Except all facts are presented in language, which is always a social context. Some facts, particularly those presented in the language of Math, are more successful in representing indisputability and resisting slippage into ambiguity. However, they're all presented in language.
— Thanatos Sand

Yes, all statements of what is believed to be a fact is done so in some symbolic language which is inevitably ambiguous for a variety of reasons.

Mathematical symbols, when stated as a definition, are more resistant too change because they are accepted definitions (for now). However, mathematics when used as representational suffers from the v same problems as any symbolic language.

Absolutely, as Godel showed long ago, which is why I said Math was more successful in representing indisputability, but still is vulnerable to the dynamics of language.

Absolutely, as Godel showed long ago, which is why I said Math was more successful in representing indisputability, but still is vulnerable to the dynamics of language. — Thanatos Sand

Yes, the vulnerability comes in several forms. I believe the fundamental problem is (and I know I am in a distinct minority) is that math, by necessity and practicality, must apply discreteness to a non-discrete (continuous) universe. This only becomes a problem when a particular mathematical construct (which is developed for practical application) is given ontological status. It happens quite often and creates all kinds of paradoxical problems.

I agree with that.

You’d said:
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[Ontology of the universe as facts is a problem since facts are our views of the material reality of the universe, not the truths of the Universe itself.
— Thanatos Sand

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That's an unsupported belief.

Your statement is a statement of the Physicalist belief that reality is material. ...that the material world is primary, is what's fundamentally real and existent.

Your primary, fundamentally real and existent material world is a big, blatant brute-fact.

There's no need for brute-facts. A metaphysics based on inter-referring hypothetical facts needs no brute-facts or assumptions. ...as I describe in my topic "A Uniquely Parsimonious and Skeptical Metaphysics."

In my other reply to this topic, I told some reasons for that.

Michael Ossipoff

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You reply:
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Nothing you say in your "counter" to my quote above it counters or even effectively addresses what I said at all. I never made a physicalist belief; I just correctly said our facts are our reflections of the material reality of the universe; I never said they weren't part of our reality as well.

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Well, let’s look at what you said:
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Ontology of the universe as facts is a problem since facts are our views of the material reality of the universe, not the truths of the Universe itself.
— Thanatos Sand

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You clearly said that facts are our views of the material reality. So the material is the Reality, and the facts are just “views” of that Reality. …and that facts aren’t the “truths of the universe”. Then what is the “truth of the universe”? Why, the material Reality, of course, of which the facts are merely a “view” and not the truths of the universe.
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Yes, you said that. And, in the post that I’m replying to, you re-affirm that what you said is “correct”.
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And the only big, blatant brute-fact is your statement calling my statement one

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Well, the material reality that is primary, the fundamental-existent, the “reality” as opposed to just a “view” that isn’t a “truth of the universe” is a blatant brute-fact.
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Why is there that material reality? There just is, right? That’s a brute-fact.
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, as my statements can and have been explained

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You repeated them, but that doesn’t change them.
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“Explain” them? Alright, explain why there’s the material reality that you refer to that is the primary fundamental existent, instead of facts, which you say are merely “views” of your material reality, rather than “truths of the universe”.
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If the facts are merely views of the material reality, and aren’t the “truths of the universe”, then explain what is the truth of the universe.
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And, if material reality is the “truth of the universe”, explain why there’s that “truth of the universe”.
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But I’ve already asked you to explain why there is that material reality that you referred to.
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, and you don't explain or support yours at all.

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I’ve explained that a system of mutually inter-related and inter-referring hypothetical facts, including “physical laws” which are facts about relations between hypothetical quantities; and including such abstract facts as mathematical theorems and abstract logical facts
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As I said before, the “things” that facts are about can be regarded as and spoken of as part of those facts.
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Why do such systems “exist”?
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How could they not? Such a system’s components have meaning in reference to eachother. They “exist” in reference to eachother. That’s their only “existence”. What more existence do they need?
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Your life-experience possibility-story is such a system. Part of it consists of the hypothetical possibility-world in which your life-experience possibility-story is set.
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I’ve explained this at various topics, at various forums at this website.
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But you said that I haven’t explained or supported it, and so I’ve supplied the above brief summary.
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Ever since Michael Faraday, in 1844, some physicists have been pointing out that there’s nothing about physics’s observations to imply that our physical world is other than a system such as I described above, consisting of mathematical and logical relation. …and no fundamentally-existent, primary “stuff”.
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And your referring to your outside in-supported topic

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I’m going to guess that you meant to say “unsupported topic”.
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I’ve supported my “A Uniquely Parsimonious and Skeptical Metaphysics” topic (…including its title). I’ve repeated, here in this post, a summary of that justification of it.
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…with the interesting name does not suffice or stand as explanation or support.

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I didn’t explain or support it by merely referring to it. But I explained and supported my initial post to “A Uniquely Parsimonious and Skeptical Metaphysics”, when I posted it, and many times since. …and I’ve provided a brief summary of that support and justification, above, in this post.
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If you want to say that I haven’t explained and justified my claims, or the metaphysics that I propose, and offer justification of, then you’d need to specify particular not-valid statements in that justification, or ways in which my metaphysical proposal, its explanation or its justification is lacking.
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But be specific.

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Michael Ossipoff

That was a bunch of blather that again misrepresented my views and didn't address them at all. And your referring to a "topic" you wrote doesn't constitute presenting the erroneous arguments within that topic, so you still fail to support your argument in any way.

I suggest you tighten up your thoughts and address my arguments in concise paragraph form instead of writing a ramble of semi-coherent sentences, your final doozy being a prime example of that semi-coherence.

You continue to repeat your claim that I haven't supported my metaphysical proposal or its explanaion and justification.

But you missed one line of my previous post:

I said, "Be specific".

Apparently you're unable to.

I've been patient with you. When I asked you to be specific, I was giving you one more chance to show that you actually have a specific substantial objection. You've shown that you don't.

It wouldn't be productive for me to waste any more time replying to you.

As always, at this point, I emphasize that when I don't reply to Thanatos Sand, it doesn't mean that he's said something irrefutable. It's just that I've finally given up on asking for him to be more specific and less vague in his objections.

Michael Ossipoff

That was a bunch of blather that again misrepresented my views and didn't address them at all. And your referring to a "topic" you wrote doesn't constitute presenting the erroneous arguments within that topic, so you still fail to support your argument in any way.

I suggest you tighten up your thoughts and address my arguments in concise paragraph form instead of writing a ramble of semi-coherent sentences, your final doozy being a prime example of that semi-coherence. — Thanatos Sand

Again you post blather when you ask me to be specific when you've given no specificity, and when you ask me to be specific in unnecessarily proving a negative against your false unproven positive. So I don't need to provid a specific to back my correct criticism of your erroneous statement. Your thinking I do is cute.

Fine, if you're comfortable with an unsupported brute-fact. — Michael Ossipoff

That there's no "stuff" isn't any better-supported, haha

Who said there's no stuff? And he certainly didn't show I had a brute fact.

The early Wittgenstein postulated that the world is the totality of facts, not things. — Question

As you know I'm a Wittgenstein fan but this Tractatus business is just a way of putting it. Are all the facts about the Harry Potter universe part of this totality of facts, for instance?

Later Witt (if TS will allow us to carry on quoting him) suits me better: there are different language-games in which 'fact' works very usefully. But the descriptions even of the same purported fact are likely to be different: does that make the fact different? The Battle of the Boyne happened in 1690, for instance. Either heroic Orangemen expunged dastardly Catholics from the country, or heroic Catholics were cruelly outlawed by despicable Orangemen. I appreciate we feel less strongly about experiments on particles, but there's often a point of view embedded in our descriptions. In Academe, and indeed among friends or families or a society, there's a normative practice which agrees some basis for 'facts', from which chair is Grandad's to who was heroic in 1690.

"Fine, if you're comfortable with an unsupported brute-fact". — Michael Ossipoff

That there's no "stuff" isn't any better-supported, haha — Terrapin Station

You're confusing two different kinds/levels/orders of assumptions:

Have I proven that my metaphysics is correct, and that yours (whatever it may be) isn't?

For example, specificallyl, have I proven that there's no "stuff"?

Of course not, I've repeatedly suggested that no metaphysics is provable.

So, when we're checking for unsupported assumptions that a metaphysics needs, it doesn't make any sense to say,. "Your metaphysics depends on the unsupported assumption that it's correct and mine isn't."

I don't advocate an assumption that Skepticism is correct. So much for that "assumption."

Sorry, no. That isn't the kind of unsupported assumptions by which we're comparing metaphysics's parsimony.

A primary, fundamentally-existent material reality is a brute-fact. Physicalism and "Naturalism" need to posit that brute-fact. That's what makes it unparsimonious...not the fact that someone assumes that Physicalism is correct.

In other words, Physicalism's unsupported assumption is an assumption within Physicalism, rather than an external assumption about Physicalism, like an assumption that Physicalism is correct.

Skepticism doesn't share that un-parsimony,,,doesn't make an internal unsupported assumption..

Skepticism make no assumptions and posits no brute-facts.

It explains our physical world in terms of a system of inter-referring hypothetical facts.

"If this and this and this, then that."

I've told why that doesn't need an external explanation, because the components of that system refer only to eachother, and undeniably "exist" in terms of and in reference to eachother.

This isn't just my claim. We've named several physicists and a Western philosopher who have likewise said that a system of inter-referring hypothetical facts can explain the observations of physics, and our physical world.

Michael Ossipoff.

A primary, fundamentally-existent material reality is a brute-fact. Physicalism and "Naturalism" need to posit that brute-fact. That's what makes it unparsimonious...not the fact that someone assumes that Physicalism is correct.

A primary, fundamentally existent material reality Is not a "brute-fact," as a brute-fact is something that cannot be explained and a primary, fundamentally existent material reality can be explained. Michael doesnt' know what "brute-fact" means.

In other words, Physicalism's unsupported assumption is an assumption within Physicalism, rather than an external assumption about Physicalism, like an assumption that Physicalism is correct.

Skepticism doesn't share that un-parsimony,,,doesn't make an internal unsupported assumption.. — Michael Ossipoff

What in the world do "internal" and "external" refer to there exactly?

Depends?

If I observe "I'm in a great mood", then that fact is observer-dependent.
If I observe "The Moon is round", then that fact is independent of me observing it.

An observation may be observer-dependent, the observed may not be.

Actually, the moon Is round is observer dependent since it will only seem round to those seeing it from a particular part of the earth, and "round" is a human concept placing an idealized shape on the Moon it doesnt' actually have.

Here "round" doesn't mean

$(x - x_0)^2 + (y - y_0)^2 + (z - z_0)^2 = r^2$

The shape of the Moon is largely a result of gravity and composition and whatever, a spheroid within some margin of variation, round.
It had that shape long before homo sapiens walked the Earth.

Here "round" doesn't mean

(x−
x
0
)
2
+(y−
y
0
)
2
+(z−
z
0
)
2
=
r
2
(x−x0)2+(y−y0)2+(z−z0)2=r2


The shape of the Moon is largely a result of gravity and composition and whatever, a spheroid within some margin of variation, round.
It had that shape long before homo sapiens walked the Earth.

No, round is a human concept to which the moon didn't apply before we existed and doesn't even fit many human concepts of round as it isn't a smooth-circled orb.

It had that shape long before homo sapiens walked the Earth — jorndoe

And this is known how?

Roundness is an observation of a mind. Without the mind, the moon is just entangled quanta which is entangled with everything around it.

I'm not referring to our concepts or words, but the shape of the Moon.
Feel free to chat about the former; meanwhile I'll chat about the Moon. :)

And the shape of the moon wasn't "round" until humans called it that. And since the moon isn't a smooth-edged orb, it's not actually "round." So, you're not chatting about the moon, just your personal concept of it.

I'm not referring to our concepts or words, but the shape of the Moon.
Feel free to chat about the former; meanwhile I'll chat about the Moon. :) — jorndoe

All we know is that the moon is quanta which is essentially nothing. Anything you observe in your life is necessarily the result of the interaction between you, the observer, and the observed quanta. This is absolutely fundamental without any wiggle room.

And since the moon isn't a smooth-edged orb, it's not actually "round." — Thanatos Sand

The shape of the Moon is largely a result of gravity and composition and whatever, a spheroid within some margin of variation, round. — jorndoe

Emphasis added.
In this context, the term round is how we already characterize the Moon, along with whatever other things.
It's not a definition of the Moon's shape (we don't define things into existence), it's observation.
In case I'd written "the Earth is flat", I'd be wrong. Not so with "the Moon is round".

All we know is that the moon is quanta which is essentially nothing. — Rich

???

A NASA scientist's perspective:

"Let us ask a simple question: When you look up at night and "see" a star, what is "really" going on? A Newtonian philosopher might answer that you are "really seeing" the star, since, in Newtonian physics, the speed of light is reckoned as being infinite. An Einsteinian philosopher, on the other hand, would answer that you are seeing the star as it was in a past epoch, since light travels with finite velocity and therefore takes time to cross the gulf of space between the star and your eye. To see the star "as it is right now" has no meaning since there exists no means for making such an observation.

A quantum philosopher would answer that you are not seeing the star at all. The star sets up a condition that extends throughout space and time-an electromagnetic field. What you "see" as a star, is actually the result of a quantum interaction between the local field and the retina of your eye. Energy is being absorbed from the field by your eye, and the local field is being modified as a result. You can interpret your observation as pertaining to a distant object if you wish, or concentrate strictly on local field effects."

https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/Numbers/Math/Mathematical_Thinking/observer.htm

And since the moon isn't a smooth-edged orb, it's not actually "round."
— Thanatos Sand

The shape of the Moon is largely a result of gravity and composition and whatever, a spheroid within some margin of variation, round.
— jorndoe

Emphasis added.
In this context, the term round is how we already characterize the Moon, along with whatever other things.
It's not a definition of the Moon's shape (we don't define things into existence), it's observation.
In case I'd written "the Earth is flat", I'd be wrong. Not so with "the Moon is round".

It's not observation. It's imposition of a human concept onto an object that never had that concept as an essential attribute. And, as I mentioned before, the moon isn't even actually round, as it's not a smooth-edged orb. Your ignoring that fact doesn't change it.

, you introduced "smooth-edged orb"; "a spheroid within some margin of variation" is a bit better.
Not that it matters much, though.
Would you prefer using other words when we chat about the Moon?

LOL. You accuse me of introducing a definition then you, yourself, introduce a definition with no more basis in physical reality or the English language than mine.

Thanks for further showing that "round" is just a linguistic concept dependent on other equally non-materially based linguistic concepts as itself. So, use whatever words you want when you chat about the moon. All you'll be doing is using words, not accurately describing the moon itself.

It's not observation. It's imposition of a human concept onto an object that never had that concept as an essential attribute. And, as I mentioned before, the moon isn't even actually round, as it's not a smooth-edged orb. Your ignoring that fact doesn't change it. — Thanatos Sand

The moon is actually just a quantum field which has no attributes. Everything we see and think about the moon is the result of observation. With quantum theory, it is no longer possible to discuss any object without introducing an observer. Object/observer actually morphs into a process.

All we know is that the moon is quanta which is essentially nothing. Anything you observe in your life is necessarily the result of the interaction between you, the observer, and the observed quanta. This is absolutely fundamental without any wiggle room. — Rich

Allow me to misquote you:

All jorndoe knows is that Rich is quanta which is essentially nothing. Anything jorndoe observes in jorndoe's life is necessarily the result of the interaction between jorndoe, and the observed quanta. This is absolutely fundamental without any wiggle room.

Solipsism.

"There is no Moon"? :)

More properly phrased, you know nothing about Rich until you observe Rich, and what observe about me may or may not be in concordance with what I observe about myself. In all probability we will disagree about almost everything. Such is the nature of observation.

I don't think it is possible to imagine a quantum field without observation.