As the book [Life's Ratchet] describes, physical and chemical reactions may have a direction that makes life much more likely than if reactions happened purely by chance. — T Clark

I think that's very likely true, but then it still begs the question as to how this can be the case, because all of the inherent characteristics of physical and chemical laws are ultimately dependent on a very small number of universal parameters without which the universe we see and complex matter would never have appeared in the first place (subject of Lloyd Rees book 'Just 6 Numbers'.)

which is pretty well what I've been saying since I joined this forum. — Wayfarer

I don't see that as a surprise. You and I agree quite often on the forum.

ps//Oh - actually, wrong Hoffman. I was referring to Prof. Donald, you were referring to a Peter Hoffman. But I'll leave it in as it's relevant to the general subject. — Wayfarer

I don't know what Peter Hoffman would say about the manifesto. Probably wouldn't like it. Even I think it overstates the case. I don't think materialism is false (It's metaphysics so...yadda, yadda, yadda. Never mind). I think it is not always the best way of seeing things.

I removed my link to the wrong Hoffman. :yikes: for anyone interested, the link I had posted is this one https://www.essentiafoundation.org/about/

I removed my link to the wrong Hoffman. — Wayfarer

To late. I looked at it. I'm melting, melting.....

Not sure if I am on board with your apparently low opinion of monkeys — Janus

:lol: :monkey:

Wikipedia's break down of metaphysics

1. Ontology
2. Identity & Change
3. Causality
4. Space & Time
5. Necessity & Possibility

It appears that metaphysics is the study of broad conceptual frameworks with which we make sense of our world.

I guess we could call metaphysics pre-science, not proto-science. Meta-science.

Determined by what? Or rather, what is it that determines? — Wayfarer

I would say conditions determine what happens, how things change.

1. Ontology
2. Identity & Change
3. Causality
4. Space & Time
5. Necessity & Possibility

It appears that metaphysics is the study of broad conceptual frameworks with which we make sense of our world.

I guess we could call metaphysics pre-science, not proto-science. Meta-science. — TheMadFool

You made the same comment with the same list back around page 5 or 6 of this thread.

You made the same comment with the same list back around page 5 or 6 of this thread — T Clark

:lol: Sorry for cluttering your thread. I have a very poor memory, consider me as Dory from Finding Nemo.

Should I delete my post?

I would say conditions determine what happens, how things change. — Janus

But then, where do conditions come from? Remember, metaphysics is 'first science', so you can't start with any assumed conditions. This discussion started around 'what accounts for scientific laws'. Of course science assumes that the universe is lawful or that there are predictable regularities. But I'm saying that science can't say why there are. The question as to why the universe is lawful is a metaphysical question, even if the measurement of, and predictions based on, those regularities is not. That's why I think Wittgenstein said that believing that scientific laws are the explanations of natural phenomena is illusory.

That's why I think Wittgenstein said that believing that scientific laws are the explanations of natural phenomena is illusory. — Wayfarer

Wittgenstein did not, as far as I am aware advocate asking questions about why the laws of nature, or better conditions, are as they are. As I already said, any explanation you give will then require a further explanation as to why it is as it is; if you were able to go down that rabbit hole there would be no end to it.

The point of metaphysics is to arrive at the terminus of explanation. Surely many will say that it can’t be done, but it’s worth spelling that out.

The point of metaphysics is to arrive at the terminus of explanation. — Wayfarer

Well put, beautifully phrased. Spot on!

A blend of the principle of sufficient reason & Agrippa's trilemma and we get an infinite regress of explanations. No terminus I'm afraid. Metaphysics was doomed from the start.

Sorry for cluttering your thread. — TheMadFool

That was just me being cranky. Sorry.

That was just me being cranky. Sorry. — T Clark

Don't sweat it.

Gnomon: why do you post on a Philosophy (i.e. contra sophistry, pseudo-science, woo-of-the-gaps) website instead of a site dedicated to New Age (esoteric) "theories"? :eyes: :sparkle: — 180 Proof

Although there is "some overlap" between my worldview and New Age spirituality, I don't consider myself a New Ager. For me "Spirituality" is an outdated model of reality. But I don't cast aspersions on those who are motivated more by feelings than facts. They are free to interpret the world as they see fit. I don't practice any form of Western Esotericism, or Religion of any kind, for that matter. Yet, I do find some wisdom in both Eastern and Western Philosophy, that has stood the test of time, despite being sublimated under the communal rituals & mystical practices of popular religion, that appeal to the emotions instead of the intellect. I don't feel the need for such diversions & consolations from the raw reality of a world that seems indifferent to human needs & feelings. So, I don't burn incense at shrines, or recite mantras, or pray to any "higher beings". Consequently, the consilience between my worldview, and the traditional religions of the world, is in the ancient wisdom of rational thinkers (Philosophers), who tried to make sense of the world without the artificial sensory enhancements of modern science.

Unlike the ancient sages though, I do have access to the latest developments in science, and strive to reconcile my personal paradigm with current models of Physics, etc. And that's where a prominent role for Information comes in. I once read an article by a practicing physicist, who commented on the so-called "particles" of Quantum Physics with : "it's nothing but Information". So, I began to investigate the implications of that assertion, by asking "what then is Information?". From that study I learned that Atomism and Materialism are just as outmoded as Spiritualism. Pursuit of the holy grail of a fundamental Atom, has revealed that Physical Reality actually consists of various sensible forms of invisible immaterial Information (the power to create material things). You may think of that active force as Energy (E=MC^2), but I call it EnFormAction, because it is much more than just "the capacity for doing work". So my website and blog expand upon that basic capability-for-causing-machines-to-work, in order to show that EnFormAction is the Cause of all Change in the world, both Physical and Mental.

What I'm saying here is that you are mis-interpreting my rational Information-based philosophy in terms of something that you obviously despise : irrational Religion. Instead, it is the cutting-edge of Information-centric Science. Yet, like all novel paradigms of Reality, it will take time for this new worldview to percolate down through human society, until it seems just as natural as Spirituality to the ancients, and Materialism to moderns. Materialism began to die on the vine, in the early 20th century, at the advent of Quantum Theory and Information Theory. Yet, those powerful new ideas were at first resisted, even by such wise philosophers as Einstein. So, the time has come for a new paradigm that combines the best of Spiritualism & Materialism with a Quantum Foundation & Information Power. :nerd:


The German physicist Max Planck said that science advances one funeral at a time. Or more precisely: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-10/science-advances-one-funeral-at-a-time-the-latest-nobel-proves-it

Consilience : agreement between the approaches to a topic of different academic subjects, especially science and the humanities.



Information :
* Claude Shannon quantified Information not as useful ideas, but as a mathematical ratio between meaningful order (1) and meaningless disorder (0); between knowledge (1) and ignorance (0). So, that meaningful mind-stuff exists in the limbo-land of statistics, producing effects on reality while having no sensory physical properties. We know it exists ideally, only by detecting its effects in the real world.
* For humans, Information has the semantic quality of aboutness , that we interpret as meaning. In computer science though, Information is treated as meaningless, which makes its mathematical value more certain. It becomes meaningful only when a sentient Self interprets it as such.
* When spelled with an “I”, Information is a noun, referring to data & things. When spelled with an “E”, Enformation is a verb, referring to energy and processes.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

[delete post]

Interesting. More clarity. :up:

From that study I learned that Atomism and Materialism are just as outmoded as Spiritualism.

I think you're mistaken and have bought into the pop-science hype ofter promulgated by philosophically illiterate / negligent scientists and academic idealists and other latterday woo-woo sophists. My two bytes on 'speculative atomism consilient with QFT' .

Pursuit of the holy grail of a fundamental Atom, has revealed that Physical Reality actually consists of various sensible forms of invisible immaterial Information (the power to create material things).

Insofar as "information" has causal efficacy, it is physical (i.e. not "immaterial" or merely abstract/formal). See David Deutsch (re: Constructor Theory).

You may think of that active force as Energy (E=MC^2), but I call it EnFormAction, because it is much more than just "the capacity for doing work" [ ... ] the Cause of all Change in the world, both Physical and Mental.

"Doing work" and "change ... both physical and mental" is, in my mind, a distinction without a difference. I could be wrong though – tell me succinctly, Gnomon, how "work" differs significantly from "change". :chin:

Btw, from reading many of your posts (but not your blog), I've had the impression of your "EnFormAction" as a quixotic hybrid of David Bohm's holomovenent and G. t'Hooft's & L. Susskind's holographic principle; perhaps, though, you're saying something else ...

Materialism began to die on the vine, in the early 20th century, at the advent of Quantum Theory and Information Theory. Yet, those powerful new ideas were at first resisted, even by such wise philosophers as Einstein. — Gnomon

Photons are a good source of information in our macro world; light peels information off of an object for us to receive.

Of course, the elementary particles are called matter but they are not fundamental; Einstein suggested rather that all is field, and in QFT we take this elementary matter as being spread out quantum lumps in a fluctuating quantum vacuum field. Their information is such as the wave frequency telling of their energy, the wave length providing for volume and extension into dimension, the positive and negative amplitudes providing for matter and antimatter and its charge polarity.

That there are are just a few handfuls of particles tells us that there are only those number of ways to make them, especially the more stable particles that are just a few. The information that makes the physical particles would be just as physical since the physical particles are directly the quanta of the fields, not something new and different in substance. The information for making a particle is described by the math that matches quantum field waverings as sums of harmonic oscillators, for this is how the quantum fields operate.

We can still out of awe portray nature in a kind of mystical fashion, too. Here are two of my videos that do that, just for the fun of romanticism to show that way:

The point of metaphysics is to arrive at the terminus of explanation. Surely many will say that it can’t be done, but it’s worth spelling that out. — Wayfarer

Since it obviously can't be done, that makes metaphysics, conceived that traditional way, pointless, No doubt that is why Gautama refused to answer metaphysical questions, because when people become hooked on looking for such impossible final explanations they become lost.

Materialism began to die on the vine, in the early 20th century, at the advent of Quantum Theory and Information Theory. — Gnomon

:100:

Since it obviously can't be done that makes metaphysics, conceived that traditional way, pointless — Janus

As I pointed out at the beginning of this thread, and every thread on the subject of metaphysics, the word itself was coined in relation to Aristotle's Metaphysics. And Aristotelian Metaphysics is a legitimate topic with an established provenance and coherent meaning. The tradition in which it is best preserved are those associated with Thomas Aquinas, but it is also preserved in other philosophers to a greater or lesser extent. So, no, I don't agree that it is pointless or meaningless, it is mainly dismissed on the basis of incomprehension. Almost nothing in this thread has actually been about metaphysics at all. I'm not saying that on the basis that I'm an expert on the subject, even particularly adept at it, but I am endeavouring to educate myself in it.

I believe that something that is conspicuously absent in modern philosophy generally is the whole concept of necessary being, also known as the unconditioned, unmade, uncreated and so on. This is something generally identified with religious philosophy and so rejected on those grounds, but it leaves a void, the 'god-shaped hole' in the Western psyche, which unconsciously continues to exert influence.

I believe that something that is conspicuously absent in modern philosophy generally is the whole concept of necessary being, also known as the unconditioned, unmade, uncreated and so on. — Wayfarer

If all you want to say is that the "terminus of explanation" is

necessary being, also known as the unconditioned, unmade, uncreated and so on. — Wayfarer

then this doesn't amount to saying anything much.

So, no, I don't agree that it is pointless or meaningless, it is mainly dismissed on the basis of incomprehension. — Wayfarer

It may have possible poetic value, but what explanatory value could it have, since it posits something about which nothing can be said, other than what it isn't?

You always think that when others disagree with your assessment, that it is because they don't understand it. This is a huge blind spot in my opinion; others are not as stupid as you would like to imagine.

It may have possible poetic value, but what explanatory value could it have, since it posits something about which nothing can be said, other than what it isn't? — Janus

The value it gives, is to tell us that to proceed in the direction of pure chance is to go in the wrong direction.

As I already said, any explanation you give will then require a further explanation as to why it is as it is; if you were able to go down that rabbit hole there would be no end to it. — Janus

To go down the road of "there is an explanation", even if that explanation may require a further explanation, and a further one after that, is a much more reasonable route than "there is no explanation".

There is a big difference between saying "if you go that way you'll never get to the end of the road", and saying "that is the wrong way to go". The way of "it is chance, it is unintelligible and will never be understood", is clearly the wrong way to go. But if someone says "your understanding will never be complete", this should not deter anyone.

The value it gives, is to tell us that to proceed in the direction of pure chance is to go in the wrong direction. — Metaphysician Undercover

As I already said the idea of "pure chance" is incoherent. If there is an explanation of the origin of life it will be in lawlike terms. To say something arose by "pure chance" is no more an explanation than to say it arose on account of "necessary being, also known as the unconditioned, unmade, uncreated and so on".

To go down the road of "there is an explanation", even if that explanation may require a further explanation, and a further one after that, is a much more reasonable route than "there is no explanation". — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure, that's the way of science, not metaphysics (as traditionally understood) though.

Jeez man. I suppose we are only left with the option that "metaphysics" means, whatever anyone chooses it to mean.

I don't know if this obscurity is due to the topic itself, which could be the case, or if simply we are just confusing ourselves.

I can certainly see the appeal of using "physics" as ones metaphysics, and then forget about all the other issues that will arise. Or, as is said, "shut up and calculate."

then this doesn't amount to saying anything much. — Janus

You reckon? :yikes:

As I already said the idea of "pure chance" is incoherent. If there is an explanation of the origin of life it will be in lawlike terms. To say something arose by "pure chance" is no more an explanation than to say it arose on account of "necessary being, also known as the unconditioned, unmade, uncreated and so on". — Janus

Since explanations concerning the cause of material being have always been incomplete, what is wrong with pursuing an explanation which would likely require a further explanation? I don't see the merit in your rejection of such a "rabbit hole".

You reckon? :yikes: — Wayfarer

Well, what does it say apart from

"necessary being, also known as the unconditioned, unmade, uncreated and so on". — Janus

?

If we want to say something about how life arose, then we would need to investigate what were the physical conditions and then theorize from there as to what imaginable physical processes could have caused the changes in the chemical compounds such as to produce life.

As far as I know we already have some explanatory hypotheses, but as yet have been unable to create life in the laboratory. Maybe we won't ever be able to come up with a definitive explanation and will be left with various possibilities, but any explanation, whether definitive or not, will be in terms of physical processes, because anything else cannot constitute a testable explanation.

Since explanations concerning the cause of material being have always been incomplete, what is wrong with pursuing an explanation which would likely require a further explanation? I don't see the merit in your rejection of such a "rabbit hole". — Metaphysician Undercover

If the explanation you are considering is a physical one then there is nothing wrong with it, Even if we can create life in the lab, showing that some physical explanation works, that still won't answer the question as to why physical substances are such as to allow the advent of life. That kind of question is not answerable in any verifiable or falsifiable manner in principle..

I can certainly see the appeal of using "physics" as ones metaphysics, and then forget about all the other issues that will arise. Or, as is said, "shut up and calculate." — Manuel

I'm not against imaginative speculation in the metaphysical way; all I'm saying that such speculation cannot be shown to be anything more than an exercise of the creative imagination. I follow Popper in thinking that such metaphysical speculations can (and arguably have) lead to exploring avenues which lead to actual physical discoveries, which may never have happened otherwise.