I wouldn't commit to that statement. It could be both a way of thinking and a thing in the world.

Though I think if causation is real it would be a relation rather than a thing, if I'm going to be picky.

It could be both a way of thinking and a thing in the world. — Moliere

Indeed. Not unlike the way we use proper names.

..a relation rather than a thing... — Moliere

Well, yes, cause is a relation, and causation a philosopher's pet.

So rather than assuming that laws are invariant I think the more common assumption is that they are good enough for now until someone comes along and points out where we messed up, and on and on the scientific project will go. — Moliere

Yes, I think this is pretty much the right picture.

Great last bunch of posts.

It's not that everything is reducible to some amorphous and expansive idea of "the physical" but rather that everything is reducible to physics. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This doesn't touch my physicalism, because I don't see everything as reducible to physics. I don't know of any physicalist, who if given the choice, would say that they believe everything reduces to physics, as against everything reduces to the physical. Now I could easily imagine a physicalist saying in a sloppy way that everything reduces to physics, but I would simply intepret that as a figure of speech that is commonly used to refer to the physical (at least in some crowds).

I see us as forces of nature. Something like godawfully complicated tornados that interact with the world they progress through, and most interestingly to social primates like us, interact with their fellow forces of nature in complex ways. I don't know of any good reason to think that consciousness can't be a characteristic of such complex forces of nature.

Personally, I see strong correlations between the way our minds work and the physical structures they supervene on, but that is not something one gets to recognize well, without a fair bit of study. I don't expect others to have the same recognition, because few have studied the diverse relevant fields with an eye towards developing such understanding for the last 37 years. It's not something I claim any particular credit for. It's just the way things turned out in my case.

I think the biggest impediment to accepting physicalism for most is incredulity. I simply don't have the incredulity that many people have. When I was younger I did, so I can understand being incredulous towards physicalism. But it just so happens I've had the weirdass life experience that I have had, resulting in me not sharing that incredulity.

I also recognize that many would find it emotionally challenging to consider physicalism in a charitably credulous way. I can understand that as well. I've had a long time to get emotionally adjusted to this view.

Still argument from incredulity and appeal to consequences are fallacious as bases for rejecting physicalism, so folks might want to take that into consideration.

Quote from Hume: — Moliere

Very good quote. Of course Hume didn't have the opportunity to understand this, but the quote suggests at least intuitive recognition on Hume's part, of how deep learning is manifested in human thinking.

Hume's argument against induction would appear to apply to past events as well though. So inductive arguments about the past get the axe too. "The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776," or "lunar eclipses have been predictable" are the types of statements we believe because we trust the source that is telling us them or because we remember the past events. However, why should we think any source of information is reliable? It certainly can't be because they have been reliable in the past. Why should we think our memory is reliable? If you cannot demonstrate that you have a reliable memory using only deduction, it seems to me like you are SOL. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't think this follows, because all the documents we have point to nature behaving in the past as it does now. For example, if we have documents stating that Lunar eclipses were observed on particular dates and if those dates accorded with the dates that we would today retrospectively calculate to be the dates when lunar eclipses would be expected to have occurred then we have some corroborating evidence that the laws have not changed. Add to that the fact that if we have no documents recording observations of violations of what we have come to think of as the laws of nature, then that also supports the belief that nature has not changed its behavior.

The other point is that induction is not so far from deduction if we frame the thinking in terms like "iff the laws of nature have not changed or do not change, then this is what we could expect to observe". The certainty of this deduction is only as strong as this premise is true.

These words accord very well with my own experience and views, including that I also once rejected physicalism as being beyond credibility, incoherent with human experience and even self-defeating. But I have come to recognize that those criticisms were examples of simplistic thinking, lacking in nuance as well as probably driven by wishfulness.

:up:

Very good quote. Of course Hume didn't have the opportunity to understand this, but the quote suggests at least intuitive recognition on Hume's part, of how deep learning is manifested in human thinking. — wonderer1

:up: The point about deep learning is well taken; what is often ignored is the fact that the sciences present a whole interrelated network of knowledge and understanding based on observations, hypotheses and experiments which is enormously complex and consistent, and obviously that much more so today than it was in Hume's time.

In the interest of responding in a not unreasonable amount of time, I'm going to go ahead and write what I'm thinking.

The objection is well said.

