There is no such thing as "going by pure logic", toward understanding the nature of reality. [/quore]

Agreed. But that does not justify using some means OTHER than logic to understand reality, and calling it logic! That's @Michael's fallacy. Saying something's a logical contradiction when it merely makes no sense to him. You agreed with me earlier that this is a fallacy. But you defend it when YOU do it.

To be clear: I have no objection to using extra-logical means of understanding reality. But then don't turn around and all it logic.

— Metaphysician Undercover

"Pure logic" would be form with no content, symbols which do not represent anything. All logic must proceed from premises, and the premises provide the content. And premises are often judged for truth or falsity. But as explained in the passage which ↪wonderer1 referenced, in the case of an "appeal to consequences", there is no fallacy if the premises are judged as good or bad, instead of true or false. That's why I said that this type of logic is very commonly employed in moral philosophy, religion, and metaphysical judgements of means, methods, and pragmatics in general. So for example, one can make a logically valid argument, with an appeal to consequences, which concludes that the scientific method is good. No fallacy there, just valid logic and good premises. — Metaphysician Undercover

Call it anything you like, but not logic! Logic means something else. That term is already taken. You are using extra-logic. Morality, right or wrong, productive/nonproductive. All well and good, but not logic. If logic is to mean anything, it has to mean something.

Therefore it is not the case that the reasoning is "extra-logical", it employs logic just like any other reasoning. What is the case is that the premises are a different sort of premises, instead of looking for truth and falsity in the premises we look for good and bad. So this type of judgement, the judgement of good or bad, produces the content which the logic gets applied to. — Metaphysician Undercover

Let's agree to disagree on that point.

No, that is not the case, because there are two very distinct senses of "determined". One is the sense employed by determinism, to say that all the future is determined by the past. The other is the the sense in which a person determines something, through a free will choice. In this second sense, a choice may determine the future in a way which is not determined by the past. And, since it is a choice it cannot be said to be random. Therefore it is not true that if the world is not random then it's determined (in the sense of determinism), because we still have to account for freely willed acts which are neither determined in the sense of determinism, nor random.[/qouote]

You can't have determinism and free will. Frankly if the world is random and we have some kind of influence on it through our will, or spirit, I find that much more hopeful than a universe in which I'm just a pinball clanging around a well-oiled machine.

Determinism is the nihilistic outlook, not randomness. In randomness there is hope for freedom. Say that's a pretty catchy saying. The church of Kolmogorov. In randomness lies the hope of freedom.
— Metaphysician Undercover

As I said above, it is not a matter of transcending logic, the conclusions are logical, but the premises are judged as to good or bad rather than true or false. So from premises of what is judged as good (rejecting repugnant principles), God may follow as a logical conclusion. — Metaphysician Undercover

God's going to hurl thunderbolts at you for so blithely enlisting him on your side to make such a specious argument. If I'm choosing good versus bad I'm not using logic, I'm using feelings. Logic says kill the one rather than the million. But if the one's you or yours, you kill the million. It's been done. Feelings trump logic. But your feelings are not logic!!

No I was not arguing that. In that case I was arguing that the idea ought not be accepted (ought to be rejected) unless it is justified. In the case of being repugnant, that in itself is, as I explained, justification for rejection. You appear unwilling to recognize what wonderer1's article said about the fallacy called "appeal to consequences". It is only a fallacy if we are looking for truth and falsity. If we are talking principles of "ought", it is valid logic. Therefore the argument that the assumption of randomness ought to be rejected because it is philosophically repugnant, cannot be said to be invalid by this fallacy, and so it may be considered as valid justification. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes but the contrary proposition of determinism is even more repugnant, as I've noted. Shouldn't we (logically!) choose the lesser of two repugnancies?

But Michael did not show that supertasks are philosophically repugnant. — Metaphysician Undercover

And you have not shown randomness philosophically repugnant. By the time I thought about it a little, I realized that randomness is our only hope for salvation. It's the only way we're not automatons. Clockwork oranges. So you haven't made your point here. I am a proud randomite.

He showed that they are inconsistent with empirical science, — Metaphysician Undercover

There's no empirical science in these silly omega sequence paradoxes like the effing lamp and the effing staircase. That's the massive category error everyone makes. They posit these physics-defying scenarios then claim they're talking about the physical world.

and his prejudice for what is known as "physical reality" (reality as understood by the empirical study of physics) influenced him to assert that supertasks are impossible. — Metaphysician Undercover

I believe I made the same claim, but qualified it to "presently known physics."

As I explained in the other thread, in philosophy we learn that the senses are apt to mislead us, so all empirical science must be subjected to the skeptic's doubt. So it is actually repugnant to accept the representation of physical reality given to us by the empirical sciences, over the reasoned reality which demonstrates the supertask. And this is why that type of paradox is philosophically significant. It inspires us to seek the true reasons for the incompatibility between what reason shows us, and what empirical evidence shows us. We ought not simply take for granted that empirical science delivers truth. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is way past the lamp. The lamp is not a physical thing. These puzzles have no bearing on physical reality. That's a cognitive error everyone makes about them.

Also, there's more bad reasoning than "reason" in the discussions about these problems.

As explained above, I am not taking a standpoint of determinism. There are two very distinct senses of "determine", one consistent with determinism, one opposed to determinism (as the person who has a very strong will is said to be determined). I allow for the reality of both. — Metaphysician Undercover

You say randomness and determinism are compatible, and your justification is to use an alternate and unrelated meaning of the word determined?

But as of now, in this very post, I've convinced myself that I'm a randomist. But then again I've always suspected I'm a Boltzmann brain, and that's how randomists come into existence.

Says you. That is precisely the point at issue! — Wayfarer

I backed it up with logic. It was suggested that there was a fallacy involved in the logic, the fallacy of appeal to consequences. But referral to a description of that fallacy indicated that it is only a fallacy if the logic claims to deal with truth and not a fallacy if the logic deals with good and bad, "ought". So the logic shows why we ought not accept such an assumption. Here, I'll reprint it:

Ontological randomness may be logically possible but it's philosophically repugnant. The problem being that if something is deemed as random, it is in that sense unintelligible. So if something is deemed as ontologically random, and it is considered to be unintelligible, then there is no will to attempt at figuring it out.

