And, if nothing else, for alerting us to the word 'pleonasm', which I, for one, had never previously encountered. :clap:

And, if nothing else, for alerting us to the word 'pleonasm', which I, for one, had never previously encountered :clap: — Wayfarer

Thanks (for the applause)! :smile:
More "officially" (from Merriam-Webster), Pleonasm: "The use of more words than those necessary to denote mere sense (as in the man he said): REDUNDANCY"

It must be a matter of self-organised Becoming rather than merely brute Being. — apokrisis

The problem with this concept of "self-organised Becoming", is that within an organized being the parts all have a specific function in relation to the whole being. This implies logically that the being as a whole, is the organizing agent. Since this organizing agent, the whole, the being, cannot exist prior in time to itself (that would be contradictory), it cannot be assigned the role of the cause of itself, nor can it be responsible for the "Becoming" of itself.

Therefore, when we look to understand the becoming of an organized being, we need to look beyond the Being itself, to understand the cause of it. The proposed concept "self-organised Becoming" is illogical because the becoming of the being is necessarily prior in time to the being, and "self" is a property of the being. So in that time of "becoming", there is no such thing as the self, to be doing the organizing. And "self-organised Becoming" is incoherent.

Because of this problem we must dismiss "self-organised Becoming" as illogical, and investigate elsewhere for the organizing agent. There are two basic possibilities which are not completely incompatible, immanence and transcendence. The former would hold that there is inherent within each part, the intent which is necessary to create the organized whole, and the latter would hold that the intent which creates the whole is external to the parts. They are not incompatible because the intent may come from an external (transcendent) source, and be placed within the parts (therefore also immanent), if the parts are themselves created intentionally.

Even 'metaphysical idealists' are only speaking in analogies when they speak of "ultimate reality". — 180 Proof

Heh, heh...analogies for what?

Well put, I think you hit the nail on the head.

Is Infinite Reason, Infinite Thought, or Infinite Spirit (as per Hegel) simply a biased form of abstract anthropocentric terminology being used to try to humanize a transcendent reality which, in fact, may be better described as being nothing more than a completely non-rational, thoughtless, blind Will-to-Live (as per Schopenhauer)? — charles ferraro

But to speak at all is an anthropomorphic attempt, which is the point. You are close to Wittgenstein, are you not, in suggesting that to speak of foundational matters is nonsense, for such things are not among the facts of the world, states of affairs. Reason as an absolute? Well, that would require something other than reason to determine, but then, this other would require something other to ground it, and so on. Will to live? What can this language be about if it were, well, the way things "really" are? And how would one establish this; what would give, in turn, this new verifying language its validity? No, this would require yet another dimension of determination.
So you can see there is no way out of this impossibility of affirming in language something that is not language. Language, its signifiers, can only be self referencing. UNLESS: Reason really IS grounded in some impossible ultimate language reality, like Hegel's. If this were true, and it is not impossible that it is, then what we say and think could be significant in the Hegelian way. But how to go about this, that is, at least giving this idea the minimal presumption of "truth"?
Only one way I see: Take the Kierkegaardian motion of the eternal present (Witt approved), and consider that even here, standing, if you will, in the light of a phenomenological reduction, and all schools in abeyance (as Walt Whitman put it): this present, I submit, is undeniable, notwithstanding post modern, post hermeneutical objections, yet there we stand, eidetically aware! Question: Is this actually happening? Is it a finite event? Or is it infinite.
I could continue, but only if you are interested in this strain of thought.

???

Analogies work like metaphors, so if you say my mother is a tiger when she gets angry, there you have my mother and then the borrowed quality of the tiger, hence, a functioning equation. However, when such devices are applied to the metaphysical, there is no object to which the borrowed trait applies.

When you say "ultimate reality" is mental or ideal or consciousness you are saying, in effect, that its concept is LIKE a (concrete or abstract) object we call "mental" or "ideal" or "consciousness" (which are not themselves "ultimate"). If you try to say literally what "ultimate reality" is, then you are not talking about "ultimate reality". To wit: The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao.

OK, If it makes you feel better: Thanks for noticing my infamous "pleonasm."

However, I do think you're "splitting hairs" as they say and trying to create an issue where, in my humble opinion, there is none.

In no way was I intending to define ultimate reality, or to imply that I knew what it was, or that knowing what it is is something common, obvious, or self-evident. Quite the contrary.

Nevertheless, I do claim that many philosophers, throughout the ages, (arbitrarily using Hegel and Schopenhauer as examples, of which there are many others) thought otherwise and have, in fact, tried to explain what ultimate reality is and have come up with many different and unique definitions of it.

Since this organizing agent, the whole, the being, cannot exist prior in time to itself (that would be contradictory), it cannot be assigned the role of the cause of itself, nor can it be responsible for the "Becoming" of itself. — Metaphysician Undercover

You mean it would operate non-locally? Like quantum physics? And thus operate retrocausally?

Yes, that is essential to my view. Finality lies in the future and acts as an organising constraint on its own past. It sifts pure possibility as the ultimate destiny.

OK, by "retrocausally", I assume you mean an effect which is prior in time to its cause. That's what I mean I say such a concept is illogical, incoherent due to contradiction. Causation is a temporal concept. To reverse the temporal order of cause and effect is simple contradiction, unless you are no longer talking about causation. But then what are you talking about?

Finality lies in the future and acts as an organising constraint on its own past. It sifts pure possibility as the ultimate destiny. — apokrisis

Paul Davies says something along those lines in The Goldilocks Enigma.

To reverse the temporal order of cause and effect is simple contradiction — Metaphysician Undercover

What about the final cause? The final cause of a match is fire, in that matches only exist for the purpose of starting a fire. The match exists before the fire, but the fire is the final cause of the match, being the reason for its existence.

To reverse the temporal order of cause and effect is simple contradiction, unless you are no longer talking about causation. — Metaphysician Undercover

The evidence from quantum mechanics tells us already that the nonlocality which is illogical to your way of thought is the reality of how the Cosmos is.

Now you can choose other interpretations - like Many Worlds. But they ought to be even more offensive.

What about the final cause? The final cause of a match is fire, in that matches only exist for the purpose of starting a fire. The match exists before the fire, but the fire is the final cause of the match, being the reason for its existence. — Wayfarer

I take this sort of explanation as a slight misunderstanding of "final cause", common to our modern, materialist society. The final cause of the match is actually the intent to produce fire, and the intent is prior in time to the manufacture of the matches. So we say that fire is the final cause, but it is really the idea of fire, within the mind as the motivating factor, being "the end", or "that for the sake of which", that is the actual cause of the manufacture and existence of the match.

In Aristotle's "Physics" you'll find the example of health being the cause of a man walking about.

'(Why is he walking about?' we say, 'To be healthy', and having said that, we think we have assigned the cause.) The same is true also of all the intermediate steps which are brought about through the action of something else as means toward the end, e.g. reduction of flesh, purging, drugs, surgical instruments, are means toward health. All these things are 'for the sake of'' the end, though they differ from one another in that some are activities others instruments. — Aristotle, Physics 194b

As "the end" the final cause is a goal, or objective. That's what "the end" means in Aristotle, so it is in the mind, as an idea. As such, "the end" acts as a cause of intentional human action. So it is not the material existence of the thing itself, the fire in your example, which is the cause, but fire as "the end", the goal, or intention, an idea which acts as a cause in bringing about the activity which is understood as the means to the end. The end is the cause of the activity, or instrument, which is the means, but the end is the idea, the goal, as intention, which exists within the mind. The end is not the material thing brought about by the means, because the means are the efficient causes of that material thing. So the end (mental intention) is the (final) cause of the means, and the means are the (efficient) cause of the physical object produced. This is an important part of understanding final cause, which is derived from reading Aristotle's "Nichomachean Ethics".

Now you can choose other interpretations - like Many Worlds. But they ought to be even more offensive. — apokrisis

There are other options, such as physicists apply faulty theories. and faulty mathematical axioms. But to many, these options are even more offensive.

if the theories are faulty then you wouldn’t be receiving these distant disturbing ideas over the technological marvel of the internet.

So the end (mental intention) is the (final) cause of the means, and the means are the (efficient) cause of the physical object produced. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think that's consistent with what I said. It's a teleological process, i.e. working towards an end or outcome. In this case, a plausible step towards the 'end or outcome' is just the emergence of rational sentient beings such as h. sapiens. This also ties in with the cosmic anthropic principle.

Paul Davies, a theoretical physicist at the Australian Centre for Astrobiology at Macquarie University in Sydney, suggests another possibility: The universe might actually be able to fine-tune itself. If you assume the laws of physics do not reside outside the physical universe, but rather are part of it, they can only be as precise as can be calculated from the total information content of the universe. The universe's information content is limited by its size, so just after the Big Bang, while the universe was still infinitesimally small, there may have been wiggle room, or imprecision, in the laws of nature.

And room for retrocausality. If it exists, the presence of conscious observers later in history could exert an influence on those first moments, shaping the laws of physics to be favorable for life. This may seem circular: Life exists to make the universe suitable for life. If causality works both forward and backward, however, consistency between the past and the future is all that matters. "It offends our common-sense view of the world, but there's nothing to prevent causal influences from going both ways in time," Davies says. "If the conditions necessary for life are somehow written into the universe at the Big Bang, there must be some sort of two-way link." — Science hopes to change events that have already occured

You can represent the whole of reality as "the total" reality, but you can't express such a reality in a representation that has all elements of itself. The tao that can be spoken is not the eternal tao. Studying branches of science, diminishing the vagueness of interpretations, I have found that the ultimate reality is hierarchical in structure or dimension. From the astronomical down to the quantum, where we exist somewhere in between (in what I call the fourth domain). Other than this one can regress back to Kant and his distinction between thing in itself and thing as it appears, nomena and phenomena. Lastly, I think the ultimate reality is the foundational reality which is "being." Everything has being. Awareness of having being is nearly an ultimate reality.

And room for retrocausality. If it exists, the presence of conscious observers later in history could exert an influence on those first moments, shaping the laws of physics to be favorable for life. — Science hopes to change events that have already occured

Just replace good old fashioned Copenhagen mysticism with new model thermal decoherence and you can tell a story that is safe for physicalism.

Will the Universe still be rocketing towards is Heat Death long after our Sun has died, and well after the blip that was humanity fiddling around with reading dials and capturing dots on light sensitive film to impute some story about material existence?

What we already know - from the science - is the “lawful” description of the Universe is destined to keep on evolving until the classicality that developed is then washed away again. The Heat Death will be a state of blackbody photons with a temperature of 0 degrees k being radiated by the Universe’s own holographic horizons. An anti-de Sitter state bereft of all non-quantum action and so wiped clean of any need for our classical baggage of mid-period laws.

Well, there are some hashes to settle first. What is dark energy? Do black holes really radiate all their information in the long run?

But what is for certain is that the existence of the Universe has zero to do with human consciousness, or any kind of idealist schtick. Quantum theory is now wave mechanics glued to statistical mechanics. That is the next level shit that now constrains your metaphysical flights of fancy.

Although retrocausality and many world scenarios are far more challenging in terms of deciding which horse you actually want to back.

if the theories are faulty then you wouldn’t be receiving these distant disturbing ideas over the technological marvel of the internet. — apokrisis

That a theory can provide us with a particular convenience, does not demonstrate that the theory is not faulty, unless the judgement of faulty/non-faulty is based solely on the desire for that end. Really, it just demonstrates that the theory suffices as the means to that end. But that is not the end we are concerned with here, we are concerned with characterizing the nature of reality

There is a fundamental incompatibility between the concept stated as "Newton's first law of motion", and the concept stated as "free will". A very similar incompatibility was questioned extensively by St. Augustine, as the question of how it could both be true, that human beings have free will, and God is omniscient. If God can know everything, then everything must be predetermined, and there is no room for free will.

The free will creates motions without the application of force, as it is a first cause, producing an efficient cause with no efficient cause prior to it. Only a final cause is prior in time to this first efficient cause.. This incompatibility between free will, and Newton's first law, has no affect on the marvel of the internet, but it means that physics, in it's acceptance of this law, is incapable of understanding that part of reality which provides us with free will.

But what is for certain is that the existence of the Universe has zero to do with human consciousness, or any kind of idealist schtick. — apokrisis

Your denial of idealist principles leaves you incapable of understanding how ideas are causally active in the world. That ideas are causally active is empirically verified by each and every artificial object observed. Instead of recognizing this fundamental fact, and the corresponding idealist principle, that the idea is prior in time to its corresponding material object (which by Plato's cave allegory is a reflection or representation of the idea), you resort to an illogical, incoherent , proposition of "retrocausality". You refuse to be lead out of your cave, in your rejection of the "idealist schtick".

I think that's consistent with what I said. It's a teleological process, i.e. working towards an end or outcome. In this case, a plausible step towards the 'end or outcome' is just the emergence of rational sentient beings such as h. sapiens. This also ties in with the cosmic anthropic principle. — Wayfarer

The important point, is that the concept of "final cause" is not consistent with the concept of "retrocausality". In final causation the cause is the end, as an idea, or goal existing in the mind as intention, and this goal precedes in time, the action brought about as the means toward the end. The idea, as the goal, or end, is the cause of the action, and the action follows the end, in time, it does not precede it.

The way that modern physicalism turns this around, is to deny the causal reality of the idea, or goal (as apokrisis demonstrates), assigning "the end" to the material object brought about by the action, that action being the means. Then "the end", (incorrectly understood as the material object produced by the means), which is posterior in time to the action which produced it, is assigned the title "final cause", and "final cause" is said to be a cause which is after its affect. As you can see, this is just a misunderstanding of "final cause".

There is no such thing as "retrocausality", this is basic logical incoherency, inconsistency, therefore logically impossible. "Cause" is a temporal concept. In all of its senses the "cause" is always prior in time to its effect this is essential to the concept of cause. To posit a "cause" which is posterior in time to its effect, is to negate the definition of "cause", in the way of contradiction. To proceed with such an incoherent principle would render spatial-temporal existence as unintelligible.

For me, always imagined the "nature" of ultimate reality as a unique form of energy that goes through everything in universe and contains all the universal information too(information coming from all universal facts ever occurred and those which are going to occur).
And that kind of energy might have some kind of ability to change continuously and contain all the progress goes on, everywhere in universe. Like a "living" energy that "learns" from itself. Know sounds like fiction movie. To myself sometimes also.
Don't ask me why I believe that. There is no reason and I don't even support that this is actual right. It's just how my mind tries to wrap around all these existential questions . Can't blame me, others believe in God.

than a completely non-rational, thoughtless, blind Will-to-Live (as per Schopenhauer) — charles ferraro

"Live" sounds very human-ish to me. And that includes the danger of narrowing our perspectives I think. "Will to Exist" fits better. For me at least.

OK, If it makes you feel better: Thanks for noticing my infamous "pleonasm." — charles ferraro

No, it doesn't make me feel better. Because this was not my intention. Neither was my intention to force you to acknowledge it, as it seems you did. Your response shows that you still don't understand what pleonasm is, as this is evident from the quotation marks you put around the word as well as characterizing it ironically as infamous. You have misjudged my corrective remark as a criticism. Sorry about that.

No problem.

This incompatibility between free will, and Newton's first law, has no affect on the marvel of the internet, but it means that physics, in it's acceptance of this law, is incapable of understanding that part of reality which provides us with free will. — Metaphysician Undercover

Or maybe freewill is just a cultural meme - a faulty characterisation of a human social construct as something metaphysically fundamental?

(Spoiler: That is indeed all it is.)

Was one correct and the other incorrect? — charles ferraro

Or is "ultimate reality" a nonsense phrase?

Concatenating equivocal terms is not an aid to understanding.

Reason as an absolute? — Constance

That strikes me as a mischaracterisation of Wittgenstein. It is clear that reason takes place within language, yet it is clear Wittgenstein held that language has limits; but further that the really important stuff is unsaid.

The core of this thread is an attempt to say the unsayable.

The core of this thread is an attempt to say the unsayable. — Banno

Or the attempt to explore its limit, don’tcha think? :roll:

Or the attempt to explore its limit, don’tcha think? — apokrisis

What about the 'limit' of there seemingly being a zero-sum balance of opposites, or no absolutes, or as no intrinsic properties such as with relationism?

So you can see there is no way out of this impossibility of affirming in language something that is not language. Language, its signifiers, can only be self referencing. UNLESS: Reason really IS grounded in some impossible ultimate language reality, like Hegel's. If this were true, and it is not impossible that it is, then what we say and think could be significant in the Hegelian way. But how to go about this, that is, at least giving this idea the minimal presumption of "truth"? — Constance

But language systems can be mathematical. Ordinary language is speech from some social point of view - developed to (re)construct the society that is speaking it. And now - through the practice of metaphysical-strength reasoning - modern humans have constructed a culture of technical speech that is rooted in the habits of logic and arithmetic. We have language that is designed to transcend our social being and so move towards some conception of "ultimate reality" - as the limit of this new displaced and third person point of view. We "see" the world through the "objective" eye of axiom and measurement.

So Hegel got that to the degree he developed a logic of dialectics. This was the intellectual project that got modern rationality and science going back in Ancient Greece. Hegel tried hard to update it in the age of Newtonian mechanics. But he bent his arguments away from the third person and back towards the first person to the degree he placed God, spirit or goodness at the centre of his metaphysical scheme. Too anthropomorphic. Although that was an understandable cultural response in an age where the pendulum had swung too far from the very idea of points of view - Newtonianism being understood as the view from nowhere ... rooted in the nothingness of a void, rather than in a plenum of possibilities.

Peirce then came along - as a scientist, metaphysician, epistemologist and logician - to sort things out.

But anyway, my key point is that ordinary language is concerned with constructing our social reality. That is what constrains its practice pragmatically.

And then mathematical reasoning and scientific method arose out of the development of a new metaphysical language - one that ends up speaking in numbers rather than words, and dialectical logical structure rather than an everyday causal grammar based on a narrative tales of who did what to whom.

There is a proper way to talk about ultimate reality. Or at least the relevant community of inquirers have agreed much about the current state of the art in this regard. Nature is symmetry breaking and thermodynamics. A dialectic of constraints and uncertainty. Or as Peirce said, synechism and tychism.

Only one way I see: Take the Kierkegaardian motion of the eternal present (Witt approved), and consider that even here, standing, if you will, in the light of a phenomenological reduction, and all schools in abeyance (as Walt Whitman put it): this present, I submit, is undeniable, notwithstanding post modern, post hermeneutical objections, yet there we stand, eidetically aware! Question: Is this actually happening? Is it a finite event? Or is it infinite. — Constance

The problem here is that there is no point just swinging the pendulum between the dialectical extremes of the third and first person point of view.

The Peircean advance was to move towards the view which shows the larger semiotic relation that makes these two views the complementary limits of Being.