You might want to read the paper that I linked in this instance.
— Philosophim
That paper relies on treating necessity as causation. — Banno

No, it notes that we can draw a necessary conclusion by examining causation. I wrote it Banno, so if you want to dispute it lets go there. Again, if you have issues with what I'm saying about the paper, lets not bog down another person's OP on it here.

However, we can conceive of the object floating upward, or vanishing when released. These conceptual possibilities are not physically possible. — Relativist

Quibble: they are physically possible, under certain conditions: you're in a simulation, you're a Boltzmann Brain, the laws of nature, for whatever reason, suddenly change, some magic-seeming alien technology is at work

Hmm.

What do I mean by 'no limitation'? Prior causality is the discovery of some other state that necessarily lead to another state. If X didn't happen, Y would not form in that way. But if Y formed in 'that way' without a prior cause of X, then it is not necessary that Y formed in that way, it 'simply did'. This also means that it could have 'simply not'. It did, but it wasn't necessary that it did. It necessarily is because it exists, but it didn't necessarily have to exist. — Philosophim

But in saying that, was he say that, of all the things that there are, none of them exist in every possible world? Or was he saying of nothing, that it exists in every possible world?

That's the trouble with continentals... so vague... — Banno

Good question. The ancient Greeks couldn't accept the idea of nothing. As a result, they didn't have the idea of zero and their math was limited because if it.

Zero was invented by the Babylonians.

↪Philosophim
Hmm. — Banno

Banno, I have an 8 year old nephew that I've helped raise. Now he's an excitable little fella and sometimes doesn't understand social graces in public. One of the things we're working on is saying please and thank you to waiters. He gets two warnings from me before I get serious with him. I've asked you two times to politely not derail this person's OP with a debate about my paper, and go to that topic to discuss. You have not.

I don't debate with rude 8 year olds. If you want to straighten up, stop being rude, and post that in the paper's thread to debate what I'm saying in the paper, I'll respond happily. But you're being rude to the OP at this point and I will not be part of it. I've given you my response as the author, and that is all I need to give in another person's thread.

I think this is where we bottom out. You’re treating metaphysical necessity as defined by invariance across admissible worlds, so that necessity is entirely a function of model-theoretic structure. I’m treating modal invariance as something that tracks deeper explanatory or grounding facts rather than constituting them. Once necessity is defined modally, your stipulation point follows; that definition is exactly what I’m not accepting. At that point the disagreement is methodological rather than technical, and I don’t think there’s much more to be gained by pressing it further here, so this where I will leave it. Thanks again for the discussion.

The critique I've offered was in good faith.

This pretence of victimhood you adopt when challenged is unbecoming.

Cheers.

Yes, of course it's a methodological difference.

Your possition is philosophically deeper than I initially recognised. You are arguing that the formal apparatus (modal logic) only works given certain unconditioned norms, and that we can't use that apparatus to demonstrate that everything is contingent, because doing so relies on non-contingent structure. But the weakness there is whether some "ground of intelligibility" constitutes a thing that exists necessarily (which is what the OP asks about) or just refers to conceptual/logical structures that don't "exist" in the relevant sense.

Cheers.

Quibble: they are physically possible, under certain conditions: you're in a simulation, you're a Boltzmann Brain, the laws of nature, for whatever reason, suddenly change, some magic-seeming alien technology is at work — RogueAI

Yes, if one of those logical possibilities is true, then it is physically possible.

However, if we're going to judge what is physically possible - we need to make some justifiable assumptions, otherwise we're only judging what is logically possible.

Another excellent post, thank you. I don’t think you’re being naive, but I do think there is still a gap that hasn’t been closed.

You’re proposing a two-level view:

(1) Existence as such is accidental - there is no reason why anything exists.
(2) Once something exists, it has determinate properties and behaves intelligibly.

I agree completely with (2). My worry is that (2) silently presupposes more than (1) can support.

Saying “once it exists, it is what it is” explains why given an oxygen atom, it behaves like oxygen. It does not explain why there are enduring, repeatable, law-governed entities at all rather than momentary, non-repeating flashes.

Appeals to infinity don’t solve this. Infinity guarantees abundance, not structure. An infinite range of brute possibilities does not explain why stable probability spaces, mathematical describability, and persistent laws are instantiated rather than not.