Now the problem is that if something appears to be random there is no way of knowing whether it is epistemologically random, or ontologically random, because of the unintelligibility of it. So we won't know which until we figure it out, therefore we must assume it to be epistemologically random. And even if it is ontologically random, we will still never know that this is the case, so we will always have to assume that it is epistemologically random, and try to figure it out. The category of "ontological randomness" is absolutely useless. — Metaphysician Undercover

What do you think he means? I'm sure he doesn't mean that the indeterminate nature of quantum phenomena is simply due to gaps in our knowledge. — Wayfarer

On the contrary, I think that's exactly what he means, except he's not talking about simple "gaps" in our knowledge, he's talking about a huge chasm, hence the word "shocked". What the baffling nature of quantum phenomena reveals to us, is that the reality of the world is very far outside of our current ability to understand it. "Indeterminate" means beyond our capacities to determine, and why he thinks that we ought to be "shocked by quantum physics" is that these "indeterminate" aspects are so significant, and have been shown to be so far outside our capacity to understand, that it reveals how shockingly minimal our current capacity to understand the reality of spatial temporal existence actually is.

So what we currently know about physical reality is just like the proverbial tip of the iceberg, and the vast majority lies hidden from us. Meanwhile, the commonly held idea in the conceit of humanity, is that we're on the verge of knowing everything there is to know, and all of reality which is intelligible, is very close to being within our grasp. That's why he thinks that if we're not shocked, we don't understand, because what is revealed through an understanding of quantum reality annihilates that commonly held self-idolatry idea. It does this by revealing to us that we really only have a very slight grasp of a very small portion of the complete intelligible reality.

This is the reason for Aquinas positing God as fundamentally intelligible, and the most highly intelligible, despite the fact that the human intellect in its current condition of being united with matter, has not the capacity to understand God. We allow that the highest principles of reality are intelligible, yet the deficiencies of the human intellect are what make them appears as unintelligible to us. Aquinas' representation here, of God as a Form, makes God most highly intelligible, despite the fact that we cannot understand Him in our current condition. And this is how Christian theology put an end to the dead end direction which was Neo-Platonism, and Plotinus' representation of the highest principle, "One" as outside the realm of intelligibility.

Therefore, it is not simply "my opinion" which I am expressing. I have the support of some of the best metaphysicians and theologians who have lived, in my judgement as to which assumptions we ought to accept and ought to reject.

Call it anything you like, but not logic! Logic means something else. That term is already taken. You are using extra-logic. Morality, right or wrong, productive/nonproductive. All well and good, but not logic. If logic is to mean anything, it has to mean something. — fishfry

Slow down, you are not taking the time to understand what I said. In the application of logic, there is two aspects to soundness, the truth or falsity of the premises, and the validity of the logical process. The term "logic" refers to the validity of logical process, it does not apply to the premises. All applications of logic utilize premises as providing the content. The logical process is the form. A valid logical process may utilize faulty premises, and this will result in faulty conclusions even though the logic is valid, and in this case we say that the conclusions are valid, and logical, yet they are unsound.

Accordingly, what I've presented is logic! Moral philosophy uses logic, and it is rightfully called "logic", and it is valid. The issue is that it uses a different sort of premise. Instead of judging the premises as true or false, and the soundness of valid logic being decided according to such a judgement of the premises, the premise are judge according to principle of good and bad. If there was such a thing as what is "truly good", then the premises of moral logic could be judged as true and "sound" in the sense of true. But due to the is/ought incompatibility, there is really no such thing as the truth about "the good".

Therefore, we must respect the fact that moral arguments can proceed with valid logic, from premises which receive their "soundness" from moral judgements of good and bad. You might argue that all moral arguments are unsound, because soundness requires true premises, but to argue it's "not logic!" is an untenable principle. It is logic, using the very same formal systems for validity, only it employs different criteria for soundness, because it uses a different type of premise, as required by a different type of content.

If I'm choosing good versus bad I'm not using logic... — fishfry

The issue is that in most applications of logic, we do not use logic to judge the premises. And, in all applications premises are required. If it was always required that the premises are judged by logic, we'd have an infinite regress, these premises are justified by logic based in those premise, which are justified by premises based in a further set of premises, ad infinitum. So, we use principles with lesser degrees of certainty to support the premises, inductive reasoning (which is sometimes called logic), abductive reasoning, and most often principles which are just accepted by convention. These premises which are accepted because they are the convention are the social standard, or norm, so they are accepted as truth without doubt. The conventional principles, which account for very many premises in logical arguments are no different from a judgement of good and bad.

So, choosing good versus bad, is not a matter of using logic, just like you say. But neither is most instances of judging premises for truth or falsity. And even if premises are judged using logic, the premises of that logical process must be judged, so at some point the premises of all logic must be judged by something other than logic. Since much of this judgement is based in nothing other than what is the social norm for truth, it is fundamentally the very same type of judgement as choosing good versus bad. The difference is that "truth" deals with "what is" and this is justified by past experience, whereas "ought" deals with what should be, and this is justified by what we want for the future.

Yes but the contrary proposition of determinism is even more repugnant, as I've noted. Shouldn't we (logically!) choose the lesser of two repugnancies? — fishfry

As I explain, there is another option other than "determinism".

And you have not shown randomness philosophically repugnant. By the time I thought about it a little, I realized that randomness is our only hope for salvation. It's the only way we're not automatons. Clockwork oranges. So you haven't made your point here. I am a proud randomite. — fishfry

I suggest that the reason you are like this, is that you do not respect the fallibility of scientific knowledge. There are specific axioms, or fundamental laws of physics, such as Newton's first law, which create the illusion of determinism. The illusion is the assumption that all will continue to be as it has been in the past, unless "caused" by a force, to change. The force here is generally understood to be the energy of something else which has continued to be as it has been in the past. The result is causal determinism. However, when we allow that free will "causes" change in a way which is not determined by the past, we break this illusion. However, this requires accepting that there is a fundamental incompleteness of Newton's laws, which implies that physical reality is really not the way that it is represented by the laws of physics.

This is way past the lamp. The lamp is not a physical thing. These puzzles have no bearing on physical reality. That's a cognitive error everyone makes about them. — fishfry

The "bearing on physical reality" is always the way in which it is applied. This is no different from mathematics in general. Mathematics has no bearing on physical reality other than its application. This is why it is so important to distinguish between the logical process itself, and the axioms or premises, which determine the applicability. The relationship between the logic and physical reality, is a matter of the application, or practise, and this is the way that we take content from our beliefs about the way that the physical world is, and our beliefs about what is good and what ought to be, and apply the logical process to these beliefs. In philosophy it is assumed that the basic axioms ought (notice recognition of the overall supremacy of ought here) to be self-evident truths. But in mathematics, the basic axioms are simply whatever is desired for the purpose of the individual mathematician who is designing the applicability of the logical system. (So desire is veiled under the hidden intention of the mathematician rather than recognized as the overarching principle.

You say randomness and determinism are compatible, and your justification is to use an alternate and unrelated meaning of the word determined? — fishfry

I did not say that randomness and determinism are compatible. You offered the dichotomy, randomness or determinism, with no other option. I offered another option, free will, as a type of determining which is not consistent with determinism, nor is it consistent with randomness. Determinism is based in a highly restrictive sense of "determine" which limits any form of determining to a meaning of having itself been determined by prior causation. This sense of "determine" employed by determinism excludes the possibility of a free will act. It also excludes the possibility of a first act, which is demonstrably problematic. So the problem with your proposed dichotomy is that by restricting the definition of "determine" to that employed by determinism, which is a demonstrably faulty restriction, it does not give us realistic options.