I understand you to be objecting to the reduction to physics on three grounds which I will now summarize: 1. incomplete explanation, 2. potentially untrue, 3. raises questions.

To your first point, I think what I am looking for if I were looking for a physicist's explanation of tasting coffee, is whether we can describe the experience in terms of atoms and so on. Given that there seems to be a level of analysis at which the tasting of coffee can be elucidated in terms of atoms and laws discovered by physicists, I am content that that analysis is adequate, if not complete from the subjective perspective.

If we are talking about human behavior, I do not think physics can adequately describe that, but given that physics is supposed to acquire knowledge about atoms and planets and such, I don't think human behavior is the right domain for physics.

I don't think this follows, because all the documents we have point to nature behaving in the past as it does now

What's the purely deductive argument that secures the premise "documents we possess are a reliable record of past events?"

This doesn't touch my physicalism, because I don't see everything as reducible to physics. I don't know of any physicalist, who if given the choice, would say that they believe everything reduces to physics, as against everything reduces to the physical. Now I could easily imagine a physicalist saying in a sloppy way that everything reduces to physics, but I would simply intepret that as a figure of speech that is commonly used to refer to the physical (at least in some crowds).

I think you're right. The driving rationale behind "everything reduces to (a complete form of) physics," would appear to be to avoid the charge that the claim that "everything is physical," is a vacuous statement. If the term "physical" is defined loosely, in an open ended manner, such that "if science/other valid methodologies provide good support for x's existence, then x is physical," the claim becomes the hallowed out "everything that exists is what exists." Or, "physicalism" just seems to be scientific realism with extra ontological baggage attached that is associated with the term.

Reduction wed to causal closure are good for physicalism in that they do seem to set some solid limits on what would qualify as non-physical.

So the problems with reduction are not necessarily problems for physicalism, I agree there. There could be another good way of defining what it means for something to be physical, and maybe that's what the ontology really needs and someone will find it. But reduction is a good candidate for defining "what is physical " precisely because it would seem to entail, barring panpsychism, that mind is not a fundemental, irreducible aspect of the universe. And, while definitions of "fundemental " are debated, being strongly emergent would seem to make something fundemental in key ways.

"Mind is a fundemental, irreducible element of reality that interacts with the mindless, physical world in a causally efficacious manner," seems like a summation of dualism, but would seem to be consistent with physicalism with strong emergence too. What's the difference then?

And this could lead into other problems like "are abstract objects emergent from mind," and if so, wouldn't abstract objects now also be "physical."

For my part, I see the problems with getting the term firm enough to have sufficient omph behind it as a much larger problem than general plausibility.

BTW, I think the most flexible/plausible versions of idealism begin to have an extremely similar problem.

What's the purely deductive argument that secures the premise "documents we possess are a reliable record of past events?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

I haven't claimed there is such an argument, but documentary evidence is all we have to go on when it comes to the past. And as I said if there is cross-referential corroboration across various documents concerning observed events then we have reason to feel more confident in their veracity. And even more so if the observed events recorded are in accordance with what we would expect based on our current understandings and the calculations based on them.

I think these kinds of criticisms are based on the claim that we cannot be absolutely certain, and I think this is a strawman since it is uncontroversial that absolute certainty, if it is possible anywhere, belongs only to rule-based formal systems.

What's the purely deductive argument that secures the premise "documents we possess are a reliable record of past events?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Why focus on whether there is a purely deductive argument? Logic is at best as good as its inputs, and the inputs to our logic are our intuitive deep learning. It is pattern recognition that has resulted in our recognition of the pattern of documents being reliable records of past events.

Are causes in the world or in the way we describe the world? — Banno

whereof one cannot speak...

I was trying to be clear that I think everything is based on the physical. There is the question of what non-physicals are. They come up often.

So when non-physicals come up you can observe they are always in the form of mental content so obviously not entirely non-physical but just as a mental abstraction (and our physical brains support that). I would classify that as physicalist because everything is accounted for based on physical matter.

Just to be clear, I agree with you 100%, and Hume obviously had a pragmatic sense about this too. I'm just saying that if you accept his argument about induction being unjustifiable and irrational, it strips away almost everything. You have to focus on if there is a purely deductive argument because induction, all induction, can only be justified by using induction itself. It can't be deductively justified.

Only a priori deductive arguments are valid (and we can even question if those exist). You can't justify a belief in documentation of past observations or your own memories.

From the SEP article on the "Problem of Induction"

Yet many have regarded it as one of the most profound philosophical challenges imaginable since it seems to call into question the justification of one of the most fundamental ways in which we form knowledge. Bertrand Russell, for example, expressed the view that if Hume’s problem cannot be solved, “there is no intellectual difference between sanity and insanity” (Russell 1946: 699).

What's funny is that these is an inverse problem, the "Scandal of Deduction," where you can also show that deduction generates absolutely no new information. If we take these conclusions seriously (we shouldn't, but they are worth investigating and fun), then we're left with nothing. I can't believe I'm going to say it, but I agree 100% with Russell on this one, if you're wed to a foundationalist, non-pragmatic, non-fallibalist epistemology (which I am not, partly because of this).



I just thought of a good description of process philosophy from a physics article in Spring Frontier's "It From Bit or Bit From It."

The author, who I don't recall, uses Plato's cave analogy. Physicalists (and idealists) they are concerned with objects. These objects, in the case of physicalism fundemental particles, are the shadows on the walls of the cave. The reality is the field, and the field is inherently process, flux. We can, of course, abstract the conception of any process back into an object, but this is in fact a mistake because it gives us an illusion of permeance and underlying substance. Something like that.

Just to be clear, I agree with you 100%, and Hume obviously had a pragmatic sense about this too. I'm just saying that if you accept his argument about induction being unjustifiable and irrational, it strips away almost everything. You have to focus on if there is a purely deductive argument because induction, all induction, can only be justified by using induction itself. It can't be deductively justified. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree, deduction is not induction and induction cannot be deductively proven. Our faith in induction, we might say, is expectation based on habit, and also on the seemingly total lack of counterexamples. Kant distinguished between pure and practical reason. He believed that we have pure reasons to believe certain things, some of which are not merely analytic. This is controversial today, and I think a radically skeptical argument can be mounted to question our faith in almost anything you can think of.

But it doesn't seem to me to follow that just because anything, or almost anything, can be questioned on the grounds that it cannot be absolutely certain, therefore justification is impossible. I say that because we can have practical or pragmatic reasons, justifications, for holding to certain beliefs.

So, I would say that I don't agree with Russell's idea that

“there is no intellectual difference between sanity and insanity”

unless we are silly enough to believe that induction should be deduction, or that there are no such things as more or less plausible ideas.

The other point is that actual deductions themselves never deductively prove their own premises, so they can hold no context-free certainty in any case.

What's funny is that these is an inverse problem, the "Scandal of Deduction," where you can also show that deduction generates absolutely no new information. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'd say we should take the problems seriously and recognize that our intuition and logic both have weaknesses, but they can be used synergistically. One of the most epistemically valuable things we can use our deductive abilities for is to find flaws in our own intuitions, and in recognizing flaws in our intuitions, become open to new more robust intuitions.

Utilizing that synergy, along with paying attention to nature, seems to me, a key characteristic of scientific thought.

Hence the tectonic shift in modern philosophy toward scepticism and relativism.

Hence the tectonic shift in modern philosophy toward scepticism and relativism. — Wayfarer

LOL

You are one skeptical dude yourself Wayf. You just haven't developed the knack of turning your skepticism towards your own intuitions.

A number of writers make a distinction between physicalism and naturalism on the basis of the inclusion or exclusion of the role of subjective point of view in the determination of the object.
— Joshs

If the object is defined as 'the object as perceived' then of course it is trivially true that the subjective point of view would be a determinant. But if the object is defined as 'that which interacts with our senses resulting in perception' then the subjective point of view would be a result, not a determinant…

The argument that claims that because it is a mind which says that there are existents which are mind-independent, it follows that there can be no mind-independent existents, is a very weak argument which trades on conflating what we say with what actually might exist independently of our saying. As far as I can tell this impoverished argument (in the West at least) comes from Schopenhauer. — Janus

Have you heard of Object Oriented Ontology, or Speculative Realism? They compose a diverse group united by the claim that philosophy since Kant has been in the the thrall of correlationism, which makes what objects are in themselves beholden or secondary to their relation to a perceiving subject.They argue that this amounts to an anthropocentric smothering of the real. The OOO alternative assigns to objects intrinsic attributes hidden from perceiving subjects. Lee Braver compares this with other approaches to the real, and prefers what he calls Transgressive Realism.

