Some ideas:

Emergent consciousness is certainly a fact psychologically. We develope in stages thru life. The philosophical aspect is different for me. The self is certainly a substance in that the human body is a substance. The world is real beyond peripheral vision, the body is an organic whole: these are facts. Philosophy is in the Other-realm. Think of something existing in the multiverse. Then think of something existing in no universe, in a different dimension of possibility. That is the moving space of pure philosophy. It is not unknown but it is unknowable. Calling it nothing is the best because it is that, although the word nothing even says to much. In that "place" there is no substance, but just act. It parallels this world of bodies and brains. Where did the universe come from? Try the No Boundary Proposal. Where did the spiritual come from? Nowhere, emerging to be parallel with the bodies of the universe, which started whenever motion started, when matter or energy started to have activity. What causes this? Maybe gravity. So what am I? A body. Who am I? Anatman. Does the brain generate consciousness? Yes. Does the brain generate consciousness? No. Both

Emergent consciousness is certainly a fact psychologically. We develope in stages thru life. The philosophical aspect is different for me. — Gregory

Yes, I think this is a fairly clear take on how the difference obtains - your underlined doesn't relate to the philosophical issues much. But in practical terms, this is what we're trying to explain.

I think these other ideas are fertile, but incomplete (as to concepts) the way you've put them forward. An eg:

The self is certainly a substance in that the human body is a substance. — Gregory

This seems to require mind-body dualism, or a solution to the interaction problem immediately. So, to get around this, I would say lets be a bit more careful:

The body is an object. The 'self' is a being (ontologically) but consists in something over-and-above the body. Again, I don't accept this theory - But i think this formulation gives you room to clarify what you are taking to be "the self" aside from the physical body - acknowledging we are more than the body. (that's a thinly veiled question to you! LOL).

Since I'm not afraid to put ideas out there as my own, I would say that Absoluteness is nothing and there is nothing more final than nothing. So philosophy is about concepts relating to no thing at all, although it orients the brain to think in interesting and hopefully fruitful ways. Speaking with words such as "God" can have a lot of baggage, nor does the word "soul fair any better (although i am partial to both, especially the latter). The fact that the body is an organic unity is proved by sexual attraction. We notice the parts of the person as aspects of a whole. And the will moves the whole body through space. It's not as if I leave a part of me in another room when I roam the house, right?? There is the physical and the spiritual. Putting them together in non-duality is very difficult. Maybe i can do it someday

Putting them together in non-duality is very difficult. Maybe i can do it someday — Gregory

Fair enough. I think this might have been what I teasing out. I'm unsure, as I didn't expect anything particular LOL.

Thank you.

I wasn't talking about geocentrists, I was commenting on the plain facts about the rising and setting of the sun and the stars. This is the stuff of astronomy textbooks, not to mention thousands of years of observations by people all around the world. I don't know what is not veridical about that. Yes, this is a description of appearances. — SophistiCat

Well, yes, I fully agree with this. Probably, I wasn't clear enough.

"The Sun and the stars move from east to west" is a good descriptions of appareances. In this sense, it is 'true' and 'valid', yes.

The problem is the interpretation that we give to that statement. The ancient and medieval geocentrists clearly implied that such a statement described the 'external world as it is': the apparent motion of the celestial objects, to them, wasn't a mere appearance but the 'real motion' of the celestial objects.
They clearly didn't consider their model as a mere 'predictive model' but as an accurate description of the 'external world as it is'.

BTW, clearly we still use a 'geocentric model' in our daily lives, for practical purposes. As you say, it correctly describes the appearances. But we recognize, on reflection, that these appearances are mere appearances, so to speak.
So that's why I said that the statement "The Sun and the stars move from east to west" is provisionally/pragmatically true. But if it's interpreted in the way the ancient and medieval geocentrists did, it's false. Their mistake was an incorrect interpretation of appearances.

Do you agree with my analysis? If not, how do you explain the fact that those people were mistaken?

Are implying that there is a world beyond appearances that can somehow be known? — SophistiCat

Actually, no, my epistemic position is neutral about that. Still, I recognize that the 'existence' of a such a 'world' would explain better intersubjective agreement, the fact that we observe some regularities in phenomena and not others and so on. But at the same time, I recognize that empirical knowledge cannot give us a knowledge of such a 'world'. Nor we can be sure of its 'existence'.

Is that what you are referring to by the honorific 'a correct description of (external) reality as it is'? — SophistiCat

Yes and no. I think that the ancient and medieval geocentrists incorrectly believed that 'the world as it appears to me' is 'the world as it is in itself', i.e. their mistake was that they assumed a naive realist view (or at least a particular version of it). If one is a realist, but not a naive realist, I believe that yes the 'honorific' is correct.
Of course, some deny that there is a 'reality' beyond appearances. But IMO such a view does suffer to some serious problems (maybe not necessarily fatal, but they are serious).

