Further motivation to 'read more Pierce'. — Wayfarer

When I first started getting acquainted with Peirce's thought, several people warned me that it would take a while--and I have found that to be very much the case. If you would like to read his own words, I think that the best place to start is with the two volumes of The Essential Peirce. If you prefer a fairly comprehensive introduction written by someone else, I suggest The Continuity of Peirce's Thought by Kelly Parker. If you are looking for something shorter that focuses primarily on metaphysics, I recommend Charles Peirce's Guess at the Riddle by John K. Sheriff.

One can be a speculative naturalist without, for all that, simply falling into the black hole of scientism. — StreetlightX

True, one simply has to make sure that what one is inquiring about is not part of the scientific enterprise.

It doesn't help either that the constant and brazenly fallacious appeal-to-ignorance that is the invocation of quantum theory is basically the last refuge of the theological scoundrel, having been driven from literally every single other explanatory level of existence other than where - surprise, surprise - the dark and fuzzy frontier of scientific knowledge lies. There's a reason you don't get religious kooks barking shrill over the divine properties of say, silicon chip engineering. At some point, apparently, the perpetual embarrassment tips over into shame. — StreetlightX

I'm not so sure if this is accurate, at least for all theologians. I'm only beginning my study of theology and philosophy of religion, but it seems to me that it is the atheist that commonly begs the question. The point of natural theology is to use empirical observations about the world to make an argument for something that cannot possibly be empirically tested but nevertheless is seen as necessary or important in some way. I don't think the cosmological argument has really been "refuted" by science. Teleology has been shoved aside as reductionist accounts of causality have emerged but it is precisely the latter that depends solely on the material and formal causes and continues to run into difficulties.

So I'm confused as to why you used quantum theory as an example of the "last refuge" of the theologian. Because it's not really the case that (serious) theologians (and not your neighborhood evangelical) are shoe-horning God into the picture. It's rather that atheistic (pop-) scientists are shoe-horning atheism into things like the Big Bang, evolution, and quantum mechanics in order to "prove" God does not exist and it's the theologians that have to fight back and explain why it's actually not so black and white. Theologians often get stuck in a kafkatrap.

That's right. That's why I am arguing against nominalism. — apokrisis

Right, okay, because before I thought you were conflating universalism with the thesis that particulars don't exist, which would indeed create an extreme binary.

But how do properties emerge into crisp being if vague being isn't what they are leaving behind? — apokrisis

So A changes to B, are you saying the time between the change is the vagueness?

The problem with your kind of ontology is that it can't explain existence as a causal development. Existence is just some dumb brute fact. Or maybe God invented it. — apokrisis

Well, I mean, I'm not trying to explain the existence of causal development. I'm trying to explain how universals have to exist in some way.

Shame that hypothesis doesn't fit the facts then. The evidence that the cosmos keeps spitting out the same entities, the same patterns, can be seen everywhere we look. (Have you heard of fractals or powerlaws?) — apokrisis

Yes, I know all about those, please stop antagonizing me. Once again, I'm out to show how nominalism is false and that it defends an indefensible monism.

So why the problem when I take something like universals to be real, and then offer a modern infodynamic account? — apokrisis

Because some of us have no formal training in whatever fields you are referring to and thus your words come across as esoteric gish gallops.

But also because you use a framework to explain the same framework. Universals exist, because symmetry is a universal. That's begging the question. Nominalists don't deny that symmetry exists, they deny that symmetry is a universal. You need to explain why universals have to exist without just ignoring the actual question; i.e. using "scientific" terminology to explain something that is usually empirically transparent.

You need to explain why universals have to exist ... — darthbarracuda

The terminological point that I have been trying to make is that universals do not have to exist in order to be real. It is nominalism that insists on limiting reality to existence.

Right, since nominalism rejects any and all abstracta.

Analyzing the way that we use the words is only the beginning in Platonic dialectics. From this analysis we can come to the conclusion that there must be a real object referred to by these words, to validate their use. This object is the idea. Have you read Plato's Symposium? Once we come to understand the ideas as objects, we can analyze the objects themselves, attempting to understand what type of existence they have.

