So from the Universe's point of view – to the degree it has one – entropification is good as a general goal as it allows the negentropic complexity that functionally accelerates that grand enterprise. A star is doing a cosmic solid in rounding up a dust of matter particles and wasting them to background radiation. It is a self-organising furnace serving the Second Law of Thermodynamics in a way that is "good" from the true pansemiotic point of view. — apokrisis


But isn’t the implicit end-point of this process non-existence? The ‘heat death’ of the universe? — Wayfarer

I'd add to Wayfarer's term "non-existence", more specifically, the non-occurrence of any awareness via which value can obtain. If so, then this end-point of awareness's very non-being would in and of itself then constitute that which objectively is "the Good" - the objective Good in so far as it being that which ontically occurs as an ontically fixed end-point of awareness which is optimally favorable or beneficial to all sentience when all biases of awareness are removed.

But then, where the non-occurrence of one's self as that which is in any way aware to be claimed as the objective good in the "true pansemiotic point of view", this would then rationally run directly contrary to all aspects of life which seek a continuation of awareness: everything from self-preservation to greater, else deeper, understanding regarding the nature of Nature. And, since the nihility of all awareness (including all forms of awareness regarding personal being and of values) is here deemed the unbiased, and hence objective, Good, the upholding of this quoted claim then rationally reduce to nihilism regarding anything which is of benefit to life - for the continuation of life is the counter to the objective Good as it has just been specified - and likewise rationally reduces to the yearning for non-life (else non-being) as the end-point of awareness-endowed being.

This is a somewhat more formal way of saying that the quoted assumption rationally endorses the cessation of life and all entailed awareness as that which is objectively Good. Couple this with a faith in the lack of any type of afterlife and, in a nutshell, the quoted perspective rationally reduces to an endorsement of suicide in as short a time-span as possible as the absolute Good to be striven for (this then being the end-state of non-being actualized).

If my tersely outlined reasoning here is mistaken, I'm sure I'll be shown the error of my reasoning by more rational musings regarding this issue of what the Good consists of.

First, assume for the sake of argument that Aristotle is right. There are things we can learn about the human good, and what will make us truly most happy/flourishing. Given this, who would prefer to be ignorant in this regard? Who would want to be profoundly misled about the nature of the world and themselves and to hold false beliefs that would make them unhappy? Would someone freely choose what they consider to be the worse? Would they intentionally choose to be unhappy? And here, I don't mean choosing between goods such that one is unhappy, but choosing to be unhappy simpliciter, to live what the person themselves would acknowledge to be an unhappy and unworthy life, a "bad life?"

I would say the answer to the above is no, which in turn seems to answer the question of "why should I do what is good?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

I find all this to be a very adequate assessment. Which is to say, :up: As a possible complexity, analytical issues could then emerge as to what the terms "unhappiness" or a "bad life" are supposed to indicate. Even if they make ample sense in any common sense approach. But yes, even the most diabolically evil of evildoers will always choose that option which they find, or else believe, is beneficial or favorable to them - hence, always choosing that which they (mistakenly or otherwise) find to be good in terms of their happiness and life - this rather than intentionally choosing outcomes they find, or believe, detrimental to their happiness or else quality of life. To my current understanding, the Good then being appraised as the end-point of life, else of awareness, wherein absolute (complete and perfect) benefit or favorability for oneself and all others becomes actualized.

So yes, I believe I'm in full agreement to you and the OP when I add that pragmatism devoid of an upheld notion of the Good (which is to be here understood as both universal and objective ultimate benefit or favorability) will be on a par to pragmatism devoid of any benefit-ability (or maybe better expressed "utility") and of any favorability. Or, more tersely saying the same thing, on a par to an im-pragmatic pragmatism.

but I certainly wouldn't say that Huxley is offering up a utopian vision of human flourishing due to this fact. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well I think human flourishing essentially comes down to what people like and want. I mean, if Aldous Huxley isn't offering a utopian vision of human flourishing, why is that? Because it doesn't offer everything that people necessarily want or it only is focusing on some subsection of what people might want or like while avoiding others.

I would say the answer to the above is no, which in turn seems to answer the question of "why should I do what is good?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well this just sounds like appealing to what people want or like which I don't find an objective reason. It's hard to logically imply an ought from an is (which is nothing to do with skepticism) and then again, some people who want odd things, or things that may be harmful to others.

People can and do disagree about the germ theory of disease, evolutionary theory, or the shape of the Earth. Not only that, but such beliefs are socially and historically conditioned. If you grew up in a great many social settings, you likely assumed the Earth stayed still and the Sun moved around it. Does the existence of disagreement about these facts, or that agreement is socially and historically contingent, make the Earth's rotation around the Sun subjective or only objective in a trivial way? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think the difference between morality and the scientific case is that presumably there is some kind of hidden cause out in the world separate from us which we are trying to make sense of and which bears out empirical data that we can use to evaluate our scientific models. But in the moral case the only data we have is our own opinions based on how people want the world to work. So there isn't really a sense in which there is some separate hidden object which we are right or wrong about. We are the analogous hidden object whose properties are contingent on what opinions we happen to have. Its then not clear to me that someone disagreeing objectively means one person is right and the other wrong.

Sounds a little zen, no? Eternalised equilibrium. The end of restless change in a pure state of Sunyata? — apokrisis

I was listening to a talk by Michel Bitbol yesterday, in which he tore strips off Frithjof Capra (in a friendly way): 'the language of physics is mathematics, and that of Buddhism is Sanskrit. The only thing they have in common, is that most Westerners don't understand either of them.'

But the context is signficant, as he's a contributor to the Mind Life institute, which was set in motion by Francisco Varela to explore parallels between Buddhist philosophy and science. This talk was part of a Mind Life series on that subject.

I would suggest that there's no 'state of śūnyatā'. Bitbol starts the talk by saying 'there's no such thing as a view of the world which fits with quantum mechanics.' At around 12:00 there's a slide with a quote from Niels Bohr, 'Quantum physics is a mathematical symbolism intended to predict probabilistically the outcome of experiments'. He compares that with Nāgārjuna's 'Emptiness is the relinquishing of all views'. It doesn't convey or entail a worldview, as such. (It is true that Buddhism incorporated and absorbed many elements from Hindu cosmology, but that is not especially relevant in this context.)

I think 'Pierciean semiotics' is a metaphysics - a kind of scientific alternative to the creation myth, with the second law of thermodynamics being envisaged as the kind of driving force. But in Buddhism, the 'driving force' is neither a Biblical God nor a physical law. Beings are bound to the wheel of birth and death because of avidya, ignorance. But release from that - Nirvāṇa or mokṣa - is not stasis or non-being. What it is, of course, is said to be impossible to fathom, short of realising it. But that's a whole other thread.

But then, where the non-occurrence of one's self as that which is in any way aware to be claimed as the objective good in the "true pansemiotic point of view", this would then rationally run directly contrary to all aspects of life which seek a continuation of awareness: everything from self-preservation to greater, else deeper, understanding regarding the nature of Nature. — javra

Humans are complex creatures. We could just as well celebrate the idea of live fast/die young. Teenagers often do.

And I thought I was clear there is a difference between biosemiosis and pansemiosis.

Humans model their reality so as to control it. That is what creates the complexity of choices. We can burn through our genetically allotted span in any way we can freely imagine. Fast and loose or slow and steady. Goodness lies in whatever is the suitable balance. And that in itself is a vexed question because we have not yet lived long enough in the highly accelerated modern world we have created.

The Cosmos by contrast just is its own model. It does what it does. Whatever its entropification balance, that is the one that has evolved and thus proven itself.

the quoted perspective rationally reduces to an endorsement of suicide in as short a time-span as possible — javra

This misses the point that in the process philosophy point of view, all things are a balancing act. There is no such thing as "existence", just persistence.

And while humans can develop some grand ambitions when they find themselves surrounded by entropic wealth, resources are finite. The Second Law awaits in the long run. Humans can accelerate the Heat Death as a choice. But they can't outlast it even by the most frugal and uneventful of lives.

So the human pragmatic task is to define good as a balancing act within a realistic appreciation of that larger Cosmic (pansemiotic) context.

I was listening to a talk by Michel Bitbol yesterday, in which he tore strips off Frithjof Capra (in a friendly way): 'the language of physics is mathematics, and that of Buddhism is Sanskrit. The only thing they have in common, is that most Westerners don't understand either of them.' — Wayfarer

Buddhism, Continental philosophy and quantum mysticism have so much in common. Claiming you understand is the proof you don't understand. Truth has to be placed beyond the grasp of mere reason to secure the prestige of the priesthood protecting the holy fire.

I think 'Pierciean semiotics' is a metaphysics - a kind of scientific alternative to the creation myth, with the second law of thermodynamics being envisaged as the kind of driving force. — Wayfarer

It is a metaphysics of systems science for sure. It speaks to the triadic holism of Nature. So rather than a myth, it is a specific architecture of how Nature self-organises into the Cosmos we can recognise.

If you want to argue against it, you need to engage with its specific claims, not just shake an angry fist in the air.

But in Buddhism, the 'driving force' is neither a Biblical God nor a physical law. Beings are bound to the wheel of birth and death because of avidya, ignorance, which is another difficult thing to fathom. — Wayfarer

Again Buddhism (like Continental philosophy and QM mysterianism) is stuck on the ground floor of dualising paradox and has failed to climb up to a clear systems view of reality.

There is a murky view of the triadic structure to be found in co-dependent arising and that sort of stuff. Just not the crystal clarity of Peircean semiotics.

One can always cancel away intellectual progress by pointing to the existence of contradictions that seem to defeat the mechanisms of reason. Science can't explain mind. Yadayada.

The systems view is what lifts reason beyond this conventionalised impasse.

I mean even quantum mechanics clicks into place when you place it within the Thirdness of its thermodynamic context. Decoherence sorts things out pretty fast.

It is a metaphysics of systems science for sure. — apokrisis

Śūnyatā is not a metaphysical posit. That was the only point.

Glad to confirm that you do not sponsor the entailment which I so far see in you affirming, to restate the quote:

So from the Universe's point of view – to the degree it has one – entropification is good as a general goal as it allows the negentropic complexity that functionally accelerates that grand enterprise. A star is doing a cosmic solid in rounding up a dust of matter particles and wasting them to background radiation. It is a self-organising furnace serving the Second Law of Thermodynamics in a way that is "good" from the true pansemiotic point of view. — apokrisis

And I thought I was clear there is a difference between biosemiosis and pansemiosis. — apokrisis

You were. I am here applying what I take to be the implicitly maintained common sense interpretation that all of biosemiosis is taken to be fully governed by pansemiosis - hence, to be perpetually governed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics in part if not in full, this without exception.

Humans model their reality so as to control it. — apokrisis

Not all. Control of Nature is coveted by some. Others seek to be at one with Nature, often utilizing (consciously or otherwise) different metaphysical interpretations of Nature from those who view Nature as a given to be taken control of.

The Cosmos by contrast just is its own model. It does what it does. — apokrisis

Yet the Cosmos is constituted in part of sentient beings - rather than being in any way metaphysically ruptured from sentience. This, I so far find, is in full keeping with Peirce's perspectives: wherein all aspects of the physical Cosmos, all its natural laws fully included, are equated to an ever-evolving effete mind - an effete mind whose habits of being are themselves constituted from the activities of all co-existent sentient beings when addressed as a group. The two (biology and physicality) are in Peircean interpretations entwined, rather than distinct.

This misses the point that in the process philosophy point of view, all things are a balancing act. There is no such thing as "existence", just persistence. — apokrisis

Process philosophy as an umbrella school of philosophy tmk simply affirms that all things are in flux, hence that there is no thing(s) which is eternally stable. Which also brings to mind the view you seem to endorse that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is eternally stable, whereas Peirce would at the very least entertain the notion that this law of nature (here granting this human appraisal of what in fact is an unquestionable verity) too progressively evolved and yet evolves together with the evolution of the physical cosmos (i.e., of the effete mind).

If so, then your affirmation here is a reflection of your own personal proclivities rather than a defining factor of process philosophy. Hence, the notion of an absolute and absolutely stable balance between dyads, or opposites, is not a reflection of what the Good necessarily entails within process philosophy.

So the human pragmatic task is to define good as a balancing act within a realistic appreciation of that larger Cosmic (pansemiotic) context. — apokrisis

Two areas of disagreement:

First, this - because it by all means seems to affirm that all biosemiosis is governed by pansemiosis - yet either a) denounces any valid ontological occurrence of the Good which sentience ought to aspire toward or, else b) affirms that the Good is pansemiosis's very end-state, in which, in part, all awareness ceases to be, thereby again equating the objective Good to non-being (problematic for reasons mentioned in my previous post: it endorses means toward non-being in as quick a time-span as possible via, for example, suicide).

Secondly - and maybe in no way pertinent to the system of pansemiosis which you endorse - to give examples from ready present metaphysical systems: In everything from neo-Platonism to Buddhism wherein the end-state we all "ought to seek" is deemed to be beyond notions of existence and nonexistence - an end-state yet described as complete and perfect bliss and, hence, wherein awareness of bliss is yet necessarily present (even if necessarily devoid of any I-ness) - balance between ready occurring opposites is antithetical to the obtainment of, or else closer proximity to, the Good as these set of systems can be interpreted to appraise the term "the Good". Your system of pansemiosis then presents an ethics, or else morality, in which the ethics, or morality, endorsed by such models of reality are deemed incorrect, hence wrong, hence bad. And this entailment might not be what you yourself intend to specify.