Have it your way.
————

Are you saying the self is a substance or not? — Gregory

Not. The schema of substance is the permanence of the real in time, and it is only by it that the succession and/or coexistence of phenomena can be determined. On the other hand, while it is possible to think “self”, it is not and can never be phenomenon, and merely represents the permanence of the unchangeable in all our conceptions, rather than the relation in time of those, to each other, which is called cognition.

Descartes went to relatively great lengths to describe what kind of substance “mind” was, initial premise being, matter is definitely substance so if mind is very different from the matter of the body, it must be that mind a very different substance**. Those who came later made it clear that if substance is this it cannot be that, and while ol’ Rene was close enough in what “mind” does, he never quite let it be known how it does what it does, which, obviously, relates precisely to what it is, or at the very least, to what it is conceived as being.
(** F.P., 1., #51- 64, 1644)

he never quite let it be known how it does what it does, which, obviously, relates precisely to what it is, or at the very least, to what it is conceived as being. — Mww

Well he did have his Passions of the Mind which tries to work out how the mind works. But that it is a substance, well yes i've read the Meditations and Replies. I would agree with you and Kant that someone can't prove the soul is a substance, but I don't believe it is a substance either apart from biology. Descartes in the Third Meditation argues that a Supreme God exists by insisting that his thoughts were akin to Platonic realities and reality must mirror their substance. Since the thoughts point to a totality of Being, God must exist. The archetypes would be empty and incapable of being thought if they did not indicate what the thoughts were of. What do you think of that argument?

….God must exist. — Gregory

Yes, insofar as substance is that which requires nothing for its existence (F. P., #51), of which there is but one, re: God, hence all substance to humans then being that which depends on nothing for its existence in us, but still nonetheless requires dependence on God in order to even be in us in the first place.

But we cannot know of substance merely from its existential dependence, which I take you to mean by your “archetypes would be empty”, but only from an irreducible attribute by which at least the presence of a substance is known. He goes on to say “thought” is the irreducible attribute by which “mind” substance is known, extension the irreducible attribute that makes “thing” substance known (ibid, #53).

I favor this argument, or at least the ideas it provokes, insofar as it serves as the fundamental ground of subsequent transcendental idealist methodology, by which mind/body dualism in general became the established standard for epistemological metaphysics, and the ontology relative to existential dependence of substances being God, is logically negated within that standard, without contradicting its establishment.
(“Logically negated” here indicating not that it is impossible for God to be a causal condition of substance, but only that such causality is not necessarily the case. From here is developed the notion of pure practical reason, which in Kant is conditioned by freedom, and from THERE, is developed Fichte’s notion of freedom attributable over a much wider scale than mere thought, or substance of mind. And that development, finds no favor in me.)

Oh. Its Passions of the Soul, 1649. Maybe a liberty taken by a translator, that labels it as passions of the mind?

To the animal mind, the world is subdivided into separate, discrete things. Without a separation into independent parts, nothing would be comprehensible, there could be no understanding, and thought would not be possible. Common sense has us believe that the world really does consist of separate objects exactly as we see it, for we suppose that nature comes to us ready-carved. But in fact, the animal visual system does such a thorough job of partitioning the visual array into familiar objects, that it is impossible for us to look at a scene and not perceive it as composed of separate things.

Every species of living creature has its own mental segmentation of the world, that is, its own way of cutting up the perceived world into varied and separate things. Humans, no less than other animals, carve up the world in a certain way into objects, features, categories, natural forces, all of which constitute their reality*. The way we divide our environment into objects and other things circumscribes and determines our way of life as well as the way we see reality. Such a segmentation of reality is formed gradually over evolutionary time and is part of every species’ genotype.

A scheme of segmentation  is a way that the world is carved up into component parts. However, segmenting reality is more than merely cutting it up into pieces. The most significant part of segmenting the world is picking out those objects that are important and relevant to us**. Such objects are individuated, that is, made to exist in our world model. The same is true in other species: The objects that have been individuated are then recognized by members of the species, who learn how to act appropriately toward them.

To individuate a chunk of the world is to grant it recognition as an existing thing. It is not only material objects that are individuated, but also categories of objects, kinds of events, things people do, and so on. These become parts of our version of reality, and are inserted into our world model. There are countless different ways that reality can be divided up into parts, and the one selected for us is our scheme of individuation, or scheme of segmentation. — Pinter, Charles. Mind and the Cosmic Order: How the Mind Creates the Features & Structure of All Things, and Why this Insight Transforms Physics (pp. 67-68).

*This is what is referred to as the 'umwelt' or 'lebenswelt' of phenomenology and embodied cognition.

**This is what John Vervaeke refers to as 'relevance realisation' and 'the salience landscape'.

The book this is quoted from is considerably clearer than Hoffman, while also grounded in cognitive science. It makes the sense in which the brain constructs the cognitive arena we call 'the world' much clearer.

Yes a comparison between Kant and Descartes provokes many thoughts. What comes to mind for me is that the argument of the Third Meditation could, or may HAVE been, used by Kant in defense of noumena's existence. The thing-in-itself lives in twilight but it has to be there or else the world is made of plastic. I've never read Critique of Pure Reason in it's entirety. I think I've read 3 fourths of it, having skipped certain parts. The Meditations I've read many times but Hegel is the philosopher I've spent the most time with (maybe I can find where in the Greater Logic he comments on Kant's noumena!)

