necessity.

...and?

The ecosystem has developed in such a way that it doesn’t disturb this equilibrium*.
When we came along, we thought we knew better and disturbed the equilibrium for purposes of internal conflict (within social groups) power struggles and greed. — Punshhh

Indeed. And what other species acts in ways that disturbs the equilibrium so badly that we are concerned it might wipe itself, if not all life, out?

Fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, and other maths of complexity do a good job of modelling physical processes over all scales. A vortice is a vortice from the level of a Bose-Einstein condensate to a black hole accretion disk. — apokrisis

That’s why I said “usually.” As I understand it, engineering mechanics is the science of phenomena that can be constructed using the principles of lower levels of organization.

That’s why I said “usually.” As I understand it, engineering mechanics is the science of phenomena that can be constructed using the principles of lower levels of organization. — T Clark

Sure. But I am drawing attention to the tricky fact that Nature is organised by both “complicity” and “simplexity” as Stewart and Cohen waggishly put it.

So there is simplicity that applies across all scales of being. And there is complexity that arises because topological order than cuts across the smooth change to create its abrupt phase transitions.

You get a world being organised by two apparently quite different types of hierarchical cause. Hence the word play of complicity versus simplexity as an attempt at unifying these oppositions - making them both fundamental in their own right as complementary ways to slice up the hierarchical order of Being.

Laws are laws whether we understand them or not. — Copernicus

The laws of physics are what is stated by physicists according to their understanding.

Even if we assume that the stated laws of physics correspond with some natural laws, we still have no indication that any natural laws not yet discovered, which would make the uncertainty of quantum uncertainty into something certain, are out their. So you are just hoping that such laws exist, and physicists will find them, just like I'm hoping that I'll win the lottery and become a millionaire. Good luck with your hopes, I suggest a few prayers.

The laws of physics are what is stated by physicists according to their understanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

Absolutely not. Math (formula) is a language — a human creation.

Laws of physics means the nature of the universe. It can be uniform or disorganized.

If ultimately, the universe is chaotic, then that is its nature.

IV. Emergence: When Physics Becomes Experience

Though each neuron obeys physical law, the collective pattern of billions of neurons yields subjective experience. This phenomenon, known as emergence, marks the transition from matter behaving mechanically to matter behaving meaningfully.
A single water molecule is not “wet,” yet collective behavior gives rise to wetness. Likewise, a single neuron does not “think,” but structured neural networks do.

Hence, consciousness does not violate physical law—it is physical law in a higher-order configuration. — Copernicus

This is, of course, the point of contention for many. As said, it's just a statement of belief. It's not an argument or evidence for that belief. It would be great if anyone presented evidence. I just posted along these lines in another thread. The heat and pressure in a room are measurable things. we use the thermometers and barometers. And we know that heat and pressure are the same thing as the movement of the air molecules. James Clerk Maxwell worked out the math for the average speed of a molecules, what percentage are moving half the average speed, what percentage are moving twice the average speed, etc.

Flight is a physical process that we can measure in various ways. How fast is something flying. How high is it. What direction is it moving in. we also know how it works. We know that air flows is faster over the curved top of the wing then the flat bottom. This results in less air pressure on top then on bottom, which causes aerodynamic lift.

A hurricane is also a physical process that we can measure in various ways. we can measure its circumference and diameter. We can measure the speed of its spin, and the speed and direction it moves over the surface of the planet. We can calculate how much water it contains. A hurricane's behavior is influenced by far too many constantly changing factors for us to predict its behavior perfectly. But we understand it.

Tropical storms form from an atmospheric disturbance like a tropical wave or group of thunderstorms. For these disturbances to grow into a tropical cyclone, the following environmental conditions must be in place:

Warm ocean waters (at least 80°F/27°C).
An unstable atmosphere driven by differences in temperature, where temperature decreases with height.
Moist air near the mid-level of the atmosphere.
Must be at least 200 miles (with rare exceptions) north or south of the equator for it to spin (due to the Coriolis effect).
Little change in wind speed or direction with height (known as low vertical wind shear). — NOAA

Weather.gov has more info without going overboard.

These are all examples of macro physical things caused by smaller physical things. Consciousness is different. We can't detect it. We can't measure anything about it. We can't calculate anything about it. We can't determine its physical causes because there's nothing physical about it to to follow down to lower level structures or particles. It's just a broad assumption that it must be caused but the physical.

it's just a statement of belief. It's not an argument or evidence for that belief — Patterner

I don't think we need empirical lab test before statement in philosophy. Philosophy is argumentative proposition.

Consciousness is different — Patterner

So is the mind or emotion. Or dark matter and dark energy. Or quantum mechanics. Each is on its own league and level of difficulty.

Indeed. And what other species acts in ways that disturbs the equilibrium so badly that we are concerned it might wipe itself, if not all life, out?

Covid19.

I guess we could say any fatal disease threatens it's own existence by possibly wiping out all hosts. But it doesn't work out that way. At least not when humans are the host. I don't know if there have been other diseases that no longer exist because all hosts were killed?

Absolutely not. Math (formula) is a language — a human creation.

Laws of physics means the nature of the universe. It can be uniform or disorganized.

If ultimately, the universe is chaotic, then that is its nature. — Copernicus

Let me see if I understand what you are saying. If there are aspects of the universe which we cannot understand, we could assume a law of physics which says that these aspects are chaotic, and not governed by laws. And by means of that self-contradicting law, the law that says there is no law which governs their behaviour, we could draw your conclusion "everything follows the laws of physics".

So, how would we distinguish whether things just appear chaotic, due to our misunderstanding, when they are really not chaotic, and whether things are really obeying a self-contradictory law, which stipulates that they will act in a way which is not governed by laws?

Do you see what I mean? Every time we cannot figure something out, we could just assume a law which makes it impossible to figure it out, and then we just get lazy and never have to figure anything out, because we've assumed that the laws make it so we cannot figure them out. Wouldn't it be better just to say that self-contradictory laws are impossible, and the universe is not chaotic? Then we can hope and pray that we will discover those laws, but still knowing that it might turn out to be something other than "laws".

my point was, it is not imperative to dissect the universal patterns to propose that everything is physical (unless you could proof something abstract gives birth to our intangible qualities).

My point was that such a proposal lacks soundness.

if by "soundness" you mean empirical proof, then I must remind you this is philosophy, not science.

I don't think you can prove that we aren't physical.

your point is?

That you can't prove we aren't nonphysical.

I don't know about that.

Certainly we are physical. At least in part. I believe not entirely, but maybe someone will tell me of consciousness's physical, quantifiable characteristics, they way we can talk about the physical, quantifiable characteristics of other processes.

we can't, yet. Just like we can't see our eyes or lick our elbows.