[just edited the typos I've found]

The space of our democratic societies is flat. Nobody is allowed to stand higher than others. The first to be excluded is the One Above, especially when people claim to have received from him some message or mission that puts them closer to his divine reality—and thus higher.

Democratic space must remain inside itself. To put it in Latin: It must be immanent. Tocqueville noticed that aristocratic man was constantly sent back to something that is placed outside his own self, something above him. Democratic man, on the other hand, refers only to himself. The democratic social space is not only flat but closed. And it is closed because it is has to be flat. What is outside, whatever claims to have worth and authority in itself and not as part of the game, must be excluded. Whoever and whatever will not take a seat at the table at the same level as all other claims and authorities, however mundane, is barred from the game. — Rémi Brague, The Impossibility of a Secular Society

My stance is kinda particular on this matter. I claim that Universality is always virtual, it is under construction and surpasses our subjective particularity, but it is not given once and for all like in Plato.

Our moral judgments are always in a project of Universality. This is why a moral judgment, no matter how particular it may be, is not simply particular but is on the way to Universality. However, if Universality is virtual, there is always a remainder that allows moral judgments to come into play, to gain relative dominance and stability over one another, or even to coexist relatively.

But never in an absolute manner. Never in an absolute manner such that it closes this virtual space where morality and ethics are put into play. Hence, determining how one should act can never be closed to the other and their possible point of view. This is what Derrida called the principle of hospitality, which makes the ethical and moral task infinite; as long as the space in which ethics and morality are played out never closes and is always open to the participation of another. Doesn't this virtual space of Universality impose itself in such a way that we should assume that our ethical and moral judgments are not absolute and are always in play in discussion with other judgments? According to this the least we should do is be open to the participation of the other.

This position is not anti-realist in the sense that it does not close the path from the particular to the universal, it does not deny the space of Universality. Anti-realism fails to recognize a space that exceeds the particularity of judgment and subjectivity, and that allows that judgment to come into play and discussion. It also fails to recognize that judgments can become kinda universal.

But neither is it a realist position in the sense that it does not assume ethical and moral rules given once and for all like in Plato. I claim that there is an excess that constitutes our judgments and makes them project onto Universality. For example, the very language we use is constituted by rules that the subject does not master and that exceed subjectivity. That is a degree of Universality.

Śūnyatā is not a metaphysical posit. — Wayfarer

Rejecting metaphysics is still metaphysics. The clue is in the use of logical imperatives such as the word "not". A dichotomising epistemological claim is being made.

I mean, if Aldous Huxley isn't offering a utopian vision of human flourishing, why is that? Because it doesn't offer everything that people necessarily want or it only is focusing on some subsection of what people might want or like while avoiding others.

Personally, I think Huxley's point would have been better served by not having John Savage commit suicide, but simply having him return home. The fact is, all members of the society do seem to get what they want. The rare few who want to pursue intellectual or artistic interests get sent of to their own fully funded Galt's Gulch to pursue their dreams. The rest get to return to the bovine pleasures they were painstakingly engineered for.

But the elevation of pleasure as the sole principle by which the Good should be measured leads to the reductio ad absurdum of absolute utopia being something like human nervous tissue steadfastly managed by AI to produce something like the maximal amount of the infants' simple pleasure in nursing. I think Huxley (and Aristotle) were right that all cognitive function becomes superfluous under such a rubric. The total abolition of any adult level human cognition. Yet I would agree with Huxley that it's ludicrous to suppose that intentionally giving human beings significant intellectual disabilities so that it will be easier to please them is abhorrent and has nothing to do with human flourishing.

Such worlds are completely bereft of beauty. This makes sense if, as Aquinas thought, the Beautiful is emergent from (but not reducible to) the Good and the True. For if pleasure is the sole metric pursued, there is no longer any need for Truth—for theoretical reason—so long as pleasure can be mechanistically provided for. But I should rather like to say that human flourishing involves the theoretical, practical, and aesthetic, as it must for any perfection of freedom.



I'll have to mull that over but this stuck out to me:

But neither is it a realist position in the sense that it does not assume ethical and moral rules given once and for all like in Plato

This doesn't seem like Plato to me. Indeed, Plato says words cannot be used to bring one to knowledge of the Good (Republic, Letter VII). This seems more like the post-Humean Enlightenment project of thinking in terms of "rules all rational agents will agree too." But I think this is quite a bit different from the classical view of ethics, which focuses on the virtues. For one, the virtuous person enjoys right action. They don't need coercive, external rules.

You were. I am here applying what I take to be the implicitly maintained common sense interpretation that all of biosemiosis is taken to be fully governed by pansemiosis - hence, to be perpetually governed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics in part if not in full, this without exception. — javra

I was pointing out that negentropy seems antithetical to entropy, but a systems approach explains why it ain't.

From a human point of view, negentropy might be celebrated as good and entropy bad. That is a position normally seen. But from the Cosmic point of view, negentropy only exists to the degree it better organises dissipation. So it is also good from the Second Law point of view. And probably bad from the human point of view to the degree we let out structure building civilisations run out of synch with the larger environmental entropy flows that must be their "liveable contexts".

So good/bad can be grounded in this larger thermodynamic view. That was my point.

Not all. Control of Nature is coveted by some. Others seek to be at one with Nature, often utilizing (consciously or otherwise) different metaphysical interpretations of Nature from those who view Nature as a given to be taken control of. — javra

Being in the flow is just being well balanced as you scoot down the slope on a pair of skis. It is the effort of control minimised so that the outcome has maximal efficiency.

You hit a tennis ball harder by relaxing all the muscles that would otherwise coarsen the silky skill of the shot. Semiotic modelling approaches just make this deep principle explicit.

Yet the Cosmos is constituted in part of sentient beings - rather than being in any way metaphysically ruptured from sentience. — javra

Words like sentience are a problem unless you can provide some pragmatic definition. I know what you are vaguely gesturing towards. But by contrast, biosemiosis is a model of the modelling relation itself. Friston's Bayesian Brain even cashes it out in differential equations these days.

The two (biology and physicality) are in Peircean interpretations entwined, rather than distinct. — javra

Peirce of course was a creature of his age and there is a lot of residual religiosity in his writings.

Also the genetic code wasn't discovered in his time. He was still working at the level of protoplasmic biology – the striving life force of Naturphilosophie. He couldn't anticipate how deeply correct his pragmatism/semiotics was going to be once science properly could get to the bottom of the secrets of life (and mind).

So sure, he left hostages to fortune like "effete mind" – which is still perfectly fine as a metaphor, only inadequate as a specific metaphysical claim. Unless you still believe in "spirit stuff" ontologies.

You can dilute a substance. But what is the equivalent when it comes to a process? Especially a process as rigorously modelled as biosemiosis now is, cashed out as I say in Bayesian equations and a general systems science architecture.

