I just went to a ridiculous example to make the point more obvious. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think it's a better example because it represents a real situation - people used the Ptolemaic system for a long time and it allowed them to make pretty detailed, pretty correct predictions. It was finally replaced because a better system was developed that was simpler, more consistent with observations, and allowed better predictions. Your dragon causing the sun to go around the Earth didn't really allow any predictions at all beyond that the sun would come up, which everyone already knew by keeping track of the behavior of the sun.

I think that you are thinking of it in the wrong order. "from these interactions" seems like you are trying to derive where "understanding" (or "perspective") arises from what has been produced from the understanding itself. I can never look at a brain, which is an interpretation derived from understanding, and figure out my understanding therefrom. The best I can do is inquire recursively (i.e. reason upon itself) to understand the mechanisms of my understanding via that understanding. That's the best that can be done. — Bob Ross

I don't know, a lot of people take for granted a universe without perspective (before humans, without humans, after humans).. So your somewhat strident remark of contradictions doesn't jive with how the common view of the universe is conceived.. When asked to think of a universe without humans, we think of planets, black space, stars, etc.. When asked to think of physics we think of atoms whizzing...

Science seems to "work" in some way.. So to stridently pronounce there is a "conundrum" isn't quite the case for scientists who have no problem giving ontological pictures of reality through their measurements.. The fact that the predictions and measurements "work" in some way, seems to give us some privilege that perhaps other POVs don't have.. It seems to be tapping into "something out there". So I can see on the surface of it, science-oriented folks saying that they can describe a universe independent of perspective. It is the neo-Platonism (or Aristotleanism is it?) of not forms, but scientific principles that are foundational..

Your dragon causing the sun to go around the Earth didn't really allow any predictions at all beyond that the sun would come up, which everyone already knew by keeping track of the behavior of the sun. — T Clark

That the theory doesn't allow any predictions at all, is exactly the point I was trying to make. The mathematics applied to an observed pattern provides the prediction. The trickery I referred to, involves associating a theory with the mathematics so as to create the illusion that the predictions support the theory.

We can see the same trickery with the Ptolemaic system. We can model the sun and planets as making orbits around the earth, and employ geometry and mathematics within that theory, to make predictions. The predictions will be accurate to a large extent. But then there will be a small percentage of fringe cases, retrogrades, etc., anomalies where the normal prediction procedure will fail, so a special rule will need to be created to deal with each anomaly. This is where the trickery lies. Instead of recognizing, and accepting that when the model fails at the fringes, this means it is wrong, we produce "excuses" for the failings, exceptions to the rule.

We can see this in modern physics and cosmology with the general relativity theory. At the very small, local scale, quantum mechanics, the theory fails. Also, at the very large scale, it produces anomalies when dealing with cosmological spatial expansion. The anomalies are dealt with by positing things like dark matter and dark energy. (The dragon accounts for the failings in the predictions, because it has a mind of its own and doesn't follow the law every single time, exceptions to the rule). The desire to hang on to the theory, despite its failings produces the trickery.

In the case of the Ptolemaic system, it is my understanding that it was believed by many to be wrong, long before Copernicus demonstrated it to be wrong, even before Ptolemy produced the actual model. The idea that the real truth was that the planets orbited the sun was revealed thousands of years ago because of the nature of the observed retrogrades. The correct heliocentric model could not be formulated though because geometers worked with circles. Circular orbits produced predictive failings which could not be corrected for. However, the failings of retrograde motion could be corrected for, in the geocentric model, so it remain prevalent. It wasn't until Copernicus exposed all the exact failings of the circular orbit model, that elliptical orbits could be presented as the solution.

This is where the trickery lies. Instead of recognizing, and accepting that when the model fails at the fringes, this means it is wrong, we produce "excuses" for the failings, exceptions to the rule. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is exactly what's going on around the interpretation of the muon g2 experimental results at CERN. Each time the experiment is pushed further, the adherents to the standard model try to recalculate the numbers to fit the event inti the standard. Which is fine, but at some moment it can't be upheld longer. At some point it becomes a silly enterprise. Like inventing new epicycles endlessly. Which can be done, for sure. But at what cost?

This is where the trickery lies. Instead of recognizing, and accepting that when the model fails at the fringes, this means it is wrong, we produce "excuses" for the failings, exceptions to the rule. — Metaphysician Undercover

You call it trickery, I call it science. It's perfectly valid until it isn't. Discomfort about the trickery provides the pressure to keep looking or to change models.

The anomalies are dealt with by positing things like dark matter and dark energy. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not sure if that's a good example or not. Someone proposes dark matter as a solution to an inconsistency, so people go looking for it. Eventually, they find it or, if they don't, they have to change models. Isn't that the way it's supposed to work?

:up:

We can see this in modern physics and cosmology with the general relativity theory. At the very small, local scale, quantum mechanics, the theory fails. Also, at the very large scale, it produces anomalies when dealing with cosmological spatial expansion. The anomalies are dealt with by positing things like dark matter and dark energy. (The dragon accounts for the failings in the predictions, because it has a mind of its own and doesn't follow the law every single time, exceptions to the rule). The desire to hang on to the theory, despite its failings produces the trickery. — Metaphysician Undercover

Dark matter is not an imaginary dragon. There is no Vulcan-like stuff discovered, true. But there is still the possibility dark matter is "normal" stuff, and gravity doesn't have to be "MONDed". Dark energy is consistent with general relativity. So both are no trickery dragons of failure, and can actually turn out to be the dragons with the strong wings to carry the status quo.

The problem with dark matter is that it's dark and probably can't be directly detected. Maybe if sky observation techniques get sufficiently sophisticated or if DM particles are detected on Earth it can be solved once and for all. The planned European gravitational wave detector can shed more light on this modern-day enigma.

Are concepts abstractions, or are there concepts for non-abstract happenings or features of reality. A tree is no concept. Is an elementary particle? — Haglund

This is my current view.

There exists something (whatever it is, something exists). That something is more than just me - I am rejecting the possibility I (my mind) is the only thing that exists and everything else is created/imagined by me.

I (my mind), has an understanding of this something that exists, and this understanding is in the form of concepts. Other forms of language, which do have meaning, are dependant on me translating them into concepts.

So concepts are abstraction, but can also be abstractions of non-abstract happening. The states and connections in reality that make up what I consider a tree are not concepts - they are features of reality. But my understanding of a tree is a concept. I cannot understand what a tree is better than the best tree concept I can conceptualise.

Can non-sentient things (non-animals) have perspective? If not, what is the "platform" of interactions? What is even an "event" in this non-sentient/perspective world?

The non-sentient world is not yet viewed at from an angle, focused, or put in perspective. No boundary lines are projected yet. The objective atlas of the non-sentient world is a thick one. Every page is black or white. No legenda, no alfabetic content pages, no appendices, addenda, or rectifications.

Can non-sentient things (non-animals) have perspective? — schopenhauer1

If "perspective" is essentially identical with, or dependent on, (re: physics) locality, then every "thing" is inherently perspectival (i.e. always occupying some spatiotemporally unique point). So yes, machines, for instance, "have perspectives" (e.g. CCTV, neural net facial recognition systrm, radar array, JWST, etc).

The problem with dark matter is that it's dark and probably can't be directly detected. Maybe if sky observation techniques get sufficiently sophisticated or if DM particles are detected on Earth it can be solved once and for all. The planned European gravitational wave detector can shed more light on this modern-day enigma. — Haglund

I agree.

Can non-sentient things (non-animals) have perspective? If not, what is the "platform" of interactions? What is even an "event" in this non-sentient/perspective world? — schopenhauer1

I would say that non-sentient beings do not have perspective. There are no events in an a world with no sentient beings.

Can non-sentient things (non-animals) have perspective? If not, what is the "platform" of interactions? What is even an "event" in this non-sentient/perspective world? — schopenhauer1

I like Eugene Gendlin ‘s thinking on identity and interaction in non-living entities:

“We predict that physics must eventually give up pointwise localization in space and time and single, non-interacting particle states. There will always be two or more particles, and their definitions, as well as those of places and times, will be definable only backwards, from interaction... For us the same units do not need to last through a change. If they do, it is a narrower special case. In the old model events must occur within a static multiplicity of space points, time points, and particles. A particle alone is "this one," "the same one" that was earlier there and is now here...In the new model the occurrence forms its own new multiplicity. If a space time-particle grid is desired, it is determined from the occurrence. Nothing in the new model forces us to lose anything from the old, if we want it. But with the new model we do reject the assumption that occurring must be determined and necessitated by the units of previous occurrence.” (Gendlin 1983)

I also like Piaget’s approach:

“… phvsics is far from complete, having so far been unable to integrate biology and a fortiori the behavioural sciences within itsel. Hence, at present, we reasOn in dififerent and artificially simplified domains, physics being up to now only the science of non-living, non-conscious things. When physics becomes more 'general-to use C.-E. Guye's striking expression-and discovers what goes on in the matter of a living body or even in one using reason, the epistemological enrichment.of the object by the subject, which we assume here as a hypothesis, will appear perhaps as a simple relativistic law ot perspective or of co- ordination of referentials, showing that for the subject the object could not be other than it appears to him, but also that from theObject's point of view the subject could not be different.”

I also like Evan Thompson’s view:

"I follow the trajectory that arises in the later Husserl and continues in Merleau-Ponty, and that calls for a rethinking of the concept of “nature” in a post-physicalist way—one that doesn't conceive of fundamental nature or physical being in a way that builds in the objectivist idea that such being is intrinsically of essentially non-experiential. But, again, this point doesn't entail that nature is intrinsically or essentially experiential (this is the line that pan-psychists and Whiteheadians take). (Maybe it is, but I don't think we're now in position to know that.) All I want to say for now (or think I have grounds for saying now) is that we can see historically how the concept of nature as physical being got constructed in an objectivist way, while at the same time we can begin to conceive of the possibility of a different kind of construction that would be post-physicalist and post-dualist–that is, beyond the divide between the “mental” (understood as not conceptually involving the physical) and the “physical” (understood as not conceptually involving the mental)."

I would say that non-sentient beings do not have perspective. There are no events in an a world with no sentient beings. — T Clark

No big bang, no rapid inflationary period, no galaxy formation, no changes on pre-life earth? :cry:

No big bang, no rapid inflationary period, no galaxy formation, no changes on pre-life earth? — Janus

The universe just universes. Reality just realitys. Not-even-stuff not-even-flowing not-even-around. A not-even-miasma of not-even-chaotic not-even-existent not-even-things. Then sentience comes along with it's conceptual knife and cuts all that not-even-stuff into things, and stuff, and events. Cuts the One into the multiplicity of things. And here we are.

So the 'thing in itself' is completely changeless and amorphous and any "cutting up" we do is totally arbitrary?

If "perspective" is essentially identical with, or dependent on, (re: physics) locality, then every "thing" is inherently perspectival (i.e. always occupying some spatiotemporally unique point). So yes, machines, for instance, "have perspectives" (e.g. CCTV, neural net facial recognition systrm, radar array, JWST, etc). — 180 Proof

This type of response was predicted in my OP.. I'm skeptical of local interactions of a non-sentient kind being any platform for perspective. How would it be? Interactions = perspective? What??

So I immediately see apokrisis and others point to "information" being the source of perspective. That is to say, where ever information is being coded and decoded, that local interaction between information components is where a perspective is taking place. But is it? How is information akin to perspective? Perspective, a point of view, seems to be attached to an observer, not an information processor. How can information processing simpliciter be the same as a full-blown observer? I think there are too many jumps and "just so" things going on here to link the two so brashly.

So if not information, where is this "perspective" in the view from nowhere? If localized interactions, "what" makes the perspective happen from these interactions? — schopenhauer1

I would say that non-sentient beings do not have perspective. There are no events in an a world with no sentient beings. — T Clark

No big bang, no rapid inflationary period, no galaxy formation, no changes on pre-life earth? :cry: — Janus

What he said.

So the 'thing in itself' is completely changeless and amorphous and any "cutting up" we do is totally arbitrary? — Janus

Before it can change, it has to be a thing. That thing then can change into something else. Change is something that happens to things. Change is a thing.

Serious question - Did Kant think that things-in-themselves changed?

So the 'thing in itself' is completely changeless and amorphous and any "cutting up" we do is totally arbitrary? — Janus

Any better response? The universe is just hanging out as humans conceive it, but without human conception?

So yes, machines, for instance, "have perspectives" (e.g. CCTV, neural net facial recognition systrm, radar array, JWST, etc). — 180 Proof

That's like saying a machine looks at the world. Which they don't. It's you projecting a perspective on them. Which I'm doing right now too for the sake of argument.

Serious question - Did Kant think that things-in-themselves changed? — T Clark

I think Schopenhauer might have been the best interpreter of Kant.. he said:

Kant was guided by the truth certainly felt that there lies behind every phenomenon a being-in-itself whence such phenomenon obtains its existence ... But he undertook to derive this from the given representation itself by the addition of its laws that are known to us a priori. Yet just because these are a priori, they cannot lead to something independent of, and different from, the phenomenon or representation; and so for this purpose we have to pursue an entirely different course. The inconsistencies in which Kant was involved through the faulty course taken by him in this respect were demonstrated to him by G. E. Schultze who in his ponderous and diffuse manner expounded the matter first anonymously in his Aenesidemus ... and then in his Kritik der theoretischen Philosophie. — Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena

Before it can change, it has to be a thing. That thing then can change into something else. Change is something that happens to things. Change is a thing.

Serious question - Did Kant think that things-in-themselves changed? — T Clark

Obviously there are no things-as-perceived absent perceivers; does it logically follow that there are no things at all? You haven't answered the question as to how the totally amorphous, changeless thing in itself gives rise to perceivers who perceive change, and "carve up" the world in fairly cohesive and consistent ways. Do you believe our structuring of the world could be totally arbitrary? If not, then what structures it?

I think Kant believed we cannot talk sensibly about things in themselves. Nevertheless, he said we must posit things in themselves because if there are appearances there must be "something" which appears. To be consistent he would have to say that things in themselves change, because for each phenomenon there is the noumenon which gives rise to it, and if phenomena change, then so must noumena. Kant it seems was not all that consistent in his treatment of things in themselves.

I think Schopenhauer's critique of and "solution" to Kant's noumena is pretty piss-poor because there is no answer as to how something completely changeless, a blind striving will. could give rise to a perceived world of change and seemingly replete with invariances and consistent lawlike behavior.

So the 'thing in itself' is completely changeless and amorphous and any "cutting up" we do is totally arbitrary? — Janus


Any better response? The universe is just hanging out as humans conceive it, but without human conception? — schopenhauer1

First, you haven't said what is wrong with the response, and second it is actually a question, not an assertive response, a serious question, a problem for your apparent position which you haven't answered.

You've lost me ( by conflating your anticipation of apokrisis' position and my own).

First, you haven't said what is wrong with the response, and second it is actually a question, not an assertive response, a serious question, a problem for your apparent position which you haven't answered. — Janus

I don't know what it is. I don't necessarily think its an amorphous whatever, but I don't think it's like watching the opening sequence to Star Trek...That would truly be naive realism at its most blatent.

You've lost me ( by conflating your anticipation of apokrisis' position and my own). — 180 Proof

You said:

If "perspective" is essentially identical with, or dependent on, (re: physics) locality, then every "thing" is inherently perspectival (i.e. always occupying some spatiotemporally unique point). So yes, machines, for instance, "have perspectives" (e.g. CCTV, neural net facial recognition systrm, radar array, JWST, etc). — 180 Proof

Very similar to this:

So I immediately see apokrisis and others point to "information" being the source of perspective. That is to say, where ever information is being coded and decoded, that local interaction between information components is where a perspective is taking place. But is it? How is information akin to perspective? Perspective, a point of view, seems to be attached to an observer, not an information processor. How can information processing simpliciter be the same as a full-blown observer? I think there are too many jumps and "just so" things going on here to link the two so brashly.

So if not information, where is this "perspective" in the view from nowhere? If localized interactions, "what" makes the perspective happen from these interactions? — schopenhauer1

if localized interactions, "what" makes the perspective happen from these interactions? — schopenhauer1

Does the universe exist if we're not looking?

Yes, The physicists Lindie and Wheeler, essentially restate the problem in physics terms:

The moment you say that the universe exists without any observers, I cannot make any sense out of that. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of everything that ignores consciousness. A recording device cannot play the role of an observer, because who will read what is written on this recording device? In order for us to see that something happens, and say to one another that something happens, you need to have a universe, you need to have a recording device, and you need to have us. It's not enough for the information to be stored somewhere, completely inaccessible to anybody. It's necessary for somebody to look at it. You need an observer who looks at the universe. In the absence of observers, our universe is dead. — https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/does-the-universe-exist-if-were-not-looking

It seems to feed right into my question of how information itself can suffice for there to be perspective going on.

Drops of experience seems a bit ridiculous though (ala Whitehead). So does a god-like observer (ala Descartes and Berkeley). I don't necessarily see these as solutions either, though I think the question is pertinent, I don't think it entails these kind of conclusions. Even Schopenhauer's Will is suspect, though it fits so well with my pessimism. I see his Will more akin to the human/animal condition not some universal one of "internal-ness" or double-aspectedness. Though inventive, that's where I see him taking it too far. Water, water, everything is water, kind of thing.

Schopenhauer does a good job stating clearly Kant's antimonies or contradictions regarding epistemology and the word. The first eye "opened" and the world began, but we observe the world as older than the first eye opening. What is this "antecedant"?

Then there is Speculative Realism that tries to deny Kant's "Copernican Revolution", putting epistemology as the limit of metaphysics. But it's really kind of the same kind of thing Whitehead was doing. It is speculating on how objects interact, or how processes interact, or how it is somehow mathematical contingency as a sort of reification?? I don't know those theories too well.

If anyone wants to decipher this and discuss, please let me know:

In this book, Meillassoux argues that post-Kantian philosophy is dominated by what he calls "correlationism," the theory that humans cannot exist without the world nor the world without humans.[6] In Meillassoux's view, this theory allows philosophy to avoid the problem of how to describe the world as it really is independent of human knowledge. He terms this reality independent of human knowledge as the "ancestral" realm.[7] Following the commitment to mathematics of his mentor Alain Badiou, Meillassoux claims that mathematics describes the primary qualities of things as opposed to their secondary qualities shown by perception.

Meillassoux argues that in place of the agnostic scepticism about the reality of cause and effect there should be a radical certainty that there is no causality at all. Following the rejection of causality Meillassoux says that it is absolutely necessary that the laws of nature be contingent. The world is a kind of hyper-chaos in which the principle of sufficient reason is not necessary. But Meillassoux says that the principle of non-contradiction is necessary.

For these reasons, Meillassoux rejects Kant's Copernican Revolution in philosophy. Since Kant makes the world dependent on the conditions by which humans observe it, Meillassoux accuses Kant of a "Ptolemaic Counter-Revolution." Meillassoux clarified and revised some of the views published in After Finitude during his lectures at the Free University of Berlin in 2012.[8] — Quentin Meillassoux Wikipedia Article