"The Sun and the stars move from east to west" is a good descriptions of appareances. In this sense, it is 'true' and 'valid', yes.

The problem is the interpretation that we give to that statement. The ancient and medieval geocentrists clearly implied that such a statement described the 'external world as it is': the apparent motion of the celestial objects, to them, wasn't a mere appearance but the 'real motion' of the celestial objects.
They clearly didn't consider their model as a mere 'predictive model' but as an accurate description of the 'external world as it is'.

BTW, clearly we still use a 'geocentric model' in our daily lives, for practical purposes. As you say, it correctly describes the appearances. But we recognize, on reflection, that these appearances are mere appearances, so to speak.
So that's why I said that the statement "The Sun and the stars move from east to west" is provisionally/pragmatically true. But if it's interpreted in the way the ancient and medieval geocentrists did, it's false. Their mistake was an incorrect interpretation of appearances.

Do you agree with my analysis? If not, how do you explain the fact that those people were mistaken? — boundless

No, I still don't know what you mean by 'external world as it is,' in general and specifically in this context. You say that the description is good, but it is not true to the 'external world as it is'. How can we know that? Apparently, not from appearances, since that is what is being described, and the description is good.

It is not veridical to claim the stars and Sun orbit the Earth. — AmadeusD

Although no one claimed this, this would not be wrong either, just a little misleading, since the statement suggests more than it actually says. The stars and the Sun do orbit the Earth in the earthbound frame, just not quite the way in which the ancients imagined it when they made similar statements.

I can't see the * comment, but this is plainly a misuse of 'literally'. If taken 'literally' it is, after investigation, entirely false. If taken as a description of appearances (i.e not to be taken literally) then it goes through. — AmadeusD

The stars and the Sun do orbit the Earth in the earthbound frame — SophistiCat

They do not. This is what 'taking it literally" precludes. This is not actually happening, no matter how it may appear so. Literally, the Earth turns and gives an appearance (which is not a true appearance) of other bodies orbiting the Earth (though, I've never understood this one. It seems clear to me the Earth turns on bare observation.. no matter). So, if it wasn't your intention, that's fine, but including the "literally" aspect means that the claim is false.

just not quite the way — SophistiCat

Not - at all - the way they ancients thought of it, which was a mistake. They described what appeared to be happening. It was not, and is not, 'literally' happening no matter the 'frame'. The frame is irrelevant to a literal reading.

Anatman. Does the brain generate consciousness? Yes. Does the brain generate consciousness? No. Both — Gregory

Interesting :up: I just finished researching and reading, Henry P Stapp's work. Might be of interest, I just posted in the Perception thread about this...I saw your comment now, after the fact and was pleased with seeing your refreshing take's throughout this thread.

By titling the thread, "Donald Hoffman," not only should that attract those who KNOW of his works, ideas, and concepts which is beneficial to YOU, looking for with more intel by sharing your own, that helps you. BUT also, the discussion introduces a name to people off the top. A name to remember, a name to research and a thing to read and a chance to change someones mind. A name in the title is going to be leaving an impression on peoples minds, I think.

Applauding this threads entirety and your bold voice, Gregory, as you share thoughts with an unapologetic approach. I enjoy reading the ideas from such forward thinking minds and people, thanks for sharing. The effort of your interest and passion is always going to be a helpful aid!

Thanks for the support and kind words. I enjoy the discussions on this forum very much and although I don't always know where they are leading, there seems to be a pattern working behind the whole project, and I hope everyone gets a lot of enlightenment from it

No thanks needed, its a pleasure! Though your decency is noted, so you're welcome!

I enjoy the discussions on this forum very much and although I don't always know where they are leading, there seems to be a pattern — Gregory

Me too, I love it all! I'm online reading along quite often :eyes:

So impressed and always learning something. :clap:

No, I still don't know what you mean by 'external world as it is,' in general and specifically in this context. You say that the description is good, but it is not true to the 'external world as it is'. How can we know that? Apparently, not from appearances, since that is what is being described, and the description is good. — SophistiCat

In fact, we can from appearances. After all, the model makes predictions that are in constrast with observations in some contexts. As I said here, actually (here you can substitute the word 'experience' with 'appearance'):

But note that if one accepts that experience is the starting point of knowledge and if one accepts that experience is also the way we 'validate' our judgments, then corrispondence is difficult to maintain.
I can infer something about the 'external world' from my experiences but how can I 'prove' that my inferences are correct? How can I have a certain/true knoledge** of them?
Induction is not compelling. Even if all my experiences were to be consistent with some of my inferences about 'how the world out there should be', then I would still not have a certain, true knowledge. All I can have is a 'best guess'.

But I can still detect errors in judgments. I can still determine that some of my inferences are incorrect if they contradict some of my experience. In other words, while I cannot determine 'truth', I can determine (at least some) 'falsity'. Induction might not be a solid foundation for truth but it is still able to determine the falsity of some judgments.

