It's a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff. — Banno

You’ll have to be more specific than that if you want to dismiss it. Talk about wibbly wobbly...

Quite the opposite. The less said about stuff that can't be said, the better.

That has nothing to do with the role our identity plays, though. It belongs to us, regardless of a block universe. — neonspectraltoast

Existence precedes essence. Your identity is the sum of your choices. It's exactly about identity.

I understand that the universe is finite, but that the process which encapsulates it is eternal. When regressed to a point prior to the creation of space, I'm not so sure that there is not still movement within this primordial thing, i.e. time within the primordial as opposed to macrocosmic time which is the time that is observed external to us as change.

Maybe this is similar to this other dimension, or potentiality you are referring. — CorneliusCoburn

This is a common error when conceptualising dimensional shift: most sci-fi descriptions of four-dimensional shift assume an alternative space to the space that exists for us as physical reality.

It’s not an easy thing to conceptualise. Consider the dimensional shift from one to two dimensions: each point on the original line relates to each point on an additional plane as both a point and a line. From two to three dimensions, each point within the original shape relates to each point on an additional plane as a point, a line and a shape of its own. But that’s just mathematical space.

In reality, particles are positioned in relation to each other according to energy, direction, space, time, value and meaning, but the information each atom, molecule, object, event, organism or subject may have relative to each other is limited, and the variables are much more diverse.

I'm still trying to think about the idea of explanations of explanations, but am not getting very far. In the meantime:

Perhaps quantum fields are another book keeping trick.

I will be honest, I am tempted by a purely instrumentalist view of scientific theory. When conservation principles and their "parents" like the Noether theorem and the principle of least action start being taken as descriptions of reality and not just tools to model it and predict its evolution, questions like "what are these possible paths that Langragians integrate over?" seem to make sense, but then language goes on holiday and suddently I end up very, very confused.

By the way, that black cat ... do you think it's the one Schrodinger lost?

I never made a choice that imbued me with an identity. I just simply could realize that I was me. And something about the identity is immutable, regardless any choices I make.

Even if all of my choices are predetermined, they're still the choices I would make...the choices I did make. I know I, that is me, my identity, am playing an active roll. The future may be predetermined, but it is that way partially due to choices I am making.

If every explanation required an explanation then we would get caught up in an infinite regression of explanations.

I would be hoping more for a virutous circle than an infinite regress :wink: Some people read Spinoza as using the principle of sufficient reason to justify the principle of sufficient reason, but the use to which it is put in doing so is different from the use it is put to when applied in some specific realm of knowledge.

There are circumstances where it does make sense to ask "why is this explanation the right one rather than that one?". There, perhaps, we would have to furnish an explanation for the explanation. However, the kind of examples I have in mind are quite specific, e.g. if we had competing explanations for a rise in crime in a certain city. But I'm way from convinced that it would make sense to ask of every explanation why it was the explanation.

Wittgenstein had a nice example, I cannot remember where it is, perhaps the Philosophical Investigations, perhaps elsewhere. Imagine a leaf falling from a tall tree, gently tacking from side to side. Now personify that leaf as saying to itself "Now I'll go this way, now I'll go that way, now I'll go this way, now I'll go that way....". Our lives are of course more complicated than a leaf's, but does that make the situation regarding our choices any different from the leaf's?.

Well, I'm not sure exactly how foolproof it would be in every single particular circumstance, but I would believe that the best explanations are formulated via the sciences, extrapolation, and formation of analogies.

Generally speaking, of course there are always other factors as well.

If a leaf had an identity it would effect it's choices and would impact where it ended up. What causes identity, though? How do I come to know that I'm "me?"

Examples of sense:
"What causes measles?"
"What caused the Second World War?"
"What caused the dinosaurs to die out?"
"What caused the lights to go out?"

Examples of nonsense
"What causes sugar?"
"What causes table tennis?"
"What causes logic?"
"What causes identity?"

Edit: With apologies to Austin.

So anything you can't explain is simply nonsense that doesn't matter. That's real productive. Have fun stagnating.

"As Long as I can explain it, I can sound smart! AnD tHaT's All tHaT mATtERs."

There are many things I cannot explain that are not nonsense and which do matter: why the Covid virus seems to have more of an impact on people with type 2 diabetes ,for just one example, the list is endless. The point I am trying to make is that you are not even being close to clear on what it is you think needs explaining.

Never mind. *eyes roll forever*

. . . questions like "what are these possible paths that Langragians integrate over?" seem to make sense — jkg20

Amazing how cancellation reduces an infinite set to a finite one. I still puzzle over the measure employed in those functional integrals. :nerd:

I never made a choice that imbued me with an identity. — neonspectraltoast

Like, for instance, your identity as a poster on this forum...

No one reads Sartre any more.

By the way, that black cat ... do you think it's the one Schrodinger lost? — jkg20

:rofl: Maybe, maybe not.

I'm still trying to think about the idea of explanations of explanations, but am not getting very far. — jkg20

Explanations are ladders...

Is there a ladder that allows us to kick away the ladder?

Or is it ladders all the way down?

Are the possible paths that Langragians integrate over like what causes measles or what causes sugar?

You're really this obtuse, aren't you.

You do seem to have a rather well developed notion of identity, a one which does not meld well with the notions others hold. It's a bit hard to follow.

Sartre held that who one was, was a result of the choices one made; hence, one exists before one has an identity - existence precedes essence. You seem to hold to something quite different. But what, well, that remains obscure.

I think I reflect on my choices, and it makes me behave differently, but the main thing is there is an unalterable I this is all filtered through. I could be a different man and handle adversity completely differently.

I don't understand people who think their identity is in flux. I am entwined with 7 year-old me as much as I am 39 year-old me. The identity that controls who I am becoming hasn't changed.

Maybe others just aren't as comfortable with this as I am. Maybe they want a different identity, to excuse the mistakes and shortcomings. I'm fundamentally the same person I've always been, though. I remember exactly what it was like to see through my eyes as a child. And my conscience has always been the same.

Wittgenstein had a nice example, I cannot remember where it is, perhaps the Philosophical Investigations, perhaps elsewhere. Imagine a leaf falling from a tall tree, gently tacking from side to side. Now personify that leaf as saying to itself "Now I'll go this way, now I'll go that way, now I'll go this way, now I'll go that way....". Our lives are of course more complicated than a leaf's, but does that make the situation regarding our choices any different from the leaf's?. — jkg20

The difference is in awareness of why I go this way or that. I can be aware not just of alternative directions (as a personified leaf), but also aware of, connected to and collaborating with potential causal conditions that would determine and initiate a change of direction. All this, without even being consciously aware of choice as such, makes our situation different from the leaf’s.

I don't understand people who think their identity is in flux. I am entwined with 7 year-old me as much as I am 39 year-old me. The identity that controls who I am becoming hasn't changed.

At least superficially there is a distinction to make between two questions: 1 What kind of person am I? 2 What makes the person I am now one and the same person I was yesterday, last year......? Both have some claim to be called a question about personal identity. However, in 2 the notion of identity in question is primarily numerical in nature. Question 1 is wrapped up with moral and social concerns, and perhaps only makes sense in conjunction with its companion question "What kind of life ought I to lead?" Question 2 was a popular topic for analytic philosophers about half a decade ago. Some of them believed that answers to it should also have consequences for how we ought to act, and so consequently how we ought to be able to respond to 1. Some of them just looked at it as a purely metaphysical issue with no consequences one way or another for ethics. If you want to understand an opinion that might differ from yours, particularly concerning 2, try reading "Personal Identity" by Derek Parfit, you can download it online for free I am sure. For something subtler, try some of the articles by Bernard Williams in Problems of the Self.

Yes, I already allowed for our lives being more complex than a leaf's. Perhaps I am misinterpreting Wittgenstein, but I presumed his example is there to focus our thoughts on whether the following kind of statement expresses anything more than a commonplace:

The future may be predetermined, but it is that way partially due to choices I am making.

Yes, I already allowed for our lives being more complex than a leaf's. Perhaps I am misinterpreting Wittgenstein, but I presumed his example is there to focus our thoughts on whether the following kind of statement expresses anything more than a commonplace:
The future may be predetermined, but it is that way partially due to choices I am making. — jkg20

Wittgenstein, as far as I understand it, saw the difference as more about temperament than facts. Even if we could ‘know’ all of the causal conditions which determine the direction we would take, the question of determinism/free will remains a ‘psychological’ rather than metaphysical one.

Personally, I think his attempt to isolate rational/logical thought from qualitative affect/temperament is misdirected, but he’s far from the only philosopher to do this. I agree that there is no way to prove or disprove free will from objective facts, but I think the uncertainty of both external perception and introspection are on par here as potential information. Together in completion (hypothetically), this information could enable us to structure potentiality such that we not only know all the causal conditions which determine the direction we could take, but also know the internal and external conditions under which we would initiate movement in one direction or the other. Inasmuch as we are aware of, connected to and collaborating with this potential information (both internal and external), our will is free - potentially, of course.

You are elegant and intelligent in you're response and logic . Yet you still fall into the trap of believing that if you can not see it , it can not be .
Once wo thought the world was flat , because we could not see it , we were the centre of our solar system , because we could not see further , that we were the centre of the Galaxy , even the universe . But we show our arrogance again when we think the Universe is the centre of all things . As we do now . We do not know everything , therefore I am not going to assume that because I can not see it , it does not exist . So , there can not be something from nothing just because we do not understand it . The Big Bang theory is another example , we do not know how or why , so must of been from nothing .

No definitely it comes from something...

Something, where there is nothing or more something and this is logic.

Perhaps nothing came later.

Joke: a voice takes over nothing, the space claims 'I am here'.

Potential is around.

You may as well think whatever caused the first act was something simple, because of potential simplicity of that action, if not just occuring naturally.

Thus begins somewhat of an inquiry as to what exactly is meant by nothingness, and the nature thereof. — CorneliusCoburn

Nothingness as the absence of all things is impossible (logically inconsistent) because if there were nothing then there would be the fact (state of affairs) that there is nothing and this fact would be something.

So there is necessarily something. What is it? For now, let's just call it entity X1. Now we can ask ourselves: Would it be possible that there is nothing in addition to entity X1? The answer is that it would not be possible, because if there were nothing in addition to entity X1 then there would be the fact that there is nothing in addition to entity X1, and this fact would be something in addition to entity X1. So there is necessarily another entity, X2.

Now we can ask ourselves: Would it be possible that there is nothing in addition to entities X1 and X2? The answer is, again, that it would not be possible, because if there were nothing in addition to entities X1 and X2 then there would be the fact that there is nothing in addition to entities X1 and X2, and this fact would be something in addition to entities X1 and X2. So there is necessarily another entity, X3.

In principle, you could go on like this until you have enumerated all possible (logically consistent) entities and concluded that they all necessarily exist. Then there would be no additional fact that there is nothing in addition to all possible entities, because this fact would already be included among the possible (and necessary) entities you have enumerated.