:100: :up:

:roll: :snicker:

fyi Natural sciences are both "reductive" and "holistic" – by fallibilistic abduction, each defeasibly explains various levels (e.g. hierarchies) of 'self-organizing wholes' mereologically. On the other hand, sir, "metaphysics" is a synoptic (not "holistic") interpretation – categorical idealization – of, among other things, the presuppositions necessary for natural sciences and their findings to rationally make sense.

I think you are each asserting that it is possible to do something that is impossible.

I'm not saying you, specifically, are making a mistake. I'm saying that (almost) everyone is incorporating a mistaken assumption into their sense of what knowledge is.

Possible/impossible

You can do possible things. You cannot do impossible things.

You cannot point to something that is outside the universe.

You are part of the universe. Your thoughts are part of the universe. Language is part of the universe.

You cannot reference not-universe in any way. It is flat out, unequivocally, impossible.

"Outside the universe"

The concept of "outside the universe" is null. It doesn't mean anything.

Your concept of "outside the universe" is part of the universe. It is inside the universe.

Your concept of "outside" has been formed from experiences that are wholly contained within the universe.

There is a baked in component of "outside" that can be almost universally omitted:

"Outside of x (inside the Universe)"

"outside the universe" should be read as "outside the universe (inside the universe)".

Post illustration

I would bet dollars to donuts that even now you feel that you are conceptualising something in response to the phrase "outside the universe".

Before the universe

What came before the universe? Philosophers have already explored the fact that our sense of time is a product of the universe we inhabit. "Before Time" is a non-sequitur.

Feel

Take note of how compelling the notion of "outside the universe" feels. You know what 'outside' means. You know (roughly) what 'universe' means. Of course you understand what "outside the universe" signifies...

Physics doesn't explain squat

We can compare the differences and similarities between one piece of universe and another piece of universe.

That is what is possible. This is what knowledge is. This is everything.

Explanations in physics are equivalent to "before time", "outside space"; they contain no information.

Why is this bit of universe similar to that bit of space? Because it is.

The universe is the way it is because we observe it to be that way.

We can measure the similarities and differences. We can make note of common patterns. Any attempt to justify stuff always boils down to "because".

Comparing the universe to itself

The only thing we have available is the universe. Our thoughts and actions are intrinsic parts of the universe. The universe is our starting point - our given.

Every statement fundamentally assumes the existence of the universe.

Anything and everything we say about the universe is the universe referencing itself.

This isn't a problem or a limitation. This is simply what is.

We can, in fact, describe what is. We can observe the universe and describe what we see. This is possible.

Doing possible things is easy.

We cannot explain the universe independently of the universe. Doing so would be impossible.

Doing impossible things is futile. A waste of time and effort.

Other end of the scale



I've read a few of your recent posts. You are clearly understanding concepts with the depth and clarity that I initially perceived.

I have deep respect for the arguments you have made and the insight that they represent.

The following smack down is only possible because you are most of the way there already.



As with the Count above, My deepest respects. Think of the following as an argument made with vigour. I am arguing against a position.

Smack Down

My personal worldview is ultimately Holistic and Monistic. — Gnomon

Well Whoop dee doo! Look at Mr. Holistic. He thinks the universe is a thing.

Of course it is a whole f&^%*$g thing. It isn't an option. It's the law.

Of course you can't step outside your existence. Of course you can't step outside the universe.

What is even the alternative? That bits of the universe are disconnected but connected at the same time?

But

But when we begin to "describe" the world, in language or math, it is necessary to make "distinctions". — Gnomon

No. Stop it. No Buts.

You have the truth right there in your hands and you are turning away from it.

The universe exists and everything (EVERYTHING) is part of that existence.

Everything you think, feel, imagine, do and communicate is indivisibly an aspect of the single whole.

"Ah, but - what if it wasn't?" It is. You and every mathematician, philosopher and physicist who ever lived cannot describe anything that is not inextricably a facet of the universe.

Your words are part of the universe. Your thoughts are part of the universe. Your existence is part of the universe.

Everything that we are capable of understanding, is expressed with reference to the universe.

Context

You know that context matters. Your personal, direct experience shows you that context matters. Of all the certain truths in the universe, you can see context mattering.

And then you turn around and suggest that if we remove enough context from essential mathematical concepts we'll arrive at truth!?

In a universe where the only comparison we have for one piece of universe is another piece of universe you want to remove our only reference point in the hopes of understanding concepts in isolation!?

Connected

The universe is a connected whole. This is the foundation of knowledge/understanding/meaning/significance/...

In order to understand the universe, a good place to start is with the universe. The pieces of the universe are not disconnected (distinct).

Trying to understand the universe by assuming not-universe is silly.

99.9%

In a certain sense, I think the "entire context" matters for fully defining constituent "parts" role in any universe, and this might preclude things' being "building blocks" at all in the normal sense. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Here Count Icarus looks the universe square in the face and then just stops.

Solispism, Godel's incompleteness theorems, General Relativity, every philosophical and mathematical argument that has tried to find an essence independent of bias...

We've already considered this from every angle and we are still banging our heads against the wall.

"Context matters" is right there. It isn't hidden. There's no secret.

The only possible mechanism of knowledge is with respect to the universe.

It boggles my mind how a person can be looking right at the evidence in front of their nose and then turn around and say "But when we begin to "describe" the world, in language or math, it is necessary to make "distinctions"" as if somehow, magically, the rules don't apply to language or mathematics.

We don't have the universe plus a backup universe.

Language and mathematics don't have a secret backdoor access to an objective viewpoint independent of the universe.

Possible/impossible

This is not a debate between competing theories.

It is impossible to reference something outside the universe.

An argument that references "outside the universe" isn't even wrong. The idea of an objective viewpoint free from observer bias is meaningless.

We can compare, contrast and interact with different aspects of the universe. And that is it. That is everything we can do.

There isn't anything else we can examine. There isn't anything else we can interact with.

All your thoughts, ideas, actions, experiences and dreams are aspects of a singular universe within which you exist.

Not Nihilism

Knowledge independent of your subjective experience has always been a null concept.

Objective truth has always been meaningless.

It is possible to describe one aspect of your experiences with respect to other aspects of your experience.

Possible is so, so much easier than impossible.

Everything humans have achieved is what is possible. Aligning our expectations with reality will be orders of magnitude more productive than the alternative.

You can do possible things. You cannot do impossible things.

You cannot point to something that is outside the universe.

You are part of the universe. Your thoughts are part of the universe. Language is part of the universe.

You cannot reference not-universe in any way. It is flat out, unequivocally, impossible. — Treatid

The universe is not a box with furniture in it (whether understood as individual bits or relationally and linguistically) which it is our job as scientists to describe. It is a continually changing development, and we change along with it. Thanks to the unidirectional arrow of time, the universe is continually outside itself, continually overcoming its former states. Freedom is built into the real, and the past doesn’t determine the future, it only provides constraints and affordances.

Everything humans have achieved is what is possible. Aligning our expectations with reality will be orders of magnitude more productive than the alternative. — Treatid

Reality is a moving target. Knowledge is praxis, a way of changing how we interact with our world in ways that are useful to us. The changes we make in our interactions with the world feed back into our understanding to further change our knowledge. There is no limit to the variety of ways we can scientifically construe our world. A multitude of competing accounts can all be ‘true’, that is, can work perfectly well for what we wish to do with them. Some ways will be found to be more useful others.

The concept of "outside the universe" is null. It doesn't mean anything.

Your concept of "outside the universe" is part of the universe. It is inside the universe. — Treatid

My position is formally an internalist epistemology. I'm a Peircean pragmatist. So problem dealt with. :smile:

Language and mathematics don't have a secret backdoor access to an objective viewpoint independent of the universe. — Treatid

You seem to be arguing rather passionately employing what you consider to be "good logic". You talk as if this is giving you a secret backdoor access to truths others don't grasp. So a little contradictory right there.

Pragmatism deals with the essential subjectivity of reasoning. Structuralism is then the ontology which emerges from applying that reasoning to the world at large. As Peirce argued, the "best logic" is the one with which we would both think and the one that itself organises the world.

And it is that pragmatic logic – the holistic logic of Peircean semiosis – that would help you deal with the emergent and evolutionary nature of Being. In terms of mounting a physicalist inquiry into the nature of Nature, the structure of an expanding~cooling cosmos, it leads you to thermodynamics and dissipative structure theory.

Particle physics, for example, is all about how the Big Bang fell into inevitable gauge symmetry structures as it expanded and cooled.

Electrons don't exist. They are the irreducible residue of a process of "universal" constraint on possibility itself. In the beginning was everything. Then what survived were all the possibilities that didn't get cancelled away by their opposite possibilities. In quantum jargon, the wavefunction of the Universe is the sum over all its possibilities. It was so hot, everything was possible at the start. It will be so cold that almost nothing will become possible by the end.

Peircean holism – as a fully internalist perspective – gives you a very different way of thinking about the questions of existence.

Freedom is built into the real, and the past doesn’t determine the future, it only provides constraints and affordances. — Joshs

Whether the universe is deterministic and the possibility of free will in a deterministic universe are interesting and relevant questions.

Unfortunately, your assertion doesn't appear to be falsifiable.

Reality is a moving target. Knowledge is praxis, a way of changing how we interact with our world in ways that are useful to us. The changes we make in our interactions with the world feed back into our understanding to further change our knowledge. — Joshs

This seems reasonable to me.

There is no limit to the variety of ways we can scientifically construe our world — Joshs

No.

All definitions within a system are circular.

A description consists of one piece of universe describing another piece of universe.

A --> B --> A

We can describe what we observe (with respect to everything else we observe).

Anything else is a figment of your imagination.

Thanks to the unidirectional arrow of time, the universe is continually outside itself, continually overcoming its former states. — Joshs

If you want to conceptualise each new moment as being a brand new universe that's fine.

This argument doesn't depend on a specific definition of 'inside', 'outside' or 'universe'. It depends on us being part of the process - lacking the omniscient god like view as an entity that can observe the universe without interacting with the universe.

My position is formally an internalist epistemology. I'm a Peircean pragmatist. So problem dealt with. — apokrisis

Is that 'Pragmatist' in the same way that The Democratic Republic of North Korea is Democratic?

All definitions inside a system are circular

A defines B. B defines A.

Your quantum jargon == The universe is like the universe.

In what way is observing that the universe has similarities to itself pragmatic?

I mean - you're not wrong. But neither are you advancing knowledge.

Apology

I'm sorry (rubs nipples).

I know the intent behind theories. I know I'm denigrating the scientific method. I know I'm committing heresy of the highest order.

But all definitions within a system are circular.

There has never been a single, objective, universal, unambiguous definition of anything. Ever.

For all your ability to reference distance, you cannot define distance free of circularity.

A pragmatist would deal with reality.

Post Script

I am most gratified that I am, at least, able to communicate my enthusiasm.

Piercian Pragmatism seems nice. Personally I'm a fan of describing the universe as it is.

And a really, truly do not mean to offend anyone. I simply wish to convey that:

All definitions within a system are circular.

But all definitions within a system are circular. — Treatid

Incorrect. They are dichotomies. They are reciprocally connected by the constraint of being mutually exclusive yet jointly exhaustive.

So take a basic definition to any vague notion of "a system". It is hierarchically divided between its local and global scales of being. It is bounded in measurable fashion in that the local is defined as that which is the least global, and the global is that which is the least local. Or local = 1/global and global = 1/local.

What you call going around in a meaningless circle – a rotational symmetry adding no information – is always in serious metaphysics an effort to split possibility towards its mutually complementary aspects. And this is the basis of science as it is the basis of measurability. We place reality between limiting bounds that are then each the proper measure of the other ... even when the reciprocality is between the infinite and the infinitesimal.

So circularity can be a problem for some folk. But dichotomies have been going strong since ancient Greece and now stand as the metaphysical foundation for our scientific descriptions of nature.

There is no space in which particles move. Like frames of a film, a series of interactions can give the impression of continuous movement in space. — Treatid

OK if the mode of time is not Presentism but Eternalism; however, we don't yet know the mode of time. If Presentism, the 'particles' roll along their fields, like a kink in a rope moves.

Incorrect. — apokrisis

What I read is "yes, and..."

All definitions are circular, AND your description of dichotomies.

I agree that dichotomies have been around forever. How could it be otherwise - they are the nature of the universe.

and now stand as the metaphysical foundation for our scientific descriptions of nature. — apokrisis

Yeah... I'm not sure that everyone received that memo. Specifically, Axiomatic Mathematics and Quantum Mechanics are predicated on the idea that it is possible to have non-circular definitions.

I'm delighted that there is any acknowledgement of the nature of knowledge with respect to dichotomies. I agree that it should be foundational to scientific descriptions. I'm just noting that as it stands, your assertion of standing is more aspirational than actual.

It is in this light that I question your consistency.

Empirical evidence

You are absolutely right that knowledge of the significance of context is ancient.

And yet throughout that history science has tried to deny that evidence in favour of impossible definitions and explanations.

From solipsism it is crystal clear that it is impossible to prove anything beyond personal existence; yet mathematics pretends that proofs are possible.

Understanding with respect to dichotomies is not the same as 'objective definitions'.

They are not compatible world views.

The relationship is much the same as that between Newtonian Mechanics and General Relativity. There is no iterative path from Newtonian Mechanics to General Relativity. General Relativity does not make sense given the assumptions of Newtonian Mechanics.

Incompatible World Views

You can't have logic and dichotomies at the same time.

A relational universe is incompatible with an objective universe.

It isn't possible to comprehend one in terms of the other.

Recognising the dichotomous nature of the universe is fine (its right there). Trying to bend that evidence to fit objectivist assumptions is madness.

Prejudices should yield to the evidence, not the other way around.

Logic

A specific example of why objectivist is incompatible with relativist:

One of the assumptions of logic is that the original premise is a constant.

This seems to be a reasonable constraint. Imagine how much more complicated arguments would be if the meaning of the premise changed during the course of the argument.

Except, of course, it isn't possible to specify an initial set of premises in a fixed and unambiguous fashion. Before we can wonder if the premise is static we have to deal with never knowing exactly what the premises are in the first place.

It gets worse. In a relativistic system, the act of observing is a process. Both the observed and the observer are changed during this process (The process of observation is a change of relationships). There is no omniscient observation that leaves the target unchanged.

As a kicker we can round off with General Relativity, wherein the notion of objective truth can get bent.

The alternative: If not Logic - then what?

A consistent, relativistic (context matters, dichotomous) universe doesn't contain objective contradictions. A consistent system cannot illustrate what a contradiction is.

The universe is exactly what it appears to be. You don't need a theory to describe what you see. You just look and write down your observations.

Every statement you make is a shape within the universe. You literally cannot shape the universe into an impossible shape.

Humans are lying, hypocritical, scum bags that will behave inconsistently and contradict themselves for fun. And the Liar's paradox is just a squiggle in the universe.

Your ability to look at some squiggles and perceive a paradox is a 'you' thing.

Everything that is possible within the universe (including languages) is possible. Language works with the same mechanism as the rest of the universe. Just like the universe, everything that is possible is possible.

You do, of course, make subjective evaluations of statements.

Dichotomies

I appreciate your description of dichotomies. As far as it goes, I'm in full agreement.

However, your comment regarding the foundation of science makes me think your pragmatism is superficial. That you are holding onto old assumptions despite the evidence.

Possible is easy

I might be maligning you and you are already ten steps ahead of me... but a consistently dichotomous view works really well. Describing the universe on its own terms is productive. Like "Oh my god - it is so simple!"

Existing mistaken assumptions have been blinding us to the truth: The universe is exactly what it appears to be.

The trick is to see what is there - not what we think is there.

Time

OK if the mode of time is not Presentism but Eternalism; however, we don't yet know the mode of time. If Presentism, the 'particles' roll along their fields, like a kink in a rope moves. — PoeticUniverse

You are right - whether intermittent or continuous, Time is that which we perceive as time.

My argument is that it is far more productive to describe what we see.

We do not see particles. We do not see movement through space. We do not see Hilbert spaces or integers.

We have entire industries devoted to describing our world in terms of perpetually invisible and undetectable qualities.

Such practices should be the domain of religions - not science.

Good science is empirical. Things we can see and measure.

Quantum Mechanics runs around all the houses describing particles and fields and produces nothing better than we would get through statistical analysis of our observations.

Indeed, a straightforward statistical analysis would avoid all that mucking around trying to define undefineable quantities.

God is defined as all powerful and all knowing but super, duper invisible - you can only know him through faith. "yeah, yeah - whatever you say. Sure."

Physicists do exactly the same and its "Wow - All hail the Quantum! Praise be to the waveform collapse! How sexy is that many worlds interpretation".

The universe is exactly as it appears

What you see is what you get "WYSIWYG".

The universe is what we directly experience.

Inventing new pantheons (of gods or particles) does nothing to elucidate.

Indeed, persisting in false assumptions despite the evidence clouds our vision and hampers our perception of the reality that is right there.

Trying to understand the universe in terms of invisible fields that can't be measured is the antithesis of science.

The relationship is much the same as that between Newtonian Mechanics and General Relativity. There is no iterative path from Newtonian Mechanics to General Relativity. General Relativity does not make sense given the assumptions of Newtonian Mechanics. — Treatid

What? There is no path from mechanics with Galilean invariance to mechanics with Poincare and eventually de Sitter invariance? Tell me it ain't so. :cry:

You can't have logic and dichotomies at the same time.

A relational universe is incompatible with an objective universe.

It isn't possible to comprehend one in terms of the other. — Treatid

More piffle. As came up in another discussion, Aristotle codified both. The Organon was followed by his hylomorphism.

Of course folk can take them as incompatible or contradictory. But done properly, atomism can be shown as a subset of holism. They indeed form a dichotomy. A complementary pair. Both the same and yet also different as they are each the other's inverse operation.

Except, of course, it isn't possible to specify an initial set of premises in a fixed and unambiguous fashion. Before we can wonder if the premise is static we have to deal with never knowing exactly what the premises are in the first place. — Treatid

All this is true but built into the structure of Peircean logic. He accepted chance as real – just as real as law or globalised constraints that then emerge as the "other" to the logical vagueness of an indeterminate (or yet to be contextually determined) potential.

This is all perfectly familiar ground. We can move on.

As a kicker we can round off with General Relativity, wherein the notion of objective truth can get bent. — Treatid

Or another way of looking at it is the triadic systems approach to causal structure. GR defines the coherence of the metric, QFT defines its incoherent content. Decoherence within a de Sitter spacetime metric is how you arrive at the critical balance that is the Cosmos in terms of its VeV – vacuum particle action – at some given temperature and pressure.

So GR and QFT make the bounding dichotomy on what Peirce called synechism (global continuity) and and tychism (local chance). A flexi container and its flexing contents. Then these two opposites get mixed over all scales in a fractal or powerlaw statistical fashion. The thermal decoherence constraint that "collapses" the quantum wavefunction of the Universe itself.

This then turns your epistemic dichotomy of objective~subjective into the more useful one of an internalist vs an externalist metaphysics. Peircean logic and Systems Science speak to an internalist view of nature in which "objectivity" is what a community of inquirers hopes to arrive at in the limit.

The goal can't actually be achieved – that is assumed. But it can be approached asymptotically. And that is demonstrable as agreement becomes increasingly universalised among those doing the inquiring.

So GR seems pretty robust on that score. QFT too. It is agreed by all who rely on GPS systems or semiconductors at least. And too bad if you hold some different metaphysics that would want to quarrel with that level of detailed reality modelling.

A consistent system cannot illustrate what a contradiction is. — Treatid

Only consistency could be held up as the proper measure of what we might mean by inconsistency. Relativity is already built in by standing in opposition. The question then is only to what degree they are able to stand far apart.

How much inconsistency does it take to undermine a claim of consistency, and vice versa?

Everything that is possible within the universe (including languages) is possible. Language works with the same mechanism as the rest of the universe. Just like the universe, everything that is possible is possible. — Treatid

I think your theory of possibility needs more work. It presumes modal realism and so would need to be supported against other possibilities, like Peircean propensity for instance.

There is a whole history of metaphysical case-making that you just glibly dismiss in your scattergun mini-rants.

However, your comment regarding the foundation of science makes me think your pragmatism is superficial. That you are holding onto old assumptions despite the evidence. — Treatid

Of course you must find ways not to engage with actual arguments. Discussing is losing. Thinking is hard. Researching takes up too much time.