When you assume a material first principle, as you do, then some form of active cause is necessary to bring about change. But you assume that the constraints just magically emerge out of the infinite freedom of material potential, as a symmetry-breaking. And this is completely irrational. — Metaphysician Undercover

To some, it may seem too simplistic to describe current scientific theories about the origins of the Universe and Life as "It just happened", but if one takes the time too peel away all of the manufactured words and ideas, and the fog of verbosity, "It just happened", is all that is left. To masquerade the emptiness of the explanations, words such as tychism, and other poetic and pseudo-scientific phrases as invented out of thin air. All to avoid the easily understood phrase"We don't have the foggiest idea".

But it doesn't stop there. It continues on and permeates all of neuro-biological scientific literature, that whenever something doesn't fit or make sense, science conveniently calls upon its "It just happens", explanation of the world, ignoring, marginalizing, or ostracizing any idea that doesn't fit into it's highly biased physicalist view if life. As a result, understanding the nature of the mind/body and maintenance of its health is severely impacted. This is the major practical issue.

What's uncertain or vague about a die? It is an engineered cube with clearly marked faces. Are we in doubt that it must land on one of six numbers when it finally comes to rest on a flat surface?

Oh yes. We in fact add the constraint that maximises our uncertainty over which number will turn up by throwing it in a way that is as if we don't care. In any dice game, that is the rule - the principle of indifference. And thus a constraint that emerged at the dawn of dice games so as to make them even intelligible.

To talk about unbounded awareness is incoherent. There is only awareness-of. Or the lack of that particularity, and so a lack of a definiteness of concepts and impressions at some moment.

We know from observation that the intensity or power of awareness goes with the complexity of the modelling, the complexity of the neural processing, taking place so as to give an organism its first person point of view. To then argue that awareness would reach some even higher state by becoming unbounded from such located structure is a logical nonsense. It is not an extrapolation from the evidence.

A notion of universal mind makes no sense because the prime quality of being sharply conscious is to be in a most particular state of minding. Awareness-of, in your terminology.

Individual brains can then also be defocused, inattentive, even vigilant - norepinephrine-tuned in terms of noise~signal firing threshold so as to be standing ready to pick up events coming from any direction. All explicable in information processing terms.

But that just reinforces the fact that a memorable intensity of experience is due to the moment to moment development of highly particularised states of information. To posit an oceanic state of disembodied love, a cosmic awareness, is unsupported romanticism. Yes, a popular idea in culture. But not one that reasoned inquiry supports.

It seems to me, from the reading I have done of Peirce, that what he means by 'mind' (as in matter being effete mind) is something neither physical nor known to science. The fact that nature forms habits, suggests that mind is in some sense primordial.

To posit an oceanic state of disembodied love, a cosmic awareness, is unsupported romanticism. — apokrisis

I think behind the different religious formulations of such ideas, there is an intuition of reaching an actual state beyond death, i.e. immortality (e.g. here). From the perspective of the ordinary person, and even from the perspective of science, which is basically the ordinary mind given extraordinary powers, this in unintelligible. Granted it is also not at all well understood even by the many followers of the religions themselves, and is therefore depicted in various cultural forms and beliefs. But I do think the state of 'sama-sambuddhasa' (perfectly realised enlightenment) is real, not reducible to various forms of psychologism or evolutionary-grounded illusions, at which point the individual realises him/herself as being in some essential manner, beyond death. There are comparable expressions in various cultural traditions, such as Christian Platonism, or the Vedanta - which is not to say they're all the same, or that they all mean or are talking about the same thing. What they are talking about, is a difficult thing to discern, and takes a fair amount of study to understand even in literary, let alone experiential, terms.

Yes, a popular idea in culture. But not one that reasoned inquiry supports. — apokrisis

More the case that it's something philosophical naturalism has a strong vested interest against.

What if, instead of a die, you take Buffon's needle? You can throw a needle on a paper and after a while you can deduce Pi from doing so. As with a die there are a lot of constraints already in place to make this happen but I don't feel it's to dissimilar. So is there some new constraint suddenly? Did it "just happen"?

