Processes take place in time, and pre-suppose a universe with spacetime.

So are you sure that you want to say that a process can be the basis of a metaphysics?

Michael Faraday, in 1844 pointed out that there's no reason to believe that there's anything to our physical world other than mathematical and logical relational-structure. ...no need to assume the objective, fundamental or primary existence of "stuff".

You could say it various ways: by referring to relation, abstract facts, logical structure, or mathematical and logical structure..

But the difference is a matter of those things vs "stuff". .

But the dogma of Materialism is heavily ingrained in our culture, and no less so in philosophy, so you can expect angry reaction if you suggest an alternative here. People desperately want to believe in something "solid" and "substantial.

I suggest that what there describably and assertably is, is completely insubstantial. In the describable, assertable realm that I've been calling "metaphysics", substantiality is an unparsimonious, unsupported traditional superstitious belief.

By the way, we've been discussing different meanings for Metaphysics. At least some dictionaries speak of it being the discussion of reality, or ultimate reality. Though I agreed that I was incorrect to use Metaphysics with a more modest meaning, i feel that my more modest meaning is more defensible.

Metaphysics is presumably a branch of philosophy. Philosophy is a verbal topic. ...a topic with assertion, debate and description. That limits metaphysics to verbal, conceptual matters that are are assertable and describable, and subject to argument and debate.

So, if metaphysics is philosophy, then it's over-ambitious to say that metaphysics can be about Reality, unless you claim that words can accurately describe Reality. That's an issue that i don't want to debate, but if you say that metaphysics's range of applicability includes ultimate Reality, then you're implying an assertion that words accurately describe Reality.

Michael Ossipoff


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In order to explain why this bundle is a unity and that bundle is not the event ontologist will inevitably have to invoke some additional principle, but this is just substance ontology all over again. — Theorem

So doesn’t your account lead to two versions of hylomorphism? One where form creates change in inert material and one where form constrains change in dynamical potential?

The first version doesnt really make sense as why would form have a need to change and where did the passive matter come from?

The second one is an intelligible metaphysics.

Is the argument over what is most fundamental: changelessness and identity, or change and diifference? Eternity or temporality? Parmenides vs Heraclitus? Can a dialectical resolution be Imagined?

If events are understood as happening within space and time then space-time itself is playing the role of substance and events are merely accidents belonging to that substance. — Theorem

Perhaps space and time are just abstractions of actual extension and duration. "Spacetime" may be another matter; perhaps it could be thought as the dynamic void which is the 'background' upon which energetic events are played out, or the "sea" from which they emerge. In Ancient Greek 'dunamis' means something like 'power' or 'potential'. It seems that nowadays the void is not conceived as vacuous, but as virtual; that which holds the potential for, the power to bring about, actuality. However if spacetime is conceived as being the virtual, and if spacetime is "warped" by mass, then the actual must have a feedback effect upon the virtual. The biggest problem we face is how could we ever say what the virtual is, if it is not yet anything?

So, if metaphysics is philosophy, then it's over-ambitious to say that metaphysics can be about Reality, unless you claim that words can accurately describe Reality. That's an issue that i don't want to debate, but if you say that metaphysics's range of applicability includes ultimate Reality, then you're implying an assertion that words accurately describe Reality. — Michael Ossipoff

That conclusion doesn't follow. You can talk a bout something without accurately describing it. So metaphysics can be about reality without accurately describing it.

That conclusion doesn't follow. You can talk a bout something without accurately describing it. So metaphysics can be about reality without accurately describing it. — Metaphysician Undercover

Wait a minute--Isn't philosophy about description, assertion, and argument?

Can you use the word "philosophy" for matters unknowable, un-assertable, un-arguable and indescribable?

If you grant that philosophy is limited to what's describable, knowable, assertable and arguable, then, if you say that metaphysics (agreed to be part of philosophy) is about Reality, that implies an assumption that Reality is describable, knowable, assertable an arguable.

Whether or not you believe such an assumption, it shouldn't be built into the definition of metaphysics.

That's why I limit what I call "metaphysics", and use the word "meta-metaphysics" for matters of what-is that are (or might be) unknowable, non-describable, non-assertable, non-arguable..