This is especially clear in your appeal to probability. Probability only makes sense relative to a stable sample space and enduring rules of combination. But on your view, there is no reason for the sample space itself to persist, or for its rules to remain fixed from moment to moment.

So the question isn’t “why do oxygen atoms behave consistently once they exist?” The question is “why is there a reality in which consistency itself is instantiated rather than not?” Saying that we are adaptations to a rare pocket of stability explains our survival, not the intelligibility of the pocket itself. Anthropic reasoning explains selection, not grounding.

This is why I keep pressing the grounding question. You’re not denying intelligibility, you’re localizing it. But the existence of localized intelligibility without any intelligible ground still makes intelligibility as such accidental. And that is the worry: can intelligibility be ultimately grounded in what is itself unintelligible without undermining intelligibility altogether?

I’m not claiming that this position is incoherent. I’m claiming that it leaves the success of explanation (including probabilistic and mathematical explanation) as a cosmic coincidence. That’s the precise point where I think the metaphysical question remains open.

It may be that we've reached a principled stopping point here, as I think the issue has boiled down to a question regarding the criterion of adequate explanation. I would frame this in the following way:

(1) If the highest criterion is coherence and parsimony, then I think your position holds
(2) If the highest criterion is explanatory adequacy and intelligibility, then I think my position is stronger

Obviously, I feel that my position is on firmer ground overall (or I wouldn't still hold it), not because yours is indefensible by any means, but because I think yours leaves too much unexplained while still subtly relying on what it refuses to ground.

What do you think?

↪Philosophim Another excellent post, thank you. I don’t think you’re being naive, but I do think there is still a gap that hasn’t been closed. — Esse Quam Videri

Likewise! Also, I have to compliment your mastery of the written word. Your use of higher level vocabulary in intelligible and clear in ways beyond my crafting capability, and its both impressive and fun to read.

You’re proposing a two-level view:

(1) Existence as such is accidental — there is no reason why anything exists.
(2) Once something exists, it has determinate properties and behaves intelligibly. — Esse Quam Videri

Correct.

Probability only makes sense relative to a stable sample space and enduring rules of combination. But on your view, there is no reason for the sample space itself to persist, or for its rules to remain fixed from moment to moment.

So the question isn’t “why do oxygen atoms behave consistently once they exist?” The question is “why is there a reality in which consistency itself is instantiated rather than not?” Saying that we are adaptations to a rare pocket of stability explains our survival, not the intelligibility of the pocket itself. Anthropic reasoning explains selection, not grounding. — Esse Quam Videri

I think you've summarized your issue clearly. Let me see if I can return the favor.

First, some background. How I view knowledge is by anthropic reasoning, not grounding on an outside law. If you would like to read, here is a link with a follow up summary from the next poster down that did an excellent job. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14044/knowledge-and-induction-within-your-self-context/p1

Of course its an optional read, but it may indicate what motivates my thought process and why I ultimately lean in this direction. None of us are free of bias, and I feel its important to have that on the table in case its a blinder on myself.

Second, your remarks on probability lead back to the classic problem of induction by Hume. The basic summary is that we cannot rationally justify why we infer that an outcome in the past will repeat or stay the same in the future. I won't go into too much detail as I assume you know of Hume. If not, I'll cover it.

My inability to prove that the universe will continue to be stable does not demonstrate the conclusion is irrational. On the contrary, I run into the same problem Hume does. Not only do I coincide with Hume's conclusion, I seem to add weight to its truth. It doesn't mean the conclusion I've wrought here is wrong, its that its uncomfortable. But perhaps with a few more examples I can remove this discomfort.

I agree that probability relies on stable rules, but its use is in relating those stable rules to variable ones. Analyzing probability in infinity is not very intuitive, can be easily misunderstood (I do not pretend to be immune to this) and literally an infinite number of variables. For higher level infinite comparison, we likely need cardinality, a mathematical subject beyond me. But we can simplify some of the approaches to see the reason why it is very possible that we can randomly have a universe with consistent laws over billions of years.

The first step is to isolate our certainties. If anything is possible, then if something forms it could persist as it is anywhere from the shortest perceivable time measurement to being an immortal object. Since this is true randomness without limits, any 'point' on the line can be picked and be as equally likely as the other to be picked. While, "lasts several billion years" seems impressive from our end, on a truly infinite scale its no more or less impressive then a googolplex number of years and beyond. Considering the amount of numbers that extend past 1 billion vs the amount of numbers after1 billion, its not inconceivable at all that things would form with stable structures as long as ours.