And about that "it just happens", maybe it might be more conducive for scientific folk to say something like: "we don't know how it happens". Still, I feel the route to find out what's going on lies in evolving further and not in claiming some higher order principle is already knowable ..just not in the way we are used to know things.

It seems to me, from the reading I have done of Peirce, — Wayfarer

Cool. So perhaps you can sum up what "mind" then means in Peircean terms. What actual ontic commitments follow?

Do you think he is actually idealist, dualist, panpsychic, or what? Is reality immaterial for him? How is mind defined for him? Is it disembodied reason? Is it a substance, an awareness field, something else?

But I do think the state of 'sama-sambuddhasa' (perfectly realised enlightenment) is real, not reducible to various forms of psychologism or evolutionary-grounded illusions, at which point the individual realises him/herself as being in some essential manner, beyond death. — Wayfarer

But if you find the same states of oceanic feeling or religious ecstasy can be the result of temporal lobe epilepsy, or drugs, or magnetically induced stimulation, what then?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurotheology

Do you think he is actually idealist, dualist, panpsychic, or what? Is reality immaterial for him? How is mind defined for him? Is it disembodied reason? Is it a substance, an awareness field, something else? — apokrisis

The paper I was reading, describes him as an 'objective idealist', i.e the universe is in some sense possessed of awareness. I would have thought it was necessary for there to be memory, in some sense, for nature to form habits at all, which is how he sees physical laws.

It's not that far from panpsychism, however the term hadn't been devised at his time.

Not as 'substance' as he rejected Cartesian dualism.

The Wiki entry on 'objective idealism', which mentions Peirce amongst its proponents, says 'Objective idealism accepts common sense realism (the view that material objects exist) but rejects naturalism (according to which the mind and spiritual values have emerged from material things).' Would you concur with that? Earlier you did say that in some sense mind has been here all along.

But if you find the same states of oceanic feeling or religious ecstasy can be the result of temporal lobe epilepsy, or drugs, or magnetically induced stimulation, what then? — apokrisis

You can have momentary realisations that are utterly real, but they are very rarely stabilised. But that is how a lot of 60's people ended up studying Buddhism - it was a very well-worn path. Only fools try and reach a stable realisation through artificial means (although, there are always plenty of them.)

//ps// - Jill Bolte Taylor - 'Stroke of Insight' - example of a catastrophic stroke inducing an experience of 'non-dual awareness'//

To talk about unbounded awareness is incoherent. There is only awareness-of. Or the lack of that particularity, and so a lack of a definiteness of concepts and impressions at some moment. — apokrisis

We justify our metaphysics differently. To keep things as simple as I can (skipping the justifications for the following conclusions):

As I’ve previously tried to mention, the “what it is like” of this endstate can only be incomprehensible to any self-endowed being. It, in fact, is the only endstate to awareness that is, as endstate, intuitively incomprehensible—all others being intuitively comprehensible to us. Compare it, for example, to the nonbeing endstate to awareness; who doesn’t hold an intuitive comprehension of what this would be? The other two, by the way, are a stability-of-self endstate and a control-over-other endstate. The hypothesis being that, regardless the specifics, we always intend toward one of these four endstates or, more commonly, a conflux of two or more of these endstates … and interact with others that do likewise.

To be clear, the endstate of “unbounded awareness” isn’t justified by its comprehensibility to us (for emphasis) self-endowed beings. It is, I believe, thoroughly justified—but not proven—in the sense that “all roads lead to Rome”; in likewise manner is it conceivable / imaginable as endstate: for example, what would the metaphysical grand conclusion be to an ever closer proximity to harmony/love/unity/order of awareness? What else but a perfectly selfless awareness/being? Yes, there is intrinsic choice between which of the four imaginable endstates of awareness is in fact the ontically real endstate; this because none can be itself definitively proven to be ontically certain; all that can be asserted with unfalsified certainty is that one of the five endstate alternatives (here the four endstate scenarios + the scenario of there being no endstate to awareness whatsoever) will in fact be ontically real—hence, will in fact be the metaphysically objective endstate scenario of being (thus being real regardless of subjective appraisals or intentions as to whether or not it is).

You may notice that this places the metaphysical above the physical … since the physical, in this model, results from a plurality of Akashas (to use the terminology I’ve previously used) in perpetually changing relations to these various endstates for Akasha (all endstates being illusory save for one). And yes, the physical (which we all know darn well to be rather complex) then in turn limits, or bounds, what Akashas can do via physical causations, including that of brain-mind relations, genotypes, etc. … which (when cutting corners) can be stated to result in individual selves that hold awareness-of.

Again, though we can both thoroughly relate to Pierces conclusions of objective idealism, this metaphysics I uphold is nevertheless not one of physicalism.

At the end of the day, it is only one more philosophical view to add to the rest of them. But it nevertheless is the philosophical view that I uphold.

Do you think [Peirce] is actually idealist, dualist, panpsychic, or what? — apokrisis

The other point I wanted to come back to is this: I see Peirce as an inheritor of ideas in the Western philosophical tradition, one of which is 'nous', a seminal term in Platonist philosophy which became deeply embedded in Western philosophical discourse (and, interestingly, is nowadays vernacular for pragmatic wisdom, 'he has nous, that bloke', which is not altogether inapt.)

In any case the quotes I provided earlier, were about this facet of Peirce's thought - to which your response was 'so what, he believed in God, so did Darwin, Newton and Einstein'.

But that is beside the point. The point I was making, is that Peirce's metaphysical view, which was descended from a theistic tradition, does allow for the possibility of a kind of cosmic or global mind, which is an aspect of the idealist tradition in philosophy. But it strikes me that this is the very thing you wish to get rid of at all costs, whilst still retaining all the 'triadic metaphysics' and the other aspects of Peirce's thought that is congenial to your particular project.

the universe is in some sense possessed of awareness. — Wayfarer

Yes. And I am asking you to define what that might actually mean - in Peirce's view especially. What does such a statement commit to you in ontic specifics.

If you think Peirce is a panpsychist for example, support that. Does he anywhere say that fundamentally consciousness is a universal property of material being?

Peirce seems very concerned with the idea that existence is somehow bound up with "the universal growth of reasonableness". Hence the emphasis on interpretation and habit. But where is the "self" - the experiencer of experiencers - in his metaphysics? There seems no particular ontic commitment to that coming through in his writings.

Not as 'substance' as he rejected Cartesian dualism. — Wayfarer

Yes. He really did, didn't he. A big clue, surely.

The Wiki entry on 'objective idealism', — Wayfarer

That is a poor summary of what Peirce proposes. Peirce argues that even the material world emerges (via semiotic reason as a universal process of constraint-formation).

So that Wiki entry makes a distinction between objective and subjective idealism. And objective idealism is suppose to accept the reality of a material world, yet reject a naturalism where mind then emerges from that material world.

But Peirce was arguing for a "total emergence" naturalism. So in the beginning, there is neither matter nor mind in any useful concrete sense. Everything that comes to exist arises because of sign relations.

There are, I agree, some big inconsistencies about this. Peirce equivocated about Firstness. Sometimes he described it in very physicalist language, sometimes very mentalist. He was working his way to an abstract logical description - his unfinished logic of vagueness - and also, late in life, he took a definite religious turn of mind that coloured his writings from yet another direction.

So you can keep triumphantly waving this one little phrase - "matter is effete mind" - and yet my question to you is show that you've really understood what Peirce was saying, and how that evolved even over the course of his life (in response to how his life was going).

