Many aspects of the universe are orderly. We invented math to model these features. Why does this orderliness exist? Good question. :chin:

I don't feel like it is a good question to ask why the universe is orderly to our eyes and perceptions. That's like asking why you have two eyes instead of one. It's too big a philoosophical question to even have meaning. The world is mathematical in the sense that if I put two knives in someone, it is certainly true that there are two knives in him instead one. No denying that. But that may be practical knowlege. Think of Yablo's paradox. Does the series descend or really ascend although you are seeing the series backwards? Truth, theoretical truth that is, may be out there somewhere. It may not be here. It might to close, closer than you are to yourself, or far far away in another galaxy. You can always play the game "no truth? Then that's true! !" . The affirmations and denials go to infinity. That is true. But what IS a mega-truth? ". That is a more interesting question for me.

Modern physics is an attempt to combine theoretical and practical truth in a unity by the use of "creative imagination" to use Napolean Hill's term

Many aspects of the universe are orderly. We invented math to model these features. Why does this orderliness exist? — jgill

Is it really so orderly after all? There is new evidence that the so-called laws of physics aren't even constant throughout the universe. You're part of the old school, which is just now beginning to get bumped out. More critical scientists are emerging who aren't afraid to ask the question, what if symmetry isn't part of the equation, what if we are discovering chaos? Now this terrifies idealist thinkers, this is why they begin with the projection of idealism. (I should go gently here, not my strong suit, because reality is pretty damn scary when you remove all the idealist assumptions -- that is, when one has been programmed to derive their sense of safety and well-being from them). Nevertheless, the discovery of disorder and chaos doesn't actually change anything except for our beliefs. We can still use our intelligence to make a world that is valuable to life.

Hegel's position on being, as you seem to use the term, is that it is not only inconsequential, but dangerous insofar as it serves to distort essence: "For here we are not concerned with the object in its immediate form, but want to know it as mediated. And our usual view of the task or purpose of philosophy is that it consists in the cognition of the essence of things. By this we understand no more than that things are not to be left in their immediate state, but are rather to be exhibited as mediated or grounded by something else. The immediate being of things is here represented as a sort of rind or curtain behind which the essence is concealed. Now, when we say further that all things have an essence, what we mean is that they are not truly what they immediately show themselves to be. A mere rushing about from one quality to another, and a mere advance from the qualitative to the quantitative and back again, is not the last word; on the contrary, there is something that abides in things, and this is, in the first instance, their essence." — JerseyFlight

This passage demonstrates how this so-called distortion of essence is a feature of Hegel's misunderstanding of the Aristotelian concept, "essence" and nothing else. As I explained to you already, Aristotle defined two senses of "form". The one is the human abstraction, and this is how we come to know the essence of things. The other is the form of the material thing itself. Each material thing is a particular, an individual with a form proper to itself. This form is distinct from the essence of the thing, which is the form which human beings know in abstraction, because it consists of accidentals, whereas the essence does not. Do you apprehend that difference? The essence does not contain the accidentals which inhere within the form of the material object. Both are "forms", yet "forms" in two distinct senses of the word.

So the following statement reveals Hegel's misunderstanding "The immediate being of things is here represented as a sort of rind or curtain behind which the essence is concealed...there is something that abides in things, and this is, in the first instance, their essence." The essence of a thing is not concealed at all, nor does it abide in the thing, it is the form which exists within the human abstraction, what the human mind apprehends and determines as the essential properties of the thing. What is concealed is the independent "form" of the thing, complete with the accidentals which the human being does not necessarily perceive. And this independent form constitutes the identity of the thing. That this is the proper interpretation is evident from the writings of Thomas Aquinas, who did much work expounding on the difference between the forms of human abstraction (essences), and the independent "Forms".

Hegel, with this use of "essence" puts us right back into the confusion of Plato's Timaeus. "Form" as "essence", is a universal. The problem which confronted Plato was the question of how a particular could come into existence from a universal form. He thought it necessary to assume this, because things, like human beings for instance, come into existence as a determinate type. So the human form, as a universal, must be prior to the particular, the individual human being. He was stumped because the medium between the universal and the particular was seen as matter, but the universal form could not account for the existence of the particulars of the material individual. Aristotle got beyond this problem by assigning all such universal forms (essences) as the product of human abstraction, therefore posterior to the things themselves, while also positing a new type of form, the form of the individual. which substantiates a thing's "identity". Hegel, in not upholding this distinction confuses identity with essence.

You are free to pretend that Aristotelian logic deals with actual being, but it does not, it deals with abstract being, with dead images. Dialectic is thought suited to essence, Aristotle's axioms are principles suited to the creation of abstract categories, not the comprehension of reality. — JerseyFlight

That's right, formal logic deals with essences, not with actual things. But dialectics is not formal logic. How do you suppose that a person might create useful abstract categories without an appropriate understanding of reality? Creation of suitable abstract categories can only follow from a comprehension of reality.

The object's identity and the object's real identity? Then what is the non-real-identity of the object that you are maintaining against the object's real identity? How is this not an exercise in abstraction? It proves that what you are talking about is nothing more than an idea, a stale and lifeless category. — JerseyFlight

Right, there is a distinction to be upheld, between the form of the thing, within the human mind, the abstraction, and the form of the thing in reality. The "non-real identity" is the identity given to the thing by the human mind, the abstraction, the essence. It is "non-real", because it is lacking in the accidentals which are a part of the identity of the individual thing.

My position is not that the abstraction is not the object, but that it distorts our comprehension of the object, the actual being of being is its movement not its fragment. I am saying exactly what Hegel says, take your categories from the phenomena, do not impose them on the phenomena. — JerseyFlight

This is not what Hegel says. The "movement" you refer to here is called by Hegel "becoming". It is not called "the actual being" in Hegel's dialectics. That is the point I'm trying to impress on you, "Being" is subsumed within the category of becoming, "movement". That's how Hegel can argue against Aristotle's concept of identity. There is no such thing as beings in the real, actual world, only becoming, because Hegel has done away with any independent Forms. All forms are dependent on the human mind, as essences, and there is no true form or being concealed behind how the thing appears to us, only movement, becoming. A thing only has being through human apprehension. Other than this it is just a becoming.

Thus the principle of identity reads: "Everything is identical with itself, A = A'; and negatively: "A cannot be both A and non-A at the same time." -Instead of being a true law of thinking, this principle is nothing but the law of the abstract understanding. — JerseyFlight

See, this is Hegel's misrepresentation, a straw man. The law of identity says that a thing has an identity unto itself. It says nothing about abstract understanding. It is a law against the abuse of abstraction reasoning. It says nothing about what abstract understanding is, or how it ought proceed, only what it is not, i.e. a thing's identity. It was created by Aristotle as a tool against sophists who claimed that the human abstraction (essence) of a thing is the thing's identity. This sophistic claim denies the possibility of human mistake as to identity. That is why we must uphold a distinction between a thing's true identity, its own particular and unique form, and the identity which we assign to it in abstraction (essence). Without this distinction there can be no such thing as human knowledge being mistaken, because what we say about the thing is what is true about it.

You should clarify that by "idealist" you mean A\T (Aristotle and Aquinas) and not Hegel's objective idealism. Hegel thought they had a false idealism, as did Descartes

I would have loved to ask Hume to pick up a chair and deny to my face that he feels the causality. He was right though that I cant prove the wind causes the chair to rip over. And without causality, what happens to physics as a whole?

1) you only assert all this. You have no evidence

2) there is no way to know Hegel was wrong to say something can be both itself and it's opposite

3) a thing exists, it does not "have evistence". Descartes was right about that, Aquinas wrong

4) are you aware there are humans who are essentially half woman and half man? The adult industry pays money for these individuals. People who are more one gender or who are changing there gender is what people usually know about. But not to know that a human can be 50\50 man and woman is just ignorance.