And that is the worry: can intelligibility be ultimately grounded in what is itself unintelligible without undermining intelligibility altogether? — Esse Quam Videri

But is the idea that there is no prior cause for the scope of caused existence unintelligible? Its a new concept for sure, but I believe its simple enough to understand once explored. As I've shown above, I see no harm to the intelligibility of what we know now vs what we knew before we realized. We still had the problem of induction. We still understood that at any minute life could end unexpectedly. We just now have that on a much larger scale. But if we start looking at that scale we realize that everything we have is still possible and explained.

To challenge the conclusion is to fall into reducto ad absurdum. Can we have an intelligible universe in which there is an underlying reason why the entire causal chain exists? Its impossible. In the case of a finite chain of causality, its obvious. The infinite chain is less so, so I'll give another example. Sorry if this is unneeded as I might be repeating myself.

If it is the case that we discovered some underlying reason why existence persisted, there would still be the question of, "What is causing that underlying reason to persist?" In other words, can you propose a situation that does not end up falling into this same question? If the conclusion I've written is the same within a finite chain of causality as an infinite chain of causality, what other possible alternative is there? In my mind, the only intelligible solution that avoids this trap is if there is no underlying reason for existence to be and is simply random. As I've noted above though, if you start to explore the idea of true randomness, you see our universe is not at all implausible, but just as likely to have been as any other thing that could exist.

To say “becoming” is prior to being still presupposes that becoming exists. — Esse Quam Videri

Only if we understand exist to mean ‘subsist in itself’. If instead we empathize the EX in exist, then existence means transit and esctasis rather than self-presencing.

To say “difference” is prior to identity still presupposes something that differs. — Esse Quam Videri

Only if we assume that there must be identities first (a‘something’ that either changes or stays the same) and differences secondarily.

To say “performativity” grounds intelligibility still presupposes that performativity is intelligible enough to ground anything. — Esse Quam Videri

Do meaning and intelligibility require a pre-existing ground , or does the exact repetition of a meaning destroy its intelligibility?

Also, I have to compliment your mastery of the written word. Your use of higher level vocabulary in intelligible and clear in ways beyond my crafting capability, and its both impressive and fun to read. — Philosophim

Thank you for the generous compliment! I admire the clarity and sincerity of your writing as well. It's been a pleasure reading through your replies.

I think you’ve articulated your position clearly and consistently. I don’t think the disagreement is due to misunderstanding, but to a genuine philosophical divergence.

First, I agree that your view is internally coherent. You’re explicit that existence as such is accidental, while intelligibility is local and conditional. Once something exists, it has determinate properties and stable relations. That position does not undermine science or everyday reasoning, and your appeal to Hume makes clear that you’re comfortable accepting limits on justification without succumbing to irrationality, which is a serious and well-established philosophical posture.

Second, I also agree that appealing to infinity can deflate certain intuitive improbability worries. On an infinite scale, long-lived stable structures are not mathematically shocking. So I don’t think your view collapses into obvious absurdity, nor do I think it’s refuted by simply pointing at order and saying “that seems unlikely.”

Where I think the issue remains, however, is that your response declines a particular explanatory demand rather than answering it. My question isn’t whether brute contingency is coherent, or whether we can live with it pragmatically. It’s whether it is explanatorily sufficient once we take intelligibility itself as an explanandum.

In particular, appeals to probability, infinity, or randomness all presuppose a stable framework within which those notions apply. Infinity can explain why something occurs given a space of possibilities, but it doesn’t explain why there is a persisting possibility space, or why law-like regularity rather than total non-repeatability is instantiated at all. Treating that framework as brute is consistent, but it is exactly the move I’m questioning.

Similarly, I don’t think the regress worry touches the position I’m gesturing at. I’m not proposing another conditioned cause or another link in the chain. The claim is that causal explanation and metaphysical grounding are different kinds of explanation, and that running out of the former doesn’t show that the latter is illegitimate, only that it isn’t causal.

So I think the disagreement now turns on the following question: is intelligibility something that can be ultimate yet ungrounded, or does its very presence place a demand for a non-derivative explanation? You’re comfortable saying the former; I’m not persuaded that doing so leaves intelligibility fully intact rather than merely assumed.

