Think of the four Aristotalian causes, together with all other possibilities of causation that have accumulated in our history (such as that of co-arising, etc.) and logically justify the causal principle by which the firstness came to be. It could be an uncaused given (another possibility of causation). Whatever you choose, how do you justify it was ontically so. — javra

So you are asking what causes vagueness? Apart from a lack of crispness?

What bit of my account of counterfactuality and the legitimacy of causal questions did you fail to get?

There's something your missing out on in you system of justification. The miraculous coincidence between the conclusion of mystics you quote to support your Pierciean perspectives and the "scientific rationalism" you endorse. You believe in miracles now?

Is vagueness an uncaused presence of "lack of crispness"?

Your posts are dissolving into incoherence. Relax and take a moment to read what I've actually written.

Even think why it is so important to you that I remain "other" to the ancient wisdoms you quite like. Why do you treat that as the ultimate disaster here? Why don't you look for the possibility of a friendly connection in that fact? What could you have been missing in our discussion so far?

I don't know, my last question to you seems pretty coherent given the topics we're discussing. Can you answer it?

But hey, if we've suddenly departed from common semantics, so be it. Till some next time, then.

It is hard to reply if you insist on being ridiculous. Anyone who ever came up with a powerful metaphysical view was reasoning from experience of the world. — apokrisis

Actually it's intuition.

Do you think it would be possible to have clever thoughts about existence if you are blind, deaf and dumb? — apokrisis

Now you are really showing your true colors.

Constraints then emerge to regulate this chaos — apokrisis

Is this the mystical Cosmic Purpose?

is this idea publicly useful as a system of theory and testing?" — apokrisis

Precisely, how is "It just happened" useful in any fashion other than to continue the mythology that science has an answer?

Now you are really showing your true colors. — Rich

Funny, I had Helen Keller in mind. So that would answer that. Trying to address the metaphysical here, though.

Intelligibility is what emerges. Therefore it would be incoherent to claim that what it emerges from is the intelligible as well. — apokrisis

That's right, so you are assuming as a premise, the existence of something whose nature is such, that the thing is unintelligible. Not only is this blatantly unphilosophical, but it is demonstrably a mistaken premise.

In the logical process, we proceed from premises which are of the highest degree of certainty toward an understanding of things which we have a lower degree of certainty about. The premise "X is unintelligible", cannot be known with any degree of certainty because this would be self-contradicting. To know that X is unintelligible is to know X, and knowing X means that X is necessarily intelligible.

So the premise that X is unintelligible can be interpreted in no way other than as the statement "I do not understand X". This says nothing about X itself, it says something about the intellect which is trying to understand X. Therefore it is always a mistake, wrong, incorrect, to posit as an ontological principle, the existence of something unintelligible. If something appears to be unintelligible, then we ought to assume that the intellect attempting to understand it is deficient. If it could be proven that the thing actually is unintelligible, this would constitute knowing the thing, rendering that conclusion as false. Therefore it is impossible to prove that a thing is unintelligible, and wrong to assume that a thing is unintelligible.

So Peirce stood for a developmental metaphysics in which all things originate in a state of ultimate vagueness (or Firstness).
...

Peirce said vagueness is that to which the principle of non-contradiction fails to apply. — apokrisis

This is the mistaken premise I refer to. It is fundamental to emergence theory, and is nothing other than the statement of "I don't understand it therefore it is unintelligible".

And of course - if you can get past the Scholastic misrepresentations - Aristotle was striving towards the same with his Hylomorphism. His "prime matter" was a logical attempt to vague-ify the basis of being. — apokrisis

You grossly misrepresent Aristotle. He analyzed the concept of "prime matter" and by means of the cosmological argument he demonstrated that the existence of prime matter is logically impossible. You'll find this in his "Metaphysics" Bk 9".

An apeiron is an everythingness in being a pure potential without limitation. — apokrisis

This is "the unintelligible". And. it is the assumption which Aristotle firmly and decisively refuted with the cosmological argument. Here's a summary of that argument. It is impossible that there ever was such a thing as pure potential without limitation, because if there ever was such a thing as pure, infinite potential, there would always be pure infinite potential, because it requires something actual to actualize any potential. If there is something actual, then it is impossible that there is pure infinite potential. What we observe is that there is something actual, therefore it is impossible that there ever was pure infinite potential. Simply put, the proposition of pure potential without limitation is denied as impossible, by the fact that there is something actual.

I am wondering, that in order to contribute to the metaphorical body of knowledge, it is necessary to be able to say "I don't have the foggiest idea" in 10,000 big multi-syllable, manufactured words? Would Helen Keller be up to it? Would she even try such a stunt?

Would she even try such a stunt? — Rich

In my own opinion, no she wouldn't. My stance's justifications are inductive ... meaning to say, not of deductive logic. The nature of experience having a lot to do with this.

Talk about qualia has the same formula. Why is green green? Why is the scent of a rose like the scent of a rose? The question form itself fails the counterfactuality test. There just is no comparison possible as green is always green. And it still would be as far as I'm concerned even if it were to switch to bleen. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_riddle_of_induction)

Aristotle made the same point. Talk of causality is always a question about a reason for a change. Without counterfactuality, the game doesn't even get off the ground. The question you are asking is not really a question if you the questioner fail to provide a reasonable counterfactual basis for it.

The burden is on Schop to show why he is asking a good question ... if he now again denies that the question was answered. — apokrisis

But that's not the point. The point is WHAT is experience? You at least have to admit of the dualism of the constituents AND the "Feels like" first person perspective. THAT is the dualism. Whether you call the feels like aspect an illusion or not, the illusion HAS to be accounted for to solve the hard problem.

Is vagueness an uncaused presence of "lack of crispness"? — javra

Sigh. I said totalising questions have no resources by which they can be answered. So eventually we arrive at brute fact. "There is existence," is all we can say. Proper counterfactual questions no longer exist.

So that is the negative conclusion. I'm sure you will pounce on it gleefully as an admission that thus nothing has been said at all here. Any argument I made lacks its factual - or rather, counterfactual basis - and so must be "inadequate" to the question you still insist on asking. The question that has no answer as it ain't actually a question.

Sigh. The way you folk keep circling back to that burning need for efficient cause absolutism. If there is an effect, there just has to be a reason. As soon as any terminating concept is named - like vagueness - off you must go again.

So stop and think. We can't totalise. But we can safely dichotomise. We can work our way towards the most fundamental of metaphysical-strength counterfactuals.

I've explained how some traditional "dichotomies" like mind~matter don't work. They are merely broken dualisms rather than formally mutual divisions - definitions that meet the requirement of being "mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive".

Mind and matter just speak to different and unrelated varieties of substance - real stuff and soul stuff. Plato and Aristotle already took metaphysics down below the level of "substance", revealing it to be the emergent hylomorphic product of formal and material causality.

And Peirce of course heralded the modern re-conception in terms of information and dynamics. The symbol~matter dichotomy. This works as the source of the mutual exclusiveness is there in plain sight. Material dynamics is all about dimensionality. Signs then exist at the limit of dimensionality, They are what is left once physics has been removed from the equation as much as possible. They are what must arise as a new concrete possibility once dimensionality has been constrained as a possibility - shrunk to a zero dimensional point.

It would be worth re-reading my lengthy post on the biophysical basis of biosemiosis. The physical zeroing of dynamics - the convergence of many varieties of energetic process at the quasi-classical nanoscale - is another spectacular proof of this fundamental insight.

But anyway, the point about the vague~crisp is that it arises as the limit of our metaphysical inquiries into the question of "why existence?".

We can't answer the question in some monistic fashion - A caused B, and that's that. It is already accepted that existence itself is a brute fact because it is a totalising question bereft of counterfactuals (well, no one has imagined a good one so far).

But as a positive metaphysical achievement, we can say that we pushed the limits as far as was possible. And my argument - the one I say many ancient wisdoms share, even if in groping, informal fashion - is that the vague~crisp defines that epistemic limit best.

However if you can argue against that, go for it.

Funny, I had Helen Keller in mind. — javra

You know Helen Keller wasn't born that way? And she always had the senses of touch, taste and smell.

The point is WHAT is experience? — schopenhauer1

No, the point is WHAT IS IT NOT? If you can't provide the suitable counterfactual, you ain't got nothing, buster.

But as a positive metaphysical achievement, we can say that we pushed the limits as far as was possible. — apokrisis

Hardly.

One can say that Mind exists, and that's that. And Mind feels and that's that.

But not the physicalist! No they are categorically claiming that Mind came out of No-Mind. That life emerged of no-life. No-life is the physicalist starting point (unless it gets to uncomfortable, and then Cosmic Purpose is helicoptered in). That is the OP's question. How did Life come from no-life? The physicalist staked their own starting point. Interestingly Peirce smartly places mind before matter. He knows what he is doing.

So do you know how this miracle occurred? If not, then we stop at Mind exists. It is the physicalist that have to show how something occurred out of nothing otherwise we have no life, no mind. Or alternatively, they can take the universally applicable, "It just happened", which would be the vague-crisp that has suddenly become the foundation of the physicalist explanation of life.

How did Life come from no-life? — Rich

It was a quantum mind field projection bit of trickery by the big daddy hologram up in the sky. Or something like that. Can't actually remember straight.

But I saw the YouTube clip on it by some guy who builds banking software. And he wasn't even wearing a tin-foil hat. He had to be legit.

Got it. You don't have the foggiest idea.

The thread was rather long but I enjoyed it. Can we invite Dennet to the forum to explain the selfish gene? I bet we get lots of vague-crisp from that discussion.

And my argument - the one I say many ancient wisdoms share, even if in groping, informal fashion - is that the vague~crisp defines that epistemic limit best.

However if you can argue against that, go for it. — apokrisis

Your answer of "vague~crisp" does not answer the question that you replied to … unless it is to explicitly say that the metaphysical beginning is unknowable. This being the very position I hold which you first chose to argue against. (This in manners that were less than cordial seeming. I won’t splurge on the details but, hell, we’ve all got our moods. And no, no apologies on my part.)

As to your notion of dichotomies with relations in-between being everything in terms of existence:

You have a rather important dichotomy to existence: that of conflict v. harmony. Some of us emotive people can interpret the same as hate v. love. Some of other folks can interpret it as states of chaos v. states of order. It doesn’t much matter how the processes are interpreted here; nor at what levels of existence they're addressed; the two processes of becoming remain the same.

I say that, while conflict (between gives) is impossible devoid of harmony (minimally, within the givens that conflict) the opposite does not hold metaphysically. Harmony can occur in the absence of all conflict. This is not a “crispness” that requires both dyads to be. In the latter form, the given of harmony / love / order can exist just fine in the complete absence its opposite – to not even address any relation in -between. This, again, metaphysically. (Granted not given some presumption of a known initial firstenss but given existence as is in current forms.)

For now, I’ve little doubt that you will disagree. But this would lead us into, maybe, more fertile grounds of debate.

I for now have to take some time off for myself. I’ll check back on this tomorrow.

our answer of "vague~crisp" does not answer the question that you replied to … unless it is to explicitly say that the metaphysical beginning is unknowable. — javra

Mmm. Still not getting it even when it is said explicitly?

It is epistemically fundamental - I take it as true - that questions no longer have answers once they become totalising and lack counterfactuality.

But then you are seeking some ontic certainty despite that explicit epistemic caveat.

So I say no go. That is simply brute fact argument. You are presuming a truth that has no means of test. You have gone beyond epistemically reasonable metaphysics. Sorry to have to be the one to break this bad news.

Then returning to what I'm saying, I'm saying - epistemically - we are safe in talking about the emergence of existence right after the earliest moment that its symmetry in fact just broke.

So vague~crisp does that. We are dealing already with a developmental process busy growing. We are in the game now in a measurable fashion.

This won't satisfy ontic absolutists. They will cling on to their ability to appear like sceptics, opposing any explanation even though they are now - at this level of rarified questioning - operating without the oxygen of proper counterfactuals.

You can't stop folk talking even when what they say is just nonsense. But you can show that it is nonsense when they can't pose their scepticism, their endless questioning, in grounded counter-factual terms.

But anyway, the point about the vague~crisp is that it arises as the limit of our metaphysical inquiries into the question of "why existence?".

We can't answer the question in some monistic fashion - A caused B, and that's that. It is already accepted that existence itself is a brute fact because it is a totalising question bereft of counterfactuals (well, no one has imagined a good one so far). — apokrisis

The inquiry of "why existence", when asked, is quickly exposed as nonsensical. The real metaphysical inquiry asks "why is there what there is, rather than something else". And emergence, from the random symmetry-breaking of pure, infinitely vague potential, is not an intelligent answer.

With a smiling attitude, you're replies, to me and to others, personally remind me of that popular Metalica tune: something about, "you label me, I label you" something or rather.

Wanted to pop in to say this, unforgiven as it might be.

I'll get back to the "logic" of it all tomorrow. Hell, maybe.

"you label me, I label you" — javra

I suggested you focus for a change on why ein sof or dependent co-arising might be something shared here. But it is your choice to see only divisions.

No, the point is WHAT IS IT NOT? If you can't provide the suitable counterfactual, you ain't got nothing, buster. — apokrisis

But that's the point! It exists qua its own phenomena. There is no counterfactual as there is just feeling-like-something, the territory that you keep missing for the map. Perhaps that's when you know you hit territory and not map :D.

You have a rather important dichotomy to existence: that of conflict v. harmony. Some of us emotive people can interpret the same as hate v. love. Some of other folks can interpret it as states of chaos v. states of order. It doesn’t much matter how the processes are interpreted here; nor at what levels of existence they're addressed; the two processes of becoming remain the same. — javra

Yep. Anaximander confused the heck out of folk as the only recorded scrap of his actual words talked about cosmic justice vs injustice. Heraclitus likewise talked about this unity of opposites - flux and logos.

So that is what I cash out when talking about constraints vs freedoms. A system is the necessity of both in balance.

When it comes to the science of social relations - sociology - we see the same story playing out at a higher level. What is fundamental to a natural notion of a social system is that it is the successful balancing of two necessary oppositions - co-operation and competition.

The main difference here then is you want to add some further twist - another metaphysical dimension to your analysis. And that is based on the opposition of good and bad, or some such deontic distinction.

So my position would be deontically neutral. Neither competition nor co-operation would be inherently either good or bad. It is their balancing act that counts. And even that resulting outcome is not inherently good or bad in a Platonic "the Good" way.

As a natural philosopher, nature just is what it is and doesn't have to answer to transcendent values. Existence has no further moral dimension (although culturally we are free to construct a morality that pragmatically works for us in terms of achieving an optimal balance of competition and co-operation).

But I get it that for you existence does probably just have this inherent value. It is fundamental and so top of your concerns in any discussion we might have.

So I can recognise the legitimacy of adding further dimensions to our metaphysics that go beyond the simple-minded reductionism we all complain about. I've just argued again for the vague~crisp distinction of anyone taking a developmental position on ontology. And so your choice to defend a deotological axis of description - if that is what you are doing - is both a valid epistemic move in my view, yet one that I of course contest vigorously on ontological grounds.

Harmony can occur in the absence of all conflict. This is not a “crispness” that requires both dyads to be. In the latter form, the given of harmony / love / order can exist just fine in the complete absence its opposite – to not even address any relation in -between. — javra

Ah. There you see where now I would disagree even epistemically. Nothing can be spoken of intelligibly except counterfactually. Harmony makes no sense as language, as proposition, unless not-harmony refers to something more solid than just "whatever not might mean".

That was the problem of the Platonic good - especially right through all Christian theology. Evil has to exist to make sense of goodness. And yet the existence of evil, or worse yet, its deliberate creation, does not compute. How could a God of perfect love and harmony allow the stain of Satan to come into being?

Theology tries to say the paradox of that formulation is somehow resolved in Hegelian fashion by making the re-establishment of perfection at the end of Earthly time somehow a fact that reinforces the concreteness of God's purity.

It doesn't fly logically. But that is what happens when theology becomes the sound of one hand clapping - the notion that only one half of a dichotomy is "true", the other necessarily "false".

So I would say you are fooling yourself in not actually even granting yourself a deontic dimension anchored securely at either end by the complementary notions of good and bad, harmony and strife, order and disorder, heaven and hell.

Metaphysics works because it got the hang of proper dialectical argument. Theology retreats from that at its peril. Or rather, retreating form the fray is the only way theology, tied up in its paradoxical knots, can survive.

(I don't mean all theology. A lot of it has flirted with proper systems thinking. The re-discovery of Peirce was certainly led by religious scholars.)

But that's the point! It exists qua its own phenomena. There is no counterfactual as there is just feeling-like-something, the territory that you keep missing for the map. — schopenhauer1

It's like you have zero comprehension skills. Don't just claim counterfactuals are irrelevant to facticity. Demonstrate how that is an epistemically credible stance to be taking.

It's like you have zero comprehension skills. Don't just claim counterfactuals are irrelevant to facticity. Demonstrate how that is an epistemically credible stance to be taking. — apokrisis

The fact that there is a feels-like-something along with the modelling. The feels like something is the flipside/inner quality whatever you want to call it. It is not the map of the model, but the actual modelling itself processing from the inside. But "what" is this inside? That is the dualistic nature of the problem.

The fact that there is a feels-like-something along with the modelling. — schopenhauer1

Have a go at supporting the counter-factual - that there is the kind of modelling relation the human brain has with its environment and that that feels like ... nothing?

When is that the case?

If you are dead or in a coma, for example, there is no modelling relation. But when you are in a lived and active engagement with the world, what supports your claimed counter-factual here?

Not seeing it. (Hey, another counter-factual!)

If you are dead or in a coma, for example, there is no modelling relation. But when you are in a lived and active engagement with the world, what supports your claimed counter-factual here?

Not seeing it. (Hey, another counter-factual!) — apokrisis

But this goes beyond counterfactual to what is. Experience is a phenomena. What is the phenomena of experience? Your insistence on counterfactuals here makes no sense because you are constantly looking for a map in a question of metaphysics. What is existence? It is the feeling of experience- BEING the model, NOT OBSERVING the model. Being the model has this experiential quality that is somehow NOT primary to the constituents but EMERGES into its own thing. How is that not a dualism? You cannot get out of it be referring back to the constituents and ignoring that its emerged (into something different.. which you never explain other than referring back to the map).

How is that not a dualism? You cannot get out of it be referring back to the constituents and ignoring that its emerged ( — schopenhauer1

We could be here forever and you won't get the first bit of it. In my metaphysics, the constituents emerge too. The global constraints shape the local degrees of freedom.

This is holism here. There is no point you trying to understand that reductionistically.