5) A\T leads you to praying to a God who will never answer your prays

Are there any mathematical models for emotions like anger, sadness,happiness or disgust?

Descartes kinda tried in The Passions of the Mind but it's all too subjective

There is new evidence that the so-called laws of physics aren't even constant throughout the universe. You're part of the old school, which is just now beginning to get bumped out. — JerseyFlight

The possibility that certain constants in those laws might vary a bit in space and time does not mean physical principles are endangered. There remains quite a bit of orderliness in nature.

. . . what if symmetry isn't part of the equation, what if we are discovering chaos? — JerseyFlight

We must stay calm. :gasp:

-Instead of being a true law of thinking, this principle is nothing but the law of the abstract understanding. — JerseyFlight

Let's say that the law of identity is an ideal. As such, it is proposed as a limitation, or rule for abstraction. As a proposal, or proposition, it might be judged for truth or falsity and rejected or accepted accordingly. What I am arguing is that Hegel's rejection is unjustified, being based in a faulty dialectic, consisting of a misunderstanding of the Aristotelian conceptions of "form" and "essence", evidenced by Jersey Flight's quotes.

Furthermore, if we reject the law of identity there are consequences which need to be respected. Initially, the assumption that there are particular, determinate individuals, beings or objects, in the real, or actual world, is unsubstantiated, unsupported and unjustified. So it makes no sense, as hypocrisy or self-contradiction, to both deny the law of identity and also talk about "actual being". Without the law of identity, or an adequate replacement, the claim of "actual being" is completely invalid.

1) you only assert all this. You have no evidence — Gregory

The evidence is right there in JF's quotes from Hegel. When compared with a thorough understanding of Aristotle, like that displayed by Aquinas, Hegel's faulty representation of Aristotelian concepts is clearly evident.

3) a thing exists, it does not "have evistence". Descartes was right about that, Aquinas wrong — Gregory

How does " a thing exists" mean any thing different from what "a thing has existence" means? Are you saying that "existence" means something other than what it means to exist. What could that difference possibly be?

The propositional form itself already contradicts it, since a proposition promises a distinction between subject and predicate as well as identity; and the identity-proposition does not furnish what its form demands. — JerseyFlight

This is another example of Hegel's misrepresentation of Aristotelian principles. A thing, for Aristotle consists of both matter and form. A thing's identity is form alone. Therefore we have the required distinction between subject (the thing as matter and form), and what is predicated of the thing, identity (its form). It is this separation of a thing's true, real form ("identity" rather than human abstraction), from the material thing, which allows Christian theologians to conceive of immaterial Forms, which are prior to, and necessary for, as the cause of existence, of material things. Aristotelian principles disallow matter without form, but not form without matter.

That's right, formal logic deals with essences, not with actual things. But dialectics is not formal logic. — Metaphysician Undercover

Indeed, simple enough! :up:

BTW, MU, are you a mathematical realist or anti-realist?

Is it really so orderly after all? There is new evidence that the so-called laws of physics aren't even constant throughout the universe. You're part of the old school, which is just now beginning to get bumped out. More critical scientists are emerging who aren't afraid to ask the question, what if symmetry isn't part of the equation, what if we are discovering chaos? Now this terrifies idealist thinkers, this is why they begin with the projection of idealism. (I should go gently here, not my strong suit, because reality is pretty damn scary when you remove all the idealist assumptions -- that is, when one has been programmed to derive their sense of safety and well-being from them). Nevertheless, the discovery of disorder and chaos doesn't actually change anything except for our beliefs. We can still use our intelligence to make a world that is valuable to life. — JerseyFlight

Are you sure? Complete chaos precludes contingent order. I thought the closest thing you get to chaos is random fluctuations in QM and indeterminacy in nature (deterministic chaos)?

How to interpret Aristotle is highly contentious. You indoctrinated yourself into a Thomistic take on this, which says existence is a thing added to form. But form must exist to have existence added to it. Again, things exist, they don't "have" existence as a property. This was Descartes great realization about Aquinas. Hegel's interpretation of Aristotle is legit. After all Aristotle though God only the final cause. Aquinas thought it obvious that God creates, to the contrary. Aristotle has a more modern take on this.

Neither Hegel nor Aquinas can prove their position. For Hegel, we start with nominalism and sense certainty. The practical. Then we move philosophically into the realization of Becoming. A thing is both itself and it's opposite. Not transformed yet into a third thing, like grey from white and black. But a grey contradiction nontheless. Things are both themselves and something else, however this doesn't mean there is no rest in truth at the end for Hegel. The organic and his discussions of it point to another space, the realm of Absolute truth. Contradiction starts the movement but does not define the destination. Consider the use of the Universal in the dialect

You have offered up tough-minded and reasoned replies. I have nothing but respect for this. It leaves me with much to consider. I will indeed reply, as soon as I can get to it. We are here having a serious conversation, this is not just forum banter, so it requires more effort in thinking, at least on my part.

I took the liberty of moving this exchange to a new thread.

If the mechanical model of the universe, and of mind, is not quite as valid as we tend to presume it to be, then how would this manifest itself in our perceptions and thoughts? If even in some infinitesimal degree there is something left out of our deliberations that in some way comes back to haunt us, the continuity of our convictions would undergo changes, suffer reservations, that might build up subterranean to the explicit terms of our views, thoughts, and perceptions, that might ultimately alter all terms prior to them. If we continue to insist upon certain mechanical or mathematical models, then those transformations of terms would nonetheless infect, and perhaps perfect, the original flaws of our convictions. And if we have any influence on each other at all, that growing transformation of terms actually cuts across the isolation otherwise enforced by the conviction that number rules. In this way emotions, if even relegated to, or especially if most rigorously relegate to, the most infinitesimal term, actually rule the count. This does not mean that emotions are more real or more informative, but it does mean that the inadequacies of our systems of judgment come with an inescapable supply of prodding alterations of mood that manifest that inadequacy, and reveal the character of our discipline in thought and discourse.

In this way emotions, if even relegated to, or especially if most rigorously relegate to, the most infinitesimal term, actually rule the count. — Gary M Washburn

In my opinion this is basically the secret to the world of man as well as man himself.

BTW, MU, are you a mathematical realist or anti-realist? — 3017amen

If I had to take a label, I'd say anti.

How to interpret Aristotle is highly contentious. You indoctrinated yourself into a Thomistic take on this, which says existence is a thing added to form. But form must exist to have existence added to it. — Gregory

Aquinas offers the most thorough, and rigorous interpretation of Aristotle available, so such an "indoctrination" is a very good step toward understanding Aristotle.

It was Aristotle himself, in his metaphysics, who demonstrated that the form of a thing is necessarily prior to the material existence of that thing. Of course we would say that such an immaterial form would have "existence. This is why Neo-Platonists, and Christian theologian claim the existence of immaterial Forms. I don't see what you're trying to get at.

JF,
Thanks for that. Care to have it developed?

No, Aquinas is one out of thousands of interpreters of Aristotle. Aquinas was a genius only of coming out with thousands of faulty arguments. Those under his spell failed the test of being impartial.

Also, Aquinas said existence is added to form and prime matter to actualize it. But they must be actualized to be actualized. Therefore Aquinas was wrong

See, that's how an argument goes. Aristotle and Aquinas proved nothing about "forms" and what not. Aquinas gives up arguing there and talks dogmatically, as if his mind is the only mind there is

I encourage people to read Aquinas vs Hegel. But neither really proves anything

Aquinas was a genius only of coming out with thousands of faulty arguments. — Gregory

A genius at faulty arguments. :lol: So accurate. Idealism will do that to a person.

Then we move philosophically into the realization of Becoming. A thing is both itself and it's opposite. Not transformed yet into a third thing, like grey from white and black. But a grey contradiction nontheless. Things are both themselves and something else, however this doesn't mean there is no rest in truth at the end for Hegel. The organic and his discussions of it point to another space, the realm of Absolute truth. Contradiction starts the movement but does not define the destination. Consider the use of the Universal in the dialect — Gregory

I’m liking your exposition. Frankly I find it difficult to draw a sharp line between any of these positions as they all seem to be generally right, but then also then generally wrong in the same way too. Peirce and modern systems science fix the problems in hylomorphism for me.

So the gist that I say is right is the idea that substantial being - actuality - can be understood as a dialectic of “form” and “prime matter”.

But form is not some kind of existent - a Platonic object or schema. It is best understood as a constraint or limitation on being. So it is contextual. It specifies a state of being by reducing uncertainty. A cat is a cat to the degree it’s form is feline and not canine, bovine, piscine, etc.

Form is thus a hierarchy of increasing specification. A top-down exercise in constraint in which Nature moves closer and closer to some mark - some equilibrium state. The Cosmos has its general physical laws. They restrict free action in a way that - through the laws of thermodynamics - results in chemistry. Chemistry then provides a context that restricts free action in a way that biology can arise. Biology produces animals in general and then animals in particular. Evolutionary competition is a contextual constraint that results in increasingly specified variety. There are Indian elephants and African elephants.

So Nature is not starting with ideals. An African elephant didn’t have to exist because that form was part of some Platonic library as a finality. An idea in a divine mind. Nature is instead layers of constraint that themselves result in greater and greater local specificity - to the degree the world can undergo levels of symmetry breaking in which, dialectically, there is a clear division of paths. A fork or a switch such as left elephants isolated in two different breeding populations and now free to be evolutionarily constrained in some way more highly specified by the information of a local environment.

In the same way, the material part of the hylomorphic equation is understood as the opposite of constraint or context.

I have just describe form as an evolving weight of increasingly specific history that impinges on some locale. The context starts of with cosmological generality and develops a local structure. Cats are cats due to a history of evolutionary events that were responses to environmental demands.

Prime matter is then the opposite to formal cause in being understood as constructive accidents. Simple fluctuations that are actions without specific direction. A chaotic ferment of possibilities. What Peirce described as Firstness or Tychism.

So the material aspect of being is understood as the least formed notion of an efficient cause. A random event. A mere accident. But coupled to form, that raw materiality starts to be shaped into some direction. It is incorporated into a constructive flow.

Water falls on a plain in scattered random fashion. The trickles merge into flows. A snaking river forms. It then reaches the sea and breaks up into the fractal branches of a swampy delta. The whole thing is a story of local accidents being shaped by global physical laws. Every drop of water is having to respond to the constraints of the least action principle in terms of finding its most efficient drainage path from the uplands to the ocean. And a variety of actual drainage patterns emerge, like the form that is the snaking river or the fractal fan of the river delta.

This is a sketch of how Nature actually works in hylomorphic terms. So what does that say about the law of identity? Or being vs becoming?

Well it says actuality is this combination of constraints and accidents. A constraint puts a limit on accidents. But it doesn’t eliminate them. In only imposes a dialectical imperative in the sense that it divides being according to the differences that make a difference and the differences that don’t.

So all is difference when it comes to any substantial thing. Every physical object is composed of some collection of particles or degrees of freedom. We can count its information/entropy. Substance is always some bound collection of material accidents.

But the constraints are essential permissive. They constrain what they constrain, and beyond that, all is left free - by dialectical definition.

A cat is a cat if it sufficiently conforms to some general contextual definition. It could be a black cat or a cartoon cat. A cat in a story or a real cat just over there. Definitions are globally tight but locally open. A cat is a cat to the degree it isn’t a horse or an alligator. Or more narrowly, to the degree it isn’t a civet or a leopard. And so on. A black cat is a black cat to the degree we can ignore the tuft of white on its throat as a difference not making a difference, at least when stacked up against the big difference in it not being a white or grey cat.

So the law of identity can only logically claim that A = A to the degree that there is no difference that makes a difference. And yet logically, there will be always differences. Especially as we dig down towards the material ground of that instantiated being where the hierarchy of constraint is becoming attenuated.

Peirce realised this meant that logic has to include vagueness as a category to balance the idea of existence as having counterfactual definiteness. The principle of non contradiction can fail to apply when material differences become a matter of indifference. So identity and contradiction are emergent properties of Nature. They are relative.

The laws of thought were framed for a world presumed to be fully actualised - crisply formed in every detail. Bivalence rules all things.

But Peirce built a new picture based on a hylomorphism, a dialectic, of constraints and freedoms. Everything is formed only to the degree that it needs to be crisply or sharply identified as some actuality. But that very act of formation - of the informing of Nature - already includes the “other” of Nature’s indifference. What isn’t forbidden is free to happen. And must happen, indeed.

Some actual entity or structure is thus an equilibrium balance. It is a collection of differences that is specified to whatever degree pragmatically fits the context. The differences that matter are in balance with the differences that don’t. The thing in question has stable being to the degree its flow of becoming is not making a substantial seeming difference.

Rivers wriggle about the landscape the whole time. Even the continents flow over geological time due to plate tectonics. Things are building up and breaking down due to multitudes of accidents, but also they are expressing physical laws like the principle of least action.

As Peirce says, it becomes vague when a river becomes some different river, a continent some other land mass. Identity is sort of maintained and was also always sort of an illusion. Nature - at a physicochemical level - just has a looser actuality. A lower grade of substantiality in terms of being mechanically divided into A and not-A.

Interesting.

Many philosophers in Germany, England, and the USA were Hegelian at the beginning of the 20th century. I'm thinking Peirce had read some Hegel? Certainly he brought his own ideas to the tradition

Totally fascinating reply, an excellent synopsis and outline of Peirce's thinking. Thank you for taking the time to articulate.

Ditto

Hegel loved mysticism as a youth and often saw objects as Platonic Forms in the flesh. Since experience was logic which in turn was metaphysics for him, Hegel thought Universals played a role in the dialectical movement he recounted for us. There is room for the indeterminate (vague) and the clear. Yet every truth along the path is only partially right. It's almost a game of statistics to read Hegel and understand what is more true than, say, another passage of his. But this organism of a universe evolves into Absolute truth that cannot be spoken for now because it is the Ultimate Idea.

We learn to think dialectically thru the Spirit (the Ultimate Idea in the form of the Holy Ghost) and through the Notion (which is the Logos of the Idea, it's word to be more precise).

There is no consciousness higher than ours for Hegel. No father divine in the sky. We are all of reality he wrote

I’m liking your exposition. Frankly I find it difficult to draw a sharp line between any of these positions as they all seem to be generally right, but then also then generally wrong in the same way to. — apokrisis

Hegel did not negate Aristotle, he merely showed his thinking was 1) a violation of itself and 2) incomplete. That ought to be enough to compel you in the direction of Hegel, because it's basically what your are here saying.

When you say, "Nature is not starting with ideas," which I believe should be common sense, but alas, what has idealism done to man? This is quite important because, I would think, based on your thinking, this must constitute an exceedingly high place in any epistemological hierarchy? If this is true it inevitably takes us in the direction of Marx. Marx was the ultimate anti-idealist, this is what makes his philosophical thought so powerful.

I'm thinking Peirce had read some Hegel? — Gregory

He was certainly reacting to Hegel and read him in depth. But in his own words, he ends up more aligned to Schelling and Duns Scotus.

So he spends a lot of time criticising Hegel ... while sounding quite Hegelian.