That’s where I still see the question as open, not because your position is incoherent, but because it seems to me to stop one step earlier than the explanatory demand itself invites.

Another way to look at it is is, "What is the definition of necessary?" Necessary implies some law that if this does not exist, then something which relies on that thing cannot exist. But is it necessary that the necessary thing itself exist? No. — Philosophim

3 dimensions are necessary for the manifestation of energy to take form.

Zero was invented by the Babylonians. — frank

Unfortunately, we can not use AI, which explains why Sumerians and Mayans had a symbol that served as a space holder, but the symbol did not serve us as we use the zero today. The modern concept of zero began in India.

The rest of what you said is correct. The space holder became a meaningful number, making today's use of zero possible, in India, where there was a concept of nothing. That is a mind-blowing concept, and we would not be where we are today without it.

No, it notes that we can draw a necessary conclusion by examining causation. I wrote it Banno, so if you want to dispute it lets go there. Again, if you have issues with what I'm saying about the paper, lets not bog down another person's OP on it here. — Philosophim

Just imagine what the concept of nothing could do to our understanding of everything. We might even become humble about what we think we know. What if we didn't put on our boxing gloves and come out fighting like Teutonic Knights defending their belief in God, or us fighting over scientific truths?

Perhaps without the concept of nothing, we could not think about fluctuations of the quantum vacuum? Perhaps zero, as a concept of nothing, is necessary to our modern thinking process.

The modern concept of zero began in India. — Athena

No it didn't.

No it didn't. — frank

Would you please share your source of information so I can think about it?

Here is one source of information that is respected.

zero, number denoting the absence of quantity. Represented by the symbol “0,” it plays a foundational role in arithmetic, algebra, computing, and scientific measurement. It lies at the center of the number line, separating positive numbers from negative numbers, and it operates as a placeholder in positional number systems. Though now ubiquitous, the concept of zero as both a symbol and idea is a relatively late development in human history. Although placeholder symbols for absence were used in earlier systems, the modern zero—as a numeral with its own value and arithmetic rules—originated in ancient India before spreading to the Islamic world and Europe. https://www.britannica.com/science/zero-mathematics

In particular, appeals to probability, infinity, or randomness all presuppose a stable framework within which those notions apply. Infinity can explain why something occurs given a space of possibilities, but it doesn’t explain why there is a persisting possibility space, or why law-like regularity rather than total non-repeatability is instantiated at all. Treating that framework as brute is consistent, but it is exactly the move I’m questioning. — Esse Quam Videri

First, I do see your viewpoint and think its a very fair question. It may be that this is a misalignment of philosophical comfort, and I understand that well. I personally don't like Hume's problem of induction. I accept it, but begrudgingly as I'm sure many do. Combined with my own viewpoints on knowledge, I begrudgingly accept the viewpoint I've posted here as well. If it helps, I was not happy with its conclusion. :) I'm so deep into it at this point however, that I personally can see no way out. As you noted, the disagreement at this point is not going to be whether the idea is coherent, but whether its an idea that helps further humanities progress or restricts it.

There are some people who see a universe without ultimate guidance and think, "Nothing matters. I don't matter. Why search, why question, why do anything?" Then there are people who think. "Nothing matters. That's why we have to find meaning. We should explore to make the limited time we have here better. Lets try to conquer the universe and see what can come of it!"

If my proposal caused the majority of humanity to lean toward the former, I would scrap it. I am a firm believer that our viewpoint about what we know, and how it leads us into the next steps of our lives, is just as important as the knowledge itself. If the conclusion destroyed real intelligibility, it would be useless. After all, its how we arrived at the conclusion to begin with, and its how people function daily. Any philosophical conclusion which invalidates the current realities of the world is circumspect and likely wrong.

So I think the disagreement now turns on the following question: is intelligibility something that can be ultimate yet ungrounded, or does its very presence place a demand for a non-derivative explanation? You’re comfortable saying the former; I’m not persuaded that doing so leaves intelligibility fully intact rather than merely assumed. — Esse Quam Videri

I will again cheat and say the answer is both. :) It is ultimate and grounded in the logic of what 'existence can be without prior cause'. This is a shift from, "existence must always have a prior cause'. To my mind, it is the only conclusion we can reach, but surprisingly for almost cases, the latter still applies.

The reason is that the above conclusion I've made is logical. It is not proven by application. We have never yet observed and proven something appearing from nothing. We have never provably found a 'smallest particle'. The existence of the conclusion of ultimate non-causality doesn't absolve anyone of proving that they have discovered something uncaused in reality, because the burden or proof is practically impossible to meet.

If it is the case that there is an infinite chain of prior causality, then logically, we'll never realize it. Does that mean that we stop trying to figure things out? No. As long as we exist, we live and must make sense and shape of our surroundings. In the case that someone purports to find something that appeared without prior cause, they would need to demonstrate that there was no prior or outside force which caused that thing to be. This is also virtually impossible.

1. There is always the question, "Was it uncaused, or did I not detect something?" How do you prove that you didn't detect something?
2. If there was something that appeared uncaused within existence that is caused, we would attempt to explain it in terms of the forces around it. As we should. We would have to eliminate that every single force which could impact that lone uncaused existence, had no hand in its existence.
3. If something did appear from nothing, how do you test or prepare for that? I'm quite confident that if one does the math on it, its likely an unfathomably low chance of happening. Have we been able to create a space that is a pure vacuum? Can we set up something that eliminates all outside forces? Its impossible.

So what use is it? At this point, the conclusion does not change how we would conduct science, and the addition of this as a new variable is practically impossible to use in application. As Hume noted, we cannot prove that what has happened prior will happen again, but we also cannot function without induction.

Ultimately the fear of undermining what we have should not be a motivator in an ideas discouragement. It should be that we explore it to its fullest, and realize that if it does undermine what we know, its because its what can best be known. Generally such an undermining benefits us as a species because its a more accurate look at reality. People were afraid that denying a God would cause humanity to descend into wanton murder and destruction. It turns out that viewpoint was limiting us in many ways, ways we didn't realize until we let go.

Currently, the idea I've put forth would only practically be useful in the domain of math and probability. I would be curious what a mathematician who understood cardinality would come up with on the likelihoods of existence appearing or ceasing to exist without cause. To your point earlier about "Persisting probability spaces", the conclusion is that is existence can happen without prior reason, that is the one consistent probability space. It means on a naive level that 'anything can happen'. But I'm curious on a more refined mathematical level if that means that some things are more likely to happen than others given relative cardinality.

As for law-like regularity, we take the same line of possibilities as time. Its quite possible that something without law like regularity can appear, but equally as likely that something with regularity can appear. It may very well be that there are instances of law-like irregularity that come and go in such small areas or spurts of time that they have negligible impact. Also consider that matter and energy is moving at an incredibly rapid pace through space. If something appeared, it would also have to match the velocity of the things contained in the galaxy to be something we would even register. More of a side note there, but the point is that there is nothing in the conclusion here that makes our current situation impossible. The question is more about the probability of what this means going forward. And intuitively I feel that someone with the match skills to properly explore this idea would find something interesting.

So in sum:

1. The conclusion is only logical, and the standard of proof for asserting that any one thing in practical application is uncaused, is practically impossible to meet. To be rational must first still treat the universe as "Everyting has a prior cause" and can only conclude something is without cause with almost impossible effort.
2. As such this idea is most practically used as theory, and likely needs advanced cardinality to fully explore its consequences.

I do understand and respect your disagreement with this viewpoint, but I hope this at least explains why I am ultimately comfortable with and hold it.

Perhaps without the concept of nothing, we could not think about fluctuations of the quantum vacuum? Perhaps zero, as a concept of nothing, is necessary to our modern thinking process. — Athena

Potentially. I responded to Esse in the post above going over that idea.

Thanks for clarifying. I think we’re circling a deeper disagreement that’s worth naming. It’s not really about becoming, difference, or performativity, but about what counts as an intelligible explanation in the first place.

From my side, reason is intrinsically normative. Inquiry involves judgments of coherence, adequacy, and sufficiency, and those norms are internal to questioning itself. On that view, asking “why?” isn’t a metaphysical excess but an expression of an unrestricted demand to understand. If that demand is legitimate at all, then a purely groundless intelligibility, one that can never answer whether it is sufficient even in principle, looks unstable.

From your side, as I understand it, that very demand for sufficiency already presupposes a metaphysics of grounding or presence that you want to resist. Intelligibility is enacted in use, difference, or repetition rather than secured by an underlying ground, and the refusal of a final ground is a principled stance, not a failure of explanation.

My concern isn’t that such accounts are incoherent, but that they remain descriptive with respect to the normativity we rely on when we argue. Even to say that repetition both generates and destabilizes meaning presupposes criteria for recognizing when meaning is generated rather than lost.

So the real question may be this: are the norms implicit in inquiry (coherence, adequacy, explanatory sufficiency) themselves intelligible and binding, or are they contingent products of practice with no further warrant? I don’t expect that to settle things, but I think it names the divergence more precisely.

Ultimately the fear of undermining what we have should not be a motivator in an ideas discouragement. — Philosophim

This has repeatedly happened throughout history, and I feel very angry about that. We all know Galileo's struggle to increase our knowledge of the university and "reality." There are far fewer known searchers of truth who have been silenced by the "experts" who were silenced by those wanting to protect their own careers and felt threatened by the new information. It was Galileo's colleagues who were his worst enemies. Anna Sofaer, discovered the sun dagger in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, in 1977, and it was her colleagues who totally disrespected her discovery and tried to silence her because of career prestige and competition, which continues to this day.

I do not know why Oregon Public Broadcasting promotes Christianity. I suspect it is the bottom line of the dollar. But this glaring prejudice shines a light on the importance of not only the story that is told but also how it is told. I tried to watch the history of Christianity, and it left out so many facts and created such a biased picture of history that I couldn't continue watching.

Sadly, we need to question why a story is told and what is the interest of the story teller. We are so proud of our intelligence, and we want to believe that knowledge will always make the future better, but that takes a lot of work!

"Is there anything that exists necessarily?" For sure, it is the truth that is necessary for good judgment, but how can we be sure we know the truth and enough of it to matter? Studying the Bible and only the Bible is not good enough for today's reality of sharing the planet with many people who have different customs and different beliefs, and who look different. This calls for the highest morality and perhaps the learning of all gods and traditions.

I want to slam in here, it is not just what we know that is important, but also how we feel. Increasingly, colleges have added classes about emotional intelligence and what it has to do with our judgment.

So the real question may be this: are the norms implicit in inquiry (coherence, adequacy, explanatory sufficiency) themselves intelligible and binding, or are they contingent products of practice with no further warrant? — Esse Quam Videri

With this question I highly encourage you to read my paper on knowledge that I linked prior. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14044/knowledge-and-induction-within-your-self-context/p1

As I keep saying: both :) The norms in intelligent inquiry are intelligible and binding because they are contingent products of practice.

because they are contingent products of practice. — Philosophim

Is that explained in your paper?

For so many years, we specialized and lost the benefits of knowing a lot about many things. The different sciences are starting to work together, and I think that is essential. I think it is our job to learn all we can from geologist, archeologist and related sciences to rethink everything! Especially history. We are birthing the New Age, a time of peace, high tech, and the end of tranny. Those who follow us will not be able to relate to our understanding of reality.

Of course, avoiding a nuclear war and the destruction of our planet seems essential to the New Age. But how do we get everyone on board with all the thinking that is required for better judgment?

So the real question may be this: are the norms implicit in inquiry (coherence, adequacy, explanatory sufficiency) themselves intelligible and binding, or are they contingent products of practice with no further warrant? I don’t expect that to settle things, but I think it names the divergence more precisely. — Esse Quam Videri

The pragmatic contingency of history and time imply a tripartite structure of temporality ( past-present- future) which repeats itself ‘identically’ every moment. One can consider this structure to be an absolute and binding ground, but it maintains its identity, absoluteness and bindingness only by changing itself. According to this ground, no experience is ever absolutely coherent nor absolutely incoherent, but involves a play between presence and absence, recognition and novelty, intelligibility and excess.

Although placeholder symbols for absence were used in earlier systems, the modern zero—as a numeral with its own value and arithmetic rules—originated in ancient India before spreading to the Islamic world and Europe. https://www.britannica.com/science/zero-mathematics

The placeholder symbol they're talking about came from the Babylonian practice of recording abacus results onto clay. Where there was no bead on the abacus, they would put the symbol for zero.

Let me begin by saying that I continue to be impressed by the care and effort you’ve put into your essays. You’ve clearly thought through your position in a systematic way, and I don’t think our disagreement is due to vagueness or oversight. Rather, I think your essay on knowledge and induction brings even more clearly into view where our philosophical commitments genuinely diverge, especially with respect to grounding and necessary existence.