More broadly speaking, Einstein always stood for a realist attitude: that everything is determined by or subject to general laws. That's why he couldn't abide the implications of quantum physics - entanglement ('spooky action at a distance') and uncertainty being prime examples. — Wayfarer

Yes, it was that "Realist Attitude" that I was referring to in my post above : "Yet, the general scientific attitude toward Nature is that nothing is left to Chance". I suppose the necessity for mixing subjective Metaphysics*1 with objective Quantum Physics is what Realists and Materialists most strenuously object to. By "chance" I refer, not to Luck or Fate, but to the free-wheeling randomness underlying the apparent mechanical determinism of macro reality.

Since I'm an amateur philosopher, not a professional scientist, the "contamination" (impurity) of Reality with a bit of Ideality is a feature of sub-atomic science, not a fault. The 17th century Enlightenment revolution prided itself on empirical Objectivity (reality) & mathematical Precision (certainty), as opposed to the Subjectivity (private revelation) & Assurance (dogmatic faith) of Christian theology. So, it's understandable that the attribution of lawlessness on the frontiers of civilized Reality would be unbearable to those trained in the law & order certainties of Classical Physics.

Since modern Science was the legitimate offspring of secular Greek philosophy, I'm not offended by the family resemblance manifesting in the margins of observable reality. Besides, even the reality of Reality is not as unambiguous as philosophical Realism portrays it. Due to my BothAnd*2 attitude toward Science & Philosophy, I am able to accommodate the Yin and the Yang opposition in a single complementary worldview. ☯︎


*1. Metaphysical subjectivism is the theory that reality is what we perceive to be real, and that there is no underlying true reality that exists independently of perception. One can also hold that it is consciousness rather than perception that is reality (idealism).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjectivism

*2. Both/And Principle :
My coinage for the holistic principle of Complementarity, as illustrated in the Yin/Yang symbol. Opposing or contrasting concepts are always part of a greater whole. Conflicts between parts can be reconciled or harmonized by putting them into the context of a whole system.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html

What the baffling nature of quantum phenomena reveals to us, is that the reality of the world is very far outside of our current ability to understand it. "Indeterminate" means beyond our capacities to determine, and why he thinks that we ought to be "shocked by quantum physics" is that these "indeterminate" aspects are so significant, and have been shown to be so far outside our capacity to understand, that it reveals how shockingly minimal our current capacity to understand the reality of spatial temporal existence actually is. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I don't think that was Bohr's attitude, based on the books I mentioned in the previous post. Bohr felt that his discovery of the 'principle of complementarity' resolved many of the apparent paradoxes implied in quantum physics. So much so, that when he received imperial honours late in life from the Danish Crown, he commissioned a coat-of-arms that had the ying-yang symbol at its center and was embossed with Contraria Sunt Complementa ('Opposites are Complementary'):



I think what he says is 'shocking' is precisely the implications for common-sense realism, the idea that the world exists independently of the way in which we perceive it. I think that commonsense realist view is innate, the 'natural inclination of the intellect' as Bryan Magee says in his book on Schopenhauer, and that questioning it is often violently rejected, even by the highly educated. But I think Bohr was relatively sanguine about it. He said 'everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real' and 'Physics is not about how the world is, it is about what we can say about the world.' I think he accepted the limitations of knowledge, in a rather Kantian way. (There's an excellent youtube lecture by philosopher of science Michel Bitbol on Bohr's Complementarity and Kant's Epistemology if you wish to explore that further.)

The problem being that if something is deemed as random, it is in that sense unintelligible. So if something is deemed as ontologically random, and it is considered to be unintelligible, then there is no will to attempt at figuring it out. — Metaphysician Undercover

Isn't it possible that the world considered as a physical system is unintelligible (Plato's 'shadows on the cave wall')? That this is why, the greater the discoveries, the bigger the questions! You will recall from the discussion of the Eric Perl book Thinking Being, that intelligibility in the sense metaphysics understood it, was completely different from today's mathematical physics. So much the worse for it, many will say, but then Robert Jastrow did say, in God and the Astronomers,"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

I'll try and find time for that video, the first presenter, Beau Lotto, also figured in a video I attached to the Mind Created World OP. As for 'subjectivism', I almost accept that, with the crucial caveat that we are all subjects of similar kinds, and so the world occurs for each of us in similar ways. The subjective, so-called, is an ineliminable pole of reality, but there's no use looking for it, because it is what is doing the looking.

Slow down, you are not taking the time to understand what I said. In the application of logic, there is two aspects to soundness, the truth or falsity of the premises, and the validity of the logical process. — Metaphysician Undercover

We're just arguing about a word. If you want to claim that "I prefer chocolate to vanilla" is an example of logical reasoning, what is the point of my arguing with you about a thing like that?

Therefore, we must respect the fact that moral arguments can proceed with valid logic, — Metaphysician Undercover

In the sense that we can argue a conclusion from moral premises, I agree.

But "I find such and so repugnant, therefore such and so is logically false," is simply bad logic. Or not even logic. As you prefer. But it's not good logic. I'm certain of that.

I appreciate that you wrote a lot. I haven't the heart to continue this line of discussion, my apologies. "Randomness is repugnant to me therefore it's false" is not good logic. As to whether it's bad logic, or not even logic, I'll leave open.

Bohr felt that his discovery of the 'principle of complementarity' resolved many of the apparent paradoxes implied in quantum physics. — Wayfarer

I think that this principle says something about our capacity to observe. It might resolve paradoxes, but it does so by recognizing the limitations of the human being. These limitations are analogous to the fact that we cannot be watching with our eyes, in two different directions at the same time. Such limitations have significant impact on our capacity to understand.

He said 'everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real' and 'Physics is not about how the world is, it is about what we can say about the world.' I think he accepted the limitations of knowledge, in a rather Kantian way. — Wayfarer

I think that this supports very well, what I argued. "Physics" refers to our knowledge about the world, "what we can say about the world", it is not about how the world is. This indicates the huge gap, what I called a chasm, between our knowledge, and the way the world is. The world is not to be blamed for this, the chasm is evidence of deficiencies in our knowledge. We ought not blame the world for our own inabilities.

Isn't it possible that the world considered as a physical system is unintelligible (Plato's 'shadows on the cave wall')? — Wayfarer

To begin with, a "system" is by definition intelligible. If it were unintelligible (random) it could not be called a system. Next, do you believe that the shadows on Plato's cave wall are unintelligible? I thought the shadows were like representations which the cave dwellers took to be reality. The shadows are very real, and intelligible, as representations, however the cave dwellers mistake them for reality. This is not a case of unintelligibility of the shadows, but a mistake of the cave dwellers.