Michael Ossipoff

I dont think you can have a universe of processes or properties only. I tend to think of it in terms of properties. Suppose you have a bronze coin with the property 'circular'. You cannot remove the substance of the coin from the property circular; the property 'circular' IS the substance of the coin, but we conceive of it abstractly.

Consider the following propositions;-

1. A property must be supported by substance. This substance is either relative or absolute.
A relative substance is such when it too can be shown to be a property, playing the part of absolute substance. Absolute substance is not a property.

2. Every property is perfectly identified with its supporting substance.

Keeping these two propositions in mind we can examine properties and see if they hold.

In the example of the bronze coin, the supporting substance of the property 'circular' is bronze. But bronze, being matter, is a property of energy because matter is a pattern in a field of energy. What then is energy? Is it an absolute substance or is it too a property of some deeper substance?

Any analysis of this property/substance relationship in physical reality will quickly lead to this question; what is energy? Is it a relative or absolute substance?

Proposition 2. says that matter is perfectly identified with energy; it is merely a pattern in a field of energy. It is the energy in the way 'circular' is the bronze of the coin. Matter is a property; it is nothing. Can we have a universe made of nothings/processes? or is there a fundamental substance keeping the hierarchy of properties in being?

I agree that process metaphysics can be subsumed in substance metaphysics by treating spacetime as a persistent/timeless substance and events as parts of this substance and thus as substances too.

The most general basis of metaphysics should be "something" (as opposed to nothing) and then we may try to define what this "something" is. In my view, every intelligible something should be what it is and should not be what it is not; in other words, it should be identical to itself and different from other somethings. By being identical to itself, it must be something (as opposed to nothing) in itself; and by being different from other somethings, it must stand in relations to other somethings.

The most general kind of relation between two somethings is "difference" (or "similarity"), which means that the two somethings have certain identical properties as well as certain different properties. This automatically establishes two more general kinds of relation (which are simultaneously specific instances of the "difference" relation): "instantiation", which is the relation between a property and its instance (both the property and its instance being somethings), and "composition", which is the relation between something and the collection (whole) of which it is a part (the collection being a something too).

That's it. The building blocks of reality are these somethings with the relations between them. Note that there is no mention of (topological) space or time. Space and time are non-fundamental somethings that can be composed from spaceless and timeless somethings.

Can you use the word "philosophy" for matters unknowable, un-assertable, un-arguable and indescribable? — Michael Ossipoff

"Indescribable" means "non-relational", because every description of something is a presentation of this something in relations to other somethings ("it has such and such properties, such and such parts etc."). The something itself that stands in these relations is necessarily non-relational (different from its relations) and therefore indescribable. However, it doesn't mean that it is unknowable. We know many somethings even though they are indescribable: the somethings that make up our own consciousness.

Can you use the word "philosophy" for matters unknowable, un-assertable, un-arguable and indescribable? — Michael Ossipoff

Why not? Philosophy is to inquire into the unknown, and as unknown, we must allow the possibility that it is unknowable, unassertable, unarguable and undescribable. We will not know until we try,

That's why I limit what I call "metaphysics", and use the word "meta-metaphysics" for matters of what-is that are (or might be) unknowable, non-describable, non-assertable, non-arguable.. — Michael Ossipoff

How do you propose to identify the unknowable from that which is simply unknown?

Indescribable" means "non-relational", because every description of something is a presentation of this something in relations to other somethings ("it has such and such properties, such and such parts etc.").

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Yes, but couldn’t something also be indescribable by or to humans just because humans, by their own limitations, can’t describe it?
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The something itself that stands in these relations is necessarily non-relational (different from its relations) and therefore indescribable.

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…but a description of its relations, if it has them, and if they’re describable, would count as a partial description of it.
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However, it doesn't mean that it is unknowable. We know many somethings even though they are indescribable: the somethings that make up our own consciousness.

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True. We know ourselves directly, first-hand. But there’s a little that can be said about us, about Consciousness, with respect to the realm of the describable, and so we aren’t completely indescribable.
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There may well be things about us that are quite indescribable and unknowable to us. But I feel that there should be an effort to describe as much as possible, before assuming indescribability.
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Though there might be more (unknowable and indescribable) about us, nevertheless, to the extent that we can describe an uncontroversial metaphysical explanation of our world, we can say something about Consciousness, as the complementarily-implied experiencer of our life-experience possibility-story.
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(…though I feel that it’s really more we who imply and are prior to the story, rather than vice-versa)
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To that extent, we’re partly describable.
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Are we more than that, in a way that’s not describable or knowable by us? I don’t know. Quite possibly, I guess. But I usually try to limit my comments to what’s describable, assertable, arguable, and preferably uncontroversial.
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That should be discussed first; then there are maybe a few peripheral suggestions, expressions of impressions, possible about meta-metaphysical matters that aren’t really describable or assertable.
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Michael Ossipoff

I'd said:

Can you use the word "philosophy" for matters unknowable, un-assertable, un-arguable and indescribable?

Why not? Philosophy is to inquire into the unknown, and as unknown, we must allow the possibility that it is unknowable, unassertable, unarguable and undescribable. We will not know until we try,

Alright yes, that's true: When it isn't known that a topic is unknowable and indescribable, then it's a legitimate topic of philosophy, for discussion about that.

I'd said:

That's why I limit what I call "metaphysics", and use the word "meta-metaphysics" for matters of what-is that are (or might be) unknowable, non-describable, non-assertable, non-arguable.

How do you propose to identify the unknowable from that which is simply unknown?

[/quote]

I said "...might be unknowable, non-describable, non-assertabe, non-arguable".

But, as you said, if's a matter of "might be", then it's an open philosophical topic, contrary to what I'd said.

Michael Ossipoff

Alright yes, that's true: When it isn't known that a topic is unknowable and indescribable, then it's a legitimate topic of philosophy, for discussion about that. — Michael Ossipoff

If there is a fundamental substance that is and always has been and is the source of all contingent things we can say three things about it-

1. It is
2. It has creative potential because it evolved into everything that is not fundamental
3. It has the power to become life and consciousness, because this is what happened.

Yes, but couldn’t something also be indescribable by or to humans just because humans, by their own limitations, can’t describe it? — Michael Ossipoff

Sure, but I meant indescribable in principle.

…but a description of its relations, if it has them, and if they’re describable, would count as a partial description of it. — Michael Ossipoff

The description of a thing's relations to other things could be regarded as a partial description of the thing but it will never be complete because the thing must be something above and beyond its relations to other things; otherwise there would be nothing that would stand in those relations and thus there would be no relations either.

True. We know ourselves directly, first-hand. But there’s a little that can be said about us, about Consciousness, with respect to the realm of the describable, and so we aren’t completely indescribable. — Michael Ossipoff

Yes, for example you can describe red color (as a sensation) by referring to a tomato, or to the electromagnetic radiation of a certain wavelength, or to a certain pattern of neuronal firings, but these descriptions will always leave out what red color is in itself. A person who is congenitally blind will not know from these descriptions what red color is in itself; they will only learn about relations of red color to tomatoes, electromagnetic radiation or neuronal firings.

There may well be things about us that are quite indescribable and unknowable to us. But I feel that there should be an effort to describe as much as possible, before assuming indescribability. — Michael Ossipoff

By "unknowable" (to us) I would regard things that cannot be part of our consciousness. These things may even be parts of our own bodies but they are not part of our consciousness - for example, red blood cells. We may observe these things (for example red blood cells under a miscroscope) and thus become conscious of them but strictly speaking, all we can be conscious of is our own consciousness, and when we observe red blood cells we are conscious of the representation of red blood cells in our consciousness, not of the red blood cells themselves. Still, for reasons related to evolutionary fitness, there is probably some significant similarity between a thing outside our consciousness and its representation inside our consciousness, so in this sense we may partially know also things that are outside our consciousness.

If there is a fundamental substance that is and always has been and is the source of all contingent things we can say three things about it-

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Of course it’s understood here that we’re talking about matters that all would agree might be, or probably are, unknowable, indescribable and un-assertable. …and many feel that they definitely are in that category.
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Not that that’s an objection. Far from it.
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Though I’ve been emphasizing describable, assertable matters (…where I feel that the discussion should be about things that are uncontroversially-inevitable, because there’s no place for brute-facts in that realm.), of course the things that we don’t know, maybe because they’re unknowable and even indeterminate, are of great interest too.
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(I feel that all that’s genuinely unknowable is also indeterminate. …not just an answer that isn’t knowable, but no answer about it is true.)
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1. It is

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Yes, and I and many others say that, even though we reserve the word “exist” for the things of the describable realm. And, most would probably agree that, if that fundamental entity is, then it’s all that really is…every”thing” else being hypothetical, with a much lower order of real-ness.
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2. It has creative potential because it evolved into everything that is not fundamental

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I wouldn’t say it that way. The entity that you’re talking about is timeless and doesn’t evolve or create. And, even aside from that, those words are for our describable realm.
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And I object to the term “create”, as anthropomorphic.
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In the describable realm, we, Consciousness, each of us as a conscious being, are primary, fundamental and metaphysically prior to our experience-story. We didn’t “create” it. We’re complementary to our experience-story. It and we imply eachther…but there’s only one of you, and you’re plainly the center of your experience-story, so it’s obvious where to assign the primacy and priority. It’s “there” because of and for you.
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There’s very, very little that can be said about meta-metaphysics (by which I mean matters of what-is, outside the describable realm). Well, that’s a truism or tautology, isn’t it.
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Like many people, including some of Jim Holt’s interviewees, I say that it’s my impression and feeling that what is, is good, and that there’s good intent behind what is. I can’t prove that, and I don’t assert it. I just express it as an impression and a feeling. Don’t expect proof for meta-metaphysical matters.
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Of course intent implies Consciousness. Does that mean that there’s meta-metaphysical Conscious, unknowable and indescribable for us, and also us as Consciousness too? Would that be unparsimonious?
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No, because, as I was saying above, if there’s a more general and broad meta-metaphysical Consciousness, then isn’t there a strong case for assigning to it a reality of a whole higher order than ours? After all, though we’re Consciousness, we’re also temporary. In less than a century we’ll all have reached the end of this life. And, even by what Buddhism and Hinduism say about reincarnation, every one of us will eventually reach the end of lives, when there will be no more identity (or time or events, etc.). In that sense, we’re all temporary, with or without reincarnation. As Nisargadatta said, what’s temporary isn’t very real.
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3. It has the power to become life and consciousness, because this is what happened.

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Most of us Idealists (non-Materialists) would express a feeling or unprovable opinion that it’s already Consciousness.
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As for becoming life, yes that’s what I hear from Vedantists. Though I regard myself as a Vedantist too, I hesitate to say something that definite about indescribable matters.
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Many or most Vedantists insist on an identity between us and an Ultimate-Reality, but, to me, that seems like too much to be able to say about meta-metaphysical matters. …way too presumptusous, in fact.
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Yes, we’re fundamental, primary and metaphysically prior in our describable realm, but I’d hesitate to say much more than that.
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Might it not be that each of our hypothetical experience-stories is just inevitably “there”, as a complex system of inter-referring abstract implications, with a mutually-consistent configuration of proposition-truth-values?

(I feel that we should try to explain as much as possible within our describable metaphysical world.)
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…meaning that the existence of us animals and our world needn’t be assumed to be the result of God’s will or preference for us?
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…though there’s (in my unprovable opinion) that good intent behind the whole of what-is?
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Michael Ossipoff

I’d said:
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…but a description of its relations, if it has them, and if they’re describable, would count as a partial description of it.

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You replied:
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The description of a thing's relations to other things could be regarded as a partial description of the thing but it will never be complete because the thing must be something above and beyond its relations to other things; otherwise there would be nothing that would stand in those relations and thus there would be no relations either.

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Ultimate Reality would be unitary and not in relation to anything else, because there wouldn’t be anything else that shares its reality. Likewise it wouldn’t have parts, because that, too, is a relation.
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But we’ve agreed* that there’s no reason to believe that the things at the describable level consist of other than logical/mathematical relational structure, as Michael Faraday pointed out.
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As you earlier said, the requirement is for consistency. …a requirement that I explain by the fact that there’s no such thing as mutually inconsistent facts.
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*(I hope we agreed on that—I’ve named you as someone here who has agreed about that, when Janus claimed that no one agreed about it.)
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This is a preliminary partial reply. More tomorrow.
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Michael Ossipoff

First, I’d like to change something that I said:
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Ultimate Reality would be unitary and not in relation to anything else, because there wouldn’t be anything else that shares its reality.

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It would have better to just mention that it wouldn’t make sense to speak of something else other than Reality, to which for it to be related.
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Likewise it wouldn’t have parts, because that, too, is a relation.

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I’m satisfied with that statement.
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Continuing my reply from yesterday:
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I’d said:
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True. We know ourselves directly, first-hand. But there’s a little that can be said about us, about Consciousness, with respect to the realm of the describable, and so we aren’t completely indescribable.

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You replied:
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Yes, for example you can describe red color (as a sensation) by referring to a tomato, or to the electromagnetic radiation of a certain wavelength, or to a certain pattern of neuronal firings, but these descriptions will always leave out what red color is in itself. A person who is congenitally blind will not know from these descriptions what red color is in itself; they will only learn about relations of red color to tomatoes, electromagnetic radiation or neuronal firings.

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Physical matters like wavelengths or neurology are of interest in science more than in philosophy.
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The whole quandary about the mysteriously inexplicable “qualia”, or consciousness arising from matter, are issues for Materialists trying to shoehorn-cram experience into Materialist explanation. I doubt that the academic philosophers’ confusion is sincere. I suggest that, instead, it’s intended to provide them with opportunity to go on publishing forever. Chalmers once pointed out that the (fallacious) “Hard-Problem-Of-Consciousness” is no closer to an answer now than it was long, long ago…and isn’t showing any indication of an answer coming in the coming centuries either.
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You know, “Publish or Perish” is a good motivational explanation. Didn’t someone say, “Follow the money”?
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…a good reason to not let academic philosophy define or set the premises of discussion here.
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Let go of the Materialists premises and assumptions, and their terrible quandaries about “qualia”, and the “Hard Problem of Consciousness” vanish.
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Those problems are like the “absurdity” complaint that we sometimes hear, when Materialists complain that it’s all “absurd”. Yes, the world that they believe in is indeed absurd. But need they whine about its absurdity?
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The Absurdists’ “absurdity” and the academic philosophers quandry with “qualia” and the Hard-Problem-Of-Consciousness, then, have the same origin.
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(…even if not the same motivation: The Absurdists, at least, are probably sincere in their confusion.)
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When I said that we we’re somewhat describable, I was referring to our being an experiencer who, as the hypothetical experiencer and protagonist of a hypothetical life-experience possibility-story, is complementary to that hypothetical story. …and (I suggest), is what is primary, fundamental and metaphysically prior in the describable world. Maybe that suggestion goes just a bit past what can be uncontroversially—but, if so, just barely.
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Anything said beyond that has to be understood as not assertable, arguable, debatable or establishable.
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I’d said:
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There may well be things about us that are quite indescribable and unknowable to us. But I feel that there should be an effort to describe as much as possible, before assuming indescribability.

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By "unknowable" (to us) I would regard things that cannot be part of our consciousness. These things may even be parts of our own bodies but they are not part of our consciousness - for example, red blood cells. We may observe these things (for example red blood cells under a miscroscope) and thus become conscious of them but strictly speaking, all we can be conscious of is our own consciousness, and when we observe red blood cells we are conscious of the representation of red blood cells in our consciousness, not of the red blood cells themselves. Still, for reasons related to evolutionary fitness, there is probably some significant similarity between a thing outside our consciousness and its representation inside our consciousness, so in this sense we may partially know also things that are outside our consciousness.

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With regard to the possibility of unknowable things about us, I was referring more to Reality, as opposed to the relational reality of our lives and world. I was referring to such suggestions as the Vedantist suggestion of an identity between us and Ultimate Reality…something that I feel is too ambitious a topic.
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As I’ve said, there’s no reason to believe that we’re other than the animal that we seem to be. But, at the end of lives, when identity, time and events are no more, it, can’t be claimed that we’ll still be an animal or individual at all. As animals, we’re temporary, and what’s temporary isn’t really fully real. …whatever that means—it’s the familiar matter of only negative statements being meaningfully say-able.
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Though we’re the person/animal, that won’t always be so. Persons and animals are temporary; a sequence of lives is temporary (from what Buddhism and Vedanta say…How would any us here know?).
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But it doesn’t do, to take that eventual end of identity as support for things that we might prematurely theorize now. Can we admit that, as animals, we can only deal with, and make valid statements about, the animal worldly matters for which we were evolved?
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Nisargadatta said that anything that can be said is a lie. There’s a tendency to believe unduly in a universal applicability and meaningfulness of words.
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Michael Ossipoff