As I keep pointing out to you the arts are not measurable, and they are of the greatest intellectual value to human life in my view. — Janus

Sure. And that's no mystery. Anthropology explains it. Art is semiotics. It is all about the necessary thing of the social construction of the self.

But you were promoting Whitehead's pan-experientialism as a reasonable metaphysical theory. And I countered with reasons why Peirce's semiotics does count as a theory - it imposes counterfactual possibility on our experience - and Whitehead ain't, because it doesn't.

If you want to just accept Whitehead as a cultural poet, putting forward an image of what it is to be human, then fine. But the anthropological lens would apply to that position too. I would be asking what social purpose does Whitehead pragmatically serve? Why would there be folk who consider it so important that his "not even wrong" pseudo-theory count for something in cultural discourse?

Do you have an argument that demonstrates unequivocally that feeling, as opposed to "feelings", which have obviously already been identified and conceptualized and could hence be counted as "cognitive') is cognitive? I have already said I think it is reasonable to think of experience or feeling as interpretative "all the way down"; but "cognitive" in my view, is a step too far. — Janus

I set out that argument. Name me a feeling that isn't dichotomous in structure, and hence cognitive in the structural sense I'm using.

It's just like the after images seen by the eye. The nervous system is set up on the principle of constructing sharp counterfactual contrasts. It applies to feelings like all other forms of perception.

Feelings are measurements - evidence. And so it is a dialectical counterfactuality all the way down.

I'm looking for a knock-down argument that any unbiased thinking person must accept, — Janus

So you are claiming to be unbiased? And if this forum proves anything, no one needs to accept anything if they don't feel inclined. I mean if you reject the constraints of empirical evidence, then you are free to believe whatever you like. Who could stop you? That is just how it works. So let's not waste time with this strawman.

You haven't addressed that statement and argument at all, so I don't know what you are after here. — Janus

You claimed Whitehead to be a theory. Then it became a poem. So I did lay down an argument for what constitutes a theory. You retreated into saying that metaphysics is just meant to be fun speculation.

And yet if you are honest, you would have to admit that this at least divides metaphysics into different kinds of activity - one of which thinks it important that theories pass the test on both their internal logical coherence and their external empirical correspondence.

So even if yours is a form of metaphysics, you didn't show that Whitehead met my criteria for a metaphysical theory. Which was the thing you were hoping to convince me off, after all.

Poetry is not usually logical argumentation at all. Do you see the difference? — Janus

Of course I see that difference. But I said if you want to stretch your definition of metaphysics to include Whitehead as an example of poetic licence, well I can't stop you. What I said was that you can't stretch the definition of a theory so that it is only about internal coherence as we all know about the perils of tautological argument.

If the theory doesn't make counterfactually structured claims, it is never in a position to challenge any of the premises from which it is constructed. It is simply "true" in being able to assume its conclusions.

And that is how Whitehead works. Experience is always just there. It never develops. It exists even when there is no evidence to suggest that. It is the typical theistic story of the invisible hand moving with complete freedom. Anything you claim about why something happened or didn't happen couldn't be disproved. The hand is invisible. It is free to do anything. So if you say it is always there, who can deny it?

Look closely and you can see that it is not that your kind of "theory" doesn't need evidence. Instead it carefully constructs itself so that evidence against it becomes impossible. So empiricism is very relevant to its interests. It must at all costs put itself beyond the reach of the counterfactual. If the theory meets a factual challenge, the game is to refine the theory in a way that puts it again beyond such counterfactuality.

So it is a whole pathological mode of thought. And it is very attractive to many people. Just respond to any call for evidence by moving your "theory" another step away from the risk of having to answer with a clear counterfactuality.

Whitehead's system is internally consistent and coherent; you just don't like it because it rests on premises you don't agree with. — Janus

I don't expect you to make the effort to study Whitehead in order to really understand him; why would you make such a considerable effort if you don't accept his starting premises? — Janus

My position is that Whitehead is transparently failing the test of offering a theory. It ain't got no counterfactual test of those starting premises. And so it is merely a tautology at best. It says that if everything is experiential, then everything will have experience - even when you can't see any evidence for that.

Um. OK.

You tell me how much Whitehead you've read. So fine. Either convince me his theory is properly falsifiable. Or convince me that theories don't need to be capable of being wrong. Tautologies are the way to go.

All metaphysical systems rest on premises which cannot be demonstrated within the system, in fact cannot be demonstrated at all, because all unimpeachable demonstration is strictly deductive, and all deductions rest on premises.... — Janus

How do you arrive at the premises? It ain't deduction. It's abductive inference.

How do you test the premises? It ain't deduction. It's inductive confirmation..

So if metaphysics is about being reasonable rather than poetic, I think we all know the whole story of how it is meant to work.

As I said before metaphysical systems are just invitations to look at the world in creative speculative ways; — Janus

You keep waving this "get out of jail free" card. It cuts no ice.

I have read all these sophisticated arguments using references of researchers i have never heard of. One thing is for sure. "Nothing comes from nothing". The unmanifest universe came from an energy holding the seeds of our universe. Logic demands this. We are struggling to understand the physics of the unmanifest but we can see particles disappearing into it and other particles re emerging from it like a quantum foam researchers at Bell laboratories and others have reported. Also galaxies are swallowed up into black holes while other stars are born out of the unmanifest. We, our mind body and heart were produced in this process. Surely our seeds are in the unmanifest.

It's just like the after images seen by the eye. The nervous system is set up on the principle of constructing sharp counterfactual contrasts. It applies to feelings like all other forms of perception. — apokrisis

What is doing the seeing? There is a ghost in your machine.. and its name is Decartes.

So you are claiming to be unbiased? — apokrisis

I never said I was unbiased when it comes to favoring some metaphysical pictures over others; in fact if you read carefully you'd see that I have been saying no one is unbiased. And despite what you might like to think, that includes you.

I keep saying that I don't think of metaphysical speculations or systems as theories, and you keep asking me to show that Whitehead's metaphysics is a theory. I think a bit of closer and more charitable reading is in order, apo.

No point responding beyond that to so many obvious distortions of what I said.

Either convince me his theory is properly falsifiable. Or convince me that theories don't need to be capable of being wrong. — apokrisis

Falsifiability is the criterion used to show that a theory is NOT metaphysics.

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