But of course, this validation that we get from experience doesn't give us true knowledge and so it is not enough for truth (I reject 'coherence theory of truth', because a judgment that is coherent with all experiences is not enough to be called 'true'). So what? I think that, at least philosophically, we should 'suspend judgment' about the 'external world', i.e. the world outside experience. There is no denial here about the 'external world', or how it might be. — boundless

In other words, we can 'falsify' a theory or a model if we discover that it makes erroneous predictions in some contexts, i.e. we find an incoherence between what the theory predicts and what we actually observe. This is enough to falsify the theory as a valid 'picture of physical reality'.
Still, however, this doesn't mean that 'falsified models' cannot be useful and correctly describe appearances in some contexts. So even if the 'picture of the physical reality' that they give is wrong, we can still use them in some contexts and for some applications - hence, they are pragmatically true (in some contexts).

BTW, why do you think that the geocentrists in ancient times and middle ages were wrong? What was their mistake?

The book this is quoted from is considerably clearer than Hoffman, while also grounded in cognitive science. It makes the sense in which the brain constructs the cognitive arena we call 'the world' much clearer. — Wayfarer

Thanks for the reference. BTW, I actually read and enjoyed Pinter's book and as you say IMO it is clearer than Hoffman's.

Anyway, what I was getting at is possibly more 'general', in a way, that Pinter's point. My point was that we can make a distinction between 'provisional' and 'ultimate' truths without any kind of 'explanation' on the reason why we tend to perceive the way we perceive. For the sake of the discussion above, I think that before giving such an explanation, it is important to make clearly the distinction between those kinds of truth and why it should be important.

. My point was that we can make a distinction between 'provisional' and 'ultimate' truths without any kind of 'explanation' on the reason why we tend to perceive the way we perceive. — boundless

Of course I agree with you, but then that is a distinction that we both discovered through Buddhist philosophy, whereas most folks on this forum (and I know this from experience!) will treat that with utmost suspicion. I think I’m going to try and write up something on this topic.

Of course I agree with you, but then that is a distinction that we both discovered through Buddhist philosophy, whereas most folks on this forum (and I know this from experience!) will treat that with utmost suspicion. I think I’m going to try and write up something on this topic. — Wayfarer

Yeah.

Anyway, while I believe that in Buddhist schools the formulation is more clear (after all, in their view it also had a salvific importance), the distinction is also present even in pre-socratic greek philosophers. Parmenides, for instance, developed a version of the 'two truths' doctrine similar to Advaita Vedanta. But even someone like Democritus developed one for his own philosophy. It is IMO a very useful framework to discuss any epistemological theory.

(As an aside, I believe that 'conventional truth', the translation that we give to the 'lower' truth in Buddhist/Indian philosophies can be misleading to us. We in it read a 'social convention', but it is more like a 'provisional truth' IMO I am not disagreeing with the translation but the point is not that the 'conventional truth' is a social convention...)

What comes to mind for me is that the argument of the Third Meditation could, or may HAVE been, used by Kant in defense of noumena's existence. The thing-in-itself lives in twilight but it has to be there…. — Gregory

Half-agreed, yes. Meditations 3, #14 and #15 forward a good, albeit generic, rendition of the subsequently infamous transcendental ding an sich. But it remains to be said, that has nothing whatsoever to do with the even more infamous transcendental noumena, for which, within Descartes’ notion of ideas and their relations to existent objects, and Kant’s of understanding and its relation to conceptions, there never was nor ever could be, any existence whatsoever.

Kant defended noumena as a valid conception in us, but that is not to defend the existence of any noumenal things for us. And for Kant, such existence cannot be defended, insofar as to do so contradicts the criteria by which existence of things is given.

Now, to be fair, he did say noumenal things cannot be said to be impossible, so maybe that can be considered a quasi-defense for an existence which was, for all intents and purposes, a mere conception. But to grant such existence in concreto destroys transcendental philosophy itself, which just might be why some folks go through the motions of attempting to prove it.

I am under the impression that Kant believed thing in itself or noumena was required for phenomena to appear. Remember, it was Gottlob Schulze who wrote that Kant contradicted himself in saying noumena causes the appearances in us even though causality is a law of phenomena. Schulze's argument is that of a rationalist and i certainly don't buy it

I am under the impression that Kant believed thing in itself or noumena was required for phenomena to appear. — Gregory

No need to remind you the tread subject is Hoffman. With that out of the way, and admitting I know very little of Hoffman’s philosophy, I’ll just say this:

….Kant’s thought is the thing-in-itself was required for the things that appear;
….the thing of the thing-in-itself just is the thing that appears;
….phenomena are not that which appears, but are intuitive representations of things that appear.

….noumena are never even in the conversation, they do nothing, are nothing, and cannot ever be anything, to us. They were never meant to be the same, never meant to be understood as similar or identical, as the thing-in-itself, but were only ever to be treated in the same way, re: as some complete, whole yet entirely unknowable something, by the cognitive system from which they both arise.

…..Kant says things-in-themselves are real existent objects (Bxx), but never once says noumena are anything more than “…a thing which must be cogitated not as an object of sense, but solely through the pure understanding….” (B310).

Gottlob Schulze was wrong.

We may need to chat about this one day. Not too too long in the future. But not right now, I Kant.

It's been a lot of work. :cry:

:cool:

I look forward to it, and the opportunity to be shown how something in what I wrote can be understood at least differently, and perhaps better.

Anyway, while I believe that in Buddhist schools the formulation is more clear (after all, in their view it also had a salvific importance), the distinction is also present even in pre-socratic greek philosophers. Parmenides, for instance, developed a version of the 'two truths' doctrine similar to Advaita Vedanta. — boundless

While I find this quite interesting, I wonder to what extent we should care about the second truth or the reality beyond our own. There may well be a Paramarthika Satya or ultimate realm beyond the empirical, but what of it? Can a good case be made that we should care about this and to what end? Asking for a friend...

No doubt the quest for enlightenment or spiritual relaxation seems attractive to some but how likely is it you will arrive there? I often think that this quest is just a spiritual equivalent of consumer culture and status seeking. Thoughts?

I’ll just say this:

….Kant’s thought is the thing-in-itself was required for the things that appear;
….the thing of the thing-in-itself just is the thing that appears;
….phenomena are not that which appears, but represent things that appear.

….noumena are never even in the conversation, they do nothing, are nothing, and cannot ever be anything, to us. They were never meant to be the same, never meant to be understood as similar or identical, as the thing-in-itself, but were only ever to be treated in the same way, re: as some complete, whole yet entirely unknowable something, by the cognitive system from which they both arise.

…..Kant says things-in-themselves are real existent objects (Bxx), but never once says noumena are anything more than “…a thing which must be cogitated not as an object of sense, but solely through the pure understanding….” (B310). — Mww

Cool Kant mini-primer... :wink:

Thanks, and hopefully I got it right enough. I got ’s attention, so…..we’ll see.

Sorry, very late reply. Will be long post.

No, CFD (counterfactual definiteness) simply implies that physical quantities have definite values at all times. de Broglie Bohm's interpertation is a perfect example of an interpetation which has CFD. MWI violates CFD because it assigns multiple values to hypothetical measurements, so it can be realistic and 'local' (although in a weird sense... after all, what is more nonlocal than a 'universal wavefunction' split at each measurement?). — boundless

Alright, fair enough!

So, in your view, if the particle configuration is definite at all times, how can you describe non-local correlations without a non-local dynamics/kinematics which involves some notion of simultaneity? — boundless

I had trouble formulating a reply to this. I don't have enough insight inside these theories to make strong statements I would like; nor are these theories and surrounding literature really complete in a desired way. I will just offer different perspectives which are incomplete whether from lack of literature or my own ignorance.

Perspective 1:

The original stochastic mechanics by Nelson has an explicit non-locality issue where marginal probabilities of particles depend on velocity potentials related to other spatially separated particles. I believe this is thought to be similar to the Bohmian issue.

In the non-locality section of his book, quantum fluctuations, Nelson explicitly shows that in principle a non-Markovian as opposed to Markovian diffusions resolve this issue (pdf for book can be found on webpage below) :

https://web.math.princeton.edu/~nelson/papers.html

And there is at least one variation of stochastic mechanics where non-Markovianity is explicitly used and this eliminates that non-locality issue that was identified (clicking the link below is a direct download to the pdf of the paper: Stochastic mechanics of reciprocal diffusions by Krener and Levy)

https://math.ucdavis.edu/~krener/51-75/68.JMP96.pdf

Again, I don't have access to any real deeper insights into these theories here and their further implications within the theories. All I know is that Nelson saw this non-local problem and it seems to be solvable in principle, especially via dropping non-Markovianity.

I guess I might as well note that Nelsonian stochastic mechanic has two other major issues - incorrect multi-time correlations and something called the Wallstrom problem but I think both issues can be regarded as more or less resolved or resolvable based on recent formulations and papers.

Perspective 2:

This is not stochastic mechanics but still a stochastic interpretation based on showing mathematically a very general correspondence between unitary quantum systems and indivisible stochastic ones:

https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.10778
https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.03085

In the following paper:

https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.16935

They argue their theory is causally local - analyzing with Bayesian causal models they find that measurements of observers do not causally influence each other (Sections VII-VIII near end). Entangled stochastic systems do causally influence each other but this is because their non-factorizable transition matrices have encoded their initial local interaction. It is just the nature of these systems they will fail to factorize until a 'division event' because statistical information is encoded cumulatively in the transition matrix (in the words of the author). I have no idea how this perspective relates to the first because they are just different stochastic formulations of quantum mechanics. Perspective 2 is actually explicitly non-Markovian; but again, there is no explicit connection that can I can see that would relate it to the issues in the first perspective or vice versa.

Perspective 3:

This not specific to the stochastic interpretation but an attempt to explain away non-local correlations in a way I find appealing. Has roots in various authors (e.g. Pitowsky will be mentioned momentarily) but perhaps best exemplified by the 1982 papers by philosopher Arthur Fine:

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=arthur+fine+1982&btnG=

It establishes equivalence of Bell violations to the absence of a unique joint probability distribution. Recent generalization by Abramsky:

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?cluster=12086196826892314859&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5

In following paper Abramsky talks about contributions of Pitowsky:

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?cluster=17313080888273101986&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1

Who noticed that Bell inequalities are actually a special case of Boole inequalities which have roots in the work of George Boole in the 1800s:

Boole’s problem is simple: we are given rational numbers which indicate the relative frequencies of certain events. If no logical relations obtain among the events, then the only constraints imposed on these numbers are that they each be non-negative and less than one. If however, the events are logically interconnected, there are further equalities or inequalities that obtain among the numbers. The problem thus is to determine the numerical relations among frequencies, in terms of equalities and inequalities, which are induced by a set of logical relations among the events. The equalities and inequalities are called “conditions of possible experience”. — Pitowsky

For certain families of events the theory stipulates that they are commeasurable. This means that, in every state, the relative frequencies of all these events can be measured on one single sample. For such families of events, the rules of classical probability — Boole’s conditions in particular — are valid. Other families of events are not commeasurable, so their frequencies must be measured in more than one sample. The events in such families nevertheless exhibit logical relations (given, usually, in terms of algebraic relations among observables). But for some states, the probabilities assigned to the events violate one or more of Boole’s conditions associated with those logical relations.

A violation of Boole’s conditions of possible experience cannot be encountered when all the frequencies concerned have been measured on a single sample. Such a violation simply entails a logical contradiction; ‘observing’ it would be like ‘observing’ a round square. We expect Boole’s conditions to hold even when the frequencies are measured on distinct large random samples. But they are systematically violated, and there is no easy way out (see below). We thus live ‘on the edge of a logical contradiction’. An interpretation of quantum mechanics, an attempt to answer the WHY question, is thus an effort to save logic. — Pitowsky

The force of this perspective basically is that what Bell violating correlations may have a formal cause not a physical one. The bizarre correlations could be formally entailed when certain statistical conditions are fulfilled, regardless of what system is being talked about. No information is actually being communicated across space between particles.

The question is then about what causes these joint probability absences? According to Fine, it is from non-commutativity.

Now there are many sources that attest to the fact that non-commutativity and associated uncertainty relations can be generically derived within generic stochastic systems, at least under certain conditions. In fact, this can be seen in the Path integral formulation where non-commutativity in that formulation comes from the non-differentiability (because of stochasticity) of the paths. Normally people see these paths as computational tools (purely out of incredulity). In the stochastic interpretation they represent actual definite trajectories particles may take.

Given that they are entailed formally, such correlations may occur in other areas with similar structures. Infact, it has been suggested that such non-local correlations are in principle possible in classical light: e.g.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.01615

Note, that classical entanglement is well-established in classical optics but it is usually only formulated in local "intrasystem" scenarios as opposed to the non-local "intersystem" scenario proposed by the paper. Given the setting is purely classical, the formal presence of non-commutativity or joint probability absences may be sufficient to provide the central mechanism for Bell violating correlations in that scenario or any other kind (e.g. social sciences they occur for probabilistic reasons albeit not as relevant because not about locality/nonlocality).

Whats most interesting is perhaps you don't need remarkably strange assumptions to get non-commutativity or virtually all quantum predictions our of stochastic systems.

For instance, the gist of the major Nelsonian stochastic mechanical assumptions are basically as follows - 1) particles follow paths by Newtons law had they been perturbed randomly; 2) the diffusion is time-reversible - which can be derived in kinds of equilibrium contexts where entropy regarding trajectories is maximized; and 3) the diffusion coefficient is inversely proportional to particle mass. And from that you can even reproduce the perfect spin (anti)correlations and Bell violations like in following dissertation and paper published from it (assumptions listed in dissertation).

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?oi=bibs&hl=en&cluster=16239473886028239443
https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?cluster=15973777865898642687&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5

Despite the fact many would say it produces unphysical non-local correlations (obviously I have tried to argue via Fine's theorem that these may be in some sense a formal entailment that transcends physics), I think its definitely relevant to ask why it is even possible for virtually all quantum predictions to be derived from some very pedestrian assumptions in the first place. Why is it that indivisible stochastic systems with definite outcomes reproduce entanglement, decoherence and interference? Its kind of miraculous - if such non-locality should be impossible for particles in definite positions, why is this behavior even derivable?

Point 4:

My last point will be about your point about simultaneity of relativity and preferred reference frames. I think my point would be that such issues are no reason to discount a stochastic interpretation because these issues seem to be quite general. They occur in hydrodynamics, they occur for relativistic brownian motion, for thermodynamics. Markovian diffusions in general are known to not respect relativity and have superluminal propagation (mentioned in second link below too). It seems that when you start talking about things like probability and randomness, their relation to relativity just is never straightforward, and so areas outside of quantum mechanics have been or will be grappling with this same kind of issue also: e.g.

