You have held up quantitative as equal to or better than qualitative. I don't think it can be. — Joe Mello

That's not true Joe, we were talking about "greater", not "better". I've held "greater" to be something which can be measured quantitatively. I suggested that bigger is greater. Don't switch from "greater" to "better" at this point in the discussion, just because it suits you better now. I asked you earlier in the thread if you wouldn't prefer a more qualitative term like "better", but apparently this doesn't work for your principle. Your principle doesn't make any sense if you switch "better" for "greater".

So, by what principle do you say that "greater" in the qualitative sense is greater than "greater" in the quantitative sense?

I didn't "bring up" anything, Smith. I recommended a book which expounds in great depth on my answer to the OP: knowledge. Clearly, as his subsequent posts exhibit, he incorrigibly lacks that "something greater". Once again, I've cast pearls before swine (re: this thread). :zip: — 180 Proof

:ok: I don't quite get why you think the OP is about knowledge.

@Metaphysician Undercover

I already posted that a greater thing has an extra element, a qualitatively extra element.

You posted an example of more of the same element, which is simply quantitative.

So your example failed to see the importance of quality, and replaced quality with quantity, making quantity equal to or better than quality.

Look at your example and mine for what I’m saying, not a word I chose to use.

I don't get why you think I've claimed "the OP is about knowledge".

Honestly, I may take you up on that sometime, because I've had a recent resurgence of oppositional emotion toward religion, to the point of hostility even. — Garrett Travers

Why is that? Who else than God could have made the heavens and life in it. Or at least the stuff giving rise to it? There is no physical explanation for the universe.

Knowledge in no way resembles pearls. One can have knowledge of the fundamental workings of the universe, the holistic laws thriving on them, and the connecting links between them, but how devoid this knowledge would be without a profound understanding of the innards, sparked and sprinkled with divine spirit?

light is both wave and particle. — Janus

How can that be? How can it be both at the same time?

If your prayer book says so. :roll:

I don't get why you think I've claimed "the OP is about knowledge" — 180 Proof

Ok, We'll have to back up a bit. What do you think the OP wants to discuss? As far as I can tell, the OP is about holism and antireductionism, for the OP mentions, quite specifically, that the whole, some of its properties, are inexplicable as a mere sum of its parts, and such properties are added onto the whole from "above" in a manner of speaking.

It's counter intuitive, but that is the result yielded by the "two slit experiment". No one claims to be able to understand it, just as no one claims to be able to visualize the curvature of three dimensional spacetime that happens in proximity to objects; the more mass the greater the curvature. Must reality fit our intuitions?

I have no idea what the OP wants to discuss. It contains a variable ("something greater") and I proposed a value (knowledge). Joe rejected it. Okay; so I moved on when I read further as the variable became more and more vague woo-of-the-gaps. You believe he knows what he is talking about based on his vague logorrhea, good luck with that —> fly meet flypaper. :sweat:

Must reality fit our intuitions? — Janus

:up:

You're doing that Internet trolling thing. — Joe Mello

No, I'm not, I'm trying to be kind and invite you to discuss.

Since you are not accepting the invitation today, we'll leave it for another time.

You believe he knows what he is talking about based on his vague logorrhea, good luck with that —> fly meet flypaper. — 180 Proof

:lol: dart meet bullseye.

Why is that? Who else than God could have made the heavens and life in it. Or at least the stuff giving rise to it? There is no physical explanation for the universe. — EugeneW

Why, no one, of course. The heavens and life have not asserted themselves as needing such a creator. And who are we to conclude any creator could craft a domain of such complexity? It's beyond any reckoning. There are plenty of physical explanations for a great deal of things. But, there are more explanations for physical phenomena, than there are for God. A gap in knowledge regarding material reality, does not imply knowledge of something else. That too requires evidence as an assertion.

I have no idea what the OP wants to discuss. It contains a variable ("something greater") and I proposed a value (knowledge). Joe rejected it. Okay; so I moved on when I read further as the variable became more and more vague woo-of-the-gaps. You believe he knows what he is talking about based on his vague logorrhea, good luck with that —> fly meet flypaper. :sweat: — 180 Proof

Nice! :up:

I don't read prayer books. I just look around me. What's your thing with values of variables and knowledge?

**No combination of lesser things can create a greater thing without something greater than the greater thing added to the lesser things.**

This is simply the divine spark that's been added to the universe. The fire breath into the equations. That which makes them work.

Must reality fit our intuitions? — Janus

Yes. A particle is a particle. A wave is a wave. You can have waves of particles. All being one. But that's still a wave in which particles move. Or one particle.

A gap in knowledge regarding material reality, does not imply knowledge of something else. That too requires evidence as an assertion. — Garrett Travers

If the final gap is closed, what remains?

I already posted that a greater thing has an extra element, a qualitatively extra element. — Joe Mello

I explained this already. A whole is greater than the sum of its parts, because there is something "extra" which is the cause of the unity of the parts. Are you in agreement with this common philosophical principle? What makes a whole greater than the sum of the parts, is this "extra" thing which is the reason why the parts exist in unity as a whole, or a single thing.

You posted an example of more of the same element, which is simply quantitative. — Joe Mello

The reason why I moved to a quantitative example, is that the unity of a bigger thing appears to be greater than the unity of a smaller thing. Do you agree, that the cause of unity (the extra thing) of a bigger thing, ought to be considered as greater than the cause of unity of a smaller thing? Or do you propose some other principle whereby we could judge one instance of greatness (cause of unity) as greater than another instance of greatness?

So your example failed to see the importance of quality, and replaced quality with quantity, making quantity equal to or better than quality. — Joe Mello

Judging by this statement, you would propose that one unity could be judged as greater than another through reference to a quality. Let me remind you, that bigger is a quality. Most qualities we are capable of representing as a quantity, that is how we measure the various qualities. So I do not think you are offering a productive approach by driving a wedge between quality and quantity. You yourself said that we, human beings are the ones who speak for reality. So if reality appears to us as qualities, and we measure these qualities in quantitative terms, then that is simply our way of speaking about reality. Therefore we ought not look for principles to separate these two, but look to understand how they are unified, if we want to understand reality.

Look at your example and mine for what I’m saying, not a word I chose to use. — Joe Mello

As I said, I am asking you to explain your principle. Merely asserting this is better than that, repeating yourself over and over, and deriding the other person because they cannot understand why you assert that this is better than that, does not help me to understand your principle. Look at what I said for example. I explained the something "extra", which makes a whole greater than the sum of its parts, then I explained why I think that a bigger whole is greater than a smaller whole. It appears to me like you are thinking of a principle whereby you would say that one unity is "better" than another unity, a principle which is other than size, and perhaps could not even be measured as a quantity. If so, could you explain this?

Holism contains the same ingredients as reductionism. A set of particles can form a square, not seen in the individual particles, but that square, like the particles constituting it, lack the greater ingredient (apart from aquareness).

lack the greater ingredient — EugeneW

What is the greater ingredient then?

@Metaphysician Undercover

I’m only taking about one principle, and you keep talking about your definition of what is “greater”, and I am correcting your definition because I provided the principle not you.

I’m repeating myself because you’re repeatedly holding up quantity for me to look at as a greater thing when quantity is not part of the principle, other than calling the extra element of superior quality an added element.

Get your own logical metaphysical principle.

The one I gave to you is elegant, logical, and real, not some intellectual rambling that may or may not provide the answer to how life and thought came to be on a pile of rocks.

What you should be doing is looking to science to see if it supports the principle, not trying to make it your own.

Science supports it everywhere, but scientists refuse to broaden their parameters beyond the second degree of abstraction, mathematics (like you are doing postulating quantity instead of quality), to include the philosophical science of Logic.

You and most of the posters here have a failure of imagination.

180 just called the principle “woo”, the go to skeptic talking point of Internet trolls.

Einstein said that it was his imagination that moved him to his theories more than his mathematics did.

That’s why he became “Einstein” and not just a face in a crowd of other scientists.

There are a couple of posters here who readily appreciated the principle and welcomed it into their thinking like they were waiting for it.

These posters have not destroyed their imaginations from a bombardment of superficial opinionated thoughts shot out of ego and the worship of mathematics.

It doesn’t seem you’re ever going to appreciate anything other than what you have thought up yourself, even if another Einstein showed up.

Too bad.

Get your own logical metaphysical principle.

The one I gave to you is elegant, logical, and real, not some intellectual rambling that may or may not provide the answer to how life and thought came to be on a pile of rocks. — Joe Mello

There are a couple of posters here who readily appreciated the principle and welcomed it into their thinking like they were waiting for it.

These posters have not destroyed their imaginations from a bombardment of superficial opinionated thoughts shot out of ego and the worship of mathematics.

It doesn’t seem you’re ever going to appreciate anything other than what you have thought up yourself, even if another Einstein showed up. — Joe Mello

Someone needs to look up Messiah Complex. You seem easily angered for one so enlightened.

@Real Gone Cat

Well, I could certainly come up with a better name than you did. And I love cats. But if it’s from the hippie days I enjoyed, that’s cool.

And every merely opinionated person on the Internet cannot accept knowledge and understanding as actual realities, only opinions. So, projecting their face in a crowd onto every face they see, these confused persons only welcome others who are confused.

And no truly wonderful person would use “Messiah” in a derogatory way, for he or she would see the need for one everywhere, and fully appreciate the spiritual Messiah that we already have.

And I have felt little emotion reading the posts here, and certainly never anger, which is probably because I have a Graduate degree in Professional Writing and only appreciate or react to good writing.

What do you think the OP wants to discuss? — Agent Smith

Joe Mello.

How can that be? How can it be both at the same time? — EugeneW

Yes. A particle is a particle. A wave is a wave. You can have waves of particles. All being one. But that's still a wave in which particles move. Or one particle. — EugeneW

As @Janus noted, reality does not always follow what we think of as common sense. You can't overthrow more than100 years of physics just because it doesn't make sense to you. This is not some new highfalutin idea.

I suggest a little reading.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave%E2%80%93particle_duality

I don't understand. How can a particle be a wave at the same time? Is it a quantum particle? Is the particle wave -shaped? Does it move around in a wave? What is the wave made of? Other particles?

I don't understand. How can a particle be a wave at the same time? — EugeneW

As I said, the fact that you can't understand it doesn't mean it isn't true. To be fair, it's a hard idea to get ahold of. Did you read the Wikipedia article I linked.

What is the greater ingredient then? — javi2541997

God only knows. He has put it in. Love maybe. Or hate. It's not particle-like.