Thanks! I can relate to where you are coming from. 'No finite thing has genuine being' suggests a similar point to me. Our signs form an interdependent system. This system has no bottom or first element. Opposites come in interdependent pairs.

Does me referring the question to a certain type of analysis say anything about my metaphysical commitments? But no, I am not a metaphysical naturalist. — Tobias

It would help understand where you are coming from on his question. If we don’t share the same axioms, we are hardly going to agree on the same conclusions.

So all my arguments here are contingent on taking a totalising natural philosophy view.

But indeed if the claim is that 'the material word' somehow is the world as it is, qua metaphysical position, then no, I do not hold that. I think it is reductionist and well... metaphysical in the pejorative sense of the word. — Tobias

It is a checkable theory, like all metaphysics ought to be … to avoid being word salad.

I stand in the continental tradition rather squarely. — Tobias

Gotcha. (But I thought that had taken its own turn towards systems science with enthusiasms for things like Prigogine’s far from equilibrium thermodynamics.)

Gotcha. (But I thought that had taken its own turn towards systems science with enthusiasms for things like Prigogine’s far from equilibrium thermodynamics.) — apokrisis

Probably, I am just way more old fashioned. It never was in my curriculum. If anything I subscribe to a perspectivist or constructivist world view. In metaphysics I use the dialectical method and m view of being in the world is phenomenological.

It is a checkable theory, like all metaphysics ought to be … to avoid being word salad. — apokrisis

I think that is impossible, because it would require another meta-theory from the vantage point of which you would have to check it, meta-metaphysics. (see pataphysics). What I think you do is simply conflate metaphysics and physics. Physics indeed needs to work with testable theories. I think though that it is a reductionist view. Metaphysics examines the assumptions with which we relate to the world. It is therefore introspective.

When you say “we can...”, you’re referring to your own qualitative potential. — Possibility

I’m referring not to my qualitative judgements but that of a Peircean community of rational thinkers. I rely on the world-structuring of a logical semiotics as practiced within a pragmatic human tradition.

So as embodied in philosophical naturalism, quality gets properly defined - as dichotomous to quantification.

And the qualities employed are those that are the product of rational dialectical argument. Metaphysics was founded on the identification of such dichotomous qualities. Chance-necessity, matter-form, atom-void, being-becoming, stasis-flux, etc, etc.

Qualities are not free choices. They are the unities of opposites that reasoning about pure possibility must force upon us.

And then the value of these metaphysical distinctions are checked against the material facts by the scientific method - the methodological naturalism to complement the metaphysical naturalism.

The Tao Te Ching refers to this in its opening chapter, acknowledging that “The Tao which can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.” — Possibility

Sure, but how did Peirce resolve this Kantian dilemma? Do we fetishise the thing-in-itself or get on with the pragmatics of being selves in a modelling relation with our reality - the Umwelt argument.

So the Apeiron or Vagueness, or the quantum foam for that matter, are the eternal which cannot be spoken about. And yet still - pragmatically - we can be completist by including them in our conversation to the maximum degree that it is usefully possible.

The original ideographic language of the TTC is a qualitative logical structure, to which we as readers align our own qualitative logical structure (in a potential state ‘empty’ of effort), in order to relate to the unbound possibility of energy as a whole in absentia, and recognise the possibility of its unique path through our particular qualitative logical structure. — Possibility

In fact energy isn’t the ground level of physicalist ontology anymore. The modelling has moved on to information-entropy as the dichotomy that best captures the wholeness of reality’s foundations. So a structuralist account is replacing a materialist account.

As might be expected where rational structure is the stabilising cause of being, making materiality its “other” of the radical and undirected fluctuation, or fundamental instability.

I think that is impossible, because it would require another meta-theory from the vantage point of which you would have to check it, meta-metaphysics. — Tobias

Sure. No problem. Naturalism competes in the philosophy space with other metaphysical views - like those that are dualistic, intuitionistic, or anti-totalising. And in science, the holism of systems science competes against the reductionism of atomistic science.

Even within systems science there are dozens of camps.

Agreement can only arise in the long run - at the end of time.

Well I would not know how you can perceive 'difference' without a mind wired to see 'difference'. — Tobias

My dog can see difference and smell difference and taste difference. Is her mind wired with Kant's categories or some other a priori categories?

Why would it lead to a denial of change? — Tobias

Parmenides denied change. It did not fit his thinking.

In your view though it seems like we first have to experience non-identity in order to be released from our slumber that thinking prioritizes identity. — Tobias

It is not a question of identity in general, but the identity of thinking and being.

He held on to assumptions, namely that 'real' thinking deals with the unchanging, which we questionable. — Tobias

So, his thinking was questionable. Do you think that thinking has now progressed to the point where thinking and being are the same but in thinking they were the same he was wrong based on his thinking?

The hidden bit in the logic is that explanations are "another thing outside the thing". — apokrisis

Yeah, so we actually have:

1. anything must have some other explanation
2. reality in total cannot have another explanation

I'm not sure what could be self-explanatory here.
General necessities are hard to come by; self-consistency might be a candidate, then again that just seems like us imposing so we can make sense of things, don't think there's any guarantee of that.

Rasmussen's paradox in a nutshell.

1. Everything that exists must have an explanation based on something else.

2. The totality of reality has no explanation (there is no something else).

Ergo,

3. Nothing exists

Another version of it would go

1. If it exists, it has an explanation

2. Reality has no explanation

Ergo,

3. Nothing exists

Yep, can't argue with that!


Unless you buy into the argument based on

1. Explanations being based on things simpler than that which they explain.

2. The simplest, therefore, needs no explanation

The totality of reality began as the simplest conceivable object (the Big Bang singularity). Looks like physicists are on a wild goose chase, there is no pot of gold at the end of this rainbow.

Options:

1. Reality needs no explanation (I opted for this)

2. Reality explains itself (Someone might want to work on this)

I wonder why I have to accept that the territory is real and somehow the map is not. — Tobias

You don't. I don't. As I say above 'maps are aspects of the territory used to delineate, or make explicit, other aspects of the territory', so they are real too, though formally (i.e. abstactions) and not as the concrete (empirical) facts to which they refer.

Again, to my way of thinking, being is the independent variable and thinking is a dependent variable (ergo, 'the being of thinking' (whereas 'thinking of being' makes no more sense than 'map = territory' or 'solipsism')) – and these "distinctions", or ideas, are thinking-dependent-dependent variables.

You don't. I don't. As I say above 'maps are aspects of the territory used to delineate, or make explicit, other aspects of the territory', so they are real too, though formally (i.e. abstactions) and not as the concrete (empirical) facts to which they refer.

Again, to my way of thinking, being is the independent variable and thinking is a dependent variable (ergo, 'the being of thinking' (whereas 'thinking of being' makes no more sense than 'map = territory' or 'solipsism')) – and these "distinctions", or ideas, are thinking-dependent-dependent variables. — 180 Proof

The problem, the way I see it at least, is that both are dependent on each other. Thinking ' is' , certainly, We encounter it among all kinds of phenomena and give it a separate name, we refer to it as thinking. Therefore it seems that in this vast ocean of being, there is a tiny ship setting course, and perhaps making a map of this sea, we call this ship 'thinking'. Quite naturally it sets itself apart from the sea it is navigating, the stars it is mapping and the winds it gauges. It does not give it a pause ordinarily on its voyage.

However while far away from home, at a time the Captain cannot sleep and he stares over the ocean at night, something occurs to him. Why does he maps the things he maps? Why does he rwrite 'ocean' on one side of the paper and 'land' on another. "Because they are different" he tells himself. However, something keeps nagging. He notices and sees so much more differences, the water is dark blue on the ocean, light blue in some bays. He does not make note of it. He thinks, perhaps all these drops of water, each and everyone of them, they might all be different from each other. There might be differences we aren't even aware of. Or, perhaps, there might be similarities we are not even aware of. How would God discern between land and ocean? Would he? Or is the distinction as trivial to an omniscient mind as the minute differences between two drops of water are for us?

The captain of the ship of thought realizes that all the differences we make are based upon itself. Het is after all making the map. He realizes that the ship is from the same matter as the land is and as the ocean is, but that all the differences made within this matter are made by thought. He realizes that even him referring to matter, invokes the history of philosophy, wasn't it Aristotle that called it such, he wondered. So yes, he realizes, all this mapping, all this thinking, it is based on the history of it, what we have considered important, what we have considered all this stuff to be. He goes to sleep, feeling puzzled and slightly confused,, but not out of place. He realizes, he is not different at all.

I’m referring not to my qualitative judgements but that of a Peircean community of rational thinkers. I rely on the world-structuring of a logical semiotics as practiced within a pragmatic human tradition.

So as embodied in philosophical naturalism, quality gets properly defined - as dichotomous to quantification.

And the qualities employed are those that are the product of rational dialectical argument. Metaphysics was founded on the identification of such dichotomous qualities. Chance-necessity, matter-form, atom-void, being-becoming, stasis-flux, etc, etc.

Qualities are not free choices. They are the unities of opposites that reasoning about pure possibility must force upon us.

And then the value of these metaphysical distinctions are checked against the material facts by the scientific method - the methodological naturalism to complement the metaphysical naturalism. — apokrisis

The external relation for Peirce was unconditional love. In this sense, quality is indefinite, and not entirely dichotomous to quantification. Reasoning about pure possibility is, after all, a free choice.

Sure, but how did Peirce resolve this Kantian dilemma? Do we fetishise the thing-in-itself or get on with the pragmatics of being selves in a modelling relation with our reality - the Umwelt argument.

So the Apeiron or Vagueness, or the quantum foam for that matter, are the eternal which cannot be spoken about. And yet still - pragmatically - we can be completist by including them in our conversation to the maximum degree that it is usefully possible. — apokrisis

Agreed - and being honest about the incompleteness of this.

In fact energy isn’t the ground level of physicalist ontology anymore. The modelling has moved on to information-entropy as the dichotomy that best captures the wholeness of reality’s foundations. So a structuralist account is replacing a materialist account.

As might be expected where rational structure is the stabilising cause of being, making materiality its “other” of the radical and undirected fluctuation, or fundamental instability. — apokrisis

I’m with you here. Energy, as I understand it, is not so much a material entity as a placeholder for the ultimately illogical quality of information-entropy.


I do recognise that my position goes a step beyond reason - I’m actually in complete agreement with much of what you’re writing here. It isn’t really useful for me to take this step, except when it comes to being honest about completeness and our relation to possibility.

My dog can see difference and smell difference and taste difference. Is her mind wired with Kant's categories or some other a priori categories? — Fooloso4

I guess a dog's brain is hard wired too yes. Actually in dogs we tend to find it much easier to believe and call it ' instinct'. What a dog does not have and mankind does, is self reflection. At least there is no evidence that the question of being is an issue for dogs, but it is for humans.

Parmenides denied change. It did not fit his thinking. — Fooloso4

Yes, he denied it, because he considered only static relations to be really thinkable. I think that is not true. Being is indeed a fixating concept, but it itself can only be thought in relation to nothing, leading to the concept of becoming, pace Hegel.

So, his thinking was questionable. Do you think that thinking has now progressed to the point where thinking and being are the same but in thinking they were the same he was wrong based on his thinking? — Fooloso4

They always were the same. They are analytically the same. To be is to take part in a state of affairs (free after Wittgenstein). Their identity is not based on empirical findings but on conceptual analysis. That is why the identity of thinking and being is a metaphysical proposal and not a physical one or a psychological one. That is the whole difference between philosophy and physics for me. Philosophy is self referential, a conceptual analysis of only itself. It leads to self knowledge but not knowledge of the world.

The Captain only maps his 'ocean journey' but not the whole of the ocean. Thinking only reflects its 'errant thoughts of being' but not the whole of being (Adorno / Levinas / Zapffe). Thoughts, like maps of the ocean, are dependent on the encompassing (Jaspers) of being; "distinctions" (ideas) are furthermore dependent on – expressions of – thought. I don't see, Tobias, how being is (also) dependent on beings e.g. "thoughts" (or how the ocean is (also) dependent on a ship Captain's "maps"). :chin:

The external relation for Peirce was unconditional love. — Possibility

I guess it depends on how one interprets agapastic evolution.

