I think Thomas Nagel's Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion is germane in the context. — Wayfarer

I still don't buy Nagel's argument and never have. I've been a nonbeliever since I was 15, came out of the closet, against the real and ever-present terror to not conforming, in my strict Catholic high school religion class junior year, and during class, not from "fear of religion" but from, if anything like fear, my fear of being gullible and ignorant. Nagel talks out of his bunghole in this essay (and quite a few others). As George Carlin points out in that video link, the Bible in particular and "sacred scriptures" in general traffic mostly in the most outrageous bullshit (Harry Frankfurt), or in other words, 'utterances made without any regard for corroborable differences between true and untrue statements'.

I'm not an nonbeliever because I've been duped by "evolutionary naturalism"; it's the other way around: I'm a Naturalist (re: explanations – Physicalist re: processes (e.g. "mind") & Materialist re: events, things, relations, voids) because I'm a nonbeliever who rejects supernatural entities (& stories about them) as truth-claims because, in every instance (I'd already found in my teens, for fuckin' Christ's sake!), claims thereof are uncorroborable.

To me, you're still making faith-statements. You freely admit that all of your scientifically-founded hypotheses are falsifiable and liable to be discarded, but your faith in the non-existence of God is adamantine and unshakeable.

... your faith in the non-existence of God is adamantine and unshakeable. — Wayfarer

Strawman. Bunghole's for shitting not talking, sir, try to desist. I've no "faith" position at all and have only said that I reject "supernatural entities", etc and nothing about "the non-existence" of anything in my previous post. What I've argued elsewhere is that theism is untrue but not that some "g/G does not exist".

Because the project of life is to live well — Pantagruel

What I'm trying to establish is why everyone would have some perspective on how to live life well. All that everyone past middle age has done is lived life. There's no reason to believe any have done so well, in fact most seem to have done so appallingly badly and continue to. I'm wondering what you think their insights are going to contribute the your project of living live well.

Well said. The issue here is quite easy to resolve, in fact. If @Wayfarer can explain string theory without any reference to established an universally agreed on models of physics then we can accept that it is just like a religion, otherwise (and it will, of course be otherwise) it is very unlike religion in that it postulates from a basis of very sound knowledge. Knowledge unavailable to the layman but which demonstrably satisfies the requirement of universal applicability through predictable results.

There's a massive difference between taking what we know and conjecturing an answer to the remaining questions within its framework (string theory), and taking what we desperately want to be the case and elbowing it into what we now know by claiming everything's a metaphor (religious apologetics).

Humanism can stand apart from religions without problems. — Tom Storm

:up:

Or, let's say, without any problems that the religious world didn't also have.

I...let religion itself speak; I constitute myself only its listener and interpreter, not its prompter. Not to invent, but to discover, “to unveil existence,” has been my sole object; to see correctly, my sole endeavour. It is not I, but religion that worships man, although religion, or rather theology, denies this; it is not I, an insignificant individual, but religion itself that says: God is man, man is God; it is not I, but religion that denies the God who is not man, but only an ens rationis, – since it makes God become man, and then constitutes this God, not distinguished from man, having a human form, human feelings, and human thoughts, the object of its worship and veneration. I have only found the key to the cipher of the Christian religion, only extricated its true meaning from the web of contradictions and delusions called theology; – but in doing so I have certainly committed a sacrilege. If therefore my work is negative, irreligious, atheistic, let it be remembered that atheism – at least in the sense of this work – is the secret of religion itself; that religion itself, not indeed on the surface, but fundamentally, not in intention or according to its own supposition, but in its heart, in its essence, believes in nothing else than the truth and divinity of human nature. — Feuerbach

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/feuerbach/works/essence/ec00.htm

In other words, Christianity was an impure, implicit, & confused humanism.

Giordano Bruno's speculation of "thousands of other suns with other earths" (which got him burned at the stake in 1600 CE), it took nearly four centuries before humans walked on the moon and the Hubble telescope, etc had found apparently Earth-like exoplanets around distant stars; likewise, the problem of testing "string theory" is currently intractable, and besides there are other candidates such as "LQG" being worked on toward prospective experimental testing. (NB: Carlo Rovelli, Sean Caroll, Kip Thorne, David Deutsch, Frank Wilczek, Mag Tegmark, et al are among the current popularizers of fundamental physics that I've found most informative.) — 180 Proof

Giordano Bruno :up: :clap: RIP "bro"


Thanks for putting the issue I raised into (the right) perspective. The timeline of science, though at times a rapid succession of discovries, seems to also consist of prolonged effort spanning over decades and centuries and perhaps even millennia.

My understanding is that the energies involved to show that 'spacetime is quantized" with these models, or that it is not, are still orders of magnitude higher than can be produced. i suspect scientists are looking for extremely high-energy naturally occurring events out somewhere in the universe to be used as "living laboratories" just as they'd found and used colliding neutron stars & black holes which generated gravity waves they could then detect as GR predicts. And nagging problems like "inflation" (re: Einstein's fudge factor aka "my greatest mistake" the cosmological constant), "dark energy" & "dark matter" also need to be solved too in order to complete a ToE, so "string theory", though popularized for almost the last two decades by Brian Green et al isn't the only, or even most, promising game in town. Anyway, that's my oversimplistic layperson's understanding of the situation at the moment. — 180 Proof

I see. So, the situation ain't as bad as I've been thinking it is. Astronomy then will play a huge role in string theory as I've been told the energies of cosmic events - black holes, supernovae, etc. - are colossal. Perhaps string theorists should tie up with astronomers and do what's the most sensible thing to do - wait and watch, fingers crossed.

When scientists claim there is no god. When scientists claim they are understanding the nature of reality. — emancipate

My take on this is to separate the scientist and the philosophy they happen to have.

In some cases, I speculate/suspect that it's critics' own scientism that makes too much of scientists' non-scientific metaphysical remarks, wants to mix 'em with/as the science. Because it wants some nonscience to function as science.

:up:

What I'm trying to establish is why everyone would have some perspective on how to live life well. All that everyone past middle age has done is lived life. There's no reason to believe any have done so well, in fact most seem to have done so appallingly badly and continue to. I'm wondering what you think their insights are going to contribute the your project of living live well. — Isaac

Well, there are definitely lots of people who make mistakes when they choose things they believe to be in their best interests. Plato says no one knowingly desires the bad, and I think the vast majority of people can be said to be living their life according to the principle of choosing what they think will be in their best interest. I'd say that aligns with the general description of choosing to live well.

I don't disagree that a lot of people are not successful at this though. I'd say relative success at the project of living well would be good evidence of having attained some measure of wisdom.

I don't disagree that a lot of people are not successful at this though. I'd say relative success at the project of living well would be good evidence of having attained some measure of wisdom. — Pantagruel

Right. Seems at odds with...

the kinds of things they learn grow beyond the quantifiable knowledge — Pantagruel

and

every individual has a unique set of experiences (because that is part of what it means to be an individual) all of these life lessons are different, and yet they all reveal different aspects of a fundamental set of truths. — Pantagruel

and

wherever one experiences the greatest aversion is usually where one has the most to learn. — Pantagruel

I have great aversion to learning from people who's lives seem like they're not living well, and many aspects of 'living well' (though not all of them) are perfectly quantifiable. So if we accept that this wisdom has effects on life choices and outcomes it becomes certainly filtered, and in some cases directly quantifiable. If we don;t accept that, then there seems little point in acquiring it since your life will demonstrably be no better for having done so.

If Wayfarer can explain string theory — Isaac

Of course I can’t ‘explain string theory’. Where that came in, was the question of whether science ‘oversteps its mark’ and my claim that such speculative physics might well do that. And there are heated arguments within science as to whether string theory is a scientific theory or not.

The article I first referred to is this one https://www.philosophersmag.com/footnotes-to-plato/77-string-theory-vs-the-popperazzi

which is by a pretty wily philosopher of science, Massimo Piggliuci, and worth a read. (Although of course I understand that if I recommended it, you'll say there's likely to be something seriously wrong with it on that account :-) .)

And what exactly is the Christian world view? — Tom Storm

OK there probably is no such view as a monolithic or undifferentiated structure, but the point was with respect to the origin of the idea that ‘all individuals have unconditional worth’. That was certainly not a tenet of the ancient world until the ‘Christian revolution’ came along. Respect for individual persons for their own sake is, I contend, a product of Christian social philosophy.

the real question - the fundamental nature of reality and consciousness - remains unanswered. — Tom Storm

According to you, and others here. But what if this had been discovered, and was known to, previous philosophical traditions - what would it take for them to communicate that to us? Could it be communicated in the abstract, in third-person terms, like a formula or a method? Or does it require a kind of first-person participation which is different in kind to a third-person science?

And yes, the real question - the fundamental nature of reality and consciousness - remains unanswered. — Tom Storm

What grounds are there for assuming that "consciousness" is (something) "fundamental"?

"Fundamental nature of reality" seems redundant like 'gigantic stature of giants'. Whatever it is, a reality, at minimum, is a manifestation of the real (e.g. order within disorder (e.g. wake of an event (e.g. eye of a hurricane))). The real of reality is immanent, ineluctable and necessarily contingent – what R.G. Collingwood calls (its) "absolute presuppositions" and, therefore, this is not a question that implies an answer (i.e. it's not propositional).

Why those presuppositions? Well, for starters, cite an example of 'a reality' lacking, or opposite of, any or all of them without contradiction or incoherence which, thereby, calls them into question. (No doubt a line of inquiry for another thread.)

Could it be communicated in the abstract, in third-person terms, like a formula or a method? Or does it require a kind of first-person participation which is different in kind to a third-person science? — Wayfarer

I hear you and I get it. And I can only imagine that you must find it somewhat frustrating to keep articulating a position that seems to be circumvented. We (or at least I) don't seem to be hearing it very well. It does seem to come down to kind of Two Cultures debate.

I appreciate hearing clearer articulations of your position. Essentially if seems to come down to what we consider to be knowledge and how this can be found. I can't find a way to a contemplative understanding of higher consciousness but I do take these ideas seriously precisely because it is not a path I would naturally take.

What grounds are there for assuming that "consciousness" is (something) "fundamental"? — 180 Proof

None. You're probably correct. Try as I might, I use words here with cavalier imprecision (and without any philosophical education) so I was just placing it in there to underscore 'consciousness' (it looked so bare on its own), without considering for a second whether there were any fundamentals involved.

That's okay. We all do that from time to time. I thought you were 'on to something' and so I kinda ran with it bull-by-the-horns and all.

What grounds are there for assuming that "consciousness" is (something) "fundamental"? — 180 Proof

Experiential grounds. Every single phenomenon we experience arises into/fades out of consciousness. Our thoughts, feelings, percepts.. and literally everything else seems protean in nature, while consciousness remains the stable backdrop of all experience. Does this not indicate that consciousness is fundamental?

:up:

I hear you and I get it. — Tom Storm

Thank you, kind of you to say so. I'm resigned to being one of the forum idealists even though I know it's a minority position. But I continue to learn, not only from the objections I get, but also from better trying to articulate my own view and also by finding correspondence with the texts.

What grounds are there for assuming that "consciousness" is (something) "fundamental"? — 180 Proof

I'll have a crack at that. It is because before anything can be known, before any claim made and position taken, then I must be, in order to consider. Precisely the meaning of Descartes' famous argument, anticiplated by Augustine millenia earlier:

"But who will doubt that he lives, remembers, understands, wills, thinks, knows, and judges? For even if he doubts, he lives. If he doubts where his doubs come from, he remembers. If he doubts, he understands that he doubts. If he doubts, he wants to be certain. If he doubts, he thinks. If he doubts, he knows that he does not know. If he doubts, he judges that he ougth not rashly to give assent. So whoever acquires a doubt from any source ought not to doubt any of these things whose non-existence would mean that he could not entertain doubt about anything."

(Augustine, On the Trinity 10.10.14 quoted in Richard Sorabji Self, 2006, p.219).

The problem is, as always, that mind - I prefer that term to 'consciousness' - has a double aspect, both as something to know, but foremost as that which knows. And 'that which knows' is epistemically prior to any cognitive act, for the reasons given in the above quote (which again are quite Cartesian in nature).

Whatever it is, a reality, at minimum, is a manifestation of the real (e.g. order within disorder (e.g. wake of an event (e.g. eye of a hurricane))). The real of reality is immanent, ineluctable and necessarily contingent — 180 Proof

Why 'contingent'? And 'contingent' upon what? If everything is contingent/conditioned, then what is its basis or foundation? If that question is situated in the tradition of Western metaphysics, or for that matter even in the context of Indian philosophy, it is a question that has been entertained for millenia, and remains current to this day. Seems to me that the notion of 'contingent' can't stand on its own, because contingency always implies something to be contingent on. (Which points towards some version of the cosmological argument.)

Let me also suggest that according to many esteemed philosohers, the ordinary human waking consciousness is in some sense delusional or mistaken in some fundamental way. And furthermore that there may be correctives to that (mis)take other than those anticipated by science, those being the therapeutic practices which are supposed to be the curriculum of philosophy itself.

Experiential grounds. — emancipate

And what corroborates these "experiential grounds"? Uncorroborated they're merely subjective assumptions or dispositions.

Every single phenomenon we experience arises into/fades out of consciousness.

So what? What about the astronomically vast domains of phenomena that we (not only do not) cannot "experience" and upon which "consciousness" – however it is explained – necessarily, unconsciously, supervenes ... like a single grain of sand on a wind-swept slope of a dune somewhere in the Sahara?

Our thoughts, feelings, percepts.. and literally everything else seems protean in nature, while consciousness remains the stable backdrop of all experience.

You've got that backwards, I think. "Consciousness" is only a dinghy ("remains ... stable") tossed on ocean waves ("protean ... backdrop").

Does this not indicate that consciousness is fundamental?

Not in the least. All this indicates is that "consciousness" is/may be an epiphenomenon (or hyper-developed forebrain spandrel) of 'ecology-bound information systems' complex enough for intermittenly sustained 'self-awareness' (or intentional agency). "Fundamental" things or processes (e.g. entropy, gravity, vacuum energies) constitute embodied "consciousness" (since there is not (cannot be) A N Y evidence of it being "disembodied") – which, by the way, it's a dynamic process and N O T a non-dynamic thing or abstract object.

Where that came in, was the question of whether science ‘oversteps its mark’ and my claim that such speculative physics might well do that. And there are heated arguments within science as to whether string theory is a scientific theory or not. — Wayfarer

No, the context was comparing faith in 'string theory' to faith in God/Religious claims. The two are completely dissimilar for the reasons given. String theory is a conjecture about what follows from established universally applicable principles in physics. It may not ever be testable, but it may - there are arguments about that (and what's more those arguments themselves are based on the universally applicable principles of physics and how they might apply to the possibility of testing string theory). See how these principles of physics both inform and limit the discussion at every level - it's no coincidence that those engaged in it are all physicists. The conjecture of a layman would be demonstrably less reasonable than that of an expert.

With faith in God there is no such foundation. There's no universally applicable principle from which 'God' is one of the possible derivations. The nature of 'God' is not constrained by a set of universally applicable principles, nor is the conversation about what type of theory it is. Which is why every man and his dog can (and usually does) have a theory about 'God'. There's no body of universally applicable knowledge from which 'God' arises as a reasonable conjecture. An expert's conjecture is not demonstrably more reasonable than that of a layman.

It's just yet another argument from negation. "String theory isn't proper science, therefore it must be just the same as any other woo". It's the same issue you dodged in the other thread. Just because science (or the claims of scientists) don't meet some standard, doesn't put them in the same category as everything else which doesn't meet that standard, there is more than a single standard by which we differentiate the reasonableness of conjecture.

No, the context was comparing faith in 'string theory' to faith in God/Religious claims. — Isaac

Not what I said. Also, the article I linked to pointed out that whilst the parties to the dispute may be physicsts, it would be relevant to include philosophers in the debate, so as to help delineate what is and what isn't a scientific hypothesis.

With faith in God there is no such foundation — Isaac

And you know this, how? It's an article of faith on your part, or rather, a tenet of non-belief, the mirror image of a believer. You say 'well, if it's not an engineering problem, then there's no other kind of knowledge or philosophy that will be relevant.' But you show no interest in any of them, or any knowledge of them. Done talking to you Isaac, don't waste your time further.

And what corroborates these "experiential grounds"? Uncorroborated they're merely subjective assumptions or dispositions. — 180 Proof

They are corroborated in the same way as any naturalistic claim. By observation and consensus. You can affirm my experince by having a similar observation in your own experience.

So what? What about the astronomically vast domains of phenomena that we (not only do not) cannot "experience" and upon which "consciousness" – however it is explained – necessarily, unconsciously, supervenes ... like a single grain of sand on a wind-swept slope of a dune somewhere in the Sahara? — 180 Proof

What about it indeed? The single grain of sand has not affected my experience until you mentioned it. Now it has arisen as an idea within my conscious experience and soon it shall dissipate. How is it relevant at all?

You've got that backwards, I think. "Consciousness" is only a dinghy ("remains ... stable") tossed on ocean waves ("protean ... backdrop"). — 180 Proof

This is merely an interpretation by your mind. Meditation discloses the inverse.

Not in the least. All this indicates is that "consciousness" is/may be an epiphenomenon (or hyper-developed forebrain spandrel) of 'ecology-bound information systems' complex enough for intermittenly sustained 'self-awareness' (or intentional agency). "Fundamental" things or processes (e.g. entropy, gravity, vacuum energies) constitute embodied "consciousness" (since there is not (cannot be) A N Y evidence of it being "disembodied") – which, by the way, it's a dynamic process and N O T a non-dynamic thing or abstact object. — 180 Proof

But here you are leaping to conclusions based on what you want to be the case. Until science provides irrefutable proof that consciousness is an epiphenomenon, the evidence of experience will continue to point strongly to consciousness being fundamental.

If everything is contingent/conditioned, then what is its basis or foundation? If that question is situated in the tradition of Western metaphysics, or for that matter even in the context of Indian philosophy, it is a question that has been entertained for millenia, and remains current to this day. Seems to me that the notion of 'contingent' can't stand on its own, because contingency always implies something to be contingent on. — Wayfarer

I know this comment was not for me, but I think we can imagine a system of entities each depending on one another for their identity or meaning. In language, we have something like the meaning of one word being entangled in or dependent on the meaning of all the others. The edifice hovers or an abyss if you like. No particular entity bears the weight.

You mentioned Indian philosophy. Perhaps you had this in mind? I'm just looking into Nargarjuna, but he seems very familiar to me thru his similarity to thinkers I'm more familiar with.

begin quote

To say that all things are 'empty' is to deny any kind of ontological foundation; therefore Nāgārjuna's view is often seen as a kind of ontological anti-foundationalism[53] or a metaphysical anti-realism.[54]

Understanding the nature of the emptiness of phenomena is simply a means to an end, which is nirvana. Thus Nāgārjuna's philosophical project is ultimately a soteriological one meant to correct our everyday cognitive processes which mistakenly posits svabhāva on the flow of experience.

Nāgārjuna was also instrumental in the development of the two truths doctrine, which claims that there are two levels of truth in Buddhist teaching, the ultimate truth (paramārtha satya) and the conventional or superficial truth (saṃvṛtisatya). The ultimate truth to Nāgārjuna is the truth that everything is empty of essence,[59] this includes emptiness itself ('the emptiness of emptiness'). While some (Murti, 1955) have interpreted this by positing Nāgārjuna as a neo-Kantian and thus making ultimate truth a metaphysical noumenon or an "ineffable ultimate that transcends the capacities of discursive reason",[60] others such as Mark Siderits and Jay L. Garfield have argued that Nāgārjuna's view is that "the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth" (Siderits) and that Nāgārjuna is a "semantic anti-dualist" who posits that there are only conventional truths.[60] Hence according to Garfield:

Suppose that we take a conventional entity, such as a table. We analyze it to demonstrate its emptiness, finding that there is no table apart from its parts […]. So we conclude that it is empty. But now let us analyze that emptiness […]. What do we find? Nothing at all but the table’s lack of inherent existence. […]. To see the table as empty […] is to see the table as conventional, as dependent.[61]
...
Nāgārjuna also taught the idea of relativity; in the Ratnāvalī, he gives the example that shortness exists only in relation to the idea of length. The determination of a thing or object is only possible in relation to other things or objects, especially by way of contrast. He held that the relationship between the ideas of "short" and "long" is not due to intrinsic nature (svabhāva). This idea is also found in the Pali Nikāyas and Chinese Āgamas, in which the idea of relativity is expressed similarly: "That which is the element of light ... is seen to exist on account of [in relation to] darkness; that which is the element of good is seen to exist on account of bad; that which is the element of space is seen to exist on account of form."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagarjuna

also consider

Fear of the corrosive effects of antifoundationalism was widespread in the late twentieth century, anticipating such things as a cultural meltdown and moral anarchy,[11] or (at the least) a loss of the necessary critical distance to allow for leverage against the status quo.[12] For Fish, however, the threat of a loss of objective standards of rational enquiry with the disappearance of any founding principle was a false fear: far from opening the way to an unbridled subjectivity, antifoundationalism leaves the individual firmly entrenched within the conventional context and standards of enquiry/dispute of the discipline/profession/habitus within which s/he is irrevocably placed.[13]

By the same token, however, the antifoundationalist hope of escaping local situations through awareness of the contingency of all such situations—through recognition of the conventional/rhetorical nature of all claims to master principles—that hope is to Fish equally foredoomed by the very nature of the situational consciousness, the all-embracing social and intellectual context, in which every individual is separately enclosed.[14]

Fish has also noted how, in contradistinction to hopes of an emancipatory outcome from antifoundationalism, anti-essentialist theories arguing for the absence of a transcontextual point of reference have been put to conservative and neo-conservative, as well as progressive, ends.[15] Thus, for example, John Searle has offered an account of the construction of social reality fully compatible with the acceptance stance of "the man who is at home in his society, the man who is chez lui in the social institutions of the society...as comfortable as the fish in the sea".[16]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-foundationalism

others such as Mark Siderits and Jay L. Garfield have argued that Nāgārjuna's view is that "the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth — j0e

However, that has to be mediated through Nāgārjuna’s adherence to the ‘doctrine of two truths’:

The Buddha's teaching of the Dharma is based on two truths: a truth of worldly convention and an ultimate truth. Those who do not understand the distinction drawn between these two truths do not understand the Buddha's profound truth. Without a foundation in the conventional truth the significance of the ultimate cannot be taught. Without understanding the significance of the ultimate, liberation is not achieved. — Nāgārjuna trs Garfield

Which is why the assertion that ‘there is no ultimate’ has to be very carefully interpreted. From the perspective of the uneducated worldling - that’s us - there is certainly an ultimate truth, but from the perspective of the Buddha, ‘all beings are already Buddhas’ - or something like that. So the distinction between empirical and ultimate truth only exists on the empirical level.

(Hence the Zen koan, first there is a mountain - conventional realism - then there is no mountain - realisation of emptiness - then there is - harmonised understanding of ultimate & relative.)

The reason madhyamika is not simply nihilism is that on the level of conventional existence, empirical facts are to be respected. However empirical objects of perception have no ultimate or independent existence, which is where it differs from scientific realism, which imbues objects with inherent existence. But you still have to respect scientific facts. The Dalai Lama said in his book on philosophy of science that if science proves any Buddhist dogma incorrect then it has to be abandoned. (One casualty is the mythological cosmology of Mt Meru which has been grudgingly abandoned, although so far the Four Noble Truths are still intact!)

This is why Murti compares Nāgārjuna’s ‘two truths’ to the phenomenal-noumenal distinction in Kant. He also points to the similarity between the 10 ‘unanswered questions’ of the Buddha, and Kant’s antinomies of reason. Murti is now criticised for adopting a Eurocentric approach as a consequence of his Oxford education, but I think he still has great insights. (His book was published in 1955). Mark Siderits, who you quote, is much younger, still alive in fact, and much more rigorous in his comparisons with Western philosophers, but his books are extremely technical. Jay Garfield is a very good scholar in this field and plays a kind of hybrid role of scholar and dharma teacher.

I think the takeaway is that attaining ‘insight into emptiness’ requires, or indicates, a radical change of perspective, namely from that of the ‘uneducated worldling’ (putthajana) to the awakened perspective of the bodhisattva. At least, that is what all of the standard texts indicate. There’s a saying from a recent teacher, that compassion and wisdom (meaning, ‘realisation of emptiness’) are the two wings of a bird, both are required to take flight.

["Consciousness is fundamental"] because before anything can be known, before any claim made and position taken, then I must be, in order to consider... — Wayfarer

Yeah, the eye "must be" in order to look and see; but a brain-CNS in a body that's imbedded in an environment must be prior to – independent of – the eye in its blindspot in order for looking and seeing to function. Likewise, embodied mind (I prefer it to consciousness as well) "knows" and "claims" or "takes positions" and "considers" because embodiment is always already imbedded in an environment (pre-mind background) upon which, by extension, mind supervenes. 'The Cogito', as Kant et al shows, proves nothing but the metacognitive limits of Descartes' / Augustine's exercise (as well as the lack of grounds to "doubt everything" ~Peirce) and is the funny mirrors-image of a more apt formulation: 'Thinking exists, therefore thinking happens' (à la existence preceeds essence).

Why 'contingent'?

Because necessity only obtains in formal abstract domains and not with respect to matters of fact. There aren't any 'necessary facts', that is, relations of relata the changing or negating of which entails a contradiction. The real, as I've described it, always can come-to-be, continue-to-be and cease-to-be because there cannot be anything (without self-contradiction or inconsistency, ergo principle of explosion) not-real – unreal, or external to the real – to constrain contain maintain block stop the real from changing randomly, or without cause (sans PoSR).

However, Wayf, feel free to cite an example of a 'necessary fact' which does not entail a contradiction or inconsistency when changed or negated, and so, thereby, disabusing me of this speculative delusion, to wit:

The real encompasses reason and only the unreal, not reason, encompasses the real. The hole in the unreal is the real and reason is the hole in the real. Simply, unreals are holes in reason.

(Heidi & Hegel ain't got mystagogic shit on me!) :victory:

And 'contingent' upon what? If everything is contingent/conditioned, then what is its basis or foundation? [ ... ] Seems to me that the notion of 'contingent' can't stand on its own, because contingency always implies something to be contingent on.

:roll: Anachronistic ontology. See the account above.

(Which points towards some version of the cosmological argument.)

It's some venerable apologetic nonsense I, once upon an old thread ago, had exorcised here:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/350254 :eyes:

And in respect of ‘the contingent’, one of the canonical texts of the Pali canon assets that:

There is, monks, an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated. If there were not that unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, there would not be the case that emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated would be discerned. But precisely because there is an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated is discerned.

ud 8.03

It should be noted that theosophists and others of that ilk have made much of this passage, comparing the ‘unborn’ in this text to the ‘wisdom uncreate’ of the Western theistic tradition - an interpretation which Buddhists fiercely reject. (Buddhists hate having theism smuggled in to their religion). Quite what ‘the uncreated’ is, then, is obviously an exceedingly delicate hermeneutical question, probably best ‘bracketed out’ rather than made subject of speculation. However it remains central to the whole tradition - if you go to sutta central and search for the unconditioned you will learn there are references throughout the literature.

Okay. Apparently what you understand by "experience" "corroborated" "observation" "science" etc differs enough from my understanding that we're talking past each other.

Because necessity only obtains in formal abstract domains and not with respect to matters of fact. There aren't any 'necessary facts', that is, relations of relata the changing or negating of which entails a contradiction. — 180 Proof

I would have thought that the concept of scientific law can be taken to mean that at least some things are true by necessity. Even Newton’s laws of motion are applicable for the range of phenomena in which they apply, are they not? So they will permit precise calculations of the trajectory of shells, for example. The outcome of a certain force will necessarily be a certain trajectory, won’t it? Is that not necessarily so?

"Scientific laws" pertain to scientific models which are mathematical abstractions of salient regularities and not to be confused with them or the phenomena being modeled. Compare, for instance, the Ptolemiac geocentric model (with its baroque epicycles) to the Copernican-Galilean-Newtonian heliocentric model: both make fairly accurate predictions from which "scientific laws" of celestial mechanics were surmised but the latter was found to be much more useful and explanatory than the former. Lesson: the map =/= the territory (i.e. "scientific laws" =/= "the cosmos"). Also, don't confuse 'scientific conditions' (entailed in models about matters of fact, or physical regularities) with 'modal necessity' (applied to abstract objects, or concepts).