Here's a brief explanation of the difficulty involved with the way you are describing things. You say "the way we use the words", and "what we think". By using "we", you have already made an unjustified generalization. In reality, I use words, and I think , and so do you. There is no such thing as "the way we use words", because we each use them in our own ways. In order to make this generalization which you propose, we must assume some conventions, rules, agreements, or some such thing, to justify the claim that there is such a thing as "the way we use words". But if this is the case, then "the way we use words" refers to these agreements, and that is something outside of our minds, in between us, and therefore not "what we think about them" which is something within our minds. — Metaphysician Undercover

OK, there are a few misunderstandings and seeming contradictions here. First, you say that when we take the beginning dialectical step of analyzing the way we use these words, 'beauty, 'goodness' and 'truth', it can lead to the conclusion that there must be a real object referred to by them, and that this real object is the idea. Without getting into metaphysical issues about what exactly ideas, such as ideas of beauty, the good and truth, are, I will just say that I don't entirely disagree with that. I have read the Symposium and other works of Plato's' and secondary works about some of them and about his philosophy in general, and I think I have a good enough grasp of Plato's notion of 'idea'.

What I will say though is that the idea is not rightly thought of as an object, the ideas cannot be objectified, because then this leads to the familiar silly questions about 'where they exist', 'is the idea of green itself green', 'is there a perfect form of ugliness' and so on. The point is we can talk about beauty, goodness and truth in terms of how they are in our lives, how we think about them, how we feel them, what kinds of experiences they are associated with, an so on, without having to explain what they are in themselves, or worrying about the question as to whether they are in themselves; without, that is without objectifying them.

In the next paragraph you go on about a "difficulty" with the very idea of "the way we use words", which I presume would be extended to 'how we experience things', and refer to this idea as an "unjustified generalizations". All this seems to completely contradict what you were saying in the first paragraph.

Now I do agree that we are each unique and that there are differences in how we use words and experience things. But there are also commonalities, and when we refer to conventional usage we are certainly referring to "something outside our individual minds"; I haven't anywhere denied this. The point is that the phrase "the way we use words" as I intended to use it refers to just theses conventional usages, so it seems you have completely misunderstood what i have been saying. You say the conventional ways we use words, being external to our minds, do not reflect the "way we think about them" because the latter is "something within our minds". I think this is greatly mistaken. We learn languages consisting of conventional usages; we introject these languages, and so, of course, they come to mediate, if not completely determine, what and how we think. There is no clear and coherent delineation between what is 'outside' and what is 'inside' our minds.

What I will say though is that the idea is not rightly thought of as an object, the ideas cannot be objectified, because then this leads to the familiar silly questions about 'where they exist', 'is the idea of green itself green', 'is there a perfect form of ugliness' and so on. The point is we can talk about beauty, goodness and truth in terms of how they are in our lives, how we think about them, how we feel them, what kinds of experiences they are associated with, an so on, without having to explain what they are in themselves, or worrying about the question as to whether they are in themselves; without, that is without objectifying them. — John

The problem is that these ideas do become objectified in epistemology. Most epistemologies hold that some knowledge is objective, and therefore certain ideas such as mathematical and geometrical principles are objective. Whether one justifies this objectivity by referring to some Platonic Forms, or by referring to some conventions, rules, or agreements, these both are assumed to have some sort of existence external to the human mind, and that's what justifies knowledge as objective.

In the next paragraph you go on about a "difficulty" with the very idea of "the way we use words", which I presume would be extended to 'how we experience things', and refer to this idea as an "unjustified generalizations". All this seems to completely contradict what you were saying in the first paragraph. — John

The difficulty is that you made these generalizations, "the way we use words", yet you didn't seem to allow for any objectivity to such generalizations. So the point was to show the difficulty in your position. I have been allowing for real objective existence of these universals, so the difficulty does not apply to my position. This generalization, "the way we use words", may be a real objective idea, if you allow that ideas exist as objects.

Now I do agree that we are each unique and that there are differences in how we use words and experience things. But there are also commonalities, and when we refer to conventional usage we are certainly referring to "something outside our individual minds"; I haven't anywhere denied this. The point is that the phrase "the way we use words" as I intended to use it refers to just theses conventional usages, so it seems you have completely misunderstood what i have been saying. You say the conventional ways we use words, being external to our minds, do not reflect the "way we think about them" because the latter is "something within our minds". I think this is greatly mistaken. We learn languages consisting of conventional usages; we introject these languages, and so, of course, they come to mediate, if not completely determine, what and how we think. There is no clear and coherent delineation between what is 'outside' and what is 'inside' our minds. — John

By conflating what is inside and what is outside of our minds, you deny the possibility of establishing good epistemic principles for separating subjective and objective. So, back to my original point. Once we establish that these things, ideas, have real objective existence, and this is demonstrated by the existence of objective knowledge, then we can analyze them as real objective things, objects, and that means more than just experience which is purely subjective. You however seem insistent on the notion that they are nothing other than how individuals think. Until you release this notion, and see them as real objects, which form the basis of objective knowledge, you will not be able to see knowledge as anything more than the experience of subjects. You have no grounds for an epistemology of objective knowledge.

Thanks for the recommendations. I will try and borrow the book I mentioned first (Peirce and the Threat of Nominalism, although I like the look of that 'Riddle' book.)

It seems like you're reading "brute fact" as some sort of epistemic move that's only allowed by certain epistemic conditions that you do not believe obtain here. But that's not the usage of "brute fact" here. It's rather an ontological claim. The claim would be that ontologically, there's nothing else to "physical laws" aside from the fact that that's how particulars happen to "behave." It's not any sort of comment about how people arrive at a belief about laws of motion — Terrapin Station

We're discussing physical principles, such as those described by the laws of motion. They're not matter of 'belief', they describe the trajectory of artillery shells. And the sense in which such ideas are similar to universals is due to their being 'laws'. The question of whether there are 'laws of nature' is actually quite analogous to whether there are real universals. You can't dismiss them by saying they are how 'objects just happen to behave' because they're also predictive, and lead to new discoveries - things previously unknown about nature. They're basic to any kind of science. But I don't believe that naturalism explains natural law, it simply assumes them - as it must. Couldn't get out of bed in the morning without them. It's when it believes that it can explain them that it starts to morph into scientism.

Furthermore, according to 'structural realism' it's only how 'objects happen to behave' that is real.

It's rather that atheistic (pop-) scientists are shoe-horning atheism into things like the Big Bang, evolution, and quantum mechanics in order to "prove" God does not exist and it's the theologians that have to fight back and explain why it's actually not so black and white. — darthbarracuda

Well said. I went to a book launch recently, A Fortunate Universe. Neither God nor theology were explicitly mentioned, but seemed implicit in the presentation. I've also noticed the books by Jesuit philosophers Stephen M Barr and Robert J Spitzer, which appear theologically literate and scientifically informed (although there's also a fundamentalist by the name of Stephen M Barr, don't mix them up.)

There is no point continuing this, I think. You insist that something must be either internal or external; subjective or objective. I don't think in those terms; for me objectivity consists only in inter-subjectivity; which is neither external nor internal. I don't see knowledge as merely the "experience of subjects" that is your prejudicial reading of what I have said; I see knowledge as the shared experience of subjects.

Also I don't believe in the possibility of, and therefore am not even to the slightest degree interested in any purported "epistemology of objectivity". If I am interested in objectivity at all it would only be in terms of a phenomenology. Since our beginning premises are so different, I don't believe we can have any conversation at all, and I would hazard a guess that neither of wish to waste our time.

But also because you use a framework to explain the same framework. Universals exist, because symmetry is a universal. — darthbarracuda

Where did I make that circular argument?

You need to explain why universals have to exist without just ignoring the actual question — darthbarracuda

I tried instead to show you why your "actual question" doesn't even make sense in my holist and pansemiotic paradigm. And I mention infodynamics as the particular current scientific project that takes a broadly Peircean metaphysics seriously.

