I don't think naturalism has to be defined in terms of science, but rather in terms of what is immanent to human experience. — Janus

Naturalism presumes a world regulated by its fundamental laws. So it is a hierarchical vision where the complex arises from the ultimately simple.

Science embraces that understanding of the natural. It all starts with some bottom-level simplicity.

If you want to argue for some kind of immanent theism, then any notion of the mind, the divine, the spirit, would have to have the same character. It would have to be spoken of as an ultimate simplicity with the potential to become complexly developed.

Human experience is complexly developed. So whatever is "in it" - like a self and its experiences - is already too much.

Science is only one part of human experience, so what is immanent to human experience would also include aesthetics and ethics, religion and the divine. — Janus

And so all those things would be suspect as they would be the products of an already complex state of organisation. There is no grounds for claiming them to be suitably primal.

By the time anything appears in a human mind, it is long past being connected to a fundamental level of existence.

Science of course is our method for turning our thoughts and observations towards the fundamental. It is how we can hope to drill down towards whatever turns out to be actually primal.

It's been a huge success in this regard.

when you get down to the nitty-gritty, the uncertainty principle comes into play. So the more minutely you define it, the less certain it becomes.

~ Wayfarer

How is this relevant to what I am saying? — Magnus Anderson

It was in response to two things, the first being this:

I also disagree with your [Apokrisis] claim that reality is not composed of concrete particulars. I have to note that this claim does not follow from "the principle of indifference" either. Just because we are only ever aware of a portion of reality does not mean that what we are aware of is not reality itself. — Magnus Anderson

I took the reference to the ‘concrete particulars’ as a reference to atoms or at least to an atomistic philosophy, i.e. one in which reality can be understood in terms of independently existing and discrete particulars or ‘facts’.

Then you said:

I am more of a Heisenberg type of a guy. — Magnus Anderson

Which is why I brought in those quotations from Heisenberg.

So this thread was about an information theoretic view of reality. And the key thing is that information allows us to treat all reality as a composition of "atoms of form".

That is what modern information theory is about - the surprising quantum fact that reality is atomised at base. And atomised not in terms of matter, but in terms of form.

What limits reality at the foundational level is that top-down constraint turns out to be "grainy". There is a fundamental size to differences. So that means reality is composed of the smallest possible broken symmetries, or degrees of freedom, not the smallest possible "uncuttable" fragments of matter, as conventional atomism suggested.

Materiality pretty much drops out of the picture as a result. So far as we need a theory to explain nature's variety, it is a physical fact that it is constraints all the way down. Particles emerge due to contextual causes. And there is a foundational grain where this in-forming reaches its indeterministic limit - the Planck-scale.

This is why particles are fundamentally unstable - any particle could become any other if the Cosmos is small and hot enough. And yet also, some particles can become utterly stable as the Cosmos cools and expands. It is their formal properties, their internal symmetries, that mean they can't be broken down into anything simpler. At the Planck-scale limit, particles are like knots or twists caught in a solidified fabric. They are directions of action that have become crystallised.

So it is form all the way down. Until order reaches the Planck-scale and then you just have quantum vagueness - unbound material fluctuation.

The information theoretic view applies this to spacetime itself, not just its "material contents". Every point in the vacuum dissolves into unbounded fluctuations if you zoom in close enough for it to be hot enough. The particular forms - like electrons or protons - disappear from sight to leave only a sea of virtual particles, a zoo of all possible forms, all possible symmetry-breakings.

This means we can now use information theory to count the Universe in terms of its maximum density of "informational locations" - the volume of degrees of freedom, or entropy, it could possibly contain. We can count every potential atom of form - both the empty locations and the ones filled by some particle - and describe reality as a rule-following pattern of bits.

This informational view of reality bypasses the issue of whether the degrees of freedom are meaningful or meaningless. The semantics is a higher level issue.

Semantics is the further act of making an interpretation - sorting a pattern of bits into the categories of signal vs noise. The information theoretic perspective just grounds our view of reality in terms of the total possible information content of a spatiotemporal volume.

And it is an astonishing fact discovered by physics that the information content of the world does have this strict quantum lower limit. It has been shown that reality is formed by constraints all the way down. At the bottom level, even spacetime is composed of atoms of form. Beyond that, lies only radical indeterminism.

The way in which I say the brain and mind construct the world is consistent with the scientific understanding of cognition and perception. What it challenges is scientific realism, or what I call ‘there anyway’ realism. — Wayfarer

If you say that you are assuming that the scientific picture is correct; i.e. that it gives us real information (or in other words shows us reality), no? It must be showing us something that is "there anyway" mustn't it? Because if all it is showing us is what we perceive and that perception has presented us with nothing beyond itself then the brain/ mind is just an item within perception and understanding, and cannot be the source of perception and understanding.

It’s an impossible question, or at least a very difficult one. I think you can only consider such questions in the terms that the various theistic and philosophical traditions which incorporate such ideas do. — Wayfarer

Those who contributed to the various theistic and philosophical traditions considered the question using their imaginations and the terms of logic; using their own brain/minds.You have a brain/mind (presumably) so why can't you do the same? Why the need to rely on authority? That is not what philosophy is all about.

.

Scientism runs rampant! There's no point in my attempting to address your arguments because they are based on starting assumptions I don't accept (the most glaring of which is that the axioms of your system are not assumptions at all but are somehow self-evident), and therefore we would just end up talking past one another as usual.

There's no point in my attempting to address your arguments because they are based on starting assumptions I don't accept (the most glaring of which is that the axioms of your system are not assumptions at all but are somehow self-evident)... — Janus

So I said that naturalism presumes hierarchies founded in ultimate simplicity. You are free to challenge that presumption as well as its consequences for your view. But the fact that it is the generic definition of naturalism is rather a problem if you want to claim some variety of immanent explanation here.

And then likewise, I would only believe in the presumptions of naturalism to the degree that they check out. That is what seems reasonable, wouldn't you say. Or do you not even accept an evidence-backed approach to belief?

If your views boil down to your personal faith, then of course - by definition - you seek no common ground here. Or at best, you can only hope that I find that I want to believe them too because of their aesthetic appeal.

If you say that you are assuming that the scientific picture is correct; i.e. that it gives us real information (or in other words shows us reality), no? — Janus

Actually I found a quotation on a reference site about ‘objective idealism’ which puts it well:

Objective Idealism accepts common sense realism (the view that independent material objects exist), but rejects Naturalism (the view that the mind and spiritual values have emerged from material things).

Plato is regarded as one of the earliest representatives of Objective Idealism.

I think the objective account of the natural sciences is true as far as it goes, but is not able to account for mind or reason or the nature of subjective experience, for the simple reason that at the formulation of the modern scientific method, these attributes were relegated to the domain of secondary qualities. And then later the attempt was made to account for them in terms of Darwinian biology, which is the source of biological reductionism exemplified by Dawkins and Dennett.

Likewise, Kant is ‘transcendental idealist but empirical realist’, i.e. accommodates the facts of natural science, but understands the primacy of the categories of understanding etc in any account of the nature of reality.

The ‘scientific picture’ is correct in the sense of accounting for physical facts and making predictions, but ‘the scientific worldview’ is a different matter altogether.

Actually I found a quotation on a reference site about ‘objective idealism’ which puts it well: — Wayfarer

Yep. Metaphysics which attempt to to make reality objectively dependent on the mind, or the divine, don't pan out. But a metaphysics that makes reality objectively dependent on the sign - the possibility of a semiotic sign relation - are a way to bridge the familiar divide.

No signs without minds, IMO. ‘In the beginning was the word’.

Those articles about Peirce’s religious views show how they were influenced by Emerson, who was in turn drawing on his own reading of the Upanisads and the mystics. That is where ‘matter as effete mind’ hails from.

The issue that QM made inescapable was that reality could not be that well-defined; when you get down to the nitty-gritty, the uncertainty principle comes into play. So the more minutely you define it, the less certain it becomes. — Wayfarer

We must be careful, and take the time, to determine whether the "uncertainty" is within the map, or within the territory. So for example, you say "the more minutely you define it, the less certain it becomes". Many people believe that this uncertainty is inherent within the fabric of the universe. I believe that the uncertainty is due to the deficiencies of the minds and the methods being used in the attempt to understand.

You can't be both a Kantian and a Platonist. — Πετροκότσυφας

Says who?

No signs without minds, — Wayfarer

You mean without interpretance and a world?

And what does interpretance boil down to? I agree that is a tricky issue. But it seems the productive question in opening up a new and interesting avenue for philosophy.

Interpretance starts with having some sort of memory, some sort of encoding machinery, some sort of epistemic cut.

Turing boiled down computation to something mathematically universal. There is hope interpretance would yield to a similar bare bones understanding.

Or have you already decided there is no interpretance without "the feeling of what it is like to be interpreting". :)

But these two sets do not have "being a set" as an element.
— Magnus Anderson

Do these two sets belong to the set of all sets that have no elements in common? — apokrisis

How is this a relevant question? Why does it matter whether the two sets belong to some other set or not?

As I asked Wayfarer earlier, how does considering God to be transcendent and supernatural (meaning radically separate and independent) help with explaining its role in creating and/or sustaining the world? — Janus

Mostly in that everything that we encounter via sensual experience is finite, changeable and essentially relative. One could say that the very nature of experience necessarily points the intellect in the direction of that which is infinite, immutable and absolute as ultimate ground. In the Thomistic tradition God is both radically immanent and radically transcendent. He is immanent in the sense that our very existence is God's own existence; literally our existence is "on loan" from God. And yet God is radically transcendent in that God's essence is radically different from any essence that we encounter via sense experience, including our own essence.

This view produces the problem of interaction which plagued the Cartesian picture. On the other hand an immanent (indwelling and natural) ideas about God's causal efficacy are easier to understand and elaborate, while remaining in the province of philosophy and metaphysics rather than science. — Janus

The problem of interaction is an artifact of casting God and nature as mutually exclusive in every way, but as we saw above the Thomistic tradition saw the point of overlap between God and world via the so-called "act of existence" itself. Everything finite is a composite of potency and act. Existence (Being itself) is the purest act. Apart from Being, nothing is. Therefore, apart from God (who is Being), nothing is. As pure act, God is necessarily the ultimate (but not proximate) causal ground of all that is. When cast in these terms, the interaction problem simply dissolves. Or so the story goes...

I believe that the uncertainty is due to the deficiencies of the minds and the methods being used in the attempt to understand. — Metaphysician Undercover

You don't decide what the universe is. The universe is either ordered in certain aspects or it is not.

I believe that the uncertainty is due to the deficiencies of the minds and the methods being used in the attempt to understand. — Metaphysician Undercover

Einstein and Bohr had that argument over 35 years, where he tried to persuade Bohr by various thought-experiments that QM must be wrong. This is covered in superb detail in Manjit Kumar's book, Quantum. In any case, all these arguments culminated in the EPR paradox, which was subsequently the subject of the famous 'Bell inequality' experiments, which ultimately came out against Einstein's realist views.

For me, it is so reasonable to assume that the photons in those experiments carry with them programs, which have been correlated in advance, telling them how to behave. This is so rational that I think that when Einstein saw that, and the others refused to see it, he was the rational man. The other people, although history has justified them, were burying their heads in the sand. I feel that Einstein's intellectual superiority over Bohr, in this instance, was enormous; a vast gulf between the man who saw clearly what was needed, and the obscurantist. So for me, it is a pity that Einstein's idea doesn't work. The reasonable thing just doesn't work.

John Stewart Bell (1928-1990), author of "Bell's Theorem" (or "Bell's Inequality"), quoted in Quantum Profiles, by Jeremy Bernstein [Princeton University Press, 1991, p. 84]

Or have you already decided there is no interpretance without "the feeling of what it is like to be interpreting". — apokrisis

It's nothing to do with 'feeling' - interpretation is always done by a subject. One form of the metaphysics is like this: that subject that does the interpretation is the 'unknown knower' (a.k.a. 'hard problem' and 'neural binding problem') . It is that faculty which attributes or discerns meaning; which means, it is actually rather near in meaning to the 'active intellect' of the classical tradition of Western philosophy. It is also related to what I am trying to get at in the OP.

But we don't know what that 'knower' is, because it's never an object of perception, it's never a 'that' to us; trying to say what it is, is like the hand trying to grasp itself or the eye trying to see itself, which is impossible on account of the 'epistemic cut' you refer to, which is the 'gordian knot' of existence. Contemplative mysticism dissolves that knot through 'union' - in Eastern spiritual traditions, 'union' is conceived not in theistic terms of the 'unio mystica' but in (shall we say) more naturalistic terms, whereby the aspirant realises his/her own being (atma) as to be fundamentally on par with the being of the cosmos (brahman). That is the elaborated in such modern Vedantin texts as the Teachings of Ramana Maharishi.

In Western culture, the matter was understood very differently, perhaps because of the fact that the Church always had to ensure that they were seen as controlling the means of access to this understanding (i.e. 'the politics of ecstasy').

But there is nonetheless a somewhat similar idea that can be found in the Western philosophical tradition, which is mentioned in the SEP entry on Schopenhauer:

It is a perennial philosophical reflection that if one looks deeply enough into oneself, one will discover not only one’s own essence, but also the essence of the universe. For as one is a part of the universe as is everything else, the basic energies of the universe flow through oneself, as they flow through everything else. For that reason it is thought that one can come into contact with the nature of the universe if one comes into substantial contact with one’s ultimate inner being.

Of course, that kind of understanding is generally very unpopular in today's academy, but you can definitely see that general attitude in Peirce's idealist writings.

Which often amounts to what Thomas Nagel described as ‘the fear of religion’ in his essay ‘Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion’. — Wayfarer

In some cases, perhaps. In many cases people are legitimately perplexed by non-naturalist claims and genuinely don't see how they could possibly be true given everything they know from experience, science and philosophy.

So you run away from the question? You don't want to risk saying your sets are the same in this regard? You pretend instead that this would be irrelevant?

Cool. ;)

That Nagel essay I mentioned is definitely worth a read.

↪Magnus Anderson So you run away from the question? You don't want to risk saying your sets are the same in this regard? You pretend instead that this would be irrelevant?

Cool. ;) — apokrisis

If you want to say that my sets A = {1, 2, 3} and B = {4, 5, 6} are the same, when in reality they are not, you do not have to say that they both belong to some other set (i.e. have "belong to some other set" in common) or that they are both sets (i.e. have "being a set" in common.) You can simply say that they both contain numbers. You can also say that they have the same number of elements. I understand this very well. I think that I have demonstrated that I do in my previous posts. The problem is that you do not understand that this is sophistry. What you're doing here is you are pretending you are comparing sets A and B when in reality you are comparing sets that are not A and B but that are sufficiently similar to A and B. Properly speaking, you are comparing sets {1, 2, 3, belongs to some other set} and {4, 5, 6, belongs to some other set}. These two sets, you are right, are not absolutely different. However, they are not sets A and B. They are sets that are different from but similar to sets A and B.

And yet God is radically transcendent in that God's essence or nature is radically different from any essence that we encounter via sense experience, including our own essence. — Aaron R

Yes, I certainly agree with this sense of transcendence and have argued for it myself in relation to understanding Spinoza's philosophy. This view is not to say that there is a radically separate realm of transcendence. God is still natural; in fact God is nature, but he is not nature as we encounter it via the senses. Spinoza makes this distinction between nature as encountered sensibly and nature as primordial condition; which applies whether we think nature is God or particles and forces. Spinoza's terms of distinction are natura naturans and natura naturata. What we encounter is the latter, and what we hypothesize is the former. In that sense causality, matter and energy are all transcendental because they are never encountered as such in experience.

I don't agree with the idea that we encounter our own essence in sensory experience, however.

When cast in these terms, the interaction problem simply dissolves. Or so the story goes... — Aaron R

That's true because according to that story God cannot be radically separate from creation. He must be affected by his creation or else he is utterly indifferent. If he is affected then he cannot be radically other: changeless, timeless, omnipotent, perfect and so on. These latter troublesome concomitants of the Thomistic understanding were not elaborated by them as far as I know.

interpretation is always done by a subject. — Wayfarer

Interpretation might be always subjective or a point of view, but isn't it a reification to insist on the existence of a subject who does the interpreting? Is it wrong to say the subjective arises via the process of interpretation?

And then in accepting the primacy of "a point of view", what are we to make of the notion of a maximally generic point of view? What kind of "mindfulness" or "divinity" would be involved in the Universe having "a point of view"?

So as usual, I do seek to take the deflationary path without just simply rejecting the mind, or the divine, out of hand. However, it still is a deflationary story.

It is that faculty which attributes or discerns meaning; which means, it actually rather close to the 'active intellect' of the classical tradition of Western philosophy. — Wayfarer

But that is the complexly developed knower. That is the knower modelling a world in a fashion which in fact creates "a knower" as a transcendent self with a purpose. That is a knower able to impose his will on nature.

So it is that knower which I seek to deconstruct to metaphysical simplicity. That is the pan-semiotic project. The question becomes how is the Cosmos itself a kind of memory structure that is dissipating vagueness and becoming crisply developed due to the accumulation of a weight of constraints.

But we don't know what that 'knower' is, because it's never an object of perception, it's never a 'that' to us; trying to say what it is, is like the hand trying to grasp itself or the eye trying to see itself, which is impossible on account of the 'epistemic cut' you refer to, which is the 'gordian knot' of existence. — Wayfarer

We can't actually put our hands on this self. But it arises as that part of experience which constructs the world as its contrast. So the self is "there" when the world is "there". They both emerge sharply in experience to the degree that reality is being interpreted.

So it seems like the self should be another object of perception. And we pretty much succeed in making it feel like that. It is necessary that this is so for "us" to be aware of "the world".

But yes, in the final analysis - as we drill down to discover the primal division - we discover the self, along with "the world", slipping away. Instead of finding a fundamental duality of mind and world, we just discover a generalised vagueness. The self is revealed as just an emergent construct, along with its co-construct, our notion of "the world" as formed in a system of sharp signs.

Contemplative mysticism dissolves that knot through 'union' - in Eastern spiritual traditions, 'union' is conceived not in theistic terms of the 'unio mystica' but in (shall we say) more naturalistic terms, whereby the aspirant realises his/her own being (atma) as to be fundamentally on par with the being of the cosmos (brahman). That is the elaborated in such modern Vedanta texts as the Teachings of Ramana Maharishi. — Wayfarer

I agree that Eastern metaphysics - especially dependent co-arising - is close to what I mean by pansemiosis. But the key difference is that semiosis accounts for the ratcheting memory mechanism by which complexity does get stabilised and so doesn't simply collapse.

This is the important metaphysical advance.

If the tautology contradicts your claim, then you are wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yet another tautology. Remember that coherent debates require clear description of positions, and also reasons to back them up. In this case, if you say that your tautology contradicts my claim, you should explain why that is.

What is at question is whether or not there is a "form of redness" prior to us calling something red. I say no, you say yes. — Metaphysician Undercover

Finally you explain your position, that words create forms, that "red" creates our concept of redness. You seemed to be against this position earlier, but let's move on. Does your claim apply to particular things, as well as concepts? I.e., is the existence of redness in particular things prior to us calling the thing "red"?

My dictionary has a quarter of a page of entry under the word "plane". What is at issue here is whether or not there is ambiguity in word usage, and clearly there is. The ambiguity is reduced by producing definitions. So when you define "plane" as a flat surface, then through this definition you are reducing the possibility of ambiguity. Once it is defined as "flat surface" we can proceed toward understanding the ambiguities within "flat surface". What exactly do you mean by a surface, and what exactly constitutes 'flat". Ambiguity is never removed in an absolute way. — Metaphysician Undercover

"Clearly there is"? I understand that complex terms like "angel" or "quasar" are ambiguous terms and demand thorough thinking to remove the ambiguity; but why is it the case for simple terms like "plane", "flat" or "surface"? If you think that all words are ambiguous until they are defined, then this results in infinite regress, because definitions are made of words. Also, the statement "Ambiguity is never removed in an absolute way" is a self-contradiction because the very statement would forever remain ambiguous.

It is not required that individuals have the same concepts in order to communicate. If that were the case, then communication could not be a learned ability. [...] Instead of accepting and promoting this absurdity, we ought to consider the proposition that communication is less than perfect. When you say something, I do not understand it exactly in the way which you intend. That is because the conceptual structure within my mind is not exactly the same as that in your mind. But this imperfection does not necessitate the conclusion that we cannot communicate. [...] If my concepts were exactly the same as yours, then whatever you said would automatically be received by me exactly in the way that you intended. [...]. — Metaphysician Undercover

This cannot be. See my previous response above about infinite regress. If my concept of a triangle is not the same as yours, then how could we ever (1) discover this, and (2) correct it to be the same? I could say that "triangle" = "plane" + "three straight sides", but this assumes that the concepts "plane", "three", "straight", and "sides" are the same in both of us, otherwise, we are groundless.

There are other ways to explain the phenomenon of misunderstandings, such as logical fallacies; i.e., we all know the laws of logic innately, but we sometimes make mistakes by cutting corners. Another one is that some concepts have not yet been apprehended (E.g., I don't know what a "quasar" is), and although we can realize this by ourselves, we can make an error by not thinking rationally.

Plato's intent is to go beyond this false premise of Pythagorean Idealism, to determine the real nature of concepts. That is why he worked to expose all the difficulties of it. He continually took words with very ambiguous concepts, and worked to expose that ambiguity. This is known as Platonic dialectics. This flies in the face of Pythagorean Idealism, in which ambiguity is not possible. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't disagree with what you wrote, but it does not refute my claim. If Plato's intent is to determine the real nature of concepts, then the concept must be the same in all minds. Otherwise, even if successful, each person would come up with a different result according to their own concepts, and the dialogue would be pointless.

This is only according to your definition of "universal form". Your definition doesn't seem to allow a distinction between what the concept says (means) and what the concept is ( its ontological existence). This seems to be because you have no principle which allows for a concept to have any ontological existence. You take the lazy route, just assuming that concepts exist, with no principles to demonstrate how this is possible. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is right, I make no distinction between "meaning" and "concept", such that a word pointing to concept x is the same as a word meaning x. That is my position. As such, you cannot disagree that meanings are identical in all minds if the definitions coincide. As for the explanation of their existence, we simply have not got to that topic yet, and I don't remember you arguing that the existence of concepts as I describe is impossible. We can do that next.

What you're doing here is you are pretending you are comparing sets A and B when in reality you are comparing sets that are not A and B but that are sufficiently similar to A and B. Properly speaking, you are comparing sets {1, 2, 3, belongs to some other set} and {4, 5, 6, belongs to some other set}. These two sets, you are right, are not absolutely different. However, they are not sets A and B. They are different, albeit similar, sets. — Magnus Anderson

Great. You concede the point. We're getting somewhere.

And as you say, this applies all the way up and all the way down.

Now if we are talking about some set of elements - actual baskets of fruit - then how do we know that the apple in one is actually an "apple"? It could be a rather unripe and round pear.

We can set up logical descriptions that account for nature in terms of claimed hard distinctions - the LEM applies. Something is either the same or different in terms of a more generic classification. We can demand binary boundaries that carve nature at its joints. It all works pretty well.

But the act of measurement, the act of propositional "truth-making", is always an informal business. It is a matter of judgement where to draw the line when we come to borderline cases - like the apple that might just as well be a masquerading pear.

That is, the principle of indifference applies. The very fact we can claim to make measurements, satisfy propositions, is based on our always claiming the right to ignore any details we decide not to matter. We grant ourselves as much flexibility about what counts as we think we need.

Pragmatism rules. As it ought.

Great. You concede the point. We're getting somewhere. — apokrisis

That's not true. I do not concede that sets A = {1, 2, 3} and B = {4, 5, 6} have an element in common.

Now if we are talking about some set of elements - actual baskets of fruit - then how do we know that the apple in one is actually an "apple"? It could be a rather unripe and round pear. — apokrisis

Noone cares whether the fruit is ripe or unripe. In fact, noone cares whether what appears to be a fruit is a real fruit or just a toy that looks like a fruit. That's your problem. You are not focusing your attention on a clearly defined portion of reality.

Pragmatism rules. As it ought. — apokrisis

I think that obscurantism is a more fitting name for your position.

That's not true. I do not concede that sets A = {1, 2, 3} and B = {4, 5, 6} have an element in common. — Magnus Anderson

No. You concede that what the sets have in common is the claim of being elements of the set of all sets that have no elements in common.

So what you concede is the hierarchy of constraints that is the basis of your argument. All elements are really just sets of elements. That is the logical structure to which you appeal.

And that's fine. I'm all for ontic strength structuralism.

But there is then your implied promise of being able to cash out the "elemental" at some ground zero level. And that becomes logical atomism. We already know that to be a busted flush.

The elements of reality have to be cashed out by acts of measurement. If you are really "Heisenbergian" as you briefly claimed, you would get this. The elements of reality boil down to the questions we seem to be able to ask of nature - the ones that return some concrete sign, like a binary yes or no.

That is what the information theoretic perspective is about. Does reality return the sign of a 1 or a 0 when asked some particular question.

And as I say, acts of measurement are themselves informal, not part of the logical structure used to generate good questions.

It might be a good question to ask if that apple in your basket is really a pear. But whether we decide on closer examination to read the reality as "pear" or "apple" remains an epistemic choice.

In the end, we can only satisfy ourselves as to what is the proper symbol - a 1 or 0 - to the degree we choose some end-point to inquiry. To make that translation of reality into information, we have to apply the principle of indifference as a matter of art. It comes down to a judgement that works, not a judgement that is based on some objective "fact of the matter".

Noone cares whether the fruit is ripe or unripe. In fact, noone cares whether what appears to be a fruit is a real fruit or just a toy that looks like a fruit. That's your problem. — Magnus Anderson

You keep speaking for this mysterious "no-one". But clearly you have a very big problem if you want to claim that these are differences that make no difference.

Not least of all because you immediately contradicted your whole position by admitting that differences can fail to make a difference. Ie: You already concede the principle of indifference as your basis for trying to contest it.

A curious logical move at best.

I think that obscurantism is a more fitting name for your position. — Magnus Anderson

I think you confused yourself by trying to maintain a simplicity rife with inherent contradictions.

I mean, what was with that Heisenberg claim?

God is still natural; in fact God is nature, but he is not nature as we enciounter it via the senses. — Janus

That every being participates in Being does not imply that Being is identical with the totality of beings, nor that beings are "part of" (in the compositional sense) Being. It simply implies that beings would not be without Being. In other words, God and nature can still be understand as ontologically distinct. The key difference between Aquinas (Monotheism) and Spinoza (Pantheism) is going to be found in their contrasting definitions of substance.

That's true because according to that story God cannot be radically separate form creation. He must be affected by his creation or else he is utterly indifferent. — Janus

Unaffected does not imply indifferent. God can be immutable (unaffected) while also being good and loving, which implies nothing more than that God is always good and loving.

The universe is either ordered in certain aspects or it is not. — Magnus Anderson

Sure, but the issue is to answer this question of whether or not it is. If something appears to us as disordered, this does not mean that it necessarily is disordered, because it may be the case that we just haven't developed the means for figuring out the order.

This cannot be. See my previous response above about infinite regress. If my concept of a triangle is not the same as yours, then how could we ever (1) discover this, and (2) correct it to be the same? I could say that "triangle" = "plane" + "three straight sides", but this assumes that the concepts "plane", "three", "straight", and "sides" are the same in both of us, otherwise, we are groundless. — Samuel Lacrampe

We already discovered that my concept of triangle is not the same as yours. Mine included "three angles", yours did not. We discover these differences, and attempt to correct them through discussion, communication.

But this is where your position proves to be nonsense, because you claim that we could not communicate unless our concepts are the same. See, you have things backward. It is through communication that we establish consistency, and sameness between our concepts, the sameness doesn't exist prior to communication as a prerequisite for communication, it is produced from communication.

Sometimes, as is evident on this forum, we disagree, and do not ever establish this consistency. If I am unwilling change my concept to match yours, and you are unwilling as well, and there is no compromise, we will continue to hold a different understanding of the same word. This is quite common.

Your assertion here, "this cannot be", is nonsense.

I don't disagree with what you wrote, but it does not refute my claim. If Plato's intent is to determine the real nature of concepts, then the concept must be the same in all minds. Otherwise, even if successful, each person would come up with a different result according to their own concepts, and the dialogue would be pointless. — Samuel Lacrampe

Again, this doesn't make any sense. Consider Plato's Symposium. Socrates sits around with a group of people, and they each make a speech as to what "love" means for themselves. Why do you think that "love" must mean the very same thing to each of them or else the dialogue would be pointless? The very opposite of this is what is really the case. If it meant the same thing to each of them, then the dialogue would be pointless. Instead, each person gets to hear every other person's opinion as to what "love" is, and they have the option to adjust their opinions accordingly. Therefore the dialogue is meaningful. "Meaningful" implies much meaning.

That is right, I make no distinction between "meaning" and "concept", such that a word pointing to concept x is the same as a word meaning x. That is my position. As such, you cannot disagree that meanings are identical in all minds if the definitions coincide. — Samuel Lacrampe

The problem is, that definitions do not coincide. We already determined this with our definitions of "triangle", yours is different from mine. Accordingly, "x", which is what is assigned to "what the word means", is different for you from what it is for me. That is what Plato demonstrated.

Now, by the law of identity we cannot assign "x" to what the word means, because there is no such individual, or particular thing as what the word means if it is different for you and me. The word means something different dependent on context, whose mind it's in, under what circumstances, etc., so we can't assign a single identifier "x" to all these different things.

Where does this leave the concept? Either we conclude that there is no such thing as the concept, or we conclude, as I do, that a concept is specific, particular to the individual, and specifically formulated for each instance of the usage of the word. In other words, each time that a word is used, there is a meaning, or definition which is specific to that very instance of usage.

Thanks for sharing. Yep, still perplexed. Now I gotta add 'phantasms' as part of the terms to understand, on top of 'forms', 'concepts', 'matter', 'mind', 'intellect', and 'nous'. It's times like these I want to go back to simpler theories in which reality is made of 'stuff' out of a mould, and call it a day.

That every being participates in Being does not imply that Being is identical with the totality of beings, nor that beings are "part of" (in the compositional sense) Being. It simply implies that beings would not be without Being. In other words, God and nature can still be understand as ontologically distinct. The key difference between Aquinas (Monotheism) and Spinoza (Pantheism) is going to be found in their contrasting definitions of substance. — Aaron R

I can't see what being could be (apart from being merely our idea) over and above the totality of beings. Being is comprised of beings I would say, just as beings are manifestations of being; I can't think of any other way to make sense of it. It seems to me that God and nature cannot be understood to be ontological distinct unless God is conceived as otherwise than being; as potentiality or creative freedom, or something along those lines. But then potentiality and creative freedom would seem to be inherent in being, and so would not be "otherwise" at all.

You might say that being consists in the act of being, and so it is ontologically distinct from the totality of beings in that sense. But I think of beings as acts of being, so being would equally be the totality of acts of being, that is one great act of being, and again there would be no ontological distinction.

Unaffected does not imply indifferent. God can be immutable (unaffected) while also being good and loving, which implies nothing more than that God is always good and loving. — Aaron R

I still cannot see how you think being unaffected does not imply being indifferent. "Being good and loving" would seem to be meaningless without action, and action implies response, and response just is being affected.