If we are realists and hold that the world is “out
there,” independent of us, and that knowledge means
grasping it as it is in itself, then it seems that two
possibilities are open: either we can achieve this
knowledge or we can’t. The point of traditional
pre-Critical epistemology is to teach us how to push
our minds beyond their natural limitations so that
they can limn reality itself. As Leibniz promised,
if we can leave behind the restrictions of the body
and senses, we can come to think with God’s head,
at least to some degree. Skeptics, of course, take the
other option, arguing that we can never surpass our
all-too-human ways of knowing. We should give
up dreams of transcendence and make peace with
common life’s beer, billiards, and backgammon.
But Kant opened up a third path: the world of
phenomena is the one we live in, the only world we’ll
ever know in this life, so we should stop treating it
as second best. We can substitute intersubjective
agreement among ourselves for agreement with
reality in itself. This would be a new kind of truth,
one that is a lesser truth, perhaps, but a truth none­theless, the only kind fit for creatures like us.

The Speculative Realists believe that it is An­ti-Realism that represents the childish view, for it amounts to a kind of cosmic narcissism where being exists only in correlation with us or, in Heidegger’s terms, that being can only be in our clearing. This makes the world less our home than our nursery room where everything is organized around us. The Pre-Critical Realists mistakenly thought that we can only find genuine reality elsewhere, in a transcendent realm. But the Speculative Realists argue that we don't have to look to some beyond to find what exceeds our grasp; everything has an inner essence we are not privy to. For the Speculative Realists, studying this world is not setling for second best, but neither should we setle into a completely domesticated world.

Rather, we should resettle in more interesting places, away from the anthropocentric city, to study the interactions that take place among beings far away from our prying eyes. I find this line of thought intriguing and I take their warning about the danger of conceptual solipsism, but I'm still too much of an Anti-Realist to embrace Speculative Realism whole-heartedly. It seems right to me that we always bring our thoughts to any consideration of the world as it is independently of us, which automatically compromises any absolute independence. But the Speculative Realists are right to point out that the Anti-Realists may have exaggerated the comprehensiveness of our pre-forming of experience. If experience were so fully pre-digested by the ways our minds process information, we could never experience surprise. Specific, ontic surprises, sure, but not radical surprises that violate and transform our very notions of what is.

If the Pre-Critical Realists tell us not to settle for
the tawdry shabby world we find ourselves in, and
the Anti-Realists tell us to settle into this world as
our home, and the Speculative Realists urge us to
resetle elsewhere, Transgressive Realism emphasiz­es the way reality unsetles us. We can never settle down with a single way of understanding the world because it can always unexpectedly breach these. Such experiences do not get squeezed into our mental structures but instead violate them, crack­ing and reshaping our categories.

This violation is the sign of their externality since everything we conceive remains the offspring of our concepts and so retains a family resemblance with them. Rather than the wholly independent noumenal realm that Hegel rightly rejects, these are experiences that we have but which shatter our ways of understanding experience, exceeding our comprehension but not escaping our awareness. Transgressive Realism, I believe, gives us a reality that transcends our ways of thinking, but not all ac­cess to it, offering a middle path that lets us have our ineffable cake and partially ef it too. These aporetic experiences enter our awareness, not through the pathways prepared by our minds but in spite of them, transgressing our anticipatory processes.

If you follow Transgressivee realism rather than Kant, I think it commits you to a different view of the nature of reality beyond our schemes and theories You will hew closer to Kuhn’s notion of scientific progress through revolutions than to Popper’s appropriation through falsification.

A scientific theory is usually felt to be better than its predecessors not only in the sense that it is a better instrument for discovering and solving puzzles but also because it is somehow a better representation of what nature is really like. One often hears that successive theories grow ever closer to, or approximate more and more closely to, the truth. Apparently generalizations like that refer not to the puzzle-solutions and the concrete predictions derived from a theory but rather to its ontology, to the match, that is, between the entities with which the theory populates nature and what is “really there.” Perhaps there is some other way of salvaging the notion of ‘truth' for application to whole theories, but this one will not do. There is, I think, no theory-independent way to reconstruct phrases like ‘really there'; the notion of a match between the ontology of a theory and its “real” counterpart in nature now seems to me illusive in principle. Besides, as a historian, I am impressed with the implausability of the view. I do not doubt, for example, that Newton's mechanics improves on Aristotle's and that Einstein's improves on Newton's as instruments for puzzle-solving. But I can see in their succession no coherent direction of ontological development. On the contrary, in some important respects, though by no means in all, Einstein's general theory of relativity is closer to Aristotle's than either of them is to Newton's. Though the temptation to describe that position as relativistic is understandable, the description seems to me wrong.(Kuhn’s Postscript to Scientific Revolutions)

Yeah, they're synergistic for sure.

