think Tegmark is like this, but such thinking has left the empirical scientific spirit behind. It's bad metaphysics drunk on its close association with good physics. — plaque flag

Courtesy a link provided by @Janus, I've just acquired Jane McDonnell, The Pythagorean
World: Why Mathematics Is Unreasonably Effective In Physics - a very recent title, McDonnell being a recent grad of Monash Uni in Melbourne. This is her PhD thesis in book form. Seems to present a kind of Pythagorean idealism, although I've barely started reading it yet.

- Okay, this seems to me like a good place to leave our discussion, which I think has been productive.

---

- I think we disagree on what anti-Scientism requires, but I will look forward to your thread on this topic.

This is still the way I would put it:

So the crux is apparently that scientism is realist, and can be resisted by the anti-realism of your OP, but I would prefer resisting scientism by way of an alternative realism. — Leontiskos

For Leibniz there is a "master monad" who coordinates all the rest: God.

Seems to present a kind of Pythagorean idealism, although I've barely started reading it yet. — Wayfarer

Questions I might ask: Is color real (are there really colorful things) ? Is sound real ? Are feelings of love real ? That we humans got good a measuring things and finding mathematical patterns in those measurements is undeniable. But why do certain thinkers pretend/claim that the visceral-embodied measurement process is unreal ? It's all real. The numbers too, but not only the numbers.

I would prefer resisting scientism by way of an alternative realism. — Leontiskos

As I noted, briefly, I think there's a lot in Aristotlelian-Thomist philosophy - which surprises me, as I'm not Catholic, and it's usually associated with the Catholic faith. I have learned there's a school of thought called Transcendental Thomism, associated with Rahner and other mainly European Catholic philosophers. I'm interested in that.

How so, if you mind my asking ? — plaque flag

No, it's quite fine (although I'll have to take a break shortly). As my initial post on this thread intended to explain, this within a system wherein the objective world and all objective things therein are formally causal products of a necessary co-occurrence of two or more transcendental egos which interact or hold the potential to interact. These transcendental egos - as per Kant - hold within them (for lack of better phrasing) space and time (and causation) as categories requisite to experiencing anything empirical whatsoever. For them to actively interact, an equally applicable space and time will need to apply to all momentarily interacting agents. Whatever is equally shared between all co-occurring transcendental egos in the cosmos will then be impartially, i.e. objectively, occurrent in the cosmos.

The physical rock's spatial, temporal, and causal attributes are examples of what is equally applicable to all co-occurring transcendent egos in the cosmos (complexities of spacetime curvature aside). So the rock as objective thing remains constant regardless of perspective which apprehends it empirically, be the perspective human or otherwise. Two humans will then see it at the same time from different angles but yet agree on the properties of its shape.

Apologies if this doesn't make better sense of what I previously wrote.

Questions I might ask: is color real ? is sound real ? are feelings of love real ? To say that the world is 'really' numbers doesn't make much sense. — plaque flag

As you know, since Day 1 on the forum, I've been pursuing the question of the question of the reality of number (and abstract objects generally). My view is that they're real, but they're not phenomenally existent; they're inherent in the way the mind categorises, predicts and organises its cognitions. And as 'the world' and 'experience' are not ultimately divided (per non-dualism) then this is why mathematics is uncannily predictictive. That, I think, is the thrust of McDonnell's book.

I've tried to read up on Tegmark but have been dismayed to learn that despite his commitment to what he calls 'pythagoreanism', he still remains wedded to a scientifically materialist philosophy. 'It’s fair to say that Tegmark, a physicist by training, is not a biological sentimentalist. He is a materialist who views the world and the universe beyond as being made up of varying arrangements of particles that enable differing levels of activity. He draws no meaningful or moral distinction between a biological, mortal intelligence and that of an intelligent, self-perpetuating machine' ~ The Guardian.

As always, 'the philosophy of a subject who forgets himself'.

