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. — Metaphysician Undercover
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. — Rich
feel the need to invoke some sort of elan vital to make it happen — Gooseone
No, but you do need to invoke some faith that "mind just happened", because that is all there is. — Rich
We kind of know that another mind just happened due to the growth of a nervous system, don't we — apokrisis
I said I find it likely that mind emerges out of matter. — Gooseone
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. — Gooseone
I was under the impression that the context in which Apo used the term "unintelligible" had more to do with how things would be if brains weren't perceiving stuff. (As opposed to those who feel there is something 'higher', like knowing without a knower, awareness being really 'REALLY' special, etc.) — Gooseone
Not to get into the: "If a tree falls into the forest....bla bla", but for now I find the whole concept of intelligibility a human thing. Things might exist and the way this stuff behaves might very well be intelligible but if there isn't anything resembling human cognition perceiving it I can just as well call it unintelligible. — Gooseone
You say it yourself, you need a capacity to understand for things to become intelligible, it's my opinion we need something resembling human cognition to do so and I feel 'that' is something very physical. — Gooseone
Would a child in grade school, who can't understand algebra be correct to say that algebra is unintelligible? Would someone in high school be correct to say that university level physics is unintelligible. — Metaphysician Undercover
I don't think you've really thought through what it means for the PNC to fail to apply. Vagueness is defined by it not being actually divided by a contradiction. It is the intelligible which is the crisply divided. — apokrisis
For the child in grade school algebra would indeed be unintelligible, this points to the narrow framework we have to make sense of things. — Gooseone
This narrow framework we are operating in in this thread seems to be the one of the known unknowns where Apo points to the lower end where we can fathom things becoming unintelligible (we do not assign agency to ants yet when we look at the behaviour of an ant colony it can appear to behave intelligently, still we don't assume ants are intelligent) and others point to the higher end where we can fathom more things becoming intelligible (assigning anthropomorphic qualities to the universe, believing in god, having faith in human progress, etc). — Gooseone
When we're talking about, say, physics, we(!) are able to determine various causes for what we see and I do not find it inappropriate to state that some things "just happen" (with the caveat that you're looking at something in a specific framework, still, no need to explain the universe to bake an apply pie). — Gooseone
Being able to fathom everything being intelligible to an intellect does not mean it will be so per se. As Apo mentions, you seem to exclude the possibility for unknown unknowns which are, at this moment, unintelligible. And, if you are excluding the possibility for unintelligibility and claim that everything can, in principle, be intelligible, do you then also believe we have the potential to become god-like? — Gooseone
When the PNC does not apply, it is and it is not. — Metaphysician Undercover
Also I have not read this thread as thoroughly as might have been proper so I have not seen Apo claim an Apeiron as a fundamental and absolute scientific truth. — Gooseone
Or rather, metaphysically as a state, it is neither one thing nor the other. — apokrisis
I wondered if the potentiality for humans to become god-like was something which would follow from your philosophy, it was an actual question, not an assumption ;). — Gooseone
For the rest, I don't see much difference between knowing / the unknown and intelligible vs unintelligible... — Gooseone
Actually, this is a situation where the principle of excluded middle does not apply. — Metaphysician Undercover
You should learn to differentiate between these two. — Metaphysician Undercover
Intelligible and unintelligible refer to what is potentially apprehended by an intellect. — Metaphysician Undercover
No. It is generality to which the LEM fails to apply. The PNC fails to apply to vagueness. — apokrisis
This is about ontology, not epistemology. The claim is about reality itself having rational structure. Though that in turn would be why we can understand reality in rational terms. — apokrisis
I'm not talking about generality or vagueness, I'm talking about the LEM and the PNC. — Metaphysician Undercover
If there is an aspect of reality to which the PNC does not apply, what you call vagueness, then this aspect of reality would be unintelligible because it allows for contradiction. — Metaphysician Undercover
However, if assuming the reality of vagueness requires that we forfeit the PNC to allow for this assumption, then clearly this is a deficient epistemology, because the PNC is fundamental to any epistemology. — Metaphysician Undercover
I can see why you only want to talk about the particular and not the vague or the general. I'll just remind you that I am talking about a triadic holistic metaphysics - such as Aristotelean hylomorphism - and opposing that to your reductionist metaphysics. — apokrisis
It doesn't allow for it. It swallows it up. It absorbs it. It removes the very fact of there being a difference that makes a difference - a fact of the matter, an individuation of either kind. — apokrisis
It makes the PNC an emergent feature of reality. It explains the PNC itself. — apokrisis
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