But the significant point here, as I've been discussing with fishfry, is that I still believe we ought to allow for the possibility that the world, or even some aspects of it, are in fact, unintelligible. This is because we do not know, and what we do not know, we cannot claim to have certainty about. So this is believed as a possibility, and that is a very distinct belief from the assumption that the world, or some aspect of it, actually is unintelligible.

Now, because we do not know whether or not the world is intelligible, we can only take it as a possibility that the world is intelligible. But we can cultivate faith in the idea that it is intelligible. And this faith supports, inspires, and propagates the will to speculate, hypothesize, observe, inquire, experiment, and the will to know in general. That is the philosophical desire to know. On the other hand it is utterly pointless to take it on faith that the world or any aspect of it, is unintelligible, because this kills the will to speculate, hypothesize, observe, inquire, experiment. and the will to know that aspect, in general. Simply put, to have faith in the idea that the world or part of it is random or unintelligible, annihilates the philosophical desire to know that part of the world.

So much the worse for it, many will say, but then Robert Jastrow did say, in God and the Astronomers,"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." — Wayfarer

I don't quite see the image here. In the example, the scientist has faith in the power of reason. The theologians have been saying that the current state of human reason is deficient, and is incapable of a complete understanding of the universe. The scientist comes to the end of his own capacity for understanding, but this ought not make him give up faith in reason, because there will be many more who come after him, and the human capacity to reason will always be growing. So is the example supposed to show a unity between science and theology, or a disjoint?

We're just arguing about a word. If you want to claim that "I prefer chocolate to vanilla, and my preference is logical," what is the point of my arguing with you about a thing like that? — fishfry

The word is "logic", and I think it's pretty important to a discussion like this, to have good agreement as to what this word means.

If I simply assert, as if a true proposition, "chocolate is better than vanilla", there is not logic here. But if I state my premises, I am allergic to vanilla, and to have an allergic reaction is bad, then my stated preference "i prefer chocolate to vanilla" is supported by logic and is logical. Do you agree? .

The word is "logic", and I think it's pretty important to a discussion like this, to have good agreement as to what this word means. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, it's not logical to reject a possibility on the grounds that you don't like it.

If I simply assert, as if a true proposition, "chocolate is better than vanilla", there is not logic here. But if I state my premises, I am allergic to vanilla, and to have an allergic reaction is bad, then my stated preference "i prefer chocolate to vanilla" is supported by logic and is logical. Do you agree? . — Metaphysician Undercover

You're allergic to randomness? Is that the argument you're making?

If you said that believing in randomness makes you break out in a rash, and therefore you prefer to not believe in randomness, that would be logical. But it would be a logical argument for why you hold that belief. It would not be a logical argument against randomness.

Note --- From the perspective of the all-knowing demon, the physical world is precisely determinate and predictable, but in the view of a mortal scientist, using imperfect machinery, the quantum realm is indeterminate & unpredictable, and perplexing. Which may be "troubling" for those who can't deal with ambiguity. — Gnomon

It's not even predictable to the demon, if the demon is part of the world itself and has to interact with it.

You don't need to assume the quantum realm, this is totally true even in an purely classical Newtonian universe also.

↪Gnomon
I'll try and find time for that video, the first presenter, Beau Lotto, also figured in a video I attached to the Mind Created World OP. As for 'subjectivism', I almost accept that, with the crucial caveat that we are all subjects of similar kinds, and so the world occurs for each of us in similar ways. The subjective, so-called, is an ineliminable pole of reality, but there's no use looking for it, because it is what is doing the looking. — Wayfarer

I understand your qualification of acceptance regarding absolute Subjectivism*1, which would be essentially Solipsism. We moderns avoid the slippery slope of solipsism by comparing our private personal point-of-view with the publicized perspectives of others (e.g. TPF), in order to find commonalities between them. Modern Scientists tend to treat those common denominators*2 as-if they are Objective facts about True Reality*3.

As you suggested though, Subjectivism entails the Part looking at the Whole, from within the system being observed*4. That's why naive Solipsism must be viewed through a lens of reflective Skepticism*5. Those "Other Minds" may filter information about True Reality through their own private or communal prejudices. But that couldn't be true of Moi, could it? :cool:


*1. Subjectivism is the theory that perception (or consciousness) is reality, and that there is no underlying, true reality that exists independent of perception.
https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_subjectivism.html
Note --- Subjectivism = no absolute or objective Truth

*2. common denominator : a fact or quality that is shared by two or more people or groups.

*3. Empirical Science reveals the "Mind of God" without direct revelation :
Many early scientists were not only inspired to do science because they believed in God; they also thought that the natural world revealed the attributes and reality of God. . . . . Sir Isaac Newton argued that the delicate balance of forces at work in our solar system revealed “an intelligent and powerful Being.” . . . .
So how did we get from these great founders of modern science—with their conviction that science reveals the handiwork of God—to the modern New Atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Victor Stenger who think that science properly understood renders belief in God untenable?
https://stephencmeyer.org/2021/04/01/scientific-discoveries-reveal-the-mind-of-god-behind-the-universe-2/
Note --- The "handiwork" is self-existent? Hence no "hand" or "mind" needed?

*4. What is my invisible Milieu? :
Two young fish are asked by an older fish, “How's the water?” and one young fish turns to the other and says, “what the hell is water?”
https://humanitiesmoments.org/moment/this-is-water-banalities-of-living/
Milieu : environment ; ambience ; surroundings ; context ; background
Caveat : a warning or proviso of specific stipulations, conditions, or limitations.

*5. Solipsism and Skepticism :
What is most distinctive about solipsism lies in what it calls for us to be skeptical of. Solipsism tends to involve skepticism about our knowledge of the world itself. It also involves a skepticism about the minds of others.
https://www.thecollector.com/what-is-solipsism/

Those "Other Minds" may filter information about True Reality through their own private or communal prejudices. — Gnomon

Kastrup's 'dissociated alters'.

Is there a name for the logical fallacy that "P is repugnant, therefore not-P." — fishfry

Willard von Orman Quine :razz:

Fishfry doesn't quite grasp the reality of the fact that the judgement of true or false, which we subject premises to, is really just a judgement of repugnant or not repugnant. OED, repugnant: 2 "contradictory", 3 "incompatible".

If you know all physical objects, subjects, and then start pondering on all you know, to find mental information on these things you know, you'll end up with copious amounts of information relative to part, individual, multiple or all. This would be metaphorically like hitting a gold mine of information, continuously spurring out with information, hypothetically 'ring-ing' intellectually.

Those "Other Minds" may filter information about True Reality through their own private or communal prejudices. — Gnomon
Kastrup's 'dissociated alters'. — Wayfarer

Actually, the "other minds" I referred to are the perspectives of physically & mentally different people, who presumably have their own peculiar Solipsistic worldviews. Does Kastrup view his 'dissociated alters' as Other Minds in that sense?

My understanding of DID is more like demon possession. Jesus asked a demented man's possessors "what is your name?". The answer : “My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” {5 or 6 thousand soldiers}

Since I am an Introvert, a crowd of 100 alters, all babbling at the same time, would be confusing and unbearable. I would find single-self Solipsism more comfortable. In that case, other minds would be just a theory. But Wayfarer is a pretty good hypothesis. :joke:


Solipsism and the Problem of Other Minds :
Solipsism is sometimes expressed as the view that “I am the only mind which exists,” or “My mental states are the only mental states.”
https://iep.utm.edu/solipsis/

Dissociative Identity Disorder
“Alters” are your alternate personalities. Some people with DID have up to 100 alters. Alters tend to be very different from one another. The identities might have different genders, ethnicities, interests and ways of interacting with their environments.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9792-dissociative-identity-disorder-multiple-personality-disorder

It's not even predictable to the demon, if the demon is part of the world itself and has to interact with it. — ssu

By definition a metaphorical demon is not part of the real world, hence super-natural. It "interacts" only in hypothetical worlds. Hence, its predictions would be true only in the context of the metaphor. :joke:

Does Kastrup view his 'dissociated alters' as Other Minds in that sense? — Gnomon

Are different bodies of water ‘other waters’? The theory is, that each individual’s particular memories, proclivities, likes and dislikes is what differentiates one from another. Hence the idea of union, henosis as the culmination of philosophy in Greek philosophy.

Henosis for Plotinus (204/5–270 CE) was defined in his works as a reversing of the ontological process of consciousness via meditation (or contemplation) toward no thought (nous or demiurge) and no division (dyad) within the individual (being). As is specified in the writings of Plotinus on Henology,[note 2] one can reach a tabula rasa, a blank state where the individual may grasp or merge with The One. This absolute simplicity means that the nous or the person is then dissolved, completely absorbed back into the Monad.

It was incorporated into Christian theology by the Greek-speaking Fathers, with the crucial caveat that according to the Christian doctrine, the individual soul eternally maintains its identity, which, according to them, is lost in other forms of mystical union, Plotinus included. Although that is a recondite argument!

I believe it was Paul who insisted on the individual identity of the resurrected soul.

Is there a name for the logical fallacy that "P is repugnant, therefore not-P."
— fishfry

Willard von Orman Quine :razz: — Lionino

I'm afraid I don't get the joke.

By definition a metaphorical demon is not part of the real world, hence super-natural. It "interacts" only in hypothetical worlds. — Gnomon

I'm not sure that Laplace himself thought so. His idea was this kind of idea of extrapolation to the extreme, if an entity would have all the information at hand and all the laws of nature. That idea is false, because it doesn't take into account that any entity is part of the world. This is usually referred to being part of the problem that Quantum physics brings to us, but surely the problem is far more general.

OFF-TOPIC : non-random evolution

Orthogenesis, on the other hand, is an evolutionary hypothesis suggesting that life has an inherent tendency to evolve in a unilinear direction towards some kind of predetermined goal or ideal form. This concept implies that evolution is guided by an internal or directional force rather than by random mutations and environmental pressures.

As I was developing my own personal philosophical worldview, I was prejudiced against Intelligent Design arguments by the mainstream scientific accusations, that it required faith in the God of Genesis. But I had rejected that ancient hypothesis when I reached the age of Reason. Instead, I was impressed by emerging developments in various threads of scientific understanding in the 21st century, pointing toward Teleology or Teleonomy in evolution.

Surprisingly, even Darwin, in the primitive 19th century, postulated something like natural laws that regulated biological change in order to "select" fitter organisms for reproduction*1. Unfortunately, he lacked knowledge of chemical genes to serve as biological memory from one generation to another. In our own time though --- using randomly generated mutations and electronic memory and software selection (regulations, algorithms) --- computerized engineering*2 has learned to emulate Nature in its law-like limitations on replication to design improved or novel forms of technology.

Anyway, the term "orthogenesis" was "obsolete" long before my time. So, I had to rediscover the concept of directional evolution on my own. Several threads of empirical and theoretical science were attesting to the complementary roles of disorderly Randomness and orderly Natural Laws. But they carefully avoided any words suggestive of Teleological progression. Consequently, I had to coin my own terms --- EnFormAction and Enformy --- to encapsulate the concept of a natural tendency toward increasing complexity & coordination in physical processes. Being inherent in nature, these "laws" required no occasional divine interventions.

Another such orthogenetic thread is the surprising effectiveness of Artificial Selection in designing complex products for specific functions*3. Also, to the chagrin of most scientists, Secular Cosmology arrived at the Big Bang model of our universe, ironically reminiscent of a creation event. From that First Event, the physical world began to expand & evolve, from near nothing to almost everything*4, along a "unilinear" Arrow of Time, as portrayed in the image below. Note the progressive Phases*5 that emerge along the way, despite the random fluctuations within the quantum foundation of physical reality. Another thread was the developments in Information Theory, which portray mathematical information as both a causal and organizing force in the physical universe*6.

I could present lots of circumstantial scientific evidence in this post, but none of it would carry the weight of scientific orthodoxy that Modern Physics has constructed as a wall of separation between Religious Dogma and Empirical "Truth". FWIW : my personal name for that "internal or directional force", powering & guiding evolution, is EnFormAction (causation + information), of which physical energy is the best known form. :smile:

*1. Laws of Evolution :
Correlation of Growth, as Darwin called it. This law states that the specialised forms of separate parts of an organic being are always bound up with certain forms of other parts that apparently have no connection with them. . . . .
"The gradually increasing perfection of the human hand, and the commensurate adaptation of the feet for erect gait, have undoubtedly, by virtue of such correlation, reacted on other parts of the organism."
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272577459_Orthogenesis_and_Evolution

*2. Evolutionary Programming :
Special computer algorithms inspired by biological Natural Selection. It is similar to Genetic Programming in that it relies on internal competition between random alternative solutions to weed-out inferior results, and to pass-on superior answers to the next generation of algorithms. By means of such optimizing feedback loops, evolution is able to make progress toward the best possible solution – limited only by local restraints – to the original programmer’s goal or purpose. In Enformationism theory the Prime Programmer is portrayed as a creative principle (e.g. Logos), who uses bottom-up mechanisms, rather than top-down miracles, to produce a world with both freedom & determinism, order & meaning
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page13.html

*3. Evolutionary programming is one of the four major evolutionary algorithm paradigms. It is similar to genetic programming, but the structure of the program to be optimized is fixed, while its numerical parameters are allowed to evolve.
It was first used by Lawrence J. Fogel in the US in 1960 in order to use simulated evolution as a learning process aiming to generate artificial intelligence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_programming
Note --- The software is structured by specific limitations (laws) on selection, while the intermediate forms produced are free to explore many unspecified niches (random). Note the irony of using ChatGPT to research the roots of its own evolution.