Yes, there are many different schools of Thomism. My teachers tended to be in the Laval/River Forest school, or else the analytic Thomism school. Transcendental Thomism is more conciliatory towards modern thought:

4. Transcendental Thomism: Unlike the first three schools mentioned, this approach, associated with Joseph Marechal (1878-1944), Karl Rahner (1904-84), and Bernard Lonergan (1904-84), does not oppose modern philosophy wholesale, but seeks to reconcile Thomism with a Cartesian subjectivist approach to knowledge in general, and Kantian epistemology in particular. It seems fair to say that most Thomists otherwise tolerant of diverse approaches to Aquinas’s thought tend to regard transcendental Thomism as having conceded too much to modern philosophy genuinely to count as a variety of Thomism, strictly speaking, and this school of thought has in any event been far more influential among theologians than among philosophers. — Edward Feser, The Thomistic Tradition, Part I

For Leibniz there is a "master monad" who coordinates all the rest: God. — Janus

Sure, but I thought it was obvious that I wasn't just adopting Leibniz's entire theory. I've been trying to follow the evolution of perspectivism in Western philosophy, and Leibniz and Berkeley are important, but they come with the expected theological baggage of their time, which I don't need of course.

For me there is no world-in-itself: some weird collection of asperspectival stuff. Hence ontological cubism. A world shattered into perspectives on that world. This isn't an empirical claim. It's a semantic claim. People can't even say what they mean by it. Or so I claim.

But our best physical theories are great at transforming coordinate systems, till maybe we forget that measurements are finally done by embodied perspectival beings --that physical theories refer, finally, to actual and possible human experience. [Or they aren't science anymore but mysticism written in difficult mathematics, which isn't that hard to do really.]

:up:

The problem is their systems fall apart when the lynchpin is removed, which raises the question as to how we might think their systems are important when they are in a shambles.

My view is that they're real, but they're not phenomenally existent; they're inherent in the way the mind categorises, predicts and organises its cognitions. — Wayfarer

Sure. And they also exist culturally, viscerally, just as the rest of our mentality does. As a student of math, I'd be lost with pencil and paper (I've been working on math when stepping away from here, a construction of the real numbers.) Much of mathematical thinking is externalized, embodied. And more generally reduce pure subjectivity to pure being itself. The psychological subject is part of the world, and we can articulate all kinds of causal relationships between it an its environment --do the usual psychology.

And as 'the world' and 'experience' are not ultimately divided (per non-dualism) then this is why mathematics is uncannily predictictive. That, I think, is the thrust of McDonnell's book. — Wayfarer

To me it's not math itself but theories in that syntax that are predictive. Math allows for precise measurement and precise prediction. It also allows for more and more complex models, with more and more impressive inferences allowing us to move from general theory to a prediction in this or that specified context.

The world just happens to be orderly, it seems to me. Maybe the anthropic principle is worth something here. Without order to exploit, there could be no life. (?)

@plaque flag, I was reading your thread, "Rationalism's Flat Ontology," and so far I'm on the third sentence. :smile: It looks like an interesting book, "The Democracy of Objects."

The book begins:

1.1. The Death of Ontology and the Rise of Correlationism

Our historical moment is characterized by a general distrust, even disdain, for the category of objects, ontology, and above all any variant of realism. Moreover, it is characterized by a primacy of epistemology over ontology. While it is indeed true that Heidegger, in Being and Time, attempted to resurrect ontology, this only took place through a profound transformation of the very meaning of ontology. Ontology would no longer be the investigation of being qua being in all its variety and diversity regardless of whether humans exist, but rather would instead become an interrogation of Dasein's or human being's access to being. Ontology would become an investigation of being-for-Dasein, rather than an investigation of being as such. In conjunction with this transformation of ontology from an investigation of being as such into an investigation of being-for-humans, we have also everywhere witnessed a push to dissolve objects or primary substances in the acid of experience, intentionality, power, language, normativity, signs, events, relations, or processes. To defend the existence of objects is, within the framework of this line of thought, the height of naïveté for objects are held to be nothing more than surface-effects of something more fundamental such as the signifier, signs, power or activities of the mind. With Hume, for example, it is argued that objects are really nothing more than bundles of impressions or sensations linked together by associations and habits in the mind. Here there is no deeper fact of objects existing beyond these impressions and habits. Likewise, Lacan will tell us that “the universe is the flower of rhetoric”, treating the beings that populate the world as an effect of the signifier.

We can thus discern a shift in how ontology is understood and accompanying this shift the deployment of a universal acid that has come to dissolve the being of objects. The new ontology argues that we can only ever speak of being as it is for us. Depending on the philosophy in question, this “us” can be minds, lived bodies, language, signs, power, social structures, and so on. There are dozens of variations... — The Democracy of Objects, Chapter 1, by Levi R. Bryant

(link to chapter)

(Tagging @schopenhauer1 on account of the reference to Graham Harman)

The problem is their systems fall apart when the lynchpin is removed, which raises the question as to how we might think their systems are important when they are in a shambles. — Janus

I'll let their ghosts debate that issue with you, since neither system is my own. Wittgenstein basically states my own current position in the TLP and early notebooks. Mach gives a powerful, more detailed presentation. James is also there in Does Consciousness Exist ? None of them hammered home the implied perspectivism, though, which gives me something useful to do.

plaque flag, I was reading your thread, "Rationalism's Flat Ontology," and so far I'm on the third sentence. — Leontiskos

:)

I appreciate you checking it out. I'd be happy to clarify my weird prose, of course.

- Oh, that's not a problem. It was just the link that distracted me! I will try to get a response in at some point, but, prima facie, it does remind me of my immanent/transcendent distinction (link).

Ontology would no longer be the investigation of being qua being in all its variety and diversity regardless of whether humans exist, but rather would instead become a"n interrogation of Dasein's or human being's access to being. — The Democracy of Objects, Chapter 1, by Levi R. Bryant

I can't speak for all correlationists, but I take speculative realism to be an empty promise, grounded in nostalgia. The investigation of being (ontology) is something like grasping its essence in concepts. So it's weird to talk about grasping forever-ungraspable being. And of course our 'talk' is a contamination of this 'being.' So what now ? The speculative realists tend to present themselves as tough-minded types, but I feel like I'm the genuine positivist in such a context, up against mathematical mystics whose attachment to physics is supposed to obscure the mysticism.

I'll let their ghosts debate that issue with you, since neither system is my own. — plaque flag

My point was only that the importance of their systems (given that we accept for the sake of argument that they are important beyond merely their place in the canon) principally relies on what you want to discard. Even just their importance as members of the canon relies on their system being accepted as a whole.

- Good to know. I figured as much, even though you both consider yourselves correlationists.

Good to know. I figured as much, even though you both consider yourselves correlationists. — Leontiskos

Just to clarify, you mean @Wayfarer ? I don't know if he embraces the term. But, for the record, we can do without the subject before we can do without the world. [The empirical subject is part of the world, albeit a central part.] [The world is just 'Being' --- how it is, all that is the case in all its sensuousness, etc. ]

- Oh, I was just comparing you to the Speculative Realists. See: "Object-Oriented Ontology - Graham Harman Discussion."

I am then led to wonder whether that possibility of perception, when engaged, effects an actualization of perception, such that we are really encountering a perception/image rather than the thing itself. For me the possibility of perception is derivative on the thing that exists in itself. The thing is more than a possibility of perception, even though we always know by means of perception. — Leontiskos

The problem of hallucination, right ? I can decide that what 'seemed like' an X was 'really' a Y. But I can changed 'my mind' yet again. One 'appearance' 'corrects' another. Belief is the intelligible structure of the world given perspectively. There is no stuff out there beyond all perspectives. Not in my system. Wouldn't have it. [Smile] So the world-for-me itself flickers and smokes with possibility and uncertainty. Despite our practical and shrewd repression of this aspect of the world.

To quote early Notebook boy Wittgenstein, 'p is true' just means 'p.' Which means that the world is like this rather than that [the world for me, but I have to remind myself of that sometimes.] We can learn a detachment or distance from our beliefs, so that we call them 'beliefs' and not just (like a fanatic) the obvious truth.

derivative on the thing that exists in itself

Can you unfold this ? My bias is that you won't find more than what Mill described, but perhaps you'll surprise me.

Even just their importance as members of the canon relies on their system being accepted as a whole. — Janus

To me that's a bold claim which I very much dispute. I take an opposite Hegelian view. The timebinding [ scientific ] philosophical Conversation is the actual protagonist, and relatively ephemeral personalities become relevant if they catch up with it enough to help it along.

Your thinking, applied to physics, would reduce Newton to dust -- as if we weren't basically still Newtonians. To be sure, we aren't pure Newtonians anymore.

I add this in case anyone wants to pick up the thread.

The new ontology argues that we can only ever speak of being as it is for us. Depending on the philosophy in question, this “us” can be minds, lived bodies, language, signs, power, social structures, and so on. — The Democracy of Objects, Chapter 1, by Levi R. Bryant

(1) We 'can only ever speak' of being as something we are speaking about. This tautology is supposed to be offensive. But one could also tease when it's presented as a profundity.

(2) The 'for us' can be reduced to pure perspectival being, as in Wittgenstein. The world 'just happens' to gather around sentient flesh. But this can be thought of as merely contingently true. It takes effort, but one can (and I think Husserl did) imagine a pure bodiless worldstream. But there will be an implicit 'eye' implied by the visual space (a perspectival space) , even if no eye is actually posited, for that's the kind of space we can talk sensibly about.

Transcendental Thomism is more conciliatory towards modern thought — Leontiskos

On further reflection, it occurs to me that an Aquinas would not endorse the notion of a 'mind-independent object'. Why? Because in his philosophical theology, particulars derive their being from God - that they are created and maintained in existence by the divine intellect. Not only does God grant existence initially (through creation), but He also continuously sustains all things in existence. Without the continuous causal activity of God, things would cease to exist. In this way, God is not just a distant first cause; He is intimately involved in maintaining the existence of all particulars (cf Jean Gebser, 'The Ever-Present Origin'.) And whilst the 'divine intellect' might be an unfathomable mystery to us mortals, it is still a mind, rather than an impersonal physical force such as energy.

This is what I clumsily referred to with the earlier reference to Eckhardt, that being the gist of his aphorism, 'creatures [i.e. created things] are mere nothings'. They have no intrinsic reality outside the Divine Intellect which sustains us and all things in existence.

- My response still holds good:

On further reflection, it occurs to me that an Aquinas would not endorse the notion of a 'mind-independent object'. Why? Because in his philosophical theology, particulars derive their being from God — Wayfarer

In this thread when we have been speaking about "mind-independent objects," 'mind' is taken to refer to the human mind. To speak about God's mind is a rather different thing, and now you seem to be flirting with full-fledged Idealism. I think you are working above your pay-grade at this point. :wink:

But there are sparks of truth in such an idea. For the classical theist human knowledge is a re-cognition of God's own thought, and the fact that we are made in God's image explains why we can know God's creation. This is one of the reasons why science (the study of mind-independent reality) is thought to have grown up so readily in theistic contexts. At the same time, your conclusion about the ontology of creation goes much further than classical theism would admit. It essentially moves towards a pantheism that undermines natural science for want of a determinate object of study.

I think you are working above your pay-grade at this point. — Leontiskos

Almost certainly, but then I am trying to follow a thread through a labyrinth. And thank you. :pray:

The timebinding [ scientific ] philosophical Conversation is the actual protagonist — plaque flag

I think you're reifying an imagined entity.

Your thinking, applied to physics, would reduce Newton to dust -- as if we weren't basically still Newtonians. To be sure, we aren't pure Newtonians anymore. — plaque flag

That's untrue and irrelevant, for three reasons: first I was talking about philosophy, not physics, second, I don't think Newton's mechanics are obsolete, just not as accurate as Einstein's and third I was speaking about the relevance of thinkers as being relative to their whole systems of thought. How do you think Newton's mechanics would fare if you removed its lynchpins? The point was simply that both Leibniz' and Berkeley's metaphysics fall apart if you remove God.

Because in his philosophical theology, particulars derive their being from God - that they are created and maintained in existence by the divine intellect. Not only does God grant existence initially (through creation), but He also continuously sustains all things in existence. Without the continuous causal activity of God, things would cease to exist. In this way, God is not just a distant first cause; He is intimately involved in maintaining the existence of all particulars — Wayfarer

And here is another case in point. God is central to scholastic metaphysics as well. Although that said, on a different point, Wayfarer, how do you (or Aquinas) know God holds things in existence via his "intellect"? Could it not be his desire or will? And a further point is that even in this scenario things are human-mind independent. God, if he exists, could presumably create a whole world with no humans in it. The Catholics accept the current cosmological paradigm, according to which the cosmos existed for far, far longer without humans than it has with them.

Edit: I see @Leontiskos beat me to the point concerning human mind-independence.

- :up:

Aquinas has a quote that goes something like this, "Do not wish to jump immediately from the streams to the sea, because one has to go through easier things to the more difficult."

It's from somewhere in his Compendium of Theology, and I think it's good advice. Granted, it's also fun to try to eat the whole meal in one bite. :grin: