Do you see a difference between being held to the ground by gravity and accelerating-due-to-gravity to the ground while free-falling through space? — ucarr

With respect to what the gravity is doing in the two scenarios, there is no difference. In other words, the cause is the same in the two, but the effect is different due to the same type of cause acting in different situations.

Okay. So, you think cause and effect -- even when contextualized by ordinality instead of by temporal antecedence -- only has coherence when cause is prior in time to effect? — ucarr

I don't see how you are understanding your categories. Cause/effect is a type of ordinality, but this does not mean that all ordinalities are causal. Cause and effect are contextualized by ordinality, but the ordinality in this case is defined as a temporal ordinality. That eight is a greater quantity than six is a different type of ordinality, which does not imply temporality. But causation is a different type of ordinality from quantity because the terms of that specific form of ordinality are defined by temporality, before and after, rather than by quantity.

Okay. So, you think cause and effect – even when manifesting simultaneously – must always be understood in terms of temporal antecedence in order to have coherence? — ucarr

Yes. if cause and effect manifested simultaneously we would not be able to distinguish which is the cause, and which is the effect because the temporal relationship of cause/effect, by which we would determine one is the cause, and the other the effect would not exist.

So in your example of bacterial infection.. The symptoms are the body's (immune system's) reaction to a high volume of bacteria. The high volume of bacteria is observed to be temporally prior to the reaction (symptoms) therefore affirmed to be the cause. If the two suddenly occurred in a truly simultaneous way, we could not say that one caused the other, the occurrences would be said to be coincidental. And if we try to assign cause and effect to two coincidental occurrences we have no way of knowing which is the cause and which is the effect.

Addendum:

If you do not believe me that causation is a temporal concept then do your own research, and find out how the term is used. Then get back to me with what you find. — Metaphysician Undercover

Kant reacted to the Enlightenment, to the Age of Reason, and to Newtonian mechanics (which he probably understood better than any other philosopher), by accepting determinism as a fact in the physical world, which he calls the phenomenal world. Kant's goal was to rescue the physical sciences from the devastating and unanswerable skepticism of David Hume, especially Hume's assertion that no number of "constant conjunctions" of cause and effect could logically prove causality.

Kant called this assertion the "crux metaphysicorum." "If Hume is right," he said, "metaphysics is impossible. Perhaps even knowledge is impossible?" Kant's Critique of Pure Reason was to prove that Hume was wrong.

Neither Hume’s Idea of “natural belief” nor Kant’s “concepts of the understanding” are the apodictic and necessary truths sought by metaphysicians. They are abstract theories about the world, whose information content is validated by experiments. — The Information Philosopher

Have you examined the atemporal conjunction of qubit (superposition) quantum computing within "Osprey," Google's quantum computer?

With respect to what the gravity is doing in the two scenarios, there is no difference. In other words, the cause is the same in the two, but the effect is different due to the same type of cause acting in different situations. — Metaphysician Undercover

Do you deny that gravity holding a person down to earth in one situation and accelerating the descent of a person in free fall in another situation exemplifies gravity doing two different things in two different situations?

Do you deny that cause and effect relationship with outcome 1 in situation 1 and cause and effect relationship with outcome 2 in situation 2 exemplify two different cause and effect relationsips?

Cause and effect are contextualized by ordinality, but the ordinality in this case is defined as atemporal ordinality. That eight is a greater quantity than six is a different type of ordinality, which does not imply temporality. But causation is a different type of ordinality from quantity because the terms of that specific form of ordinality are defined by temporality, before and after, rather than by quantity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Since, when we look at integers 6 and 8 and understand there is no temporal relationship connecting them, as per the definition of ordinality, and that therefore, if we replace 6 and 8 with before and after, and if we maintain our understanding of the context to be ordinal, then claimingbefore and after have a temporal relationship amounts to conflating two distinct categories (contexts). When placed within the context of ordinality, before and after either get stripped of their conventional meaning, temporal, thus becoming undefined placeholders, or they become oxymorons, i.e., temporal-atemporal terms. In short, ordinal (rank) and cardinal (quantity) are distinct categories.

Causation is not a type of ordinality. In the context of ordinality (rank) there's no causal link between 6 and 8, or between any of the other ordinals.

Causation and temporal antecedence are closer to -- but not coincidental with -- cardinality. Cardinality can be applied to temporal antecedence in the sense that an event temporally antecedent to another event has a time quantity measurement different from the later event.

Do you deny this?

Okay. So, you think cause and effect – even when manifesting simultaneously – must always be understood in terms of temporal antecedence in order to have coherence? — ucarr

Yes. if cause and effect manifested simultaneously we would not be able to distinguish which is the cause, and which is the effect because the temporal relationship of cause/effect, by which we would determine one is the cause, and the other the effect would not exist. — Metaphysician Undercover

Do you acknowledge that your above affirmation raises the possibility that humans, in making the effort to understand phenomena causally, might be projecting a rational conceptualization of the mind onto the world?

Do you acknowledge such a possibility suggests the existence of evidence supporting David Hume's attack on rationality_causality?

The high volume of bacteria is observed to be temporally prior to the reaction (symptoms) therefore affirmed to be the cause. If the two suddenly occurred in a truly simultaneous way, we could not say that one caused the other, the occurrences would be said to be coincidental. And if we try to assign cause and effect to two coincidental occurrences we have no way of knowing which is the cause and which is the effect. — Metaphysician Undercover

Might this be a motivation for projecting artificial temporal antecedence onto observed phenomena?

In our examination of this bacterial infection, it should be noted no symptoms appear before the bacterial content is high-volume. This time lag, known as the incubation period, holds standard to medical diagnosis and treatment of sickness.

Since they don't appear during the incubation period, can we claim bacterial infection before high-volume is an antecedent cause of symptoms?

Specifically, all of the claims to reductively explain mind via matter are themselves just hypotheses. Moreover, since they are hypotheses, and hypothesizing exemplifies what we mean by thinking, they seem to be inherently and obviously self-contradictory. Which is more unlikely, that matter produces thought, or that thought produces matter? Most likely we are looking at the twin poles of a dynamic system, substance and form, or hylomorphism. At least that's the direction I'm looking. — Pantagruel

Yes. Those who are arguing against my Information-based thesis, are treating it as-if it's a Theistic Religious doctrine, which subordinates Science to Faith. I can agree with most of their rational arguments against traditional religions. But they are missing the central point of the thesis*1, and introducing their own atheistic biases into their counter-arguments. By that I mean they are not arguing against Enformationism, but against Theism. My BothAnd worldview is like Hylomorphism : Matter plus Form ; Science plus Philosophy ; Empirical plus Theoretical. :smile:

*1. Which I assume they have never read.

Oh come on Gnomon!! enough of the 'I am being treated unfairly,' on repeat, through your loudspeaker.
I DO NOT, refute your right to philosophise as YOU see fit, and as makes logical sense to YOU.
I have already posted, that I think you do, genuinely, seek truth. — universeness

Oh no, you've got me pegged. Just in the wrong hole. You get frustrated by my denials of your peg-holes. Which leads you to conclude that I'm being equivocal about my true beliefs. Yet it's not my beliefs that I'm denying, but your beliefs about my beliefs. That's because I'm not a two-value (true-false) True Believer, but a multi-value (maybe) truth-seeker. If you'd stop shooting at my feet, I could stop dancing in the street.

Apparently, you and 180 believe that everybody should be either an up-front Theist, or an authentic Atheist. But, regarding topics that are open-ended (un-verifiable), I'm an Agnostic*1. Some Agnostics are indeed religiously inclined. But others are Scientifically & Skeptically inclined. And my position is closer to the latter. My Enformationism thesis is a philosophical elaboration of Quantum Uncertainty*2, and of Information Theory Subjectivity. So, although my personal worldview includes a role for a First Cause/Prime Mover, it prescribes no creedal beliefs or communal practices. And it does not claim to "know the mind of God".

Therefore, If I'm being evasive, it's because you keep trying to pin a label on me that does not represent my personal worldview, or my multi-valued reasoning*3. Aristotle's formal Logic was two-valued because, in the interest of precision, it arbitrarily excluded moderate positions. Yet, the reasoning underlying Enformationism leads to a moderate position between Revealed Religion and Gnostic Atheism*4.

If I knew for sure that there is an Eternal Enformer, I'd admit it freely. But it's just a logical conclusion based on circumstantial evidence, which I delineate in the thesis. Most of the evidence pointing in that direction (the great beyond) is found in Quantum Physics and Information Theory, not in any traditional religious doctrines. And the most important pointer is the unpredented Big Bang theory, which leaves the Cause of that sudden emergence of something from who-knows-where as an Open Question.

Cosmologists are aware of the implications of that Eternal Gap*5, but most of their gap-fillers are based on classical doctrines of Materialism & Physicalism. But they have no explanation for the Energy & Laws that caused & coordinated the Original Explosion into a progressively evolving mechanism that produced Life & Mind for no apparent reason. Of course, I don't know the Enformer's intentions, because I'm just an avatar in the Reality Game. :cool:

*1. Agnostic :
a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.
Note -- But lack of empirical knowledge does not hamper philosophical speculation -- including conjectures about emergence of Artificial Super Intelligence from far-future Singularities.

*2. Virtues of Uncertainty :
a little over one third of British respondents said they were agnostic, about the same as said they believe in a "supreme being", and about twice the number who said they were atheists. . . . . Principled agnosticism, then, is the practice of a kind of humility. Why should it be valued? It sounds paradoxical, but because an agnostic spirit actually broadens the mind.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/apr/13/religion-philosophy-atheitsm-agnosticism

*3. Many-valued logic :
Many-valued logic (also multi- or multiple-valued logic) refers to a propositional calculus in which there are more than two truth values. Traditionally, in Aristotle's logical calculus, there were only two possible values (i.e., "true" and "false") for any proposition. . . . In fact, Aristotle did not contest the universality of the law of excluded middle, but the universality of the bivalence principle: he admitted that this principle did not all apply to future events
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-valued_logic

*4. The Gnostic Atheist :
I think I probably align more with agnostic atheism today because I see it as being somewhat more consistent with skepticism and not because I think there is anything wrong with gnostic atheism.
https://www.atheistrev.com/2019/01/the-gnostic-atheist.html

*5. Stephen Hawking's big bang gaps :
The laws that explain the universe's birth are less comprehensive than Stephen Hawking suggests. . . . Cosmologists embrace these features by envisaging sweeping "meta-laws" that pervade the multiverse and spawn specific bylaws on a universe-by-universe basis. The meta-laws themselves remain unexplained –eternal, immutable transcendent entities that just happen to exist and must simply be accepted as given. In that respect the meta-laws have a similar status to an unexplained transcendent god.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2010/sep/04/stephen-hawking-big-bang-gap
Note -- The "meta-laws" that some cosmologists take for granted are precisely those that imply both Creative Power (Energy) and Intelligent Design (Natural Laws). My interpretation differs from Genesis though, so I call it "Intelligent Evolution", in which the "design" produced not a perfect world, but a program for evolving an imperfect world toward some unknowable Final Cause : the answer to an unknown ultimate "what if" question. Hey, it's just a theory.

Do you deny that gravity holding a person down to earth in one situation and accelerating the descent of a person in free fall in another situation exemplifies gravity doing two different things in two different situations? — ucarr

Yes I deny that, and I'm very surprised that you do not understand. It is the person who is doing two different things, walking on the earth in one case, and falling in the other, gravity is doing the same thing in both cases.

ince, when we look at integers 6 and 8 and understand there is no temporal relationship connecting them, as per the definition of ordinality, and that therefore, if we replace 6 and 8 with before and after, and if we maintain our understanding of the context to be ordinal, then claiming before and after have a temporal relationship amounts to conflating two distinct categories (contexts). — ucarr

I'm afraid not ucarr, you are being ridiculous again. Before and after have completely different meaning from six and eight. By analogy, would you say let's switch green and red, in the context of colour, and see that green is the same thing as red. Come on.

Do you deny this? — ucarr

Yes I deny that, for the reasons already given. Causation is one type of ordinality, ordinal numbers is another type. "Ordinal" is not restricted to numbers. It can mean a position in any type of series, or concerning any order. So contrary to what you say, the temporal order of cause and effect is an ordinality.

Do you acknowledge that your above affirmation raises the possibility that humans, in making the effort to understand phenomena causally, might be projecting a rational conceptualization of the mind onto the world?

Do you acknowledge such a possibility suggests the existence of evidence supporting David Hume's attack on rationality_causality? — ucarr

Yes, that's generally how conceptualization works, and why human knowledge is fallible. I respect Hume's attack on causality and recognize the fallibility of human knowledge. As I said, you can define "causation" however you want. But obviously some ways are more useful than others, and if you deny temporality from the definition I think you end up with a useless form of "causality".

Might this be a motivation for projecting artificial temporal antecedence onto observed phenomena? — ucarr

The motivation is usefulness. And, since assigning temporal antecedence to the cause proves to be a very useful principle, and denying temporal antecedence would produce a useless conception, the choice is an obvious one.

In our examination of this bacterial infection, it should be noted no symptoms appear before the bacterial content is high-volume. This time lag, known as the incubation period, holds standard to medical diagnosis and treatment of sickness.

Since they don't appear during the incubation period, can we claim bacterial infection before high-volume is an antecedent cause of symptoms? — ucarr

Sorry, I don't follow the question. I think your example is too complex, too many factors involved which need to be considered, which are not stated in the example.

Oh no, you've got me pegged. Just in the wrong hole. You get frustrated by my denials of your peg-holes. — Gnomon

I think your issue here is that you see your issues in terms of getting pegged or being in holes.

If you'd stop shooting at my feet, I could stop dancing in the street. — Gnomon

My aim has always been at your 'reasoning,' not your feet, or any other part of your anatomy.

So, although my personal worldview includes a role for a First Cause/Prime Mover, it prescribes no creedal beliefs or communal practices. And it does not claim to "know the mind of God". — Gnomon

:roll: So you do propose that the mind of god has a manifest existent! That makes you a theist! or if you think your first cause/prime mover has not been in touch with it's creations (or maybe just us) then you are a deist! either flavour belongs to a theological belief for the origin story of the universe and absolutely nothing to do with the science of quantum physics. I don't need to peg you falsely, your theological origin claim for the universe is crystal clear. I have no idea why you are so averse to being labelled a theist/deist/theologian.

If I knew for sure that there is an Eternal Enformer, I'd admit it freely. But it's just a logical conclusion based on circumstantial evidence, which I delineate in the thesis. — Gnomon

You typed that you assigned a very high credence level to your eternal enformer proposal.
I cant be bothered to track down the actual quote, I am referring to, but I will if I must.
Make up your mind, don't keep switching between expressing a strong belief in the validity of your claims and typing about how wrong you might be. Are you merely engaging in traditional fabulism?

Hey, it's just a theory. — Gnomon

Do you deny that gravity holding a person down to earth in one situation and accelerating the descent of a person in free fall in another situation exemplifies gravity doing two different things in two different situations? — ucarr

Yes I deny that...It is the person who is doing two different things, walking on the earth in one case, and falling in the other, gravity is doing the same thing in both cases. — Metaphysician Undercover

Here's my inference from your above quote (especially the bold_italic part): the person in free fall is doing the falling. This is distinct from saying: The person is experiencing the falling. The first statement means the person is causing the falling. The overall statement says gravity is also causing the falling (just as it is also causing the walking person to be pinned to the ground).

From Space Shuttle missions many humans have seen astronauts spinning and somersaulting mid-air within zero-gravity chambers whilst the rocket is outside earth's gravitational field. In the absence of a gravitational field, we see that humans do not cause their own falling through space. Back to our situation: regarding when a suicide jumps from a cliff, in our example here, we have two proffered explanations: 1) the person falls to earth at increasing speed due to acceleration due to gravity; 2) the person falls to earth at increasing speed due to both their own rare and generally unknown ability to use their own power to reflexively cause him_her_self to fall earth at increasing speed due to acceleration due to gravity and due to the power of gravity to do same.

Let's apply Occam's Razor in our evaluation of the two proffered explanations; after all, we know that when you hear hoofbeats, look for horses, not unicorns, right? So, when we look for best explanation why suicide falls to earth at increasing speed due to acceleration due to gravity, do we want an explanation that has a human doing something we have reason to doubt the possibility of as witnessed in the zero-gravity chamber, or do we want an explanation that has a human experiencing something seen too many times to count over the millennia spanning human history?

ince [sic], when we look at integers 6 and 8 and understand there is no temporal relationship connecting them, as per the definition of ordinality, and that therefore, if we replace 6 and 8 with before and after, and if we maintain our understanding of the context to be ordinal, then claiming before and after have a temporal relationship amounts to conflating two distinct categories (contexts). — ucarr

I'm afraid not ucarr, you are being ridiculous again. Before and after have completely different meaning from six and eight. By analogy, would you say let's switch green and red, in the context of colour, and see that green is the same thing as red. Come on. — Metaphysician Undercover

Do you not see that in my argument two contexts: temporal_sequential and ordinal are involved and, moreover, that my argument depends upon taking before and after out of their default temporal_sequential context and placing them in the ordinal context, and that doing so strips away temporal antecedence? Also, do you not see changing their context thus violates no rules of inference? Sixth and eighth have different ranks, but there's no temporal relationship in ordinality, as there is in cardinality. By analogy, before and after denote different times, but as with all ordinals, there's no temporal relationship between beforth and aftereth.

Do you not agree your attempted analogy equating red and green fails because contextualizing before and after as beforth and aftereth does not equalize them. Instead, it de-temporalizes them? Do you not see, more generally: contextualizing ≠ equalizing?

Ordinal" is not restricted to numbers. It can mean a position in any type of series, or concerning any order. So contrary to what you say, the temporal order of cause and effect is an ordinality. — Metaphysician Undercover

Okay. So, beforth and aftereth can constitute an ordinality either temporal or non-temporal. This true because ordinal specifies order by position; it says nothing about temporal order. Since non-temporal is included and temporal is not excluded, both types are valid.

Do you agree this?

Might this be a motivation for projecting artificial temporal antecedence onto observed phenomena? — ucarr

The motivation is usefulness. — Metaphysician Undercover

Due you suppose the pursuit of usefulness always leads to truth?

Since they don't appear during the incubation period, can we claim bacterial infection before high-volume is an antecedent cause of symptoms? — ucarr

Sorry, I don't follow the question. — Metaphysician Undercover

Here's the root of my argument: antecedence ≠ coincidence.

Since coincidence parallels co-functionality, coincidence can sometimes example causation.

Do you agree with this?

:roll: So you do propose that the mind of god has a manifest existent! That makes you a theist! or if you think your first cause/prime mover has not been in touch with it's creations (or maybe just us) then you are a deist! either flavour belongs to a theological belief for the origin story of the universe and absolutely nothing to do with the science of quantum physics. I don't need to peg you falsely, your theological origin claim for the universe is crystal clear. I have no idea why you are so averse to being labelled a theist/deist/theologian. — universeness

# Manifest existence? : yes, the real physical world (Spinoza's Substance*1). # Deism = Theism? : philosophical Deists will disagree. Deist? Yes / Theist? No. Regarding Theism, I'm an Atheist*2. # Quantum Physics? : a quantum Field is not a physical Object, but a metaphysical (mathematical) Concept. # I admit that the error of these Yin/Yang ideas is "crystal clear" to your dichotomous Black vs White worldview. (Suum cuique)

Regarding Deism, I'm an Agnostic. But you wouldn't understand, because in your two-value Logical Positivism belief system such median distinctions are not allowed. Yet in my Enformationism there is a categorical difference between Theism (religion) and Deism (philosophy). In a Deistic sense, the Creator of the world is immanent in the creation. By that I mean, the physical world is made of (consists of) Information. For most people today, "Information" is equated with Data (meaningless isolated Bits). But the Enformationism thesis has concluded that "Information" is essentially Mind (meaning ; concepts : intention ; causation).

Pioneer quantum Physicist John A. Wheeler deduced that, in his professional opinion, material things have an immaterial Source : "It from Bit" (Information = the creative power to enform = Causation). From that insight, physicists have gone on to conclude that physical Energy is actually metaphysical Information in action : EnFormAction. Based on such counter-intuitive notions from scientists, my amateur philosophical hypothesis worked back to the beginning of the world, to infer that Nature also has an immaterial Source : the First Cause. I have provided links to all these non-religious scientific inferences. So, since I have no formal qualifications, I'll let you argue with the experts, and accuse them of being dogmatic Theists.

I'm averse to being "labelled a theist/deist/theologian" because those labels are not intended to contribute to discourse, but to "peg" my ideas in a category that you can simply dismiss as irrational & unscientific, hence not worthy of a philosophical dialogue. Ironically, you are so averse to the god-posit that you waste enormous amounts of personal time & energy trying to debunk my puny little personal opinion. :nerd:

PS__I continue to reply to your disparaging comments -- not in hopes of convincing you -- but in order to test my amateur reasoning against people with strong opposing views. At least, you make counter-arguments in a form that I can work with. But I stopped responding to , because he was not dialoguing or debating, but simply debasing.

*1. Spinoza's Substance :
He defines God as a substance consisting of infinite attributes
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza-attributes/
Note -- Was Spinoza a theist?

*2. Spinoza Theist? :
Spinoza was considered to be an atheist because he used the word "God" [Deus] to signify a concept that was different from that of traditional Judeo–Christian monotheism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza

Deism = Theism? — Gnomon

Variations on the god-of-the-gaps theme: deism is "theism minus answering prayers" or theism is "deism plus answering prayers" – theological interpretations of the same ontologically transcendent – super-natural – entity (i.e. "creator" "first cause" "intelligent designer", etc).

Thoughts, @universeness?

The first statement means the person is causing the falling. — ucarr

No it does not. Anytime something is caused to do something by a separate force, the thing doing whatever it is caused to do is not the cause of the action. A rock is doing the falling but not causing the falling. A cannon ball, or baseball flying through the air is doing the flying, but not causing the flying. Etc..

The rest of your discussion of "doing" is therefore not relevant to how I was using "doing".

that my argument depends upon taking before and after out of their default temporal_sequential context and placing them in the ordinal context, and that doing so strips away temporal antecedence? — ucarr

Of course, but to rob a word of it's meaning is a meaningless exercise.

Sixth and eighth have different ranks, but there's no temporal relationship in ordinality, as there is in cardinality. By analogy, before and after denote different times, but as with all ordinals, there's no temporal relationship between beforth and aftereth. — ucarr

When different times are denoted one is always before the other. Otherwise they would not be different times. That is unavoidable by the nature of what "time" signifies. You are not making any sense to me at all in your latest post ucarr.

Do you not agree your attempted analogy equating red and green fails because contextualizing before and after as beforth and aftereth does not equalize them. Instead, it de-temporalizes them? Do you not see, more generally: contextualizing ≠ equalizing? — ucarr

Again, you are not making any sense. "Before" and "after" are temporally defined. Your proposal to de-temporalize them is a meaningless, useless exercise.

Okay. So, beforth and aftereth can constitute an ordinality either temporal or non-temporal. This true because ordinal specifies order by position; it says nothing about temporal order. Since non-temporal is included and temporal is not excluded, both types are valid. — ucarr

Nonsense, before and after specify temporal order which is a type of "order by position". It is not distinct from "order by position". This is the third time I've told you that now, yet you refuse to accept it and keep repeating nonsense, as if you can remove the temporal order by insisting that before and after is an order by position rather than by time. Yes, before and after is an order by position, temporal position. Give up on the meaningless nonsense, it's pointless.

Due you suppose the pursuit of usefulness always leads to truth? — ucarr

No, but truth can only come from useful concepts, those which are useful toward truth. Usefulness is necessary for truth, but does not necessarily lead to truth. Uselessness cannot lead to truth because it denies the required "useful toward truth".

Since coincidence parallels co-functionality, coincidence can sometimes example causation.

Do you agree with this? — ucarr

Definitely not, for the reasons I've already explained.

philosophical Deists will disagree. — Gnomon

The first sentence from the site 'All about philosophy,' describes deism as: Deism is the belief in a supreme being, who remains unknowable and untouchable. It then goes on to discuss deism, as a stepping stone to atheism.
YOU propose a first cause mind with intent. The suggestion that such may be a god that remains interested in its creation or not, is of little significance to me, neither is any separation of deism and theism. Provide some convincing evidence for your first cause mind with intent or it will remain labelled as a woo woo, gap god posit, imo.

Regarding Deism, I'm an Agnostic. But you wouldn't understand, because in your two-value Logical Positivism belief system such median distinctions are not allowed. — Gnomon

You are just repeating your unfounded complaints, which are tedious to read.

I'm averse to being "labelled a theist/deist/theologian" because those labels are not intended to contribute to discourse, but to "peg" my ideas in a category that you can simply dismiss as irrational & unscientific, hence not worthy of a philosophical dialogue. Ironically, you are so averse to the god-posit that you waste enormous amounts of personal time & energy trying to debunk my puny little personal opinion — Gnomon

Well, it's you who have labelled your enformationism as 'personal opinion' and now your 'puny little personal opinion.'

PS__I continue to reply to your disparaging comments -- not in hopes of convincing you -- but in order to test my amateur reasoning against people with strong opposing views. At least, you make counter-arguments in a form that I can work with. But I stopped responding to ↪180 Proof , because he was not dialoguing or debating, but simply debasing. — Gnomon

Your attempts to insult @180 Proof by your patronising claim, that you find me more palatable, is almost school yard debate tactics. I find such, pretty low brow.

Variations on the god-of-the-gaps theme: deism is "theism minus answering prayers" or theism is "deism plus answering prayers" – theological interpretations of the same ontologically transcendent – super-natural – entity (i.e. "creator" "first cause" "intelligent designer", etc).

Thoughts, universeness? — 180 Proof

I could not agree with you more sir!!

a quantum Field is not a physical Object, but a metaphysical (mathematical) Concept. — Gnomon

Well, hang on. If it is the direct 'cause' of there being physical objects, then isn't it in some strong sense 'entangled' with and by the concept of 'physical-objectness'? Perhaps physical objects themselves do not perfectly exemplify 'physical-obectness' either?

You might find:
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF QUANTUM PHYSICS AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Interesting:
From that site, we have:
The most fundamental entities of matter or energy are quantum fields.
For example, there is a quantum electromagnetic field, a quantum electron field, a quantum up-quark field, etc. Each field fills the entire universe and has a value at every point in the universe. By “value” is meant the strength of the field at that point.


A 3-dimensional wave vibrates through a field (red netting), starting in the left bottom corner and moves rightward. We detect this vibration as a particle (green film). The particle is shown in orange when the wave moves up and blue when the wave moves down. [Image source: stills from Fermilab video by Dr. Don Lincoln, “Quantum Field Theory” (in the public domain) Jan. 14, 2016; ]

The term “quantum” appears in the name of this theory because quantum fields are conceptualized differently from the force fields (electrical, magnetic, and electromagnetic) of classical physics. While the concepts of quantum fields build on the concepts of the classical electromagnetic field, they are conceptualized somewhat differently. The quantum aspects are taken up a bit later in this article.
As fields are the most fundamental entities in the universe that we know of, we can’t say anything further about their ingredients, what substance they might be made of.

In the accompanying diagram, the red netting represents the underlying quantum field. A localized 3-dimensional wave travels through it. The macroscopic level of reality, where we detect the associated particle, is shown in green. The particle is shown as an orange or blue circle. A sequence of “snapshots” (Diagrams A, B, C, D) show a 3-dimensional wave traveling in the (red netting) field: (A) the wave crests and then, (B) forms a trough, (C) crests again, and (D) forms a second trough. The green film represents the macroscopic level of reality in which we detect particles. A particle is shown traveling towards the center of the green film from the lower corner. The particle manifests the underlying wave and is the entity that we detect. We cannot detect the field itself. In Quantum Field Theory, the particle is the manifestation of the deeper reality of a localized wave traveling through a field.

Our knowledge of quantum fields is limited to mathematical equations.
We have not seen nor heard nor felt quantum fields. Our knowledge of them is limited to mathematical equations which describe the fields and predict the results of experiments in the quantum world.

Quantum fields are, in a sense, physical.
Quantum fields are physical in the sense that they create real, lawful effects in spacetime. For this reason, their behavior is verifiable in physics experiments. However, quantum fields do not exist in spacetime in the same way that tables and chairs exist. If quantum fields existed in spacetime, we would be required to agree with paradoxical statements that make quantum mechanics seem baffling:

1. Electrons exist in more than one place at the same time.
2. Electrons shoot from an electron gun as a particle, travel as a wave, and land on a detector as a particle.
3. Electrons don’t have definite properties until they have an interaction with another part of the physical universe.
4. Particles travel backwards in time as in the delayed choice two-slit experiment.
It may be more understandable to think of quantum fields as existing in a sublevel of reality, which Dr. Ruth Kastner calls, “Quantumland.” (Then again, it may not seem more understandable!)

Thank you!

You might find the Royal Institute series of lectures on quantum fields stimulating.
The Universe is made of quantum fields

As to the overall 'reality' of mathematics, reality is clearly 'amenable' to modification through mathematical means, so if the effects of (the application of) mathematics are real, so must mathematics be.

The Universe is made of quantum fields — Pantagruel

Yeah, I've watched that lecture twice. It's great for reducing your model of the universal fundamentals from the baryons (protons, neutrons, electrons) etc to 'quarks' and electrons and improving your understanding of QFT.

I think mathematics is a REAL language.

I think mathematics is a REAL language. — universeness

No argument here. I was mathematically blessed. But I was a bit of a fanatical explorer also. I had a bit of a chemical-excess incident when I was sixteen from which I had to be resuscitated. I remember clearly after that, being dissevered from the mathematical language. I used to be able to read a page from a math textbook like you would read a page of a book. To understand math, all I had to do was read it a little more slowly, the concepts just explained themselves, or more like the pieces of the puzzle took shape. After, I could still 'do' math, and understand math, but the gift of the language was gone. Some lessons are harder than others.

Yeah, brain chemistry is easily impacted. At least you have not lost your 'love' of maths.
Absolute fluency in any language, is very hard to achieve, even for those like John Nash (of 'A beautiful mind fame.') My command of maths is 'average' at best. I envy your description of your relationship with maths. I would even be happy to take the same 'hit' as you did, to my maths fluency, if it meant I could claim the maths level you or @jgill has. I do think I could claim an equivalent relationship with computers as you or jgill, enjoys with maths. I know some people use the term math rather that maths, but then, as a Scottish person, I pure know how to spoke right England by ra way!!

The first statement means the person is causing the falling. — ucarr

No it does not. Anytime something is caused to do something by a separate force, the thing doing whatever it is caused to do is not the cause of the action. A rock is doing the falling but not causing the falling. A cannon ball, or baseball flying through the air is doing the flying, but not causing the flying. Etc.. — Metaphysician Undercover

I acknowledge that my interpretation of my gravitation example, with respect to your claim cause and effect is essentially temporal, is wrong.

I also acknowledge that your interpretation of my gravitation example, with respect to your claim cause and effect is essentially temporal, is correct.

The rest of your discussion of "doing" is therefore not relevant to how I was using "doing". — Metaphysician Undercover

My interpretation of what the jumper is doing in free fall, as previously stated by me, is wrong. The jumper is not doing falling at accelerating speed -- gravity is doing that by causing it.

What the jumper is doing is reacting to what gravity is causing the jumper to do.

Causation

Cause – an agent of change that transforms the state of being of its object

Effect – a transformation of the state of being of the object of a causal power


Temporal Sequence

Yes, before and after is an order by position, temporal position. — Metaphysician Undercover

Before and After – Interpretive Claim (With respect to above claim) – this type of temporal sequence may contain a causal component, but it isn’t necessary.

Supporting Examples

Example A – Causal Component

• Temporal position – before
• No water drunk
  
• Temporal position – after
• Contaminated water drunk
• Low white cell count
• Bacteria proliferates
• Lung cell metabolism transformed – stops producing new lung cells; starts producing new viruses

• Example B – No Causal Component

• Temporal position – before
• No water drunk
  
• Temporal position -- after
• Contaminated water drunk
• High white cell count
• Bacteria wiped out
• Lung cell metabolism unchanged; continues producing new lung cells as it had been doing before contaminated water drunk

In Example B we see that before and after retain their meanings in the absence of a causal relationship that connects them (with respect to lung cell metabolism).

How do you assess the truth content of the above interpretation of your claim?

Your attempts to insult 180 Proof by your patronising claim, that you find me more palatable, is almost school yard debate tactics. I find such, pretty low brow. — universeness

Tu quoque. :joke:

I stopped responding to , not because I was offended by his skepticism of an unorthodox philosophical concept, or even his off-target debasive tactics, but because he seemed to insist that philosophical questions must be settled by empirical methods. He also accused me of making pseudo-scientific assertions, even though for support, I quoted the opinions of professional scientists, not religious theologians. Ironically, I have subscribed to both SKEPTIC & Skeptical Inquirer magazines for over 40 years, plus Scientific American magazine. So, I'm pretty well-informed about pseudo-science. Quantum Physics is indeed weird, but it only seems "pseudo" because of its Holistic & Transcendent*1 implications. And its philosophical connotations would be labeled by Materialists as "pseudo", except for the fact that it works -- pragmatically and without magic. My moderate position falls somewhere in between the New Age religious interpretations, and the Old Age classical physics paradigm.

Just today, in Skeptical Inquirer, March-April 2023, I found some relevant comments. "Our emphasis is on empirical, scientifically testable claims". Then, "the committee takes no position regarding nonempirical or mystical claims. . . . Those concerned with metaphysics an supernatural claims are directed to those journal of philosophy and religion dedicated to such matters". The Enformationism thesis is indeed "non-empirical". But whether it is "mystical" depends on your attitude toward un-solved mysteries. I was forced to remind 180 repeatedly, that TPF is a Philosophy forum, for discussing debatable ideas, not a Physics forum for exchanging factual information and verifiable guesses.

My thesis is definitely not a "what is" assertion, but a "what if" question. For example, it does not claim, as a fact, that there is a transcendent entity responsible for the existence of our contingent world. (do you accept that it is not self-existent?) Even if there is indeed a transcendent First Cause, the thesis points out that, due to the dialectic of Good vs Evil, divine intervention to correct such imperfections is not plausible --- especially if one assumes that the deity is the God of Abraham. That deity has a recorded history of failing to make good on his promises to protect his chosen people from harm. When grievous harm does repeatedly befall them, the record blames that Badness on the hapless people themselves. Instead, my postulated First Cause is totally responsible for both the Good and the Evil of the effects of ongoing causation.

I do postulate that Evolution is progressing in an upward direction, from an almost nothing Singularity toward, perhaps, a Technological Singularity --- from simplicity toward complexity. But that is hardly a traditional religious concept. No offer of direct intervention or salvation. Instead, it is more like an open-ended scientific experiment, to see how things turn out. Of course, those who want a comforting religious worldview can (and do) easily interpret the open-ended uncertainty of quantum science in religious metaphors, such as "transcendence of death". Meanwhile, those who prefer a closed mechanical classical physics paradigm can (and do) interpret the same quantum evidence to mean that "what was is what will be". Do you expect any future surprises like the, so-far inexplicable, emergence of Life & Mind from random roiling of matter?

Thanks for allowing me to continue my exploration of the Enformationism conjecture. :smile:


*1. Transcendent Causation :
The point we wish to make here is that there can never be a "theory of everything" possible unless physics can come up with an adequate theory of a universal and singular causation of everything , both quantum and physical.
https://www.academia.edu/24843805/Physical_causation_transcendental_causation_and_a_theory_of_everything

For me, God can be a personal pursuit. Where one's judgement of what they have discovered or been enlightened by does not necessarily translate across general populations of people.

Just as your personal relationship to anything: to any concept, happening or person, is individual and not precisely replicable by other people, simply it may have similarities or overlap, but is never quite identical.

Everyone has a different relationship to the concept of "good", to their mother, to the moon, to income tax, to nature or to "God" - every perspective is unique because it is establish through unique experiences.

So I would not go as far as to say "philosophers will not find God" but rather they will "not find a God that others can appreciate as they do".

And that is a condition ripe for argument and discussion and changing of views, as debating about a concept is an experience that informs our personal knowledge individually.

a quantum Field is not a physical Object, but a metaphysical (mathematical) Concept. — Gnomon
Well, hang on. If it is the direct 'cause' of there being physical objects, then isn't it in some strong sense 'entangled' with and by the concept of 'physical-objectness'? Perhaps physical objects themselves do not perfectly exemplify 'physical-obectness' either? — Pantagruel

Perhaps I should have added (material) after "physical" in the quote. For most of us, "physical" implies "matter-based", and "mathematical" implies logical relationships*1. However, in my personal worldview both Matter & Math are forms of generic Information*2. Our senses detect Weight, but our minds interpret Mass, and imagine Matter/Object (Kant). I refer to Mathematics as "metaphysical" in the Platonic sense, that many mathematicians accept, but physicists tend to reject. So yes, physical Objects and metaphysical Fields are "entangled", in the sense that both can be reduced (mentally) down to patterns of relationships (ratios ; information ; meaning). :smile:


*1. Mass :
Mass (symbolized m) is a dimensionless quantity representing the amount of matter in a particle or object.
https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/mass-m
Note -- Mass is dimensionless because it is an idea, not a thing. It's a symbol (qualia) representing a quantity of matter. But the symbol or metaphor is not the thing or object.

*2. It from Bit :
It from Bit symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom — at a very deep bottom, in most instances — an immaterial source and explanation; that what we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses;
https://www.themarginalian.org/2016/09/02/it-from-bit-wheeler/
Note -- this idea was proposed by quantum physicist John A. Wheeler. Again mathematicians & physicists may differ on the plausibility of this postulate.

Mass (symbolized m) is a dimensionless quantity representing the amount of matter in a particle or object. — Gnomon

But on the other hand mass also represents that quantity of energy bound in a particle (or anything). Which is interesting because energy can be bound directly, as mass. But it can also be bound in more complex forms stored by complex systems, which adds to the 'merely physical' mass of the system.

I'm pretty well-informed about pseudo-science. — Gnomon

No doubt you are, Gnomon, a verifiably expert pseudo-scientist. :lol:

I stopped responding to ↪180 Proof
[ ... ] because he seemed to insist that philosophical questions must be settled by empirical methods.

If you would be so kind, @universeness, check these questions (which Gnomon is too disingenuous to address substantively) for any insistence on my part that they be "settled by empirical methods" where Gnomon's statements lack empirical assumptions:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/709894

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/718369

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/742056 — 180 Proof

Gnomon doesn't address them because, in fact, he cannot and is afraid trying to do so will lay bare the very pseudo-science at the heart of his pseudo-philosophizing "personal worldview" and which will confirms my (our) suspicions. :smirk:

My thesis is definitely not a "what is" assertion,

Why then, if not an "assertion", Gnomon, do you refer to "Enformationism", etc as "my personal worldview" (and "a non-physical belief system")?

but a "what if question.

In other words, "what if" Enformer-of-the-gaps? with which I've taken issue because, like "Intelligent Design", your "what if" doesn't explain anything about how the world is or came to be as you purport to do (which, btw, is empirical – otherwise you wouldn't rely so heavily on "cutting edge" physics for your anachronistic 'Deistic-First Cause' speculations).

Causation

Cause – an agent of change that transforms the state of being of its object

Effect – a transformation of the state of being of the object of a causal power — ucarr

Right, according to these definitions, things are as I said. The agent of change (cause) is gravity. The effect is the falling of the person.

In Example B we see that before and after retain their meanings in the absence of a causal relationship that connects them (with respect to lung cell metabolism). — ucarr

Of course, the designation of before and after is not sufficient for a judgement of causation, it is only one of a number of necessary factors. Do you understand that if X is a necessary condition for Y, the occurrence of X still does not necessitate Y?

Did you not read the reference I put up, the Bradford Hill criteria for causation? There's a list of nine criteria for causation, which he proposed, one of them is a temporal relation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_Hill_criteria
I'm not saying that this is the only, or best, list of criteria. I posted it because you did not believe that temporality was an accepted criteria for causation. Now I'm referring to it to show you that temporality is not the only criterion for causation, there are other conditions which need to be met as well. The argument which I posted is concerned with the temporal aspect of causation.

I do think I could claim an equivalent relationship with computers as you or jgill — universeness

You are way above me, my friend. I never got over an infatuation with BASIC, merely dabbling in Fortran, C++, etc. Look at my icon. This little guy materialized after a magnification of well over 1,000X from a program I wrote on certain dynamical systems. :cool:

Do you understand that if X is a necessary condition for Y, the occurrence of X still does not necessitate Y? — Metaphysician Undercover

The necessitation of Y requires multiple necessary conditions?

Y= The town is entirely flooded by the river. X=River Drive is flooded. Go figure.

This thread is still going?

Philosophy doesn't set out to find god.