*4. Orthogenesis and Evolution :
Misinterpretations of orthogenesis describing it as mystical, teleological and linear are invalid. The orthogenetic aspect of evolution was recognized by Darwin as "laws of growth", but was neglected in favor of natural selection. Although an internal component to evolution is recognized by contemporary biologists, it is often considered to be secondary to natural selection. Where recognition is given to an internal tendency for evolution to proceed without requiring the action of natural selection, terms such as "constraints," "bias," and "potential" may imply orthogenesis.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272577459_Orthogenesis_and_Evolution

*5. Teleological Emergence :
Expand that notion to a Cosmological perspective, and we can identify a more general classification of stratified phase-like emergences : from Physics (energy), to Chemistry (atoms), to Biology (life), to Psychology (minds), to Sociology (global minds). Current theories attribute this undeniable stairstep progession to random accidents, sorted by “natural selection” (a code word for “evaluations” of fitness for the next phase) that in retrospect appear to be teleological, tending toward more cooperation of inter-relationships and entanglements between parts on the same level of emergence. Some AI enthusiasts even envision the ultimate evolution of a Cosmic Mind, informed by all lower level phases.
https://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page23.html

*6. The Guiding Force of Evolution :
Glattfelder reaches the same conclusion that other Information theorists have inferred : that we live in “a universe built of Information”. Again, that insight is in agreement with the Enformationism thesis. Likewise, he concludes that “overall, the universe appears to be guided by an invisible force driving it to ever higher levels of self-organized complexity”.
https://bothandblog7.enformationism.info/page19.html
Note --- Glattfelder is a "Theoretical physicist turned quant, turned complexity scientist, with a strong commitment to philosophy."


TELEOLOGICAL EVOLUTION :

By definition a metaphorical demon is not part of the real world, hence super-natural. It "interacts" only in hypothetical worlds. — Gnomon
I'm not sure that Laplace himself thought so. His idea was this kind of idea of extrapolation to the extreme, if an entity would have all the information at hand and all the laws of nature. That idea is false, because it doesn't take into account that any entity is part of the world. This is usually referred to being part of the problem that Quantum physics brings to us, but surely the problem is far more general. — ssu

Would you agree that an omniscient entity is preternatural? Non-omniscient human observers of quantum events cannot be as objective & well-informed as a metaphorical demon seeing the world from a privileged perspective. Hence, the Quantum Observer Effect. :smile:

Laplace's supernatural demon :
The demon must be an outside observer of the deterministic universe.
https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/104560/could-laplaces-demon-be-the-universe-itself

The demon must be an outside observer of the deterministic universe. — Gnomon

Well, that's basically my point. And do note that Laplace really didn't make this point at all. Yet notice, that isn't actually something that has been told earlier when discussing Laplace's demon. The link you gave gives it in one way. But notice that this is actually a very important thing.

Outside observer without any interaction means that objectivity can exist. But then if you define that everything existing is part of the universe, the simple conclusion is that this kind of omniscient entity doesn't exist. Or otherwise you would have a peculiar World view reality + the external entity. The external viewer is simply meaningless. It's as meaningless as a logical system where everything is provable and correct, starting from 0=1. Yes, you can create such axiomatic system, but it's simply useless.

Hence I would conclude: A subjective entity simply cannot be omniscient objective knowledge about everything. It's the subjectivity that limits this "perfect objectivity".

Would you agree that an omniscient entity is preternatural? — Gnomon

Omniscient?

You can turn that other way: anything part of the university cannot be omniscient.

Would you agree that an omniscient entity is preternatural? — Gnomon
Omniscient?
You can turn that other way: anything part of the university cannot be omniscient. — ssu

Yes. That's why Laplace postulated a preternatural "demon" instead of a natural scientist, to keep track of all positions and motions in the world, from his objective observatory outside the universe.

Laplace had confidently responded to Napoleon's question, about a place for God in his theories of a deterministic world : "I have no need for that hypothesis". Yet, his argument for determinism used a god-substitute to make his point that natural laws leave no gaps for divine intervention. Ironically, the demonic entity would need to know all natural laws and all physical properties in order to predetermine the future development of the whole universe.

On the other hand, Maxwell's demon --- organizing only gas particles in a box, instead of an entire universe --- may not need to be omniscient, just uncannily knowledgeable and quick ; in order to violate the Second Law. In both cases of teleological determinism, the prophetic or organizing entity must be able to comprehend current complexity and future complications arising from lawful interactions of zillions of zooming particles. :cool:

PS___ A> Teleological Determinism is not the same as B> Theological Determinism. "A" requires only an unidentified philosophical (axiomatic) First Cause, while "B" specifies the creator deity of some historical religious myth.


Q: How is quantum mechanics an obstacle for the demon?
A: The demon’s job is to determine the future of the entire universe from initial conditions and the laws of physics and he’s got the brains to do it.
https://elements.lbl.gov/news/spooky-science-laplaces-demon/

Laplace's demon as a secular substitute for an omniscient God with perfect foreknowledge.
https://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/laplaces_demon.html

Laplace's demon is omniscient and god-like: no mortal could ever hope to have the kind of perfect knowledge that Laplace alludes ...
https://www.bayesianspectacles.org/laplaces-demon/

The future is determined. This is known as scientific determinism. Laplace expanded this idea to the entire universe – if some creature knew everything's position and motion at one moment, then the laws of physics would give it complete knowledge of the future.
https://elements.lbl.gov/news/spooky-science-laplaces-demon/

Yet, his argument for determinism used a god-substitute to make his point that natural laws leave no gaps for divine intervention. Ironically, the demonic entity would need to know all natural laws and all physical properties in order to predetermine the future development of the whole universe. — Gnomon

This is what Laplace thought is "all" that needed. But Laplace really missed the point that a forecast of the future can have an effect on the future, the subjectivity of this entity. It's simply negative self reference, just as the trick is in all incompleteness results. You simply cannot "just assume" something to get rid of this problem in science. In religion, you simply can start with the axiom of God being omniscient and omnipotent.

It's quite similar if I ask you @Gnomon to give an response that you don't ever give. Are there those kind of responses? Sure, a lot. Can you give them? No, not you specifically.

Why is this important? My view is that people think this is some kind of "problem" that needs to be fixed, averted or bypassed by some method. In fact it's a very important limitation itself, especially when you think just what something "random" should be.

So what is something random? It is something that doesn't repeat itself, doesn't have some algorithm that can define it less than itself. Wouldn't here what you need be exactly that negative self reference?

But Laplace really missed the point that a forecast of the future can have an effect on the future, the subjectivity of this entity — ssu

I don't know that Laplace "missed the point". Perhaps, in order to keep his metaphor simple, he avoided getting into the open-ended question : "is foreknowledge deterministic?" :smile:

Why is this important? My view is that people think this is some kind of "problem" that needs to be fixed, averted or bypassed by some method. In fact it's a very important limitation itself, especially when you think just what something "random" should be. — ssu

I'm not sure what "this" refers to : a> foreknowledge = determinism? b> omniscience = omnipotence? c> randomness = incompleteness?

I'm also not sure of what the "problem" is that needs to be fixed : a> subjectivity = negative self-reference? b> randomness = indeterminism? c> negative self reference = unquestioned assumptions?

What does "this" have to do with Laplace's demon or the OP question about the equation of randomness and information? :nerd:

I'm not a deist, but I don't see that the position that something created the universe any more or any less problematic than to say that the universe was uncaused. The deist needn't posit anything to do with intent or purpose either. He need only say the universe was caused by some cause. As to what caused the deistic god to come into being, the deist lays the mystery there, in the god, the thing that defies causation. — Hanover

At least you are open-minded on the question of origins. Some posters on TPF are self-labeled Absurdists*1. For them, asking about Origins & Causes is irrelevant to their meaningless life. But I suspect that most of us on this forum are not quite so apprehensive or pessimistic about open-ended philosophical questions. We humans seem to be innately curious*2 about the causal history prior to important observed events and processes : i.e. a Reason for Being. Rather than using contemporary humanoid gods to explain the existence & operation of our world, Plato and Aristotle postulated descriptive abstract labels such as First Cause and Prime Mover.

Darwin's theory of Evolution was probably intentionally left open-ended. But subsequent scientists have never ceased to push back the Chain of Change, seeking a priori. For example, 20th century astronomers attempted to turn-back the clock, with empirical evidence, to see when/where the first step in cosmic expansion/emergence occurred . This led to the Big Bang conjecture, which only incited additional questing for a more satisfactory beginning of the storyline than just "once upon a time".

Non-empirical hypothetical attempts to fill-in the before-big-bang gap include : a> quantum field fluctuations, b> eternally cycling Multiverse, c> Penrose cycling universe, d> exponential inflation of low entropy universe, e> zero-point energy of empty space, etc. All of these assume eternal existence of some unspecified or vague Creative Potential. And most are simply mechanical or accidental or Random, with no awareness or intention or Purpose (enabling Information). But whatever that cryptic world-causing Event/Entity*3*4 was, we know for sure that it has created creatures with both awareness and intention : us TPF posters, for example.

So, explaining where inquisitive Mind originated is a harder problem (mystery) than imagining where lumpish Matter came from (theory). Deists don't claim to know the answer to the unyielding "Hard Problem", but they typically infer that self-conscious animated Sentience could not emerge naturally from inert Matter or entropic Energy without some defining Information (formula). Hence, the reference to a generic Deus*5 : (1 = X). :smile:


*1. Absurdism is the philosophical theory that the universe is irrational and meaningless. It states that trying to find meaning leads people into a conflict
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism

*2. What did Einstein say about curiosity?
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing".

*3. Deus otiosus : a creator God who has entirely withdrawn from governing the universe after creating it or is no longer involved in its daily operation

*4. Deus absconditus : hidden god

*5. Deism : immanent creative Force

I don't know that Laplace "missed the point". Perhaps, in order to keep his metaphor simple, he avoided getting into the open-ended question : "is foreknowledge deterministic?" — Gnomon

Do notice the time when Laplace lived: the Scientific world view was quite Newtonian and causal determinism was quite mainstream. And notice that he doesn't at all refer to any "demon" to the issue:

We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be the present to it.

When you read that, I don't see any reference to any open ended question rather than perhaps the difficulty of knowing "all forces that set nature in motion" and obviously "all positions of all items of which nature is composed".

I'm not sure what "this" — Gnomon

To the point that causal determinism as defined by Laplace has trouble with logic, when the intellect is part of the universe.

I'm also not sure of what the "problem" is that needs to be fixed — Gnomon

Ok, when similar problems have been stated, for example in economics in the 1930's that there's this problem when the forecaster has an effect on what is forecasted, there might not be any way to give the correct forecast, people (or in this case) economists don't like this. Hence this was just sidelined by saying that "there has to be a correct forecast" and perhaps later we'll understand how to find it. (And btw, the exchange was between two later nobel prize winning economists) People just assume some dynamic model can take into account the effect of the forecaster. Well, the problem with negative self reference is that there's no dynamic modelling way to counter it.

What does "this" have to do with Laplace's demon or the OP question about the equation of randomness and information? — Gnomon

Just first think about what Laplace's idea holds: if you have total information and understanding the laws of nature, then by Laplace's argumentation, forecasting is really an extrapolation of the present / past to the future. Extrapolation of this is simply computation, you can calculate what the future is.

Ok, so we have notice that it isn't so. If the forecaster / forecast itself has an effect on the future, in some cases it's impossible to give the accurate forecast. The real question is why? Logically and mathematically why it is so?

The logical and mathematical reasoning here is that in mathematics there are entities that are uncomputable/incomplete. Proofs that have been given about this basically use negative self reference. Hence it shouldn't be any wonder that Laplace's Demon falls in with these proofs given about uncomputability and incompleteness.

The next question is that can randomness be defined also with this phenomenon in mathematics? After all, if you have an random string, you cannot extrapolate how it's going to continue from what it has been.

When you read that, I don't see any reference to any open ended question rather than perhaps the difficulty of knowing "all forces that set nature in motion" and obviously "all positions of all items of which nature is composed". — ssu

Your quote is exactly the "open-ended question" I referred to. Is it possible to calculate the future position and momentum of multiple particles accurately enough to predestine the end of the world? The "intellect" he postulated is not any known entity in the physical world, so others labeled it a "demon" or "daimon". For the ancient Greeks, a daemon was a lesser deity with limited powers. But for Enlightenment Age philosophers & scientists, the term "demon" was an oblique reference to an omniscient being, which for Christians would be the unlimited deity known as "God".

Laplace's hypothetical metaphor was open on both ends, in the sense that a> it postulated a supernatural entity to serve as a stand-in for Christianity's deterministic creator, and b> in his assumption that future events, to the end of the physical world, could be prophesied by the all-knowing daimon, presumably by mathematical calculations. However, years later mathematicians bumped heads with the "three-body problem" of complexity, and eventually Goedel concluded that human mathematics will never be able to predict world events (e.g. weather) beyond a few days in advance.