Can it really be driven by such a transcendental quality as "cosmic love"? Or is it better covered by the prosaic systems view that, of course, all biosemiotic systems must balance the secondness of evolutionary competition with the thirdness of ecological cooperation?

So it is the dichotomy of competition~cooperation that is the driving immanent, or self-organising, dynamic that emerges from pure semiotic possibility in nature.

I’m actually in complete agreement with much of what you’re writing here. — Possibility

:up:

I guess a dog's brain is hard wired too yes. — Tobias

But to note that a dog can taste the difference between cheese and carrot does not mean it's mind:

mind wired to see 'difference'. — Tobias

You got here by arguing that things:

... conform to our categories of thought — Tobias

You now expand our categories to include dogs. But a dog does not need the conceptual category of 'difference' to taste the difference between carrot and cheese.

Being is indeed a fixating concept, but it itself can only be thought in relation to nothing, leading to the concept of becoming, pace Hegel. — Tobias

Do you mean according to Hegel and contrary to or pace Parmenides? If so, it is odd that on the one hand you argue in favor of Kantian categories and on the other Hegel, who rejected them.

If you are arguing in favor of Hegel then it is only at the completion of history, with Geist's self-knowledge, with the realization/actualization in time of the real being the ideal, that it is true, for him, that subject and object are unified. But none of this means he was right. Many consider it metaphysical overreach, wishful thinking, or idealist fiction.

Yeah, so we actually have:

1. anything must have some other explanation
2. reality in total cannot have another explanation — jorndoe

Yep. That was the position I argued against.

General necessities are hard to come by; self-consistency might be a candidate, then again that just seems like us imposing so we can make sense of things, don't think there's any guarantee of that. — jorndoe

In our "best" descriptions of nature, self-consistency in the form of some global finality, some general optimisation principle, is always needed, even if it can't be really explained by the view from the individual parts.

Take the Principle of Least Action and the way it must be smuggled in as the mysterious foundation to all mechanics.

But to note that a dog can taste the difference between cheese and carrot does not mean it's mind:

mind wired to see 'difference'.
— Tobias — Fooloso4

I do not understand. It certainly notices difference or it would eat everything, but it does not. It does not articulate the difference. Indeed, dogs do not engage in metaphysics.

You got here by arguing that things:

... conform to our categories of thought
— Tobias

You now expand our categories to include dogs. But a dog does not need the conceptual category of 'difference' to taste the difference between carrot and cheese. — Fooloso4

Dogs are not categories of thought. The categories of thought (as Kant articultaed them) represent necessary distinctions the mind makes when it perceives the world. Dogs do not need to articulate the category of difference, neither do we, to taste the difference. That does not mean that the category of difference is not a necessary category, without which our world would be vastly different from what it is now. It is odd, because I think you and I disagree because of a misunderstanding. Our thinking conforms to the world and vice versa, yes, but that does not mean that the moment we become self conscious of a certain mental operation, our world changes. You seem to impute that on Parmenides as well, who articulated something like the thesis of the identity of thinking and being. However, it is not because we found the possibility to incorporate change in our conceptual apparatus, magically change happened in the world. Or that when we could not articulate it, thinking was somehow not identical to being. We simply did not comprehend how it could be an later we learned. I wonder if we are actually far off or not.

Do you mean according to Hegel and contrary to or pace Parmenides? If so, it is odd that on the one hand you argue in favor of Kantian categories and on the other Hegel, who rejected them. — Fooloso4

Hegel rejected them because he thought Kant's table of categories is too static and too 'formal', based on some kind of luminary self understanding which we do not have. For Hegel we come to realize the categories of thought through a dialectical process in the course of practical history and not through a process of clear introspection. this insight opens up the historical nature of our way of thinking. I applaud that.

If you are arguing in favor of Hegel then it is only at the completion of history, with Geist's self-knowledge, with the realization/actualization in time of the real being the ideal, that it is true, for him, that subject and object are unified. But none of this means he was right. Many consider it metaphysical overreach, wishful thinking, or idealist fiction. — Fooloso4

Sorry, pro Hegel, contra Parmenides. Yours though is is a very thick, metaphysical reading of Hegel and I think a much lighter reading is possible, based on Robert Pippin and Walther Jaeschke. 'Absolute knowledge' amounts to no more than the realization that thinking progresses dialectically. Only after this realization is it possible to engage in the 'Science of Logic', the dialectical articulation of the different concepts, or, in terms used throughout this post, the categories. With Kant 'Geist' opened up the possibility of self knowledge and Hegel completed Kant's project (or so he hoped).
Overrreach in a sense yes, there is a lot to say about Hegel's claim that with him a fundamental insight broke through in philosophy and also a lot to say about what results the dialectical method brings us, but that would take us far out of bounds. For now, I do not see at all why it would be necessary to read Hegel in the light of some cosmic world spirit, that would reach some sort of historical endgame as Fukuyama or Kojeve seem to hold. That is more Schelling than Hegel and perhaps late Hegel when his pride and fame got the better of him.

Dogs are not categories of thought. — Tobias

Not dogs as a category but dogs having "our categories of thought".

Dogs do not need to articulate the category of difference, neither do we, to taste the difference. — Tobias

Neither the dogs or us need the categories to taste the difference.

However, it is not because we found the possibility to incorporate change in our conceptual apparatus, magically change happened in the world. — Tobias

Change happens whether we are able to think change or not. That is the point. It points to the separation of thinking and being.

We simply did not comprehend how it could be an later we learned. — Tobias

So, thinking changed but thought did not.

For Hegel we come to realize the categories of thought through a dialectical process in the course of practical history ... — Tobias

Right. So they are not hardwired. And dogs do not share in the history of spirit that realized in western culture.

... there is a lot to say about Hegel's claim that with him a fundamental insight broke through in philosophy ... — Tobias

I agree, but I see that insight in terms of becoming, history, and culture. Not the realization/actualization of spirit in history, the concretization of thought, and the overcoming or aufhaben of the difference between subject and object.

Neither the dogs or us need the categories to taste the difference. — Fooloso4

indeed, that is what I responded above.

Change happens whether we are able to think change or not. That is the point. It points to the separation of thinking and being. — Fooloso4

No, if we would have no ability to discern change from sameness it would not happen. Just like there is no color 'Grue' because we do not have the ability to discern it. You need the conceptualization of it in order to articulate it as happening. Perhaps a dog's life is just for us different every day. I do not know what it is like to be a bat.

Change happens whether we are able to think change or not. That is the point. It points to the separation of thinking and being. — Fooloso4

No, we articulate it as 'happening whether we can think it or not' , but without a mind for which change is an issue change does not 'happen', just like nothing really 'happens'. Also a happening is somehting that is an issue for someone, an object for a subject.

So, thinking changed but thought did not. — Fooloso4

Thinking as such did not change, we just managed to articulate the process more richly.

Right. So they are not hardwired. And dogs do not share in the history of spirit that realized in western culture. — Fooloso4

They are, they are already present 'in itself', just not 'for itself' in Hegelian terms. In dogs they are perhaps also present in themselves however, the chance they are also actualized for themselves is very questionable. In Western culture they have become 'for themselves', at least according to Hegel.

I agree, but I see that insight in terms of becoming, history, and culture. Not the realization/actualization of spirit in history, the concretization of thought, and the overcoming or aufhaben of the difference between subject and object. — Fooloso4

I also do not, like I told you. My Hegel interpretation does not follow that rather traditional path.

I guess it depends on how one interprets agapastic evolution.

Can it really be driven by such a transcendental quality as "cosmic love"? Or is it better covered by the prosaic systems view that, of course, all biosemiotic systems must balance the secondness of evolutionary competition with the thirdness of ecological cooperation?

So it is the dichotomy of competition~cooperation that is the driving immanent, or self-organising, dynamic that emerges from pure semiotic possibility in nature. — apokrisis

I’ve come to recognise at least one transcendental quality in any plausible understanding of the system - a firstness, or that which is as it is independently of anything else. An unresolvable paradox sits at the heart of it all. But it’s interchangeable, and that’s what makes it at least possible to UNDERSTAND the entire system from the inside. Just not explain it - not without excluding ourselves from the explanation as an assumed relative position.

In the Tao Te Ching, the transcendental quality is what we embody in our limited sense as ‘desire’ or affect: this information-entropy dichotomy as an unresolvable, interchangeable paradox. Information is not necessarily 1 with entropy 0. We don’t always have to be perceived to intend, or to possess our capacity - a leader is not necessarily one who acts or enforces.

The interchangeability of the dichotomy maximises variability, and enables us to critique, improve and explain our understanding of the system by varying our possible relation to it. This is also essential to Peirce’s synechism: the third member in any continuum C is our possible relation to C. Recognising that there is always another possible relation to C with unique information - and extrapolating this beyond a linear qualitative structure - is the basis of Peirce’s notion of unconditional love - if we are to aim for a living community of rational thinkers, then we need to accept that we cannot always BE or THINK rational, owing to our limited actuality. And if we accept this, then surely we cannot ignore, isolate or exclude the relative position of those who seem (from our limited position) to THINK less rationally?

'Absolute knowledge' amounts to no more than the realization that thinking progresses dialectically. — Tobias

It's been awhile, but wouldn't this be too anticlimactic? To make it interesting, I believe we need to do something like destroy the exterior (and with it of course the interior.) I watched some Pippin videos that he was great. Cool that you mentioned Kojeve. He's a fun one. Anyway:

According to Pippin, the Hegelian "Geist" should be understood as the totality of norms according to which we can justify our beliefs and actions. The important point is that we cannot justify anything except in such a normative logical space of reasons. So no kind of distinctively human rational cognition and action is articulatable or intelligible independently of such norms. In a phenomenological-hermeneutical jargon, these norms constitute a horizon, a perspective in which we can make anything intelligible to ourselves. Additionally, these norms are socio-historically articulated. Geist is the dynamic process of these norms and their transformations in human history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_B._Pippin

This reminds me almost too much of 'Dreydegger' and some interpretations of Wittgenstein. I guess I'd understand the softer version of absolute knowledge as a kind of introjection or ingestion of that which was previously projected as an external trans-human or non-human authority or indigestible kernel 'behind' appearances.

The captain of the ship of thought realizes that all the differences we make are based upon itself. He is after all making the map. He realizes that the ship is from the same matter as the land is and as the ocean is, but that all the differences made within this matter are made by thought. He realizes that even him referring to matter, invokes the history of philosophy, wasn't it Aristotle that called it such, he wondered. So yes, he realizes, all this mapping, all this thinking, it is based on the history of it, what we have considered important, what we have considered all this stuff to be. He goes to sleep, feeling puzzled and slightly confused, but not out of place. He realizes, he is not different at all. — Tobias

Beautiful. Do you mean that 'he' realizes that this 'he' or 'subject' is another piece of the 'map,' and that even the 'map' metaphor depends on everything else for its significance? 'He' makes the 'map' according presumably to his desires, themselves historically generated, but only according to the map that makes him along with itself. A whirlpool of traces.

I’ve come to recognise at least one transcendental quality in any plausible understanding of the system - a firstness, or that which is as it is independently of anything else. An unresolvable paradox sits at the heart of it all. — Possibility

I prefer Peirce’s framing of Firstness as Vagueness, or even Tychism. That gets beyond the idea of something that exists by itself or is independent of what then arises.

I prefer Peirce’s framing of Firstness as Vagueness, or even Tychism. That gets beyond the idea of something that exists by itself or is independent of what then arises. — apokrisis

Sure. The notion of independence can suggest the existence of a particular something - implying a certain substance or concreteness that just isn’t there. Vagueness is a non-logical quality of existence, while tychism undermines its own attempt to explain or logically structure reality.

Vagueness is a non-logical quality of existence, — Possibility

How so when it is logically defined? (as that to which the PNC fails to apply)

while tychism undermines its own attempt to explain or logically structure reality. — Possibility

How so? A systems way of looking at things says that everything boils down to global constraints on local instability. Which is the tychic-synechic story.

So surely the point would be that tychism indeed doesn’t logically structure reality. Instead it is formally the “other” which is the disorderly potential that actually gives synechic continuity, or the thirdness of regulating habit, a job to do.

Vagueness is a non-logical quality of existence,
— Possibility

How so when it is logically defined? (as that to which the PNC fails to apply) — apokrisis

Ha! I guess it depends on your perspective - that’s not how I would have described vagueness myself (I’m an Arts major, after all), but I can see it now!

while tychism undermines its own attempt to explain or logically structure reality.
— Possibility

How so? A systems way of looking at things says that everything boils down to global constraints on local instability. Which is the tychic-synechic story.

So surely the point would be that tychism indeed doesn’t logically structure reality. Instead it is formally the “other” which is the disorderly potential that actually gives synechic continuity, or the thirdness of regulating habit, a job to do. — apokrisis

Hmm... I will admit that I went off the standard dictionary definition of tychism: “the doctrine that account must be taken of the element of chance in reasoning or explanation of the universe“, and naturally interpreted it from my position, which as you can probably guess is more qualitative than logical.

I’ve often looked at systems as introducing local constraints on a universal instability - a more creative impetus of structuring information against entropy. Looking at it now, I wouldn’t think either is more accurate than the other. All of this speaks to the interchangeability of the dichotomy.

This discussion has been very enlightening for me. Thanks!

No, if we would have no ability to discern change from sameness it would not happen. — Tobias

Do you think nothing happened before there were humans or something else that was able to discern change?

Just like there is no color 'Grue' because we do not have the ability to discern it. — Tobias

There is no color grue because 'grue' is a word that was made up that does not name a color.

You need the conceptualization of it in order to articulate it as happening. — Tobias

What happens and an articulation of what happens are not the same. Something must happen in order to articulate it as something that happens.

Thinking as such did not change, we just managed to articulate the process more richly. — Tobias

It is not a question of "thinking as such" but of what is thought, and that changes.

I also do not, like I told you. My Hegel interpretation does not follow that rather traditional path. — Tobias

But for Hegel the identity of thinking and being is realized, made actual in time. Prior to this they are not the same, and it is only through the dialectic of difference that thinking and being become the same. How does your interpretation differ?

This reminds me almost too much of 'Dreydegger' and some interpretations of Wittgenstein. I guess I'd understand the softer version of absolute knowledge as a kind of introjection or ingestion of that which was previously projected as an external trans-human or non-human authority or indigestible kernel 'behind' appearances. — lll

To my shame I must say that I know too little of Dreydegger to really comment but from what I do remember it does sound similar. The wiki quote is also how I would see it, but better articulated than I could. I do not know if the appearance of this insight is anti-climatic, I do not think it is. With the ' Phenomenology' (appearance) of spirit (a necessarily assumed horizon of meaning) we realize that we ourselves are not some free transcendental subject as Kant would have it, but that our self actualization takes place within a larger whole, later to be called horizon or maybe even 'episteme'. I must be careful here though, Hegel assumed continuity, the later emphasis on discontinuity is a reaction (in dialectican fashion) to Hegel. I think 'absolute knowledge', is an even stronger realization than that though. With its procedural way of thinking the 'Pheno' is an introduction to and vindication of the method employed in the Logik, his truly metaphysical work of conceptual analysis. The dialectical process also proves itself as the ground structure of thinking (logos/ logic) and from this ' absolute' standpoint the conceptual analysis proper may be undertaken.

Do you think nothing happened before there were humans or something else that was able to discern change? — Fooloso4

Indeed if it wasn't for the appearance of a mind able to discern 'change' nothing happened. It is only by abstraction that we say something must have happened before the emergence of us. We discern change so we cast the universe before our onset in the same terms. However we can only do so from our own standpoint and in our own categories of explanation. Had we or anything else discerning change not been here, nothing would have changed.

There is no color grue because 'grue' is a word that was made up that does not name a color. — Fooloso4

The grue word denotes a color we cannot discern and because it cannot be discerned we cannot say whether it is or is not there.

What happens and an articulation of what happens are not the same. Something must happen in order to articulate it as something that happens. — Fooloso4

Something takes place, certainly, at least something appears to us. That is what we know. What exactly, we cannot know. We cast it in terms of change and happening. They are exactly the same until we find out our articulation of it was somehow inadequate.

It is not a question of "thinking as such" but of what is thought, and that changes. — Fooloso4

No, it is exactly of 'thinking as such'. What is thought always changes of course, but we are dealing with the categories in which we think. They remain the same. Of course, the contents of my thoughts at a present moment can never encompass being as such. Metaphysics is about being qua being, not a kind of being or a certain being.

But for Hegel the identity of thinking and being is realized, made actual in time. Prior to this they are not the same, and it is only through the dialectic of difference that thinking and being become the same. How does your interpretation differ? — Fooloso4

Hegel's thinking is circular. the identity of thinking and being is always there. Substance is always subject in the language of the pheno. However it is not realized it is such. We always spent our time within this horizon of meaning, yet, Kant for instance did not realize it yet and posited a free subject. Spinoza also did not realize it yet and proposed a substance without rationality, a godlike unbound substance. Only with Hegel did substance realize itself as subject, in other words, it came to self knowledge, reflexivity.

Beautiful. Do you mean that 'he' realizes that this 'he' or 'subject' is another piece of the 'map,' and that even the 'map' metaphor depends on everything else for its significance? 'He' makes the 'map' according presumably to his desires, themselves historically generated, but only according to the map that makes him along with itself. A whirlpool of traces. — lll

What I do see, in this discussion with you and Fooloso4 is that I am using those two notions of subjectivity, the Kantian one and the Hegelian one and that does not bode well for consistency. In my boat and captain story I relied on the Kantian version, but that indeed spells trouble from a Hegelian perspective, so I am thankful for the life buoy you threw me III ;)

I like your articulation, of what I in fact stated very incompletely... yes the Captain realizes this. Also in answer to @180 Proof I would not call one variable independent, the other dependent, both map and map maker exist within this horizon of conceptualization in which the map and territory metaphor also has its place and from which it derived its meaning. I would not give any metaphysical priority to one or the other, I think it is not needed to commit oneself to either a materialist or idealist metaphysics. Yet, maybe it is me though. I like and feel at home in a world where nothing but the relation is real.

Gorgias started it, Rasmussen will end it.

It is only by abstraction that we say something must have happened before the emergence of us. — Tobias

How could this emergence happen if nothing happened before we emerged? Obviously we could not say something must have happened if we had not happened but this does not mean that what happens is dependent on us.

The grue word denotes a color we cannot discern and because it cannot be discerned we cannot say whether it is or is not there. — Tobias

It does not denote a color. It is a hypothetical property of of something at time t. The term along with 'breen' were invented by Nelson Goodman in order to illustrate the problem of induction.

What is thought always changes of course — Tobias

Good. Now let's return to something I said earlier:

An early formulation of this presupposition is found in Parmenides claim:

To think and to be is the same.

It is the height of human hubris and folly to think that what is, was, and will be are limited by what we can think or comprehend or given and account of. — Fooloso4

The problem I am raising is not with "thinking as such", by which I take it you mean the dialectical movement of thought in time, but with the content of thought, what we can think or comprehend or give an account of.

I raised this in response to Rasmussen's paradox. More specifically the first premise:

1. Everything must have some explanation (PE).

It follows from this "must" that if something cannot be explained it must not exist. It might be argued that even though there are things that cannot be explained now they must still have an explanation that in time can be provided. But this assumes that there are no limits to human knowledge. Such metaphysical privileging should not be accepted on faith.

Hegel's theory is not only about the movement in time, but in place. It is Eurocentric. In addition, our thinking is not simply in terms of forms of thought, but in terms of specific concepts that change. Hegel knew nothing of relativity or quantum mechanics, both of which shape our thinking in ways that they could not have shaped his understanding of reality.