So it would be circular for a metaphysics to try to account for dynamical particulars in terms of "just more dynamics". A semiotic approach to metaphysics is different precisely because it accounts for universals in terms of sign relations. The realm of symbols - or informational constraints - gives the "universals" a real place to exist, much like Plato's realm of ideas. The difference is that this informational aspect of existence is thoroughly physicalist and doesn't need the mind or ideas to be a second kind of substantial being.

And I hardly need point out again that actual physics is undergoing just this entropic or information theoretic revolution. Event horizons - as informational limits - are so "real" that they structure the cosmos and may even account for forces like gravity. It is bit, etc.

So for a start, I have a positive thesis about the physical basis for "the existence of universals". Modern physics is cashing out Peirce's notion that the cosmos is the self-organised product of a triadic sign relation.

Whoosh. I hear the noise of words flying right over your head again. But you can hardly claim to be saying anything interesting about metaphysics these days if you throw up your hands in horror when someone mentions holographic bounds and least action principles.

And then another important point is that Peircean realism would not regard the particular as particularly "existent" either. Like the quasi-particles of condensed matter physics, or the actual particles of the standard model, the uncuttable atoms of material existence turn out to be merely the excitations or localised frustrations of a field.

So as it says on the bottle, this is process philosophy. And both the particular and the universal are things that only "exist" in the sense of being features of processes.

The best way to ontologise that view is then - as Peirce did - to divide reality into constraints and freedoms. Universals are the contextual reality. They are the general habits, the global tendencies. And particulars are the events that are regularly produced, the outcomes that may share family similarities but also express an irreducible spontaneity or indeterminism.

So in a church, there is a fairly fixed propensity to burst into prayer. The context shapes the behaviour. And if for some reason the prayers begin to cease, the church is no longer really a church. The mutual relation between the universal and the particular is what gives birth to the physical whole. If that reciprocal interaction falters, then the whole dynamical structure fades away again.

Reality is the process of becoming real. And reality is characterised by its general stablity - its long-run, self-sustaining, dynamical equilibrium. To exist is really just to persist in a way where continuing change does not result in significant change.

And that kind of reality, that kind of existence, is now something we have exact scientific models for. Dissipative structure theory (as the next step along from "far from equilibrium" thermodynamics) has given us metaphysics we can go out and measure.

To call that huge advance in human understanding "esoteric" is simply to be ignorant of modern progress.

We're discussing physical principles, such as those described by the laws of motion. They're not matter of 'belief', they describe the trajectory of artillery shells. And the sense in which such ideas are similar to universals is due to their being 'laws'. The question of whether there are 'laws of nature' is actually quite analogous to whether there are real universals. You can't dismiss them by saying they are how 'objects just happen to behave' because they're also predictive, and lead to new discoveries - things previously unknown about nature. They're basic to any kind of science. But I don't believe that naturalism explains natural law, it simply assumes them - as it must. Couldn't get out of bed in the morning without them. It's when it believes that it can explain them that it starts to morph into scientism. — Wayfarer

The comment you're responding to here was about you reading my earlier comment as an epistemic rather than an ontological claim. Yet your response here has nothing to do with that issue.

How do we analyze beauty, goodness and truth other than by analyzing the way we think about them. which includes the way we use the words, as you already said? — John


The search for symmetry, equilibrium and the minimisation of uncertainty - the usual physical principles? — apokrisis

Symmetry is one idea often associated with beauty, and equilibrium is one idea sometimes associated with goodness. As to "minimization of uncertainty", I would say that is associated with belief, not with truth.

There is no point continuing this, I think. You insist that something must be either internal or external; subjective or objective. I don't think in those terms; for me objectivity consists only in inter-subjectivity; which is neither external nor internal. I don't see knowledge as merely the "experience of subjects" that is your prejudicial reading of what I have said; I see knowledge as the shared experience of subjects. — John

You're just refusing to justify you terms, inter-subjectivity, and shared experience of subjects. I do not think that it is possible that my experience is shared by you. You bring up these notions in order to avoid a true analysis, and then make the unwarranted claim that a true analysis of things like ideas is impossible. These things are just a "shared experience". But shared experience is incoherent nonsense.

Of course directly shared experience might be nonsense, but experience is obviously shared via language or we would be unable to communicate effectively about anything.

Personally I think your analyses are anything but true, but if you are happy with them, that's up to you. I am not interested in participating with you in what seems to me to be endless sophistic pedantry that just goes nowhere; which I have seen all to much of over the last few years.

The comment you're responding to here was about you reading my earlier comment as an epistemic rather than an ontological claim. Yet your response here has nothing to do with that issue. — Terrapin Station

'Physical principles' are matters for ontology, our knowledge of them matters for epistemology. It's precisely the ability to represent physical principles in symbolic terms which is at issue. Yet according to nominalism there are no such principles - only specific instances are real. Strictly speaking if nominalism were correct, there could be no discourse, as each instance of an utterance would have a different meaning - which, come to think of it, is something you might say, isn't it?

So physical principles ARE used to analyse the Platonic triad. Cool.

So it would be circular for a metaphysics to try to account for dynamical particulars in terms of "just more dynamics". A semiotic approach to metaphysics is different precisely because it accounts for universals in terms of sign relations. The realm of symbols - or informational constraints - gives the "universals" a real place to exist, much like Plato's realm of ideas. The difference is that this informational aspect of existence is thoroughly physicalist and doesn't need the mind or ideas to be a second kind of substantial being. — apokrisis

The part I get tripped up on is when you explain the existence of universals like redness or hardness of whatever by appealing to things like sign relations, symbols, constraints, information, etc. Are these things not universals in themselves? You said they were similar to Plato's realm of ideas - are they "less real" than the concrete stuff we experience everyday?

Whoosh. I hear the noise of words flying right over your head again. — apokrisis

:-}

Why must you be so arrogantly patronizing all the time?

But you can hardly claim to be saying anything interesting about metaphysics these days if you throw up your hands in horror when someone mentions holographic bounds and least action principles. — apokrisis

Well because holographic bounds and least action principles are incoherent, at least to me, without a proper context, and especially because they aren't anything at all unless they have certain qualities, or properties, which is exactly what we're talking about here.

So you can say that the properties of bread: its doughiness, flexibility, warmth, etc come from external constraints like the heat of the oven, the yeast, etc. But these things also have properties themselves.

So as it says on the bottle, this is process philosophy. And both the particular and the universal are things that only "exist" in the sense of being features of processes. — apokrisis

I thought you didn't like the binary between substance and process.

The best way to ontologise that view is then - as Peirce did - to divide reality into constraints and freedoms. Universals are the contextual reality. They are the general habits, the global tendencies. And particulars are the events that are regularly produced, the outcomes that may share family similarities but also express an irreducible spontaneity or indeterminism. — apokrisis

Right, okay. This is basically what I already said. Universals are general patterns and particulars are specifics.

Reality is the process of becoming real. And reality is characterised by its general stablity - its long-run, self-sustaining, dynamical equilibrium. To exist is really just to persist in a way where continuing change does not result in significant change. — apokrisis

Right, I agree. There are no such things as enduring objects.

So I'm confused as to why you used quantum theory as an example of the "last refuge" of the theologian. Because it's not really the case that (serious) theologians (and not your neighborhood evangelical) are shoe-horning God into the picture. It's rather that atheistic (pop-) scientists are shoe-horning atheism into things like the Big Bang, evolution, and quantum mechanics in order to "prove" God does not exist and it's the theologians that have to fight back and explain why it's actually not so black and white. Theologians often get stuck in a kafkatrap. — darthbarracuda

Mmm, I should have qualified - the last refuge within the sciences themselves. Although to be fair, this too overstates the case somewhat. Abiogenesis is another favourite stomping ground of shitty theology, and once again, it's unsurprisingly another site where the scientific work is still underway (although it's made some damn fine strides in the last ten years). The larger point is that religious thinking about science has a tendency to latch on to the uncertainties necessarily latent at the bleeding edge of science, rather than at any point where the scientific work is well established. In every case it's just low hanging, God-of-the-gaps bullshit, a kind of desperation to slot God in to any (rapidly diminishing) space available. A theology with a bit of dignity ought to probably find the divine at work in everything, but then again, the theological engagement with the sciences gave up it's dignity long ago.