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?cluster=17685845957935258058&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_ylo=2023

Relativistic fluid dynamics [1] is an important tool in the description of vastly different physical systems, such as the quark-gluon plasma formed in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions [2] and accretion disks surrounding supermassive black holes [3]. Early models of relativistic hydrodynamics were constructed in the mid twentieth century by Eckart [4] and Landau and Lifshitz [5], but these were later found to possess unphysical behavior signaled by causality violation [6] and the fact that in such theories the global equilibrium state is not stable with respect to small disturbances in all Lorentz frames [7]. These issues are not inherent to the formulation of viscous fluids in relativity.

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?cluster=16512488009491179103&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5

Before outlining our approach, a general remark might be in order. Usually, a diffusion theory intends to provide a simplified phenomenological description for the complex stochastic motion of a particle in a background medium (e.g., on a substrate [5, 30, 33, 34, 35] or in a heat bath [20]). Thus, there exists a preferred frame, corresponding to the rest frame of the substrate (or, more generally, the center-of-mass frame of the interaction sources causing the stochastic motion). It is therefore not expedient to look for Lorentz or Poincare invariant spatial diffusion processes (cf. Sec. 5 of Montesinos and Rovelli [39]). Accordingly, we focus here on discussing simple diffusion models that comply with the basic requirements of special relativity in the rest frame of the substrate.

(a long time ago, I read of some versions of this interpretation which are Lorentz invariant. So, I guess that this kind of 'simultaneity' doesn't necessarily imply a rejection of special relativity. I don't remember however the details) — boundless

Hmm; just to be short, I feel like the issue is very up in the air and not simple. Skepticism isn't quite unwarranted imo. Certainly there seem to be stochastic field theories that can fulfil relativistic predictions but apparently have preferred frame plus some of the Markovian superluminality.

Edit: Just re-phrasing / clean up. Shouldn't change content but additional point:

Paper with interesting suggestion if non-locality appears in classical optics, it suggests that it should be compatible with Lorentz invariance:

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?cluster=13776304742041840922&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1

Can't comment on what math says at all but I am guessing the logic is that classical electrodynamics is already in some sense compatible with Lorentz invariance/covariance.

My brain is fried. I dunno how I am typing right now. Yeah there's some stuff in what you quoted from which is potentially problematic from my perspective. But not today.

You will not bait me..... :halo:

No doubt the quest for enlightenment or spiritual relaxation seems attractive to some but how likely is it you will arrive there? I often think that this quest is just a spiritual equivalent of consumer culture and status seeking. Thoughts? — Tom Storm

Well, different people and different traditions would give you different answers. This will be a long post but of course not exhaustive about what how much these 'different' answer are among them, despite sharing a structural similarity. Clearly it doens't go into much 'depth' in this analysis, but I hope it should give the 'right' 'gist'.

Anyway, the reason why I 'introduced' the concept of the 'two truths' is that, IMO, it gives a general framework for evaluating the validity of some claims about empirical knowledge. The 'version' of this 'two truths doctrine' that I 'proposed' had the purpose to be as general as possible, i.e. someting that should be accepted by many people as possible. For instance, the phrase 'The Sun and stars move from east to west' if taken to denote a description of 'what appears' to an observer on the Earth's surface is clearly 'true'. But if it is interpreted the way the geocentrists did, of course, we know that is 'false' (because the 'literal' interpretation of the geocentric model implies some predictions that were discovered to be erroneous). Still, both a geocentrist and a modern scientist would agree about the fact that that phrase is a valid descriptor of what 'we observe'. Note, however, that I made absolutely no claim about the 'ultimate truth', which in the present contest is an 'ontological theory' of 'what external reality really is', 'how the external reality really behaves' or whatever.

Following, this premise, since you seem interested, I now make a long digression about how the 'two truths' doctrine/framework has been present in some 'Eastern' and 'Western' ancient models. Let's start by making a distinction, between what I would call 'gnostic theories', i.e. doctrines that say that indeed knowing the 'ultimate' is something that, at least in principle, at least some people can do (by spiritual practice, philosophical reasoning or whatever) and 'skeptical theories', i.e. doctrines that deny this possibility. Let's start by four examples about the first.

Epicurus clearly believed that, following Democritus, the 'ultimate truth' was that there are only '(indestructible and eternal) atoms and the void'. This belief led him to adopt the view that 'trees', 'rocks' but also 'humans' are derivative realities and also that something like 'consciousness', the 'soul' is an emergent propery, which disappears when the atoms change a determinate configuration. Hence, according to him, 'whatever happens after death' would not something to fear or to hope.

Parmenides, on the other hand, believed that there were two levels of 'truths'. At the 'higher level' of understanding, there was really one Being, eternal, indestructible and so on. How we get to 'realize' such a 'truth' and the supposed effects of such a 'realization' are unfortunately unclear, due to the fragmentary nature of the reamaining writing. But maybe it would have some positive effects.

In the East, I can cite the 'traditional Abhidharma schools' of Buddhism which, as far as I understand, held that 'trees', 'mountains', but also 'peoples', 'sentient beings' were only 'concepts' (prajnapti*) which didn't represent something 'really' real (they were merely useful 'fictions' for pragmatic purposes, that the 'unenlightened' mistake for something 'really real') - the reason being that such 'things' and 'beings' are composite and for them only waht is simple would be truly 'real' (these useful concepts made up the 'samvrti satya'*, usually translated as 'conventional truth'). On the other hand, the 'ultimate truth', 'paramartha satya*', is given by a collection of 'simple, irreducible things(dharmas*)' which are either 'conditioned' or 'unconditioned', like Nirvana*. The experiential realization of the ultimate truth was said to have salvific effects, i.e. the 'attainment' of Nirvana.

The Madhyamaka school, associated with Mahayana Buddhism, agrees with the distinction between 'samvriti satya*' and 'paramartha satya*'. But, this school (or maybe 'schools'), as far as I understand, denied that we can make any kind of 'conceptual representation' of the 'ultimate'. For them, both the composite objects and the 'dharmas*' proposed by the 'Abhidharma schools' were to be regarded as part of the 'samvrti satya'. The 'ultimate truth' is totally indescrivable. Again, the experiential realization of this ultimate truth was said to have salvific effects. However, it should be said that in Mahayana, the 'lower' versions of the 'doctrine of the two truths' found in the Abhidharma system could be still salvific because it still regard the 'self' as an 'illusion'/'illusion-like'.

On the other hand, there are skeptic schools. For instance, the Pyrrhonists believed that we should suspend judgments about metaphysical theories, while eomploying something like 'conventional truths' in order to function. This 'suspension of judgment' would give us some kind of 'peace of mind' or 'ataraxia'.
Christians too are somewhat 'skeptics' in this matter, as far as I understand. After all, the existence of the 'living God' and other spiritual truths were thought to be revelead truths (of course, some Christians believed that they could made 'proofs' for the existence of God, but I doube that they really believed that such proofs proved the existence of the 'God who revelaed himself in the Bible'). Also, St. Paul believed that in this life our knowledge is imperfect, confused (like he says in 1 Cor 13:12) and theerfore we should relie on faith according to them.

I could go on with more recent examples like Spinoza, Kant, Schopenhauer etc. But I'll stop.

To give a conclusion of this rather long post, I believe that these philosophers/religious figures etc believed that either the realization or the the faith or even the absolute denial of the possibility of knowledge of the 'ultimate truth' had serious positive consequences. Clearly, it wasn't for them a matter of 'idle' speculation and IMO the 'search' of any kind of 'correct version' of the 'two truths' was seen as something of the highest importance, certainly like a 'status seeking' or 'consumistic'. It also required probably less 'skepticism' that there is nowadays (even, ironically, for the Pyrrhonist in their ability to 'prove' the impossibility to find the 'ultimate truth'). So even if they might agree with you that it is 'unlikely' to arrive to such a 'correct doctrine', they still regarded it as extremely important or 'the most important thing to do'.
Of course, I am not saying that this 'ancient perspective' is unfindable nowadays or that in those time no one approached this kind of things for 'status seeking' or in a 'consumistic way'.


*these words are from Sanskrit terms.

Wow, thank you for the informative answer. I need some time to reflect to answer back. TBH, however, I feel that many things are above my 'level'. So, I'm not sure how useful will be my answer.

Anyway, forgive me for asking you another question, more a curiosity actually. But, how would you answer to Einstein's claim that a 'nonlocal' theory can never be 'realistic' in a meaningful way?

*Regarding non-locality, Einstein (probably influenced by the 'principium individuationis' of Schopenhauer) thought that undermines physical realism by itself (and this is the reason why he didn't like Bohm's interpretation, which is realistic). As he said to Born in a letter written in 1948:

I just want to explain what I mean when I say that we should try to hold on to physical reality. We are, to be sure, all of us aware of the situation regarding what will turn out to be the basic foundational concepts in physics: the point-mass or the particle is surely not among them; the field, in the Faraday - Maxwell sense, might be, but not with certainty. But that which we conceive as existing (’actual’) should somehow be localized in time and space. That is, the real in one part of space, A, should (in theory) somehow ‘exist’ independently of that which is thought of as real in another part of space, B. If a physical system stretches over the parts of space A and B, then what is present in B should somehow have an existence independent of what is present in A. What is actually present in B should thus not depend upon the type of measurement carried out in the part of space, A; it should also be independent of whether or not, after all, a measurement is made in A.

If one adheres to this program, then one can hardly view the quantum-theoretical description as a complete representation of the physically real. If one attempts, nevertheless, so to view it, then one must assume that the physically real in B undergoes a sudden change because of a measurement in A. My physical instincts bristle at that suggestion.

However, if one renounces the assumption that what is present in different parts of space has an independent, real existence, then I do not at all see what physics is supposed to describe. For what is thought to by a ‘system’ is, after all, just conventional, and I do not see how one is supposed to divide up the world objectively so that one can make statements about the parts. (Born 1969, 223–224; Howard’s translation)
(source: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/einstein-philscience/#ReaSep) — boundless