What follows isn’t a point-by-point rebuttal (that would take more time than I can reasonably invest), but an attempt to explain how I understand your position, how it responds to my concern, and why I still think the central metaphysical issue remains open. That said, I also want to apologize for the length of what follows. I’ve really done my best to try to understand your perspective and, in the process, have probably spent more time on this than I should have :smile: .

1. How I understand your account of knowledge
As I read you, your framework rests on several key claims.

First, you explicitly frame knowledge as instrumental rather than truth-constitutive. Knowledge, on your view, does not aim at grasping reality “as it is in itself,” but at arriving at the most reasonable orientation toward reality given our goals, limitations, and need to act. Rationality is therefore practical before it is metaphysical.

Second, you ground knowledge internally in what you call the “discrete experiencer.” Instead of beginning with a claim about existence or truth, you begin with the indubitable fact that experience can be partitioned into identities (this rather than that) and that thoughts, memories, and distinctions arise within that partitioning. This capacity is taken to be deductively certain because any attempt to deny it already presupposes it.

Third, you distinguish between two kinds of knowing. What you call distinctive knowledge is simply awareness of discrete experiences as experiences. Applicable knowledge arises when those distinctions are applied to experience in such a way that, given the current context and available distinctions, they are not contradicted by reality. The sheep, goat, and hologram examples are meant to show that identities depend on chosen essential properties, and that knowledge is always indexed to a context of application.

Fourth, you treat induction as unavoidable once deduction, so understood, reaches its limits. You accept Hume’s critique but argue that inductions can still be ranked by cogency: probability being strongest, then possibility, then plausibility, and finally irrational belief. Rationality, on this view, consists in managing these inductions responsibly rather than eliminating them.

Finally, you extend this framework to social knowledge by introducing negotiated “distinctive contexts.” Language, mathematics, and shared standards allow multiple subjects to coordinate their distinctions and applications. Objectivity becomes a matter of convergence within agreed contexts, rather than correspondence to a context-independent ground.

I take all of this to be internally coherent, and I don’t think it collapses into skepticism or trivial relativism.

2. How this reframes the question of necessary existence
Where I think our disagreement sharpens is when this epistemological framework is brought to bear on the question of necessary existence.

My original concern was not simply whether we can justify claims about necessity in practice, nor whether science or everyday reasoning can proceed without positing something that exists necessarily. It was whether intelligibility itself - the fact that there is a stable, law-like, and explanatory order at all - can be ultimate yet ungrounded without remainder.

Your response effectively answers a different question: how a finite subject should reason once deductive justification runs out. From that standpoint, positing a necessary being or necessary ground appears either (i) inapplicable, (ii) merely plausible, or (iii) unjustified relative to available distinctions. That is a coherent epistemic verdict.

What remains unclear to me is whether this epistemic verdict is meant to settle the metaphysical issue, or whether it simply brackets it.

If intelligibility is treated as a brute feature of reality - that is, something we manage, but do not explain - then the denial of necessary existence is not so much argued for as presupposed. The framework shows why we cannot establish necessity deductively (as you have defined it) within experience, but it does not show that necessity is unnecessary.

3. Where the grounding question reappears
This becomes especially clear when we consider several features of your account that seem to rely on what they officially set aside.

3.a “Contradiction by reality” presupposes a non-derivative norm
Your framework repeatedly appeals to the idea that beliefs must submit to contradiction by reality. But the authority of contradiction is not itself explained in instrumental terms. To say that belief ought to yield to reality is already to invoke a norm that is not merely convenient, but binding.

In the context of grounding, this matters because binding norms suggest something non-arbitrary at work. If intelligibility were wholly brute, it becomes unclear why contradiction should have this authority rather than being just another contingent feature we happen to accommodate.

3.b Elective distinctions sit uneasily with necessary structure
You emphasize that the selection of essential properties and identities is up to the subject, and that distinctive contexts are not dictated by reality itself. Yet the success of application, the hierarchy of induction, and the very notion of “better” or “worse” reasoning presuppose a stable background structure that constrains which distinctions work and which fail.

From my side, this looks like a tacit appeal to something like necessity: not a necessary entity perhaps, but a necessary order or intelligibility that is not reducible to choice or practice.

3.c Redefining deduction deflates necessity rather than refutes it
By treating deduction as “what cannot be contradicted given current distinctions,” necessity becomes a local epistemic status rather than a metaphysical one. But that redefinition does not show that there is nothing that exists necessarily; it shows only that necessity cannot be established by the methods you allow.

That is an important result, but it does not settle the ontological question. It changes the standards of admissibility rather than answering the original demand.

3.d The dynamism of inquiry points beyond brute fact
Your account presupposes an ongoing drive to refine distinctions, improve applicability, and prefer explanations that are more coherent and comprehensive. This dynamism is difficult to understand if intelligibility is merely accidental. It suggests that inquiry is oriented toward something more than survival or local success, but toward understanding as such.

If that orientation is legitimate at all, then the question of whether intelligibility has an ultimate ground reasserts itself.

4. Bringing this back to necessary existence
With that contrast in view, the issue can be stated more precisely.

Your framework shows, convincingly, that if deduction is understood as you understand it - namely, as what cannot be contradicted within a given context of distinctions and applications - then we cannot arrive at the conclusion that something exists necessarily from within finite experience. On those terms, necessity cannot appear as an admissible conclusion, since it cannot function as a candidate alongside contingent possibilities. But this limitation follows from how deduction is defined, not from the structure of inquiry itself.

The question of necessary existence, as I understand it, is neither empirical nor hypothetical. It is transcendental: it asks what must be the case for intelligibility itself to be possible. It does not arise from extending classifications further into experience, but from reflecting on the conditions that make any classification, correction, or application intelligible at all.

On your account, deduction is essentially contextual and negative: a belief counts as deductive insofar as it is not presently contradicted by reality, given a chosen set of distinctions. That is a coherent and useful standard for managing belief within experience. But it is not a standard designed to address metaphysical sufficiency. It tells us when a claim is undefeated; it does not tell us whether intelligibility itself is ultimately grounded or merely assumed.

A necessary judgment, as I am using the term, is not reached by adding premises or narrowing context. It arises when reflection shows that denying a certain conclusion undermines the very norms one relies on in inquiry. The issue is not whether necessary existence can be applied without contradiction, but whether treating intelligibility as wholly contingent is coherent given the binding role intelligibility plays in reasoning.

This is why I think your framework, while successful on its own terms, does not close the door on necessary existence. It shows that necessity cannot be established by contextual deduction; it does not show that necessity cannot be known through reflection on the conditions of intelligibility itself. The binding force of the norms you rely on (non-contradiction, rational preference, hierarchical evaluation) already presupposes that intelligibility is not merely accidental.

If intelligibility were brute all the way down, its normative authority would be inexplicable. Contradiction would lose its force, coherence would become optional, and better or worse explanations would collapse into preference. Yet your epistemology depends on the opposite: that intelligibility obliges assent when conditions are met.

So when I resist the claim that intelligibility can be ultimate yet ungrounded, I am not proposing a rival empirical explanation or a speculative add-on. I am making a transcendental claim: that finite intelligibility, precisely as conditioned and corrigible, points beyond itself to something non-derivative. That “beyond” is what I mean by necessary existence, not an object within experience, but the ground that makes intelligible experience possible at all.

5. Divergent accounts of inquiry
Before closing, I think it may help to explicitly thematize the fact that we are working with two very different conceptions of inquiry. On your account, inquiry is fundamentally corrective and managerial: it begins with distinctions, applies them where possible, and revises them when contradicted by reality. Its norms are procedural, context-relative, and justified by their success in navigating experience. On the view I am working with, inquiry is not merely corrective but also intrinsically oriented toward being in-itself: questioning itself carries an unrestricted demand for intelligibility, and the norms of coherence, adequacy, and sufficiency are immanent in the act of understanding. I think the disagreement about necessary existence may ultimately turn on which of these conceptions is taken as prior.

6. Where that leaves us
At this point, I think the disagreement is clear: you offer a powerful epistemology of how inquiry proceeds under constraint and uncertainty. I’m asking whether that epistemology presupposes, rather than replaces, a deeper transcendental/metaphysical account of intelligibility itself.

If reason is merely a tool, then necessary existence will always look like an overreach. If reason is intrinsically normative and oriented toward unrestricted intelligibility (being in-itself), then the question of grounding (and with it, the question of necessary existence) cannot be dismissed without cost.

That, I think, is the real point of divergence, and it explains why we’ve been circling the same issue from different sides.

:clap: Exemplary piece of philosophical analysis.

Thank you!