I'm not so sure if this is accurate, at least for all theologians. I'm only beginning my study of theology and philosophy of religion, but it seems to me that it is the atheist that commonly begs the question. The point of natural theology is to use empirical observations about the world to make an argument for something that cannot possibly be empirically tested but nevertheless is seen as necessary or important in some way. I don't think the cosmological argument has really been "refuted" by science. Teleology has been shoved aside as reductionist accounts of causality have emerged but it is precisely the latter that depends solely on the material and formal causes and continues to run into difficulties. — darthbarracuda

Frankly, I literally do not care about theology for the most part. In truth, I think the only proper atheistic response to theology ought to be sheer indifference, right up to the point where it starts making claims about naturalism or the sciences. The philosopher Francois Chatelet once spoke of the need for a 'tranquil atheism', one for which "God is not a problem. The non-exis­tence or even the death of God are not problems but rather the conditions one must have already acquired in order to make the true problems surge forth." God is a false problem. I think this is more or less right. Anyone who tries to 'prove God doesn't exist' has already conceded too much to theology - has taken God to be in any way a legitimate problem at all. So I don't much care for those scientists who attempt to shoehorn their atheism into the science either. But once claims are made about naturalism, or about the sciences - or philosophy more generally - which are plainly wrong, misleading, or ignorant, I think that's where one ought to affirm one's atheism by arguing back, at every point.

Not God's 'existence' but his relevance ought to be perpetually put into question - which is why I much prefer 'naturalism' to 'atheism', insofar as the latter is still too oppositionally defined by a relation to the divine. I would prefer simply not to care about the very idea of God, let alone to argue 'against' it.

Sure, why should the physical nature not express or reflect the spiritual?

Given physical principles derive from phenomenological observables, it is pretty obvious which way round things in fact arose epistemically.

In truth, I think the only proper atheistic response to theology ought to be sheer indifference, right up to the point where it starts making claims about naturalism or the sciences. — StreetlightX

I agree. And I'm even quite sympathetic of theism to the degree it puts forward a coherent opposition to Scientism and hardline reductionism.

Religious philosophers were the early leaders in the revival of Peircean scholarship for example. It is quite possible for theists to be reasonable people.

You said they were similar to Plato's realm of ideas - are they "less real" than the concrete stuff we experience everyday? — darthbarracuda

One can only face palm at a comment like this. Does this everyday concrete stuff exist, or is it simply how we construct our experience of it?

I thought you didn't like the binary between substance and process. — darthbarracuda

What do you mean? I'm saying substantial being is a process. And that is opposed to the view that substance has fundamental existence rather than pragmatic persistence.

Right, I agree. There are no such things as enduring objects — darthbarracuda

Great.

Strictly speaking if nominalism were correct, there could be no discourse, as each instance of an utterance would have a different meaning - which, come to think of it, is something you might say, isn't it? — Wayfarer

Yes, I'd agree with "there are no two logically identical instances of meaning."

Obviously, on my view, logically identical, multiple instances of meaning are not what's going on with communication.

One can only face palm at a comment like this. Does this everyday concrete stuff exist, or is it simply how we construct our experience of it? — apokrisis

Umm, okay? I'm asking what the difference in "real-ness" you see to be between something like an asteroid and "symmetry" of "something" like vagueness of whatever.

If something exists, and if this something can be known to us, then it must be able to be predicated upon. The predicates latch on to properties, or at least describe a collection of simpler properties.

What do you mean? I'm saying substantial being is a process. And that is opposed to the view that substance has fundamental existence rather than pragmatic persistence. — apokrisis

Well cause I remember sometime in the past you thought people like Whitehead were too extreme in their metaphysics and that there had to be a middle ground between process and substance.