Process philosophy as an umbrella school of philosophy tmk simply affirms that all things are in flux, hence that there is no thing(s) which is eternally stable. Which also brings to mind the view you seem to endorse that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is eternally stable, whereas Peirce would at the very least entertain the notion that this law of nature (here granting this human appraisal of what in fact is an unquestionable verity) too progressively evolved and yet evolves together with the evolution of the physical cosmos (i.e., of the effete mind). — javra

Again, Peirce did reflect his social constraints. We know his father, the way Harvard was run, his reliance on a religiously-motivated sponsor, the general New England fervour. As someone who didn't fit in, he had to at least try to fit in somehow. Imagine Peirce supported and set free within the context of a German or British university in the same era.

But anyway, if all things are in flux then that is how stability is what then evolves from that. It gives stabilising constraints something pragmatically useful to be doing. Giving a concrete persistent shape to existence as a process (of cosmic expansion~cooling, or thermalisation).

It is the mechanical view of reality that has the problem of starting already substantially stable and existent. It is just there, and has nothing then to do. Purpose of any kind – even the most basic thermal imperative kind – is left out of the metaphysics.

If so, then your affirmation here is a reflection of your own personal proclivities rather than a defining factor of process philosophy. — javra

I use "process philosophy" in tongue in cheek fashion as the best known process philosophers are those who are the bad examples. Peirce was the only proper process philosopher ... as he was really a structuralist. Sort of an in joke here.

First, this - because it by all means seems to affirm that all biosemiosis is governed by pansemiosis — javra

Semiosis is a hierarchical systems model so speaks of top-down constraints – the structuring regularity or synechic continuity that emerges from the chaos of tychic Firstness, to use Peirce-speak.

It is the mechanical view that sees laws governing all action. The systems view says the global order only places limits on local action. And what is not forbidden is free to happen.

Constraints are essentially permissive. And indeed – as they are themselves part of what must emerge from a balancing – they must persist because they leave exactly those freedoms that are the most constructive in terms of building the system in question. Constraints must "do good" in terms of shaping the parts that go on to (re)construct the system - the system that is defined by these self-same contraints.

So the causality is very different from the causality you are criticising here. A global balance between synechism and tychism is what makes for a system that can exist because – like an organism – it can repair and reproduce itself. It has the entropic metabolism that means as a Big Bang cosmos, it can persist until the end of time itself. Or until it arrives at its own reciprocal Heat Death state, in other words.

yet either a) denounces any valid ontological occurrence of the Good which sentience ought to aspire toward or, else b) affirms that the Good is pansemiosis's very end-state, in which, in part, all awareness ceases to be, thereby again equating the objective Good to non-being (problematic for reasons mentioned in my previous post: it endorses means toward non-being in as quick a time-span as possible via, for example, suicide). — javra

Again, you are reading my words through the wrong causal lens. As well as doing what I completely reject, which is ontologising this unplaced and reductionist notion of "the Good".

That is the misstep I set out to unpick by wheeling in a better causal model of "existence".

In everything from neo-Platonism to Buddhism wherein the end-state we all "ought to seek" is deemed to be beyond notions of existence and nonexistence - an end-state yet described as complete and perfect bliss and, hence, wherein awareness of bliss is yet necessarily present (even if necessarily devoid of any I-ness) - balance between ready occurring opposites is antithetical to the obtainment of, or else closer proximity to, the Good as these set of systems can be interpreted to appraise the term "the Good". — javra

Once more, the mistake here is expecting an answer in words other than "it is a critical balance".

Analysis progresses by dichotomising, but must then continue on to the proper answer. We can't separate the world into the good and the bad, then treat one as the only real thing.

Psychology tells us that what is mentally healthy is to be "in the flow". So not just somewhere between orgasmic bliss and nihilist despair as the two limiting poles of experience, but instead always smoothly surfing the possibilities of the world in terms of well-honed skills.

Being in the flow does feel like acting at the level of unthinking habit, but in pursuit of some generally pragmatic conscious goal. We want to feel "good" and "in control" by having mastery over actions as we move through a life. And we want our communities and societies to be organised by the same flow psychology.

The pragmatic definition of "good" is really very simple from a psychological, sociological and ecological viewpoint – the view from the scale of the self, and the semiotic levels that bracket this selfhood.

But we have absorbed this mechanical metaphysics of being helpless cogs in a world machine. We believe in a causality that is flawed and so get confused about how to live a life in practice. Or at least when we get out of the flow of our well-honed daily existence and start to philosophise, then we can confuse ourselves as all the habits and words are wrong for the task.

Semiosis is how to straighten out philosophy from the ground up. Peirce is the touchstone because he created a consistent metaphysics from mathematical logic to psychological phenomenology.

This doesn't seem like Plato to me. Indeed, Plato says words cannot be used to bring one to knowledge of the Good (Republic, Letter VII). This seems more like the post-Humean Enlightenment project of thinking in terms of "rules all rational agents will agree too." But I think this is quite a bit different from the classical view of ethics, which focuses on the virtues. For one, the virtuous person enjoys right action. They don't need coercive, external rules. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm referring to ideas like of the Good, which are found in a hyperuranian topos and cannot be constructed but can be discovered. That is, as simple ideas of autonomous constitution to which humans can have access, but cannot constitute.

Yes! Agreed.

Great post, Count Timothy von Icarus.

This may be bias on my part, but I've had the chance to talk live with quite a few of these people, and every single one has come across as an idiot who just wanted to justify doing whatever they wanted to do. My apologies if I'm a bit harsh, but this idea has always just struck me as being terrible and attracts the worst thinkers to it like bear turds attract flies. — Philosophim

Consider the possibility that biases are not always detrimental to rational decision-making. An individual may be fully aware of their biases and still make sound choices. Learning and growth often stem from recognizing that there might always be a better decision available. Bias becomes significant when we wish to find common ground with others, to influence or be influenced, which ironically negates its purpose.

What if one's self-awareness of bias is coupled with the ability to deceive? If a person can convincingly mask their intentions, does that not call into question the alignment of bias and action? This raises a crucial point I think worthy of deeper discussions: the interactions between bias, intention, and morality.

The Essay's by Michel de Montaigne influenced me and this discussion prompted my thoughts here to ponder the ultimate goal of our pursuits:

Do we chase a universal truth, a single narrative to which all must conform? Or do we celebrate differences of human experience, accepting that our biases, when acknowledged and examined, can lead to a richer, more inclusive understanding of the world?

Montaigne echoes this sentiment through Anaximenes' rhetorical question to Pythagoras, highlighting the usefulness of seeking knowledge when greater threats loom over us. A reflection on the purpose and direction of our intellectual endeavors ought to be explored further...questioned even? Do we trust ourselves and our judgement?

Notes and relevant quotes I took while reading "The Essay's" by Michel de Montaigne:

"Si quid Socrates ant Aristippus contra morem et consuetudinem
fecerunt, idem sibi ne arbitretur licere: magnis enim illi et
divinis bonis hanc licentiam assequebantur."
["If Socrates and Aristippus have committed any act against manners and custom, let him not think that he is allowed to do the same; for it was by great and divine benefits that they obtained this privilege."—Cicero, De Offic., i. 41.]
Let him be instructed not to engage in discourse or dispute but with a champion worthy of him, and, even there, not to make use of all the little subtleties that may seem pat for his purpose, but only such arguments as may best serve him.
-https://toleratedindividuality.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/montaigne_essays.pdf 181-951 (chapter xxv-of the education of children)

Emulation and contempt ???

The pride and arrogance of so many foreign pomps, the inflated majesty of so many courts and grandeurs, accustom and fortify our sight without closing our eyes to behold the lustre of our own; so many trillions of men, buried before us, encourage us not to fear to go seek such good company in the other world: and so of the rest Pythagoras was want to say,—[Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., v. 3.]—that our life resembles the great and populous assembly of the Olympic games, wherein some exercise the body, that they may carry away the glory of the prize: others bring merchandise to sell for profit: there are also some (and those none of the worst sort) who pursue no other advantage than only to look on, and consider how and why everything is done, and to be spectators of the lives of other men, thereby the better to judge of and regulate their own.To examples may fitly be applied all the profitable discourses of philosophy, to which all human actions, as to their best rule, ought to be especially directed: a scholar shall be taught to know—
"Quid fas optare: quid asper
Utile nummus habet: patrix carisque propinquis
Quantum elargiri deceat: quern te Deus esse
Jussit, et humana qua parte locatus es in re;
Quid sumus, et quidnam victuri gignimur."
["Learn what it is right to wish; what is the true use of coined
money; how much it becomes us to give in liberality to our country
and our dear relations; whom and what the Deity commanded thee to
be; and in what part of the human system thou art placed; what we
are ant to what purpose engendered."—Persius, iii. 69]
what it is to know, and what to be ignorant; what ought to be the end and design of study; what
valour, temperance, and justice are; the difference betwixt ambition and avarice, servitude and
subjection, licence and liberty; by what token a man may know true and solid contentment; how far
death, affliction, and disgrace are to be apprehended; "Et quo quemque modo fugiatque feratque laborem." ["And how you may shun or sustain every hardship." —Virgil, AEneid, iii. 459.] by what secret springs we move, and the reason of our various agitations and irresolutions: for, methinks the first doctrine with which one should season his understanding, ought to be that which regulates his manners and his sense; that teaches him to know himself, and how both well to dig and well to live.
Amongst the liberal sciences, let us begin with that which makes us free; not that they do
not all serve in some measure to the instruction and use of life, as all other things in some sort also
do; but let us make choice of that which directly and professedly serves to that end. If we are once
able to restrain the offices of human life within their just and natural limits, we shall find that most of
the sciences in use are of no great use to us, and even in those that are, that there are many very
unnecessary cavities and dilatations which we had better let alone, and, following Socrates' direction,
limit the course of our studies to those things only where is a true and real utility:
"Sapere aude;
Incipe; Qui recte vivendi prorogat horam,
Rusticus exspectat, dum defluat amnis; at ille
Labitur, et labetur in omne volubilis oevum."
["Dare to be wise; begin! he who defers the hour of living well is
like the clown, waiting till the river shall have flowed out: but
the river still flows, and will run on, with constant course, to
ages without end."—Horace, Ep., i. 2.]

'Tis a great foolery to teach our children:
"Quid moveant Pisces, animosaque signa Leonis,
Lotus et Hesperia quid Capricornus aqua,"
["What influence Pisces have, or the sign of angry Leo, or Capricorn, washed by the Hesperian wave."—Propertius, iv. I, 89.] the knowledge of the stars and the motion of the eighth sphere before their own:
["What care I about the Pleiades or the stars of Taurus?"
—Anacreon, Ode, xvii. 10.]
Anaximenes writing to Pythagoras, "To what purpose," said he, "should I trouble myself in searching out the secrets of the stars, having death or slavery continually before my eyes?" for the kings of Persia were at that time preparing to invade his country. Every one ought to say thus, "Being assaulted, as I am by ambition, avarice, temerity, superstition, and having within so many other enemies of life, shall I go ponder over the world's changes?"

"Sic abiit a vita, ut causam moriendi nactum se esse gauderet."
["He quitted life rejoicing that a reason for dying had arisen."
—Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., i. 30.]

Is bias inherently detrimental, clouding our judgement and leading us astray from objectivity? Or is it a necessary filter, a lens through which we navigate all the accesses we have to endless information? Bias can indeed distort reality, leading to misconceptions and prejudice. Yet, it also allows us to embrace our individuality and cultural diversity, fostering a pluralistic society where multiple truths coexist.

The key lies in awareness and balance.

My issue with this is that there is absolutely no requirement to postulate objective goodness to explain these things, and to my mind the ontology of "objective goodness" doesnt even make sense. — Apustimelogist


An objective goodness is a definition of goodness that can be rationally used by everyone despite our own personal subjective viewpoints. Its the difference between, "Rain is heavy cloud precipitation that falls to the ground," versus, "Rain is a feeling of rainness." — Philosophim

:up:

I think the difference between morality and the scientific case is that presumably there is some kind of hidden cause out in the world separate from us which we are trying to make sense of and which bears out empirical data that we can use to evaluate our scientific models. But in the moral case the only data we have is our own opinions based on how people want the world to work. So there isn't really a sense in which there is some separate hidden object which we are right or wrong about. We are the analogous hidden object whose properties are contingent on what opinions we happen to have. Its then not clear to me that someone disagreeing objectively means one person is right and the other wrong. — Apustimelogist

A dichotomising epistemological claim is being made. — apokrisis

You're not seeing the point. The original question was in respect of:

A star is doing a cosmic solid in rounding up a dust of matter particles and wasting them to background radiation. It is a self-organising furnace serving the Second Law of Thermodynamics in a way that is "good" from the true pansemiotic point of view. — apokrisis

Here, you're trying to rationalise 'goodness' in terms of physics, where 'serving the Second Law of Thermodynamics' which is like the scientific replacement for 'serving God's will'.

But the end-point of the entire process is presumably the state of maximised entropy, the so-called heat death of the universe, which you then try to equate that with 'the pure state of śūnyatā'. I'm pointing out that it's a false comparison, it is not what 'śūnyatā' means.

And no, I'm not 'shaking my fist in anger.'

So good/bad can be grounded in this larger thermodynamic view. That was my point. — apokrisis

By some, sure, but how would this relate to the Good as that via which we, for one example, discern that a correct argument is good and an incorrect argument is bad? More specifically, how does entropy (or even negentropy for that matter) account for the goodness or badness of particular reasoning?

Being in the flow is just being well balanced as you scoot down the slope on a pair of skis. — apokrisis

This in itself is not beyond question. But even so, the views I was referring to pertaining to what I termed "Nature" and you termed "reality" have very little to do with being in the flow. For instance, is Nature bad/evil that must be conquered or is Nature good and goodness that ought to be aligned with? This issue regarding control over nature has little if anything to do with being in the flow.

Words like sentience are a problem unless you can provide some pragmatic definition. — apokrisis

Together with words like awareness and consciousness I suppose. I'll skip this for the time being.

But anyway, if all things are in flux then that is how stability is what then evolves from that. — apokrisis

Why should stability be valued - aka be deemed good - to begin with? This question to me speaks far nearer to the heart (i.e. core) of the matter at hand.

The in jokes you've mentioned you hold regarding process theory aside, no process theory will affirm that absolute stability of physical being either is or is possible to begin with.

Have to cut this short for today. Will check back in tomorrow.

Here, you're trying to rationalise 'goodness' in terms of physics, where 'serving the Second Law of Thermodynamics' which is like the scientific replacement for 'serving God's will'. — Wayfarer

Or putting something mathematically grounded in a jokey fashion.

:wink:

By some, sure, but how would this relate to the Good as that via which we, for one example, discern that a correct argument is good and an incorrect argument is bad? — javra

What else is pragmatism about as a ground for a theory of truth?

For instance, is Nature bad/evil that must be conquered or is Nature good and goodness that ought to be aligned with? This issue regarding control over nature has little if anything to do with being in the flow. — javra

Nature is its own self-balancing flow. And there is room for us in that.

It is not me that is defending good/bad as valid terms. I’m just pointing out why they are so reductionistically deficient.

Using the word “control” was obviously a bad move on my part. You have seized on the same reductionist connotations to drag this discussion into what I see as irrelevancies.

Why should stability be valued - aka be deemed good - to begin with? — javra

Again, you are wanting me to defend wordings that I don’t advance.

If “good” is pragmatic balance, then stability-instability has some good balance. There is indeed the plasticity-stability balance as is modelled in neural network learning models and other models of neurocognition.

It is how brains are known to work. They must learn easily but also not learn too much - add too much destabilising novelty to their hard won memories, habits and skills all at once.

Is it good to have brain that works efficiently, that can both change its mind and have a mind in the first place?

If you agree with this definition of goodness, then it is mathematically supported by models of cognition. Organisms live in the flow of their worlds by having this kind of neural balance.

Hey, my bad, just found myself with time to spare :smile: So I'll reply presently.

By some, sure, but how would this relate to the Good as that via which we, for one example, discern that a correct argument is good and an incorrect argument is bad? — javra


What else is pragmatism about as a ground for a theory of truth? — apokrisis

I see we analyze this issue via very different schemas. But to first answer your question:

Although more in depth answers would revolve around the pragmatic maxim, to answer in a single word: utility, of course. But then - that different variations of pragmatism as philosophy will address this same issue of truth differently aside - the implicitly maintained premises of this assertion have yet to be made explicit: utility to what or to whom? I here say, utility to that which seeks one or more as of yet unrealized outcomes to become manifest and hence actualized. But this directly revolves around that pesky set of terms you find problematic: "sentience" (literally, that which senses), "awareness", and the far more convoluted term of "consciousness". A rock (granting it is insentient, lacks any form of awareness, and hence holds no consciousness) will hence be in ownership of no truths. The pragmatic theory of truth, much like the correspondence theory of truth, will hence pivot on the occurrence of sentience. No sentience, no truths.

For the record, however, in a substantial number of cases I disagree with the pragmatist theory of truth. For one incomplete example, lies can be very pragmatic (in the sense of, "with a great deal of usefulness") when successfully enacted but are nevertheless not truths - even when they become believed as truths by the very same person which formally made the lie (this being one form of self-deception; e.g., many of Trump's statements and apparent beliefs). But this epistemological issue being for now overlooked:

This notion of pragmatic theory of truth neither addresses the question I've asked nor the substance of the OP. Utility - i.e, usefulness (to further make explicit what this implicitly denotes: useful to our accomplishing our goals/intents) - is itself to be deemed something good on what grounds? To better clarify via example, incorrect reasoning holds the potential to be exceedingly useful - everything from Orwellian propaganda to gaslighting and more. This then implies that incorrect reasoning is good when it is useful to satisfying the intents of, for example, tyrants, autocrats, oligarchs, despots, or authoritarians - specifically, it will be good for those just addressed (rather than those which they subjugate and manipulate via this incorrect reasoning). Yet this just addressed goodness of incorrect reasoning does not make the use of incorrect reasoning to subjugate and manipulate others (this in some respects often being a more complex form of lies told to benefit the ego of the liar, this by having those lied to hold untruths as truths) an ethical good. Or, for those of us who acknowledge global warming and its dire future perils: not changing to renewable energies is, and has always been, good (useful) for petroleum corporations, those who own stocks in petroleum, and those who value status quo stability above all else. But for those who view this usefulness as both shortsighted and egotistic, this same goodness (usefulness) is deemed to in fact be bad (if not outright evil, akin to what tobacco companies have been doing, but far worse).

I so far find nothing of physical entropy - or of physical negentropy - to ground what is deemed good, bad, or even useful for that matter. Instead finding these issues to be intimately grounded in the very nature of sentience, else awareness, else consciousness: in short, this globally applicable nature of sentience being the minimal incursion of suffering and the optimal obtainment of happiness in both short- and long-term time-spans.

You so far seem to disagree. On what grounds do you then justify good, bad, and utility resulting form the Second Law of Thermodynamics? More concretely asked, how does the Second Law of Thermodynamics constrain or else determine that incorrect arguments are bad rather than good even through they are (or at least can be) useful to those who espouse them?

Nature is its own self-balancing flow — apokrisis

That's one interpretation of what the nature of Nature is There are plenty others. I've even encountered those online who sustain that the term is utterly vacuous - this as some will say of the term "matter" (Thomas Huxley, who first coined the term "agnostic", here comes to mind) and yet others will say of the term "sentience".

It is not me that is defending good/bad as valid terms. — apokrisis

:lol: :smile: These staple terms are no more valid or invalid than any other staple term, "pragmatic" very much included. I think it's possible that you're overlooking much of what the terms good and bad signify in everyday use. You might not be stating that this just quoted affirmation of yours is good rather than bad, but via your apparently earnest expression of it you are nevertheless implicitly affirming your belief that the quoted statement is of a good, rather than bad, value - this to you if to no one else.

Besides, the very issue of this thread is the notion of pragmatism sans the Good. To which I can quote your previous affirmations regarding goodness - wherein you've addressed "good" as a valid term.

Using the word “control” was obviously a bad move on my part. You have seized on the same reductionist connotations to drag this discussion into what I see as irrelevancies. — apokrisis

OK, then please express what you intended by the term "control" so that it is not in line with the dictionary definitions I am so far aware of. Otherwise, the globalized notion you've expressed of "humans seek to control reality/Nature" is anything but irrelevant to the issues at hand.

If “good” is pragmatic balance, — apokrisis

I do not find "good" to be pragmatic balance tout court. To be both blunt and concise, I find "good" to be minimized suffering and optimal happiness/flourishing/eudemonia - maybe needless to add, of sentience, awareness, or else expressed consciousness.. And I find "the Good" to be a non-fairy-tale necessity for all forms of "good" wherein the "good" becomes quite literally perfected. The global constraint by which all instantiations of good are determined, so to speak. Else, that which constrains or else determines all actions to being either more good or less good. But yes, this so far seems to require a metaphysics quite distinct from that which you are advocating.

As to "good" being pragmatic balance between opposites, one could then state that an optimal balance between goodness and badness/evil (these two being opposites) is of itself optimally good. But this would be utterly nonsensical for more reasons than I think currently need expression. Taking the yin-yang of Taoism as one popularized example of balance as good, harmony between light and dark (etc.) is in and of itself a good that, supposedly, leads one to Wuji, this as "Wuji" was initially interpreted in the Tao Ta Ching - with Wuji being here possible to then interpret via Western notions as being "the Good". Imbalances between yin and yang lead one astray from closer proximity to Wuji and are thus always bad in due measure. But the yin-yang interpreted as a balance between good and bad will here make no sense whatsoever.

There is indeed the plasticity-stability balance as is modelled in neural network learning models and other models of neurocognition.

It is how brains are known to work. They must learn easily but also not learn too much - add too much destabilising novelty to their hard won memories, habits and skills all at once. — apokrisis

I'd say this is overly simplistic. Though more psychological than strictly philosophical, I've heard often enough among educational circles that cognitive dissonance, a form of psychological stress, is of significant benefit to learning. For example:

Meta-analysis of studies indicates that psychological interventions that provoke cognitive dissonance in order to achieve a directed conceptual change do increase students' learning in reading skills and about science.[60] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance#Education

So brains can well be argued know to best learn via the obtainment of cognitive equilibrium that ameliorates an actively engaged in cognitive dissonance. Without the cognitive dissonance, one simply maintains whatever beliefs one has and never gains any new perspective regarding life or reality at large. And the cognitive dissonance part is not easy.

For one incomplete example, lies can be very pragmatic (in the sense of, "with a great deal of usefulness") — javra

But this is not a theory of truth. This is not the application of the Peircean process of rational inquiry - the truth towards which a community of reason would tend. This is just lying for selfish interests.

The point of pragmatism is to transcend individual minds and overcome solipsism by following a method of evidenced argument. You are talking about social manipulation as “being pragmatic”. Something else entirely.

I think it's possible that you're overlooking much of what the terms good and bad signify in everyday use. — javra

I am happy to have a technical discussion about epistemic method. If you want to talk about the social construction of everyday terms, that again is a quite different inquiry. No point mixing the two.

But this is not a theory of truth. — apokrisis

The example wasn't intended as a theory or truth, but as an illustration of where I find the pragmatic theory of truth wanting (and, again, there are variations to it dependent of the system of pragmatism endorsed)

I am happy to have a technical discussion about epistemic method. If you want to talk about the social construction of everyday terms, that again is a quite different inquiry. No point mixing the two. — apokrisis

Hmm, my post pivoted around the issue of goodness, not around epistemic method.

I'd be happy if you'd answer at least some of the questions I've posed - granting that my latest post was somewhat long winded, I nevertheless did ask (at least a couple of) questions revolving around the issue of goodness throughout. But, of course, that's up to you.

But the elevation of pleasure as the sole principle by which the Good — Count Timothy von Icarus

But I should rather like to say that human flourishing — Count Timothy von Icarus

The whole idea of human flourishing is meaningless is it doesn't fulfill things people want or like. You cannot be "flourishing" and simultaneously not enjoying things in some sense or getting something you want out of it.

Clearly, the only way that a utopia can fail is that it has consequences which are things people do not actually want or like. The idea of "good" things is utterly meaningless unless people are receptive to those things because it benefits them, i.e. it gives them something they want or like in some sense.

The whole idea of human flourishing is meaningless is it doesn't fulfill things people want or like. You cannot be "flourishing" and simultaneously not enjoying things in some sense or getting something you want out of it.

Yes, I agree 100%. And this sort of gets at why Hegel thinks he can focus on freedom instead of Aristotle's eudaimonia (flourishing). Freedom implies happiness. A person does not freely choose to be miserable. To be miserable implies that one is in some way unfree to actualize one's desires (even allowing that, in practice, one might choose some degree of misery to actualize some higher good—but no one chooses misery for itself.)

Even Milton's Satan has to say "Evil, be thou my Good," since to choose evil as evil (as evil vis-á-vis oneself) is incoherent.

But I don't think our options are "the Good and human happiness reduces to pleasure, even completely unfree, infantile, bovine pleasures," or else "flourishing must be divorced from pleasure." For one, a human good defined in terms of such pleasure makes a person entirely reliant on what is extrinsic to them. The Gammas of A Brave New World fall into enraged rioting when their Soma is denied to them, and they would suffer starvation if their keepers ever neglected them. Such pleasure is not only largely bereft of beauty (and so inferior), but it's also intrinsically unstable because it doesn't generate itself.

The inverse of this sort of entirely extrinsically dependant good would be Socrates proclaiming that "nothing bad can happen to a good man," even as he faces execution. Or perhaps St. Ignatius and Boethius' serene and, ultimately, happy outlook, even as they are deprived of all comforts and face ghastly deaths.

Clearly, the only way that a utopia can fail is that it has consequences which are things people do not actually want or like. The idea of "good" things is utterly meaningless unless people are receptive to those things because it benefits them, i.e. it gives them something they want or like in some sense.

I agree, but would add more to this. The Good is the ultimate object of desire. People always choose things for some good they see in them if they are making any rational choice at all. But there is a difference between "what people currently want," and "what people would want if they were continent and possessing of all relevant knowledge." Clearly, we can prefer things that we later realize were extremely bad for us. The Good is not best judged from "any current vantage," but clearly better judged from a place of knowledge than a place of ignorance.

Indeed, for Plato, Hegel, Augustine, and a good many others, it is precisely our ability to ask "but is this truly good?" that gives us any ability to be self-governing in the first place. It is the open-ended nature of practical/moral reasoning that allows us to transcend current desire and opinion, and so not to be completely determined by what we already are. To paraphrase Socrates in the Republic, people want what is actually good, not what merely seems to be good or is said to be good. It would make no sense to "choose the worse," in the very same way that, from the perspective of theoretical reason, it would make no sense to embrace falsity over truth vis-á-vis what ones thinks is the case.

So good/bad can be grounded in this larger thermodynamic view. That was my point.

To be honest, I read your post a few times since I am a fan of CSP (as well as Deacon and other's attempts to use thermodynamics to explain intentionality), but it seems to me like you simply assume this and go from there. Perhaps I am missing some key bridge here?

In what sense can anything be "good" "from the perspective of the Cosmos?" Is the Cosmos self-aware? Does it have intentional, goal directed thoughts and experiences? Intentionality?

"But the Cosmos lacks this level of organismic purpose. It just is what it is," would suggest not. So what is the meaning of this "good" that has been voided of all intentionality and cognitive content? What does it mean that "goodness" is defined in terms of such a good? Something along the lines of eliminative materialism would be my first guess, since this global "good" would be bereft of any cognitive content and is simply defined in terms of a statistical fact.

And how can the Cosmos be self-organizing while lacking any self? Wouldn't the words "spontaneously organizing," or "mechanistically organizing by the laws of chance," describe essentially the same phenomena without the equivocal use of "self" to describe a statistically driven mechanical process?

There seems to be a large distinction between "the reasonable universe," which seems to actually be acting "for no reason at all" and the "reasonable creatures," who act for intentional purposes. The use of "good" for both seems completely equivocal. And perhaps this is why you have put "good" in quotes when referring to the universe?

But then, to my mind, it is only the creaturely "good"—the only one that actually involves a "self" or any cognitive content, intentionality, and goals—that bears any meaningful resemblance to "goodness" vis-á-vis mortality. So we seem to be back to where we started, since I don't think very many would deny that the "human good" or "happiness" is conditioned by (if not reducible to) biology, or that such goodness has to do the goals and intentions of minds.

For the first "good" to be good, we'd have to say something like "the universe is happy when it increases entropy at a greater rate." I don't know why we'd think this though, and at any rate, this would seem to assume that the final resting happiness for the universe is not "self-organization" but the annihilation of heat death. This gets at why Aristotle feels he needs a mover behind the world in order to anchor its final cause.

As to the reference to goodness as "mathematically grounded," while I very much appreciate Deacon's work and similar projects by others to ground intentionality in thermodynamics, these absolutely do not in any way give an adequate explanation for how first person subjective experience and purpose emerge. They might "get something right," but it's a very incomplete story. However, the most compelling parts of these sorts of explanations are, IMO, grounded in accepting a process metaphysics that removes the need for "strong emergence" even as it allows for something that is similar in key ways. But such explanations inherently deny reductions. Hence, while consciousness might be describable in terms of mathematics, it would not be what it is in virtue of mathematics.

At the very least, the idea that goodness reduces to entropy gradients seems to need some explanation of how entropy gradients result in phenomenal awareness. But such a reduction is also a catastrophic deflation of the ideas CSP is building on from Hegel, since it would seem to cut away the connection between goodness, rationality, and the "true infinite." To the extent that a mechanical process is sort of arbitrarily driving history based on the law of large numbers, it's sort of the polar opposite of what Hegel was getting at.

The whole idea of human flourishing is meaningless is it doesn't fulfill things people want or like. — Apustimelogist

I'd gladly challenge that. People want more than they need. Whether or not at the expense of others. And people like things that are detestable. So if this is meant to be a prevailing or base statement of a larger argument, I'd wisely reconsider.

People want more than they need. — Outlander

I don't think that is relevant and what people need can always be cashed out in terms of them liking or wanting to be in particular state.

In that sense, what people want or like might obviously be a much broader category, in principle, than what allows people to flourish. But that doesn't mean that what allows people to flourish isn't what they want or like. And really, the only reason why what people might want or like might be broader than what allows people to flourish is that different wants and likes can conflict, whether that is within the same person or between different people.

Returning to the original topic, I do wonder how much of the success of anti-realism has to do with how people have learned to think of alternatives to it as being something like positing "objective values." The focus on "values" doesn't really fit with philosophy prior to the 19th century. In it's current usage, it's a term coming down from economics. Nietzsche seems to have been big in popularizing it, and I honestly think he uses the shift to "values" as a way to beg the question a bit in the Genealogy (to the extent that it assumes that the meaning of "good" has to do with valuation as opposed to ends). I'd agree that the idea of something being "valuable in-itself," is a little strange, since "value" itself already implies something of the marketplace, of a relative transaction or exchange. At the very least, it seems to conflate esteem with goodness, which essentially begs the question on reducing goodness to subjective taste.






Presumably, Goodness, at least as the target of practical reasoning, has to have something to do with what people desire. However, to simply claim that Goodness is equivalent with whatever people happen to desire is to deny any reality/appearance distinction as respects the Good, which in turn entails that no one can ever be wrong about what is good for oneself. This is clearly false, which is why even Thracymachus rejects it out of hand when it is offered up to him as a way to defeat Socrates in the Republic. So it can't be a perfectly straightforward relationship.

Returning to the original topic, I do wonder how much of the success of anti-realism has to do with how people have learned to think of alternatives to it as being something like positing "objective values." The focus on "values" doesn't really fit with philosophy prior to the 19th century. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, great point.

The focus on "values" doesn't really fit with philosophy prior to the 19th century. In its current usage, it's a term coming down from economics. Nietzsche seems to have been big in popularizing it, and I honestly think he uses the shift to "values" as a way to beg the question a bit in the Genealogy (to the extent that it assumes that the meaning of "good" has to do with valuation as opposed to ends). I'd agree that the idea of something being "valuable in-itself," is a little strange, since "value" itself already implies something of the marketplace, of a relative transaction or exchange. At the very least, it seems to conflate esteem with goodness, which essentially begs the question on reducing goodness to subjective taste — Count Timothy von Icarus

The good for Nietzsche has to be understood not in terms of individual values but in terms of an organized system of values. A scientific theory is one such organized system of
values, with the meanings of the concepts being employed referring to each other on the basis of an overarching gestalt of meaning. Within such value systems , or worldviews, what is true and false can be agreed on, both in terms of moral and empirical issues. When the value system changes, so too do the criteria for marksman’s empirical truth. But one is never i ln a situation where there is normative structure at all within which to navigate such issues. Is there an overall evolution of truth from one worldview to another? I think one can argue this without violating the intent of Nietzsche’s thinking, but it would not be some kind of Popperian progress through falsification.

Presumably, Goodness, at least as the target of practical reasoning, has to have something to do with what people desire. However, to simply claim that Goodness is equivalent with whatever people happen to desire is to deny any reality/appearance distinction as respects the Good, which in turn entails that no one can ever be wrong about what is good for oneself — Count Timothy von Icarus

I am one of those who argue that desire is equivalent to goodness , if one defines desire in terms of anticipatory sense-making. One can never be wrong about the aim of desire to expand options and dimensions of understanding the flow of events. One can only be wrong about the consequences of one’s queries of the world. We construe things people a certain way and they end up invalidating our expectations. But this doesn’t invalidate the desire to know.