I had this idea of turning deduction / induction into a Hegelian negation type deal, and trying to see if there was some sort of "negating the negation," that would produce a synthesis.

I have never been successful in thinking this through. I can't even decide which would come first. Induction and pattern recognition I think, because you can't do deduction until you have terms and axioms, and those would exist in sheer sense certainty. But is the exercise really meaningful if it doesn't reveal some new, third type of analysis? And even if there is one, am I going to discover it? Unlikely.

But maybe something like:
>Induction comes first
>The negation is Hume's problem of induction, induction turns out to be hollow, which leaves us with deduction
>Deduction reveals itself to also be empty, because of the scandal of deduction (or maybe it reveals itself just to be induction ala Mill, Quine, etc.)
>synthesis, abduction -> synergistic synthesis

Pragmatism born of Hegelian dialectical. Wa la! Needs work. :rofl:

But is the exercise really meaningful if it doesn't reveal some new, third type of analysis? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I know next to nothing about Hegel, so I don't have any thoughts about the sort of third type of analysis you are speculating about.

I do think there is are important things that we can do to improve the results of our thinking, based on understanding the neurological processes our thinking arises from. One thing of relevance is the deeply subconscious basis for our intuitions, and the fact that those aren't something that we can turn around overnight. Taking the long view is important.

Of course training our neural nets with a diverse training set is of great value. I.e. getting a well rounded education. But it's pretty clear you've got that covered. :cool:

I seem to recall a very critical chapter about o-o realism in one of Zahavi’s books - https://philpapers.org/rec/ZAHTEO-2

I see the hubris as theirs, as they tout a perspective outside or beyond the human and then disparage Kant for acknowledging the inherent limitations of human reason, as if they alone are capable of seeing past it.

One thing of relevance is the deeply subconscious basis for our intuitions, and the fact that those aren't something that we can turn around overnight — wonderer1

They’re known as saṃskara or sankhara in Indian disciplines:

According to various schools of Indian philosophy, every action, intent or preparation by an individual leaves a samskara (impression, impact, imprint) in the deeper structure of the person's mind. These impressions then await volitional fruition in that individual's future, in the form of hidden expectations, circumstances or a subconscious sense of self-worth. These Samskaras manifest as tendencies, karmic impulses, subliminal impressions, habitual potencies or innate dispositions. In ancient Indian texts, the theory of Samskara explains how and why human beings remember things, and the effect that memories have on people's suffering, happiness and contentment. — Wikipedia

Direct insight into saṃskara is obtainable through insight meditation (vipasyana) and other meditative disciplines. No brain scanner required!

Direct insight into saṃskara is obtainable through insight meditation (vipasyana) and other meditative disciplines. No brain scanner required! — Wayfarer

So it is believed by some—to others it is but the augmentation of dreaming.

They’re known as saṃskara or sankhara in Indian disciplines: — Wayfarer

Direct insight into saṃskara is obtainable through insight meditation (vipasyana) and other meditative disciplines. No brain scanner required! — Wayfarer

I recognize that around the world, and through much of recorded history, people have had a degree of insight into this aspect of how our minds work, but rather "through a glass darkly" I think, by comparison with having a practical understanding of the nature of Hebbian learning in neural networks.

I see Zen as containing the rudiments of an intuition readjustment 'technology', with the Zen master engaging in "direct transmission" that results in students experiencing a breakdown of their old intuitions and replacement of discarded intuitions with new more robust intuitions. In some cases it involves a sudden dramatic epiphany - satori.

Of course Zen too is seeing "through a glass darkly" but it gave us, "If you see the Buddha on the road kill him.", which is a plus.

Of course Zen too is seeing "through a glass darkly" but it gave us, "If you see the Buddha on the road kill him.", which is a plus. — wonderer1

How so?

You tell me how so. :grin: