To put it a slightly different way - Perhaps you could say science is concerned with ‘what we can explain’; metaphysics with ‘what explains us’ (including the abiility we have to explain) — Wayfarer

I dunno. As I've just described, I think physics is doing a good job of advancing the ontological project of metaphysics.

Greek metaphysics - if we date that to Anaximander - has been a huge revolution in human thought because it has shown how immensely successful the assumption of natural causes could be. If we are asking ontological questions, naturalism has been winning hands down ever since. Yet you want to take the curious position that supernatural causes are still just as much in play.

Now reason understands that remote possibilities can never be eliminated. Yet any fair reading of the history of ontology would have to agree that naturalism rules. That has been the presumption that has worked.

So yes, not all mysteries have been conquered. But we can understand why. When questioning becomes self-referential, it reaches an epistemic limit. In the end, not every question can be answered. But that doesn't then prove the ontological existence of woo. It just accepts we can't completely eliminate uncertainty, even if we can minimise our uncertainty to the point we really ought to cease to care.

Then when you talk about metaphysics having to deal with the issue of the intelligibility of existence, our capacity to explain, then that is epistemolology rather than ontology. And yes, naturalism has worked there too.

Or at least that is what semiosis is all about. We don't need a supernatural explanation of rationality or mind. Semiosis or meaning-making is world-modelling. It is a biological process, based on the epistemic cut.

And the last neat Peircean twist is seeing that the Cosmos itself is pan-semiotic. So epistemology gets united with ontology. The Cosmos is self-making in that it logically develops from primal fluctuation (Firstness, Tychism) to become a self-regulating set of habits (Thirdness, Synechism), by way of the intermediate interaction that is a play of reactions or concrete particulars (Secondness, dyadicity).

I think physics is doing a good job of advancing the ontological project of metaphysics. — apokrisis

I don't agree. I think physics qua philosophy is in a state of complete and possibly terminal confusion.

Then when you talk about metaphysics having to deal with the issue of the intelligibility of existence, our capacity to explain, then that is epistemology rather than ontology — apokrisis

The central question of philosophy as far as Plato is concerned, is the state of one's soul. Ultimately what Platonism is concerned with, is seeking out an identity as something that is beyond death, what is beyond the vicissitudes of time and change. But that is 'woo' for today's philosophers, who have become totally focussed on instrumental questions. But as far as I am concerned, philosophy has to be existential, not simply explanatory in the physical sense.

Plato was clearly concerned not only with the state of his soul, but also with his relation to the universe at the deepest level. Plato’s metaphysics was not intended to produce merely a detached understanding of reality. His motivation in philosophy was in part to achieve a kind of understanding that would connect him (and therefore every human being) to the whole of reality – intelligibly and if possible satisfyingly. …

The Platonic sense of the world is that its intelligibility and the development of beings to whom it is intelligible are non-accidental; so our awareness and its expansion as part of the history of life and of our species are part of the natural evolution of the cosmos.

Thomas Nagel. And the sentiment is not too remote from Peirce's idealistic side.

It just accepts we can't completely eliminate uncertainty, even if we can minimise our uncertainty to the point we really ought to cease to care. — apokrisis

I think you've done that very successfully.

I think you are using the word 'concept' ambiguously. You mean it in the sense of understanding of a sentence or text. I mean it in the sense of contingent universal forms (2). In that sense, only single words point to concepts, not whole sentences, and these are the same in all subjects that have abstracted it, as demonstrated in my previous post. Therefore, either a subject has abstracted the concept of 'redness', or he has not because he is colourblind; but there is no possibility of misunderstanding concepts. — Samuel Lacrampe

I don't see how a concept could be apprehended on the basis of one word. The concept is always the meaning of the word, and it requires an explanation to understand the meaning of a word. The concept of redness is not grasped by seeing red things, it is grasped by understanding what it means to have the property of being red. So I think this paragraph is way off track from what a concept really is.

That's okay, if they are two separate things because located in different minds, it could be that my concept is an exact copy of your concept. But I don't think this is true. Since concepts are not physical, they cannot have a physical location. Instead, I think that my mind and your mind connect to the same concept. This could explain how communication is done: to communicate is to connect to the same concepts. — Samuel Lacrampe

This could be the case, and it appears to be what Platonic realists claim. The difficulty with this position is to support the existence of these concepts with some ontological principles.

But the chair can't be ontologically separated into matter and form. That is the false premise of dualism. — Andrew M

Correction, it is your opinion that this is a false premise of dualism. The Neo-Platonists, following the logical principles which make up Aristotle's cosmological argument, see the need to conclude that the form of the object is prior in time to the material existence of the object; and, it acts as final cause of the object, in the same sense that the blueprints for the building are prior in time to the material building. From this perspective, your claim that the matter and form cannot be ontologically separated has already been proven to be false, and that's why dualism has been so prevalent in the past. It is not the case that modern philosophers have proven dualism to be false, they just totally ignore, and neglect the arguments which prove the need for dualism.

There’s your ‘unconscious modernist bias’ again. In ancient philosophy, ‘the individual’ was hardly a matter of consideration. The subject of debate was the relationship of universals and particulars. — Wayfarer

I don't see your point here. I would use "individual", and "particular" here interchangeably, they would be synonymous. I happened to use one instead of the other. You know, Plato and Aristotle wrote in ancient Greek, and there is a large difference between different English translations of these works. For Plato, I like B. Jowett because the words he uses are simple, what I think is more representative of the original. When I see complex and specialized terms used for translations of ancient material, I tend to think that the translations represent the interpretation of the translator rather than the intent of the author. The use of simple terms with a broad range of meaning creates ambiguity, but ambiguity is a useful part of artistry, and whether its intentional or not, it enters into philosophy.

Poets use a lot of ambiguity. It increases the size of the interested audience by allowing the words to have different importance to different readers. I think we approached this topic once, with respect to interpreting holy scriptures. In philosophy ambiguity is employed for different reasons. One can create a shroud of mystery with ambiguity, like Heidegger does, and this is common in mysticism. Wittgenstein is very crafty with ambiguity, literally playing games with words, laying out traps for unsuspecting readers. What he does is to define a word in a very particular way which is not completely consistent with common usage, it is one particular way of usage. Then he proceeds to banter using the word, producing various examples using that word, inviting the interpreter to fall into habits of common usage, habits which give the word a meaning different from the specific defined meaning. Then the reader is invited to produce logical conclusions which can only be drawn through equivocation. He is very sly, not to explicitly state the conclusion himself, but to imply that the conclusion ought to be made. So the unsuspecting reader makes the faulty, equivocation based conclusion.

I think that there was much ambiguity in the time of Socrates and Plato. It appears like the use of it was rampant amongst the sophists. I believe Plato worked to bring ambiguity out into the open, expose it and leave it bare for resolution. This is how I see Platonic dialectics. Socrates goes through various interlocutors asking them what does this word mean to you. What does "beauty" mean to you? What does "just" mean to you? For each proposed "meaning" he proceeds to analyze it and find problems with it. As it turns out, none of the words analyzed seem to have an acceptable meaning, and that's probably why ambiguity is pervasive. If there is no single, one good meaning, for the word, then everyone produces a meaning which suits their own purpose according to the circumstances.

don't agree. I think physics qua philosophy is in a state of complete and possibly terminal confusion. — Wayfarer

I second this motion. What is at the heart of this confusion, I believe, is a complete lack of understanding of the nature of time.

I don't agree. I think physics qua philosophy is in a state of complete and possibly terminal confusion. — Wayfarer

Easy to claim, but now let's see the evidence.

Is naturalism terminally confused? How are you to explain away 2500 years of success then?

The central question of philosophy as far as Plato is concerned, is the state of one's soul. — Wayfarer

Uh, yeah.

I mean it is important to be able to place ourselves in the world in some meaningful relation. We want to understand the truth of that.

Again, I don't see evidence of naturalism's failure.

I agree that in some true sense, modern society feels sick and badly adjusted. Humanity is quite carried away and artificial, or superficial, in its relation to the natural world on which its existence ultimately depends.

But that is all down to Romanticism and its belief that we are all individuals with a soul or spirit, answerable only to whatever we ultimately "find within".

So it is the way of thinking you want to support - the supernatural one - which is the source of our misunderstandings. Romanticism is what has led us away from nature.

Oh, I agree that Scientism has done that too - man's technological triumph over nature. But the Scientism you bemoan is part of Romanticism. It is just the final disconnect where the metaphysical belief in some higher transcendent purpose becomes completely internalised as a selfishness of purpose. If nature is made meaningless, we become our own god. Because what else is there.

So that is why I am arguing your metaphysics is in a tangle. You agree about the general diagnosis of the modern condition, yet you are blaming on naturalistic inquiry what is just the other face of a failure to be truly naturalistic.

But as far as I am concerned, philosophy has to be existential, not simply explanatory in the physical sense. — Wayfarer

Yeah. Existentialism is Romanticism taken to its Scientistic conclusion. Nature has no meaning. All meaning has to be constructed by "your self".

That is why it is so important to feel our continuity with nature. Which is what got the thread started - the fact that physics now recognises that continuity at the most fundamental level of entropy and information.

We are not different from nature. We are a thermodynamic expression of nature.

You then reject that as you think we can't just be entropy producers. But a holistic understanding of nature sees that the dichotomy of entropy and negentropy is intrinsic. One does not deny the other. Each requires its other. It is a harmony and not the war you imagine - even if it is not exactly a "harmony" either. :)

Thomas Nagel. And the sentiment is not too remote from Peirce's idealistic side. — Wayfarer

Sure. Let's use metaphysics to connect to nature.

I'm just pointing out the degree to which you presume nature to be mentalistic and "not physical" at root. What you focus on is evolved agency rather than raw potential.

This is why you seek a monistic idealism in Peirce's writings. This is how you can know you "win".

But this is just so anthropomorphic. It makes the human state of being the centre of the Cosmos. Existence becomes "a state of mind, a state of spirit, a soul-stuff".

Science is a method for forcing us to look out into the world and seeing it in its own terms. It is a de-centering project.

Yes, you can complain it is dehumanising. But that is just Scientism doing its best to turn human civilisation into an unthinking thermodynamic engine. It is a consequence of not realising the Romantic view is wrong in encouraging us to look inwards and ignore what is happening with nature.

You've made naturalism your philosophical enemy here. And that is the sad thing.

You agree about the general diagnosis of the modern condition, yet you are blaming on naturalistic inquiry what is just the other face of a failure to be truly naturalistic. — apokrisis

One of my very best friends has a very similar attitude. We had lunch yesterday, we talk about politics, current affairs, what we're up to. He's an accomplished technologist and IT journalist, we have worked together in the past. But we never discuss philosophy. There's a lot of people I never discuss philosophy with, but this is a philosophy forum.

It makes the human state of being the centre of the Cosmos. — apokrisis

What scientific naturalism does is declare that 'only what can be measured by science is to be taken seriously' - so it has an anthropomorphism of its own. But it is nothing like the traditionalist understanding of 'man as epitome of the Cosmos', the cosmic 'anthropos'. But that takes a very different philosophy, a different way of being, and it's not just 'romanticism'.

An unfortunate lack in the naturalistic account is that life, and mankind, is literally a cosmic accident. Oh, that's right, not an accident - a 'dissipative structure', the shortest route for thermodynamic processes back to equilibrium, which is non-existence. But as I've said before, I can't recognise this as an 'final cause' (and that's not 'a complaint', it's a philosophical criticism). Aristotle, in fact all the Greeks, would naturally believe that there is a reason for existence; but that is part of what has been abandoned by post-Enlightenment philosophy, as noted in books like The Eclipse of Reason. Even to believe there is a reason for existence is now regarded with suspicion.

Whereas, in the traditional philosophical systems I study, philosophical idealism among them, the human is in some way the cosmos endowed with the choice (and burden) of conscious awareness. (That's not just 'romanticism', either.) There's an echo of that in:

We are a thermodynamic expression of nature. — apokrisis

Except that thermodynamic processes are inherently insentient.

This is why you seek a monistic idealism in Peirce's writings. — apokrisis

When I started to read up on 'objective idealism', I found Peirce is always said to represent that school of thought. Current science has appropriated aspects of Peirce's semiotics, as it is far better for describing biological processes than is mechanistic materialism. But Peirce was indubitably a monistic idealist, among other things. So it's not hard to find it, although apparently it's easy to deny it.

An unfortunate lack in the naturalistic account is that life, and mankind, is literally a cosmic accident. — Wayfarer

That is more how you require science to be so that it can be clearly wrong in your lights.

You gravitate to the sort of science rhetoric that is easy to be opposed to, and ignore anyone who might talk about cosmic unity - as right here in this thread when physics sees information and entropy in terms of a measurable continuity.

Your response is to argue that science is confirming its prejudice that reality is fundamentally meaningless. Yet, I see it as science recognising that materiality is fundamentally "mindful" in some important objective sense. It is the move that now makes holistic naturalism possible.

Aristotle, in fact all the Greeks, would naturally believe that there is a reason for existence; but that is part of what has been abandoned by post-Enlightenment philosophy, as noted in books like The Eclipse of Reason. Even to believe there is a reason for existence is now regarded with suspicion. — Wayfarer

It is true scientific naturalism should look on a "purposeful cosmos" with great suspicion. That is anthropomorphic romanticism.

But scientific naturalism can still recognise a place for teleology in a constraints-based systems realism. It is not a problem that the Cosmos has some global tendency - the weakest or vaguest kind of purposefulness. And that life and mind then produce richer or more intense and localised senses of function and goal-seeking.

Naturalism - being hierarchical - would expect nature to work like that. Complexity does produce that kind of intensification.

Except that thermodynamic processes are inherently insentient. — Wayfarer

Says you.

And science can agree fair enough if you are making some semiotic point about the necessity of an epistemic cut as the measurable threshold of what we would dub sentience ... or self-interested organismic existence.

So life and mind are both thermodynamic processes (we know that as we can measure their existence in terms of waste heat or friction produced) and they are sentient in being organismic processes (we can measure that to in terms of the presence of the necessary semiotic relation).

Again, your rhetorical need is to frame this as a case of strict either/or - either thermodynamic and meaningless or sentient and meaningful.

My ontology is a case of and/more. At base, life and mind are expressions of thermodynamic constraint. And then nothing was preventing life and mind getting sentiently organised to beat thermodynamics at its own game. In fact thermodynamics required that they would if it were possible.

When I started to read up on 'objective idealism', I found Peirce is always said to represent that school of thought. Current science has appropriated aspects of Peirce's semiotics, as it is far better for describing biological processes than is mechanistic materialism. But Peirce was indubitably a monistic idealist, among other things. So it's not hard to find it, although apparently it's easy to deny it. — Wayfarer

Great. When you can square your notion that he was a monistic idealist with the facts of his irreducibly triadic process ontology, I'll be waiting to hear.

But then the triadic approach says we can understand the genesis of substantial being by seeking the most generalised image of its particularity. The ontic question becomes what is the most primal incarnation of hylomorphic being? The best answer would be a fluctuation - an action~direction. That is still "a particular something" from one point of view, but it is also the most generalised, or rather the vaguest possible, particular something.

Again, if this seems a weird metaphysical claim, comfort can be found that this is just how modern physical "theories of everything" are having to imagine the creation of the Cosmos. — apokrisis

Agreed and good post. One consequence of continuing to investigate the world is that it ultimately reveals hidden assumptions that force us to look at the world anew (familiar examples being QM and relativity). And this is where philosophy will always have an essential role to play in developing a meaningful and coherent story for those strange hylomorphic creatures that want to know "Why?"

Correction, it is your opinion that this is a false premise of dualism. The Neo-Platonists, following the logical principles which make up Aristotle's cosmological argument, see the need to conclude that the form of the object is prior in time to the material existence of the object; and, it acts as final cause of the object, in the same sense that the blueprints for the building are prior in time to the material building. From this perspective, your claim that the matter and form cannot be ontologically separated has already been proven to be false, and that's why dualism has been so prevalent in the past. It is not the case that modern philosophers have proven dualism to be false, they just totally ignore, and neglect the arguments which prove the need for dualism. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, the form of the building can be represented in a prior blueprint. But that doesn't imply that form is separable from matter. Both the blueprint and the building (and also the builder who has the form in mind as the building is constructed) are hylomorphic particulars.

That we can abstractly consider the form of something apart from its matter is the mark of intelligence. But it doesn't imply that form ever is apart from matter (or vice versa). That, to my mind, is the mistake of dualism.

Science is a method for forcing us to look out into the world and seeing it in its own terms. It is a de-centering project. — apokrisis

Philosophy is about realising a higher state of being through the reasoned application of philosophical principles and practice (theoria and praxis). It is not a science and engineering project.

Philosophy is about realising a higher state of being... — Wayfarer

Perhaps you can define what you mean by a higher state of being. What are its measurables exactly?

Our universe is filled with multiplicity because each of those things has distinct properties. Since no two physical objects can occupy the same space at the same time, all physical objects have at least different x, y, x positions at time t.

If I observe an object with all its properties, and you observe an object for which all properties coincide with mine, and assuming no false perceptions, then the objects we observe must logically be one and the same; not duplicates, but one. As is the case with objects, so it is with information.

What are its measurables exactly? — apokrisis

What would you be measuring? Not everything that counts can be counted, you know. And not everything that can be counted, counts.

So do you have some defensible description of this "higher state of being"? If you can't yet count it, then can you say what it looks like.

Is it going to be defined in terms of the ineffable, the immeasurable, the "not even wrong", I wonder? Or do you claim what you claim on some actual rational - that is, counterfactual - basis?

I don't see how a concept could be apprehended on the basis of one word. The concept is always the meaning of the word, and it requires an explanation to understand the meaning of a word. The concept of redness is not grasped by seeing red things, it is grasped by understanding what it means to have the property of being red. — Metaphysician Undercover

The word only points to the concept. The concept is apprehended through experience or observation of particulars that participate in the concept or form (2). Children abstract the concept of redness simply by seeing a few red things. Simple proof: ask a toddler to pick the red ball out of other coloured balls, and as long as he can understand the language, he will do so correctly. Other example: you and I can find the cat out of a cat and a dog correctly, even though we (at least I) don't know all the essential properties that make a cat a cat, and a dog not a cat.

This could be the case, and it appears to be what Platonic realists claim. The difficulty with this position is to support the existence of these concepts with some ontological principles. — Metaphysician Undercover

Are you asking how we know that universal forms (2) are one, and not duplicates in individual minds? The ontological principle that supports this is the law of identity.

• Universal forms (2) or concepts have no accidental properties, by definition of being universals.
• These forms, although in minds, are separate things from the minds they are in.
• The law of identity states that if "two" things have the exact same properties, then they are one and the same thing.
• Therefore the form in two minds must be one and the same in both.

E.g. My concept of 'triangle' has the essential properties 'flat surface' + 'three straight sides'. And I am fairly sure yours does too. Therefore, by law of identity, my concept and your concept are one and the same.

↪Wayfarer So do you have some defensible description of this "higher state of being"? If you can't yet count it, then can you say what it looks like. — apokrisis

It's elaborated at length in Greek philosophy, particularly neo-Platonism. As I have explained, much of this was subsequently incorporated into Christian theology and then much later discarded along with it. You still find it in Hegel, and even in the American idealists, including Peirce, Josiah Royce, Borden Parker Bowne, and also William James. But because it has religious or at spiritual overtones, then it is naturally rejected as 'woo' by most hard-nosed scientific types - ‘not even wrong’, as you’re fond of saying. And also, it's true that it's not really measurable objectively, although there have been attempts - such things as studies of mindfulness meditation, mind-body medicine and so on might be vaguely related.

But this is why I’m studying metaphysics, in particular - I see it as the attempt to understand a philosophy to live by, not simply an exercise in theoretical science. ‘metanoia’ is the Platonist term for realising ‘higher states’ (although again that has been, perhaps regrettably, appropriated by the Church to mean ‘repentance’.)

It is true scientific naturalism should look on a "purposeful cosmos" with great suspicion. That is anthropomorphic romanticism. — apokrisis

This is an example of how methodological naturalism is treated as a metaphysical principle. Scientific naturalism has nothing to say about purpose, in the philosophical or Aristotelian sense, but 'having nothing to say' is not the same as 'saying there is nothing'. Methodological naturalism is quite right to put all such questions to one side, but here you’re extending that into a metaphysical principle.

life and mind are both thermodynamic processes (we know that as we can measure their existence in terms of waste heat or friction produced) — apokrisis

I have an excellent doctor, who did a series of blood tests and advised me to change my diet. For that I am grateful, but I don’t regard his advice as ‘philosophy’ other than in a general sense of having revised my ‘philosophy of eating’.

Our universe is filled with multiplicity because each of those things has distinct properties. Since no two physical objects can occupy the same space at the same time, all physical objects have at least different x, y, x positions at time t. — Samuel Lacrampe

Yes and no, because that would depend on what form your ontology allows properties to take. I could argue toward a very desolate ontology, where only non-relational aspects of an object can be allowed to be attributed the state of properties of that object. That would rid us of any spatial and temporal incongruities in our ontology, but I think that it would have a lot more negative effects than positive ones. It would force us to move to attribution of object as a category up the scale from individualisation to systematisation, which would be very counter-intuitive. Myself, I've always taken a more pragmatic view of property attribution, and therefore my ontology is quite literally limitless. It's not Meinong's jungle, but its not far either. I'd argue in the same sense as you, but rather viewing temporal and spatial properties of information as yet another indication that information is physical. Datum informs also the processor from their occurences in space and time, and therefore in no actual way does Epp applies in a meaningful way to both individualised occurences of "Montréal is in Québec" and "Montréal is in Québec".

You’ve told me who has written about it, who has rejected it, and that measurement is problematic.

Oddly you have avoided any attempt to define it as I requested.

Oddly you have avoided any attempt to define it as I requested. — apokrisis

Philosophy is 'love~wisdom'.

Yes, the form of the building can be represented in a prior blueprint. But that doesn't imply that form is separable from matter. Both the blueprint and the building (and also the builder who has the form in mind as the building is constructed) are hylomorphic particulars. — Andrew M

What implies that form is prior to matter, and therefore has separate existence from matter , is the nature of the particular in relation to the nature of time. That is the cosmological argument. The fact that the mind of the builder, with the form of the building, acts as final cause to create the material building, is referred to to explain this peculiar understanding of reality which is necessitated by that argument.

But this is why I’m studying metaphysics, in particular - I see it as the attempt to understand a philosophy to live by, not simply an exercise in theoretical science. — Wayfarer

This makes me wonder why we need a study of metaphysics, as opposed to, or in addition to, a study of ethics and/or moral philosophy in order to understand how to live well: or as you call it, "a philosophy to live by".

I’m interested in the formal study of the Western philosophical tradition. It has an experiential dimension which I think is largely forgotten and is certainly hardly taught any more. (It is taught in Catholicism, because it’s preserved in Thomistic philosophy, but I’m not Catholic and so I don’t think I want to go down that particular learning pathway.)

This makes me wonder why we need a study of metaphysics, as opposed to, or in addition to, a study of ethics and/or moral philosophy in order to understand how to live well: or as you call it, "a philosophy to live by". — Janus

It becomes a metaphysical issue if you decide that the "way to live" requires an ontic-strength foundation.

I think in practice, people realise that "how to live" is pretty much just a social issue. So you don't need to drill down to the truth of the Cosmos - or inwards to the truth of Spirit.

However humanity has also reached a stage where how to live has become an ecological issue, even a thermodynamic one. So now we really need a science-informed naturalism to understand our current social situation. Why do we do what we do, and what might be better?

Wayfarer is arguing that this misses the "higher plane of being". The Cosmos is really mind (or wisdom, or feeling, or something) at an ontologically basic level.

It is a familiar traditional position, but it doesn't really cash out as anything more than hippy wishfulness in this day and age. It is well-meaning and heart-warming. But where is the evidence it works?

I think in practice, people realise that "how to live" is pretty much just a social issue. — apokrisis

You said that before, and I said that ‘we’re born alone and we die alone’, which for some reason struck you as ‘nihilism’. It’s not nihilism - it’s about the idea that ‘the state of the soul’, to express it in Platonist terms, is not a social issue (one of the themes of Gorgias, specifically in the section on the ‘judgement of naked souls’.)

As I understand it, in the biosemiotic view, h.sapiens is is nought but a ‘dissipative structure’ which, as it happens, is doing its utmost to ‘maximise entropy’ at this time in history, by over-breeding and destroying the ecosystem. Is that a fair depiction?

But where is the evidence it works? — apokrisis

If you don’t carry it out, there can be no evidence.

‘we’re born alone and we die alone’ ... [it's] not a social issue... — Wayfarer

But that is only the tale one would tell having formed a conception of existence in terms of "my mind".

Sure, I see that the "tale of me" has a birth, a death, a bit in-between. But that seems like an impoverished account in terms of my metaphysical naturalism.

You want to make it basic. I say that way lies the metaphysical disunity of dualism.

As I understand it, in the biosemiotic view, h.sapiens is is nought but a ‘dissipative structure’ which, as it happens, is doing its utmost to ‘maximise entropy’ at this time in history, by over-breeding and destroying the ecosystem. Is that a fair depiction? — Wayfarer

Fair enough if you remember the rider. To the degree we are unthinking about it, we will simply fall into line with this "base desire". :)

So naturalism would see that the basic equation is "good". If the philosophical concern is human happiness, we can understand why entropy production is something we are evolutionarily hardwired to enjoy.

But then the essence of dissipative structure is that it has an effective balance. It might not want to actually blow itself up with an excess of heat production.

Biosemiotics would argue for the self-aware intelligence that might do something right now about fossil fuel burning and global warming.

So if natural science ran the planet, we might have long ago implemented the changes called for by the Club of Rome.

Unfortunately the planet is run by those with a more romantic philosophy - one which rejects any natural limits on the soaring human spirit and its right to express itself freely in its every desire.

I'd say that, apart from ancient schools such as Pythagoreanism, Platonism, Neoplatonism, Stoicism, Epicureanism and so on, the only "experiential" path in philosophy (in the way I think you mean) would have been associated with Christianity and Judaism in the form of monastic life ,Gnosticism, hermeticism, kabbalah, theosophy and anthroposophy. If you wanted to penetrate an experiential dimension you would need to become a practitioner of one of those disciplines, But I thought you are a practicing Buddhist?

Nothing wrong with pursuing an intellectual interest in western metaphysics, though I can't see how that would help you to become a better person, or even a mystic. So, I am still left wondering what you are really after, Wayfarer.

But that is only the tale one would tell having formed a conception of existence in terms of "my mind".

Sure, I see that the "tale of me" has a birth, a death, a bit in-between. But that seems like an impoverished account in terms of my metaphysical naturalism. — apokrisis

I’m sure not. I think Platonic philosophy is oriented around a kind of spiritual awakening, albeit understood in terms very different to the Indian tradition of same. But that is, I’m sure, the import of the famed Allegory of the Cave, which is central to Platonic epistemology.

Modern science owes a considerable part of its methodology to Platonic epistemology, due to Galileo’s reading of ‘dianoia’ (‘the book of nature written in mathematics’). But it’s not enough by itself. Galileo’s approach resulted in the relegation of the ‘domain of values’ to the subjective - which is where you place it.

But as I’ve said before, I think one of the primary concerns of philosophy is with a ‘metaphysic of value’. But that is too much like religion for our liking, never mind that philosophy has always had that religious aspect, up until it was displaced by scientific materialism. So now you can only ever understand that in either personal or social terms - either it’s Wayfarer’s ‘hippie metaphysics’, or it’s a communal sense of harmony.

But what if ‘awakening’ actually is a natural event, and one with real significance? Something real, something our science has completely lost sight of?

Unfortunately the planet is run by those with a more romantic philosophy - one which rejects any natural limits on the soaring human spirit and its right to express itself freely in its every desire. — apokrisis

Nothing to do with romanticism. (Honestly, your understanding of what constitutes ‘romanticism’ is way off.) It’s consumerism, obviously, supported by a capitalist economic model that has no conception of the ‘limits to growth’ And that I certainly agree with, but it has nothing to do with ‘romanticism’. (This week there has been a letter released by concerned scientists, per this story. )

This is where this path, of debating on philosophy forums, has led me. I’ve started to realise the unique value of the Western philosophical tradition, a lot of of as a consequence of these very debates. Which makes me realise, that even though it seems like an unproductive pastime sometimes, I am learning something of great value.

It is very different to Buddhism, to which I’m still committed, but the fact of the differences is one of the things that makes it most interesting. To be honest, I really do feel as though in a past life, I was a scholastic monastic, somewhere on the Silk Road, and that at least part of what I’m learning is by way of ‘anamnesis’ - un-forgetting. ;-)

It becomes a metaphysical issue if you decide that the "way to live" requires an ontic-strength foundation. — apokrisis

Yes, I suppose it's natural enough for people to want to live in accordance with 'ultimate' reality. The problem is that there is such a plethora of different ideas about what it is, and adherents of one idea often think all the others are wrong or misguided. No one really knows what it is, so is what it is as important as the fact of individual commitment (provide of course that any individual commitment is doing no social harm)? Maybe 'what is it?" is the wrong question. The closest I have seen to producing a satisfactory metaphysics would be process philosophy and God (although not the changeless, omnipotent dictatorial God of some sects of Abrahamic religion) is always a part of the picture in any serious process thought.

I agree with you that how to live is mostly just a social issue; with the caveat that what people do when they are on their own is really up to them and is nobody else's business unless the individual is significantly harming him or her self, or doing something that will lead to harming others.

I also agree with you that ideally we do have ecological responsibilities, but it seems to be so hard to get anyone, including ourselves, to take them seriously.

But where is the evidence it works? — apokrisis

Any evidence could only be personally experienced and not inter-subjectively corroborated because it will, like metaphysical ideas always involve personally accepted presuppositions and interpretations based upon those. You could see that it works in yourself, or you could see that another has become a significantly better, or even a totally transformed, person, but how could you convince anyone who disagreed with you about that? And if it is experienced by you in the most profound way as being the good, the beautiful and the true; what more evidence would you need, and why would, or should, you care what others think about it?

What implies that form is prior to matter, and therefore has separate existence from matter , is the nature of the particular in relation to the nature of time. That is the cosmological argument. The fact that the mind of the builder, with the form of the building, acts as final cause to create the material building, is referred to to explain this peculiar understanding of reality which is necessitated by that argument. — Metaphysician Undercover

Note that the builder is a hylomorphic substance. It is the builder, not his mind, that is the causal actor. It is he that is constructing the building so that people can live in it (the final cause).

That is the form that the cosmological argument must have if it is to be coherent. It is hylomorphic substances all the way down.

I think Platonic philosophy is oriented around a kind of spiritual awakening... — Wayfarer

Yep, so back to the Ancient Greek recognition of the transcendence of mathematical truth. The world has seem capricious, whimsical, the product of rather human gods, as fickle as the weather, as changeable as the elements. And then behind this surface reality was discovered hard structuralist truth. The necessary eternal forms of mathematics.

Gotcha. But then how was the unity of naturalism restored following this marvellous shock? Did it all halt with Plato, or did we move on to Aristotle pretty smartly?

But it’s not enough by itself. Galileo’s approach resulted in the relegation of the ‘domain of values’ to the subjective - which is where you place it. — Wayfarer

OK. Then along comes reductionist science which applied the maths to the world. Newton revealed the simple mathematical structure behind all the variety of experience. That fostered the Enlightenment view. And engendered the Romantic reaction.

Theism was forced into a major retreat. It took what it could grab and set up shop again. It sat on the sidelines talking about everything science couldn't talk about - like the secret of life, or the nature of freewill. That lasted a little longer until the revolutions of biology and neuroscience.

Meanwhile science was ripping up even Newtonian mechanics. The mathematical bones of reality became ever better exposed.

But as I’ve said before, I think one of the primary concerns of philosophy is with a ‘metaphysic of value’. — Wayfarer

You would be right that science - hard physical science - deliberate leaves out values. But that is because it is seeking the mind-independent view of reality. Or if you look closer, the view of reality that allows us the most effective way of inserting our own values into the general story.

Again, you take the either/or reading. But I argue that science is a modelling relation in which "the self" is revealed as much as "the world". This was the argument in response to your complaint that a physics of information appears to completely leave out the issue of meaning.

By creating a baseline view of the world - a view of its structure of constraints - that is how we can then maximise the degrees of freedom that analysis reveals to us. We can see exactly how to start pulling the levers of the world to do the things we think are of value.

So science had the job of washing the world clean of values to maximise our human ability to impose our values.

Which is fine and dandy, but when push comes to shove, it is not as if those human values are all that fixed and obvious. Plato waffled about "the good" - truth and beauty - yet we all know humans are far more complex critters. The talk about "higher being" is rather pious and optimistic, not a solid metaphysical basis for action.

And so I say let science complete its job. Once we work our way through thermodynamics, biology and human evolutionary history, we will get towards some sensible account of what folk actually value and why. Then we can use our power over nature in a more productive long-term fashion. We will have the proper metaphysical basis for action.

But what if ‘awakening’ actually is a natural event, and one with real significance? Something real, something our science has completely lost sight of? — Wayfarer

OK. Show me.

I can accept any conjecture. All I ask is for some evidence.

Nothing to do with romanticism ... It’s consumerism... — Wayfarer

I'm talking about the prevailing system of values that allows consumerism to become a thing.

The consumerism is just the waste by-product, the excess entropy production. I'm talking about the mythology that underpins it in society. Bigger, faster, rarer. Everyone needs to live like a super-hero.

I agree it is confusing as historically Romanticism was framed as being about the power of nature. But the context was a response to the new citified, socially stratified, Enlightenment self. Romanticism pointed towards nature to draw attention to the primal existence of a free and unconstrained ego. Nature was made the excuse for transcending the merely social.

OK. Show me. — apokrisis

He can't show you; it's the nature of the beast. You would only ever be convinced by a testimonial if you had a feel for it yourself.