You can have momentary realisations that are utterly real, — Wayfarer

Again, the fact that these states of "heightened disembodied blissful sense of complete insight" can be mechanically stimulated must produce something more than this casual shrug of the shoulders if you are being honest.

and yet my question to you is show that you've really understood what Peirce was saying, — apokrisis

My efforts to understand what Peirce is saying have mostly been prompted by my effort to understand what you are saying. I am not expert in either, but I do think there is a discontinuity between them. His 'primordial firstness' is, as I said, rather Emersonian in character, and Emerson was the point of entry for Eastern spirituality into American letters. But as I have said, and as Javra has said, the place that the 'second law of thermodynamics' plays in your system, is a major problem I have with it. I think it amounts to a kind of 'deification' of physical law, the substitution of an invariant physical constant for the 'invariance of the eternal' in earlier Western thinking - so whereas for Emerson (and Peirce) it might have been something like Brahman, for you, it's physical necessity. And there's a world of difference in those two. In fact I think there are clear historical reasons for that, arising from the Enlightenment. That, I understand, will be a major point of difference, and I am not going to try and present 'counterfactuals', other than to note that there certain ideas that trigger overtly hostile and dismissive responses from yourself, i.e ideas that sound 'religious'. I get that, that is why I have been staying out of this thread.

the fact that these states of "heightened disembodied blissful sense of complete insight" can be mechanically stimulated must produce something more than this casual shrug of the shoulders if you are being honest — apokrisis

Not in the least! The Indian attitude to religious experience is completely different to the Western. The very fact that you can have a momentary realisation is not at all shocking in the East, whereas, in the West, the whole idea of spiritual experience is deprecated and corralled according to religious dogma. So there is a natural suspicion of any such experiences in western culture. This is a really revealing comment:

Grubby religious beliefs are to Peircean metaphysics as porn is to real sex. — apokrisis

The equation of religious beliefs with porn, even if in jest, comes from the fact that the modern, Western attitude to religion, is very like the Victorian attitude towards sex. It is kind of a cultural taboo, something that sensible folks are not supposed to think, hence, 'dirty'. But that's very much, again, a product of the peculiar history of religious thought in the West. But that's well and truly another thread. And, hey, I probably won't continue for the time being, I'm on holidays in the US with wife, she is very pissed off with me bashing away on forums, so if I don't reply again for now, that's why ;-)

But Peirce was arguing for a "total emergence" naturalism. So in the beginning, there is neither matter nor mind in any useful concrete sense. Everything that comes to exist arises because of sign relations. — apokrisis

Always better to go to the source:

Peirce, Law of the Mind

"I have begun by showing that tychism must give birth to an evolu-
tionary cosmology, in which all the regularities of nature and of
mind are regarded as products of growth, and to a Schelling-fashioned
idealism which holds matter to be mere specialised and partially
deadened mind."

As for Schelling:

"In the System of Transcendental Idealism Schelling goes back to Fichtean terminology, though he will soon abandon most of it. He endeavours to explain the emergence of the thinking subject from nature in terms of an ‘absolute I’ coming retrospectively to know itself in a ‘history of self-consciousness’ that forms the material of the system. The System recounts the history of which the transcendental subject is the result. A version of the model Schelling establishes will be adopted by Hegel in the Phenomenology of Mind. Schelling presents the process in terms of the initially undivided I splitting itself in order to articulate itself in the syntheses, the ‘products’, which constitute the world of knowable nature. The founding stages of this process, which bring the world of material nature into being, are ‘unconscious’."

For those interested in Eastern Philosophies, this is very close to Daoism.

To some, it may seem too simplistic to describe current scientific theories about the origins of the Universe and Life as "It just happened", but if one takes the time too peel away all of the manufactured words and ideas, and the fog of verbosity, "It just happened", is all that is left. To masquerade the emptiness of the explanations, words such as tychism, and other poetic and pseudo-scientific phrases as invented out of thin air. All to avoid the easily understood phrase"We don't have the foggiest idea". — Rich

But apokrisis' position goes a lot further than "it just happened", with the assumption of apeiron and infinite potential. When potential is conceived of as infinite, then it is impossible that there is any constraints, or actuality. When there is nothing actual, then it is impossible for anything to happen. So the notion of infinite potential is somewhat deceptive, because it implies that anything is possible But apokrisis refuses to accept the other side of the coin, and that is that if there is infinite potential, then every actuality is impossible.

The point of the die example is that constraints do not emerge, they change, so that a new constraint comes into existence from an already existing constraint. So if you are rolling a six sided die, with numbers one to six, it would be a mistake to think that if you rolled enough times you might get a zero, or a seven, without changing the die.

What if, instead of a die, you take Buffon's needle? You can throw a needle on a paper and after a while you can deduce Pi from doing so. As with a die there are a lot of constraints already in place to make this happen but I don't feel it's to dissimilar. So is there some new constraint suddenly? Did it "just happen"? — Gooseone

In a realm of infinite potential, apeiron, there is by definition, no constraints whatsoever. To think that in a world of infinite potential, a constraint might just pop into existence through some form of symmetry-breaking or something like that, is like thinking that you might suddenly role a seven on a die with numbers one to six. It is an irrational thought, something which is logically impossible.

Still, I feel the route to find out what's going on lies in evolving further and not in claiming some higher order principle is already knowable ..just not in the way we are used to know things. — Gooseone

Don't you think that if a higher order principle could be discovered by a more evolved living creature, that higher order principle must be already in essence knowable? We are all evolving living beings, and knowledge advances. No one knows when the higher order principle will be found, but we must keep striving to find it, and this takes effort. But if we posit as a first ontological principle, that the foundation of being, existence, is itself unknowable due to some sort of vagueness, then we will not be inclined to make the effort to find that higher order principle, assuming that such is impossible due to that inherent unintelligibility.

But apokrisis' position goes a lot further than "it just happened", with the assumption of apeiron and infinite potential. — Metaphysician Undercover

Agree. There is all kinds of whipsawing going on. First we have something resembling Pierce's global mind as you describe and then we we have the denial of all such. At least Peirce was consistent, as apparently was Schelling. If one wants a reasonably consistent view, at least Peiece presents one, though it all begins with chance then mind then matter. Daoism would say it begins with Mind and just forget about the chance.

It should also be noted that Whitehead also had to include his version of God in his process philosophy. There is no getting away from it no matter how much effort is put into hiding it.

Always better to go to the source: — Rich

But you've got a problem, Rich, if you don't understand what you read. :)

So: "tychism must give birth to an evolutionary cosmology, in which all the regularities of nature and of mind are regarded as products of growth"

It seems only a minute ago that you were being snarky about Tychism. And perhaps you haven't even stumbled across its complementary of Synechism yet?

And note here that it is both nature and mind that arise as the semiotic "taking of habits". It is neither mind arising out of (material) nature, nor vice versa. Instead it is a triadic story of both emerging from tychism (Firstness, vagueness, spontaneity) and arriving at their constraining limit (the continuity of synechism or inveterate habit).

and to a Schelling-fashioned idealism which holds matter to be mere specialised and partially deadened mind." — Rich

Yep. There must be some reason Peirce found Schelling's Naturephilosphie both a historical inspiration, yet also rather in need of fixing up.

Schelling did have a similar take in many ways. And Schelling scholarship likewise raises the further question of "which Schelling?" as his arguments evolved and changed over his own lifetime. But Schelling was more clearly idealist as he did not put semiotic/universal methods of reasoning at the centre of his thought. But then who else was a foundational logician like Peirce in the history of metaphysics (besides Aristotle)?

Googling for quotes doesn't replace scholarship I'm afraid.

The point of the die example is that constraints do not emerge, they change, so that a new constraint comes into existence from an already existing constraint. — Metaphysician Undercover

If constraints don't emerge for material being, then provide me with a die that is five or seven sided. Why is six-sidedness a limit on this kind of materiality? Are you not in fact free to change the number of sides composing a regular solid? How could any limit exist in advance of our free potential to tile a volume with regular faces? Surely God at least would be able to ordain the real possibility of a five or seven sided die?

In a realm of infinite potential, apeiron, there is by definition, no constraints whatsoever. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yep. That is the definition. That is also why I call it the limit of definite existence.

As soon as you have any dimensionality - on free action in some number of particular orrthogonal directions - you also have the complementary fact of constraints on the resulting geometric possibility.

From as soon as you have 3D flat space, five and seven sided dice are an impossibility. And six sided dice a matchingly definite possibility.

That is why Apeiron is not strictly a "ground" of being but its " lower limit". Go in that direction and crispness loses its crispness to become vague. The Apeiron would be the pure vagueness that then "doesn't exist".

But you've got a problem, Rich, if you don't understand what you read. — apokrisis

Nope, you have a problem. For heaven sake's the title of the essay is "The Law of the Mind". He explicitly refers to mind (the word physicalists bite their tongue on) and then goes on to refer to matter as dead mind. This puts mind as primary. Then the final nail in the coffin is his reference to Schelling, fully embracing his idealism. He never comes close to saying that all is physical and mind magically emerges from matter. He had too much intellectual honesty for that.

I think we may have a bit of revisionism going on here. The quote is directly from Peirce's Law of the Mind which is probably a better source than your incredibly biased interpretation.

At least Peirce was consistent, as apparently was Schelling. — Rich

I don't mind inconsistency in a philosopher's writing. Many start writing when they are young, and if they maintain an open mind, their thoughts will develop. So what appears like inconsistency is quite often just the free mind attempting to understand reality.

It should also be noted that Whitehead also had to include his version of God in his process philosophy. — Rich

Many philosophers will start out with a grand ambition of producing an ontology which excludes God. But as the difficulties emerge, it's found to be not an easy task.

If constraints don't emerge for material being, then provide me with a die that is five or seven sided. Why is six-sidedness a limit on this kind of materiality? Are you not in fact free to change the number of sides composing a regular solid? — apokrisis

As I said, constraints change, but to posit constraints coming into existence (emerging) from an absolute lack of constraint is nonsense.

As soon as you have any dimensionality - on free action in some number of particular orrthogonal directions - you also have the complementary fact of constraints on the resulting geometric possibility.

From as soon as you have 3D flat space, five and seven sided dice are an impossibility. And six sided dice a matchingly definite possibility. — apokrisis

Dimensionality is itself a constraint. A "3D flat space" is a constraint. Why do you suppose that 3D space comes into existence from infinite possibility? This is what is at issue here, we can always ask, "why is there what there is instead of something else?". And this is a respectable philosophical question. But when you posit infinite possibility you deny that there is any answer to that question, and this stymies philosophical investigation.

He explicitly refers to mind — Rich

Err yeah. The word gets said. :-}

And now we are doing the big boy thing of reading a whole sentence all in one go.

The critical part of that sentence is: "...tychism must give birth to an evolutionary cosmology, in which all the regularities of nature and of mind are regarded as products of growth..."

So you get what is being said now? The regularity that we call mind is also an emergent product of (semiotic) growth, like the regularity we call nature.

As I said, constraints change, but to posit constraints coming into existence (emerging) from an absolute lack of constraint is nonsense. — Metaphysician Undercover

If constraint begets constraint, then what begat the first constraint?

Oh I forgot. Must be God. :’(

emergent product — apokrisis

Define emergent product without having a hidden dualism (i.e that which constituted the product and the product itself).

So you get what is being said now? The regularity that we call mind is also an emergent product of (semiotic) growth, like the regularity we call nature. — apokrisis

Sure, there is Mind. It evolves as a product of growth (learning). And then it leaves behind dead matter. Bergson said the same. Good ole Mind. Right there evolving. I'm sure you would have preferred Matter, but unfortunately it is Mind, in the title and in the paragraph. No way to erase it.

Peirce avoided magic by stating the obvious.

Dimensionality is itself a constraint. A "3D flat space" is a constraint. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well that was what I was saying.

Why do you suppose that 3D space comes into existence from infinite possibility? — Metaphysician Undercover

As that is itself an emergent geometric constraint on infinite dimensional possibility.

3D space has special properties that make it the only thermally/energetically stable arrangement. It is only 3D space in which the strength of interaction dilute according to a log powerlaw. Force weakens with the square of the distance. In less dimensions, interactions would be too strong. In more, they get weak too fast. So 3D is a special Goldilocks state of dimensionality - stable enough that it out persists other possible arrangements.

This is what is at issue here, we can always ask, "why is there what there is instead of something else?". — Metaphysician Undercover

Yep. We have to allow anything could have been possible and yet something particular is what survived all attempts to constrain it, supress it, or eliminate it.

So the answer is that what exists is what worked in an evolutionary sense. That is what Peirce and a developmental metaphysics is all about. You don't need a creating hand, a prime mover. Possibility itself will eliminate its own variety just by trying to express its every alternative at once. That is the essence of constraints-based causal self-organisation.

But when you posit infinite possibility you deny that there is any answer to that question, and this stymies philosophical investigation. — Metaphysician Undercover

Nope. It pats you on the head and points you in the direction of the better alternative you've been ignoring.

Define emergent product without having a hidden dualism — schopenhauer1

What again? And were you meaning without the explicit dichotomy - the bleeding "apokrisis" that I even choose as a user-name? >:O

What again? And were you meaning without the explicit dichotomy - the bleeding "apokrisis" that I even choose as a user-name? >:O — apokrisis

Huh? Some inside joke, but not sure what you're getting at.

If constrain begets constraint, then what begat the first constraint?

Oh I forgot. Must be God. — apokrisis

As soon as someone shows me the way around this problem, I'm fully prepared to ditch the idea of God. I don't want to believe in God, and I never did want to believe in God, but this issue demonstrates the necessity of God, so I am stuck with this. Of course we can dump God and choose an irrational ontological principle, like you do, but I prefer to keep my wits. So, I'm still seeking a logical alternative, and not about to succumb to your irrationality. That's why I keep impressing this point on you, perhaps you can help me come up with something better. To no avail though, because you're already convicted.

Possibility itself will eliminate its own variety just by trying to express its every alternative at once. That is the essence of constraints-based causal self-organisation. — apokrisis

You still don't get it do you? Possibility doesn't do anything. It is not actual, it cannot do anything, by definition. To talk about possibility doing something, itself, is simple contradiction. Something actual must actualize any particular possibility. If this were not the case, then all possibilities would automatically be actualized, all the time, and there would be no difference between "possible" and "actual". That is really the issue with MWI of QM. See how this premise leads to irrational ontological principles?

Nope. It pats you on the head and points you in the direction of the better alternative you've been ignoring. — apokrisis

I sure as hell haven't been ignoring this alternative. How could I? It's rampant all around me. That it's the better alternative is clearly false due to the fact that it is an irrational option.

You still don't get it do you? Possibility doesn't do anything. It is not actual, it cannot do anything, by definition. — Metaphysician Undercover

In physics, we have got used to considering possibilities as "virtual particles". So the possibilities we can count - as in quantum mechanics - are also "actual" in a special way.

This isn't empty metaphysics. We can actually measure the physical contribution that a cloud of ghostly possibilities adds to any physical property. It is why the vacuum has an irreducible zero point energy, why the magnetic moment of the electron has an added quantum correction.

So I'm not making shit up. Our most accurate theory of nature forces us to take a constraints-based, sum over histories or path integral, view of material being. We can count the effect that unlimited possibility has on the actuality we then measure.

If there is a God, he designed this system we observe. And it is constraints-based self-organisation all the way down to the Planck limit.

Your alternative account - a classically-inspired tale - is experimentally proven as wrong.

That is really the issue with MWI of QM. See how this premise leads to irrational ontological principles? — Metaphysician Undercover

Well MWI is just an interpretation of these proven facts. It is one way of preserving the kind of classical metaphysics you also hold dear. Just as you say you have no choice left but to believe "God did it", so MWI-ers say they have no choice but to believe every virtual possibility must then be something really happening in some other actual world (or mumble, mumble, another branch of the infinite wavefunction).

Again, a logic of vagueness is the way out of this metaphysical impass.

Don't you think that if a higher order principle could be discovered by a more evolved living creature, that higher order principle must be already in essence knowable? We are all evolving living beings, and knowledge advances. No one knows when the higher order principle will be found, but we must keep striving to find it, and this takes effort. But if we posit as a first ontological principle, that the foundation of being, existence, is itself unknowable due to some sort of vagueness, then we will not be inclined to make the effort to find that higher order principle, assuming that such is impossible due to that inherent unintelligibility. — Metaphysician Undercover

I can agree with that but the issue here is the knowing. People adhered to the law of gravity by sticking to the ground before we started to share theories of gravity or even gave it a name, I see no issue to call such a previous state unintelligible / vague, I don't take that as a hard limit on what we can know metaphysically in the future. Inclinations, making efforts, for all I know they could also be something we will have a very different understanding of in the future, just like we did in the past.

I have not seen you do it but some people tend to create false dichotomies where they claim to be pointing at the moon and others are looking at the finger doing the pointing. Experiencing and / or knowing beyond the 'mere' human capacity we are now endowed with seems to me to be a form of wanting to have your cake and eat it to. Even so I do think it's more fruitful to say "I don't know" instead of "It just happens" when an explanation is starting to resemble a metaphysical final cause.

In physics, we have got used to considering possibilities as "virtual particles". So the possibilities we can count - as in quantum mechanics - are also "actual" in a special way.

This isn't empty metaphysics. We can actually measure the physical contribution that a cloud of ghostly possibilities adds to any physical property. It is why the vacuum has an irreducible zero point energy, why the magnetic moment of the electron has an added quantum correction. — apokrisis

These possibilities are derived from a particular actual state which is constructed in the laboratory, or wherever. The point is that any set of possibilities is dependent on the actual state which produces them. Each constructed state of "vacuum", or whatever state is produced in the lab, has possibilities which are proper to that constructed state. This is completely different from the claim that the universe emerged from an infinity of possibilities which is not dependent on any actual state. That is the claim which is irrational.

So I'm not making shit up. Our most accurate theory of nature forces us to take a constraints-based, sum over histories or path integral, view of material being. We can count the effect that unlimited possibility has on the actuality we then measure. — apokrisis

The constraints based view of nature leads to an infinite regress of changing constraints. You seem to avoid the infinite regress by assuming an initial condition of infinite possibility (no constraints) where constraints magical emerge. That's where you're making shit up.

Your alternative account - a classically-inspired tale - is experimentally proven as wrong. — apokrisis

No, actually no one has experimented with my "classically-inspired tale". Scientists, just like you, are uninterested in it.

Well MWI is just an interpretation of these proven facts. It is one way of preserving the kind of classical metaphysics you also hold dear. Just as you say you have no choice left but to believe "God did it", so MWI-ers say they have no choice but to believe every virtual possibility must then be something really happening in some other actual world (or mumble, mumble, another branch of the infinite wavefunction). — apokrisis

There's a big difference between the two interpretations of reality. Giving actual existence to logical possibilities is irrational due to inherent contradiction, assuming "God did it" is naïve but not irrational.

Again, a logic of vagueness is the way out of this metaphysical impass. — apokrisis

Assuming vagueness as a starting point is just another way of assigning actual existence to logical possibilities, and this is irrational. It is not the way out. Assuming God, as an alternative actuality is the way out. But physicalists, like yourself, seem to have a deep fear of God, and will posit any of a vast number of irrational principles in order to avoid what is logically necessary.

I see no issue to call such a previous state unintelligible / vague, — Gooseone

It's fine to say "I don't have the foggiest idea", but that is not what is happening here. What is being suggested is that out of nothingness matter magically sprung (the Big Bang), and out of matter Mind magically sprung. That is not vagueness. That is a a pretty definite mythology born out of a specific goal to obliterate the notion of Mind.

Peirce wove a different story from vagueness. For him, first came tychism (chance), then came Mind, and then came Matter. From Vagueness anything can spring since we are just manipulating words into sentences and sentences into stories, depending upon the biases of the story teller.

And the Daoist story was first there was Mind.

What is happening is storytelling is replacing evidence in science. Metaphysics is something else. And if someone takes the metaphysical stance that Mind burst out of Matter born out of a surrounding universe of Constraints, Purpose and Goals, well that's OK. It's just another transposition of the external story of God who provides Purpose and Constraints. It is nothing new. Scientism is just another religion masked with a new set of words and dogma.