Great. — apokrisis

Fantastic.

The larger point is that religious thinking about science has a tendency to latch on to the uncertainties necessarily latent at the bleeding edge of science, rather than at any point where the scientific work is well established. In every case it's just low hanging, God-of-the-gaps bullshit, a kind of desperation to slot God in to any (rapidly diminishing) space available. A theology with a bit of dignity ought to probably find the divine at work in everything, but then again, the theological engagement with the sciences gave up it's dignity long ago. — StreetlightX

I mean, I don't necessarily disagree with this, but I would also say that scientists can also be blamed for making wild assertions based upon the very latest theories and not the history of theorizing and paradigm shifting. This is one of the reasons why I generally take appeals to contemporary science, like neuroscience or cosmology, with a grain of salt, because the theories are likely going to change in the future and that by itself gives very little, if any, solid foundation for a metaphysical claim.

Anyone who tries to 'prove God doesn't exist' has already conceded too much to theology - has taken God to be in any way a legitimate problem at all. — StreetlightX

I agree, this is also why I hesitate to call myself an atheist. Atheism is too strong of a position to hold.

Not God's 'existence' but his relevance ought to be perpetually put into question - which is why I much prefer 'naturalism' to 'atheism', insofar as the latter is still too oppositionally defined by a relation to the divine. I would prefer simply not to care about the very idea of God, let alone to argue 'against' it. — StreetlightX

Yeah, apatheism has been sort of my mode of operation for a while. Although I'm getting interested in it all as of late. A personal argument I have against theology though is sort of anti-theistic in nature: that there is suffering in the world, if God exists he should be condemned for not preventing this from happening, and because of this God does not deserve to be studied.

What seems obvious to anyone all depends on how that one thinks about phenomenological observation. It's always going to come down to the question of whether you prefer one set of presuppositions or another.

If something exists, and if this something can be known to us, then it must be able to be predicated upon. The predicates latch on to properties, or at least describe a collection of simpler properties. — darthbarracuda

I'm not getting your difficulty. Once things start to get stabilised, they become the platform for further development. Its hierarchy theory 101.

So after the Big Bang, the bath of radiation cools enough and massive, slower than light, particles emerge. A lucky asymmetry means that nearly all of the negative anti-protons have gone, likewise nearll all of the positive anti-electrons. That lets you have some persistent basic ingredients - oppositely charged electrons and protons. From there, you can get stellar physics and planetary chemisty.

So the emergence of complex materiality - stuff with properties - is no big deal at all. What is a big deal is getting behind that to the story of how anything could emerge to start the story in the first place.

Well cause I remember sometime in the past you thought people like Whitehead were too extreme in their metaphysics and that there had to be a middle ground between process and substance. — darthbarracuda

People call Whitehead a process philosopher. I don't. I am arguing pansemiotics, not panpsychism.

And you don't need a middle ground between substance and process as the argument is that substantial being is a process.

Being a triadic or hierarchical metaphysics, the middle ground is what you get automatically. When constraints interact with freedoms, something arises as the persistent equilibrium balance of that action. And we call that "something" things like substantial being, particularity, or actuality.

Well it all depends on how you think about phenomenological observation. It's always going to come down to the question of whether you prefer one set of presuppositions or another. — John

Yeah. And I have reasons to prefer one set of presuppositions. They are the ones that happen to be demonstrably better at making phenomenological predictions.

Any presupposition that consists in thinking that the instrumental or predictive efficacy of some hypothesis justifies it's being preferred in contexts that go beyond that instrumentality or predictive efficacy cannot itself be supported by the mere fact of said efficacies because that would be to reason in a self-enclosed circle; in other words, it remains question-begging.

Remind me of some actual question that is in fact being begged.

You might not like the answers that physicalism gives when used as a framework to analyse beauty, good and truth, for example. But that's another matter.

And again, those physicalist universals can tested because they are mathematical-strength concepts. They are not vague ideas that are "not even wrong".

So you complain about the self-contained strength of my approach. Yet that is why it is epistemically better. It does make an argument that actually could be wrong when we test it against reality.