Those impediments would doom "natural" computations of far future events. So, only a truly omniscient & omnipotent supernatural deity would be able to create a predestined world, with a certain beginning and end. Hence, Laplace's mere "difficulty" for a far-sighted daemon, would be "impossible" for a natural being, living within the incredibly complex system he's modeling. Ironically, some modern scientists, working with a classical model of reality, ignore the role of Chance, Choice, and Uncertainty. :nerd:

"Laplace's Demon" concerns the idea of determinism, namely the belief that the past completely determines the future. Clearly, one can see why determinism was so attractive to scientists (and philosophers — determinism has roots that can be traced back to Socrates). Indeed, this passage had a strong influence on setting the course of science for years to come, and by the early 1800's determinism had become very firmly entrenched among many scientists. In Laplace's world everything would be predetermined — no chance, no choice, and no uncertainty.
https://www.stsci.edu/~lbradley/seminar/laplace.html

The next question is that can randomness be defined also with this phenomenon in mathematics? After all, if you have an random string, you cannot extrapolate how it's going to continue from what it has been. — ssu

Yes. That's why natural evolution must harmonize Random Mutations with specific Selection Criteria. Working together, these complementary factors combine freedom for exploration of solutions with limitations on the combinations that will survive into the next generation. But who does the selecting? A math Demon? :smile:

Laplace's hypothetical metaphor — Gnomon

But do notice that Laplace isn't using the metaphor demon/daimon!

It's only afterwards others have referred to a demon. Laplace refers only to an intellect. It really doesn't talk about any supernatural entity, it only refers to an intellect having the knowledge of laws and all the information of the greatest bodiest to the tiniest atom. It's you who is adding to this context the assumption that Laplace is talking about a supernatural entity. Laplace isn't. But enough of this, let's move on...

and eventually Goedel concluded that human mathematics will never be able to predict world events (e.g. weather) beyond a few days in advance. — Gnomon

Has he said that? Please give a reference, I'm genuinely surprised if he said so and I'm interested to know that quote. I didn't know that, as obviously Gödel was extremely careful of what actually his incompleteness theorems mean. He had even difficulties to accept that Turing's Halting Problem was similar to his theorems.

Laplace's mere "difficulty" for a far-sighted daemon, would be "impossible" for a natural being, living within the incredibly complex system he's modeling. — Gnomon

Is it actually so incredibly complex? It can be a very simple example where the model, that actually has an effect itself what it should model at the first place, can be very simple.

In some cases a "stable model" can be found, but not when negative self reference is applied: you cannot make a model that gives the result that the model does not give. Just as you cannot give a reply that you don't give.

But it's great that we agree on this and I think you understand this quite well. So let's not get stuck on debating just what Laplace thought. You and I understand the basic problem.

The next question is that can randomness be defined also with this phenomenon in mathematics? After all, if you have an random string, you cannot extrapolate how it's going to continue from what it has been. — ssu

Yes. That's why natural evolution must harmonize Random Mutations with specific Selection Criteria. Working together, these complementary factors combine freedom for exploration of solutions with limitations on the combinations that will survive into the next generation. But who does the selecting? A math Demon? :smile: — Gnomon

Here I think Laplace himself has the best answer to this: He (Laplaca) doesn't need a math Demon or God. Because there is no selection done. Let me explain,

because here we come to a fascinating conclusion about determinism and chance/randomness (at least in my opinion):

If you define the future being that will truly happen in reality, you do have determinism: no chance, no choice, no uncertainty. It's really the block universe, everything is predetermined, like this discussion with you and others. It will go only one way and that's it.

But then there is the real twist: this understanding of the universe is useless for us. We cannot model it, we cannot extrapolate from it because we are part of the universe and thus we have this limitation on modelling. Sure a lot of what we don't know we could forecast if we would have more information and better models, but here is simply this logical limitation here, which cannot be overcome. Hence anything part of the universe has this limitation.

Hence we have to makes models with for example using probabilities. Yet many times that probability might be a 0.5 probability of a coin toss being heads or tails, and there's not much information on the fact that "if you toss a coin, you will get a coin toss". Of course in the deterministic reality there is the exact way the coin will land, heads or tails or sideways. With a probability of 1.

I think this is very important and I think people actually haven't understood it well. I remember one math-guy in NASA, David Wolpert, coming to this conclusion too in 2008 (in fact I think a bit earlier), it's now even mentioned in the Wiki page of the Laplace's demon. He uses Cantor's diagonalization, but if you think a bit, do notice that Cantor's diagonalization is simply a use of negative self reference.

It's really a powerful tool, when you think of it.

He (Laplaca) doesn't need a math Demon or God. Because there is no selection done. — ssu

I'm afraid you're getting way over my head, since I know nothing about Laplace, except for a couple of famous quotes. I assume you're referring to Laplacian Scores (I Googled "Laplace Selection"), but I won't be able to follow your reasoning on that "score".

However, I do infer that his reference to an "Intellect", capable of knowledge that is beyond human ability, was an oblique reference to a god-like mind, without using that taboo word in a scientific context. Later philosophers made the same inference, but used a different term, "demon"*1, to indirectly imply super-human observation & calculation powers. :nerd:

*1. Laplace's Demon :
This intellect is often referred to as Laplace's demon (and sometimes Laplace's Superman, after Hans Reichenbach). Laplace himself did not use the word "demon", which was a later embellishment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace%27s_demon

If you define the future being that will truly happen in reality, you do have determinism: no chance, no choice, no uncertainty. It's really the block universe, everything is predetermined, like this discussion with you and others. It will go only one way and that's it. — ssu

I doubt that Einstein intended for his as-if Block Universe metaphor to be taken literally. But, as you noted, such a world would be completely predestined, and unlike the probabilistic (partly randomized) reality*2 that us humans have to deal with. Perhaps you are arguing against Causal Determinism*3, as an argument against human Choice & FreeWill. If so, I'd have to agree with you. :smile:

*2. Order within Chaos :
Chaos is where things are so complex that you can't handle it and order is where things are so rigid that it's too restrictive. In between that is a place that's meaningful; where you're partly stabilized and partly curious.
https://zaidkdahhaj.medium.com/how-to-practically-understand-order-chaos-8c4fefb12e30

*3. Determinism :
Determinism is the philosophical view that all events in the universe, including human decisions and actions, are causally inevitable.
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Determinism

But then there is the real twist: this understanding of the universe is useless for us. We cannot model it, we cannot extrapolate from it because we are part of the universe and thus we have this limitation on modelling. — ssu

I'm not very familiar with Wolpert or Cantor, so "diagonalization" doesn't mean much to me. I suppose our "limitation on modeling" means that, pace Einstein, most of us parts-of-the-whole are not even close to omniscient. What does "negative self-reference" mean to you? In layman's terms, please. :wink: