it was you who said it wasn't about stasis, except that it was. — apokrisis
that it is the Good, the supreme goal and the one and only consummation of life.
the Kyoto School. — apokrisis
But again the tendency to return to equilibrium absent any inherent intention in things to behave that way (according to a spiritual reality that this world is an expression of, perhaps, or the direction of a God) would tend to look more like function than purpose. :smile: — Janus
You are talking about two incompatible things. I'm talking about two complementary limits.
A dichotomy is logically that which is mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive. So Apeiron and Nous would have to "exist" as the inverse or reciprocal of each other. They would be the mutually opposed limits on being, and hence Being would be that bit - the actual or substantial bit - left in the middle. The limits themselves are not part of what is actual because they are the extremes that mark the limit of what even could be actual. We might give them names, like Apeiron and Nous. But they are the names of the complementary limits on being. — apokrisis
So here you are trying to assert the authority of the law of the excluded middle. Faced with a dichotomy, you say its complementary pair must be reduced to either/or. One thing or the other. You deny the third thing of the reciprocal relation that creates the separation and so also forms the interaction. You say - with the full force of an unexamined habit - that only a yes/no answer is logically acceptable. — apokrisis
You said "nature can check every possible option to find the most locally effective choice to actualise". — Metaphysician Undercover
And also you said, "my own metaphysics is founded on vagueness, apeiron, quantum foam or firstness.". — Metaphysician Undercover
Clearly, nature checking every possible option is not a limit, it is a thing, nature, acting. — Metaphysician Undercover
You cannot produce an ontology from limits, because you need existents. — Metaphysician Undercover
For example, "God exists", and "God does not exist". — Metaphysician Undercover
Either you totally misunderstand, or you intentionally changed the subject, to now talk about a dichotomy. — Metaphysician Undercover
So it is necessary to reject both, neither the principle Nous (God exists) nor the principle Apeiron (God does not exist) is acceptable as a first principle. — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, it is as if that were the case. As if there was a sniffing out of all trajectories.
So the metaphysical challenge would be to understand that as a physically intelligible process. It is not saying that reality has some actual mindlike active choice. It has to be something much more deflationary in practice. — apokrisis
So the principle of least action says that nature applies this limiting constraint on all material possibility. And what results is the actuality of a substantial action - some actual trajectory taken by a process or event. — apokrisis
Yeah. That is addition and subtraction. Simple negation. Dichotomies are a reciprocal or inverse relation. Completely different. — apokrisis
Who was talking about God here? Not me. That's your bag. — apokrisis
Would the idea of Karma equate better with a conception of "harmony, perfection, or "the good"", or with a notion of "randomness and irreversibility"?
In a deterministic system there are no chance events.
in a probabilistic system only the constituting (micro) events are chance (random) and there are no chance macro events.
Given human limitations of knowledge chance is thus an epistemic characteristic of macro events in both cases. — Janus
You cannot have a deterministic system and final cause, they are incompatible. — Metaphysician Undercover
If final cause is understood as constraint, then you have a much simpler story where determinism is just the limits imposed on chance happenings. — apokrisis
Good metaphysics is about describing the world as simply as possible. Final cause needs to be understood first at the physically basic level - as a system of constraints on degrees of freedom. Then the question is how it becomes more like what we mean by human meaningful choice due to hierarchical elaboration. — apokrisis
How does the generalised tendency become a particular function and eventually a counterfactually-definite goal? — apokrisis
The advantage of the semiotic view is that it adds the least metaphysical furniture to the story. It all starts with habits of constraint on degrees of freedom. Then it adds the twist that logic - information - is also "real" here. Latent in the notion of constraint is that it can become maximally definite - as in the choices made by a switch - to the degree that the freedoms in question are themselves maximal! — apokrisis
Firstly, I would point out that although we can certainly say that the intended goal, in this example becoming healthy, is a cause of the act of walking, we can equally say that the material (bodily) conditions and efficient processes involved in walking are causes of the act of walking. We can also say that the form of the body is a cause of the act of walking. So, all four kinds of cause are involved. — Janus
None of this necessitates that the intended goal be freely chosen by the walker. And I cannot see how the possibility that one could become healthy some other way, by eating well, or cycling, or lifting weights, or Tai Chi, or whatever, has anything to do with chance. — Janus
Therefore "luck" and "chance" only make sense if one accepts free will, because it distinguishes the chosen (willed) good or bad act from the unchosen (chance) good or bad act. — Metaphysician Undercover
Suppose I have a general feeling of hunger. This feeling, being completely general is not a tendency toward eating any particular food, nor could it be a desire for any particular food. As something "general", it is completely non-physical. However, I may consider physical objects which are available to me to eat, which I have sensed, and I may make a definite goal of making a particular type of sandwich. So the immaterial, and general, feeling of want, which is called "hunger", becomes the desire to eat a very specific, and particular material object, which I am now creating with my hands, the sandwich. — Metaphysician Undercover
But this would not be keeping true to Aristotle's description of the four causes. Formal cause might be understood as constraint, but not final cause. Final cause is the intent, what is wanted, and this causes the person to act in a way accordingly. Final cause is associated with the freedom of the will to choose one's own actions, so constraint is contrary to final cause. — Metaphysician Undercover
Is that how it works? If you are really hungry, you can't afford to be too fussy. Food in general will satisfy your need. — apokrisis
You defend a scholastic view of Aristotle. So already we differ strongly. Your argument from authority comes from a secondary source. — apokrisis
And anyway, I am basing my position on modern psychological science. — apokrisis
No one eats "food in general", we eat particular items. — Metaphysician Undercover
the person who has the general feeling of hunger must progress to choosing a particular item to eat, and therefore the desire for that particular item. — Metaphysician Undercover
desire and want start in the general. — Metaphysician Undercover
I think you are hoping to evade my point. If your need is food and you haven't got the option of being particular, then any item will do just as well. — apokrisis
It isn't necessary at all. — apokrisis
In the general what? — apokrisis
How is a choice of the particular thing of the ham sandwich, given the variety of options in your fridge, a necessary expression of your general desire of your feeling hungry and so wanting an answer to that in the form of food? — apokrisis
Constraints/habits simply point to the top-down hierarchical structure of these things. Which - if you are Aristotelian - you will immediately recognise as his central metaphysical point. Food is the genus, ham sandwich is the species. And for the particular to relate to the general, it has to be either by virtue of accident or by necessity. — apokrisis
2. Free will. We all know that free will is an open question. Nobody knows if we are actually free to do what we want. Right? — TheMadFool
You haven't produced any argument, just this assertion — Metaphysician Undercover
Karma is only a type of causation, based on the moral hue of conscious free action. — TheMadFool
I argued that either further more particular constraints decide the matter, or it then becomes an accidental outcome. — apokrisis
So there is no final cause, or intention behind the general feeling of hunger? — Metaphysician Undercover
I can see that morality has no foundation. Morality is nothing more than a set of arbitrary rules to make society possible. — TheMadFool
— Janus
Keep on inventing things I never said. I'll sit back and watch you win arguments that are just against yourself. — apokrisis
It all starts with habits of constraint on degrees of freedom. Then it adds the twist that logic - information - is also "real" here. — apokrisis
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