I wasn't asking for definitions of statistical significance or Protestantism, I was asking you what exactly "practicing atheism as a kind of secular Protestantism" involves or consists of. What does this look like, in practice? — busycuttingcrap

A secular protestant, lying on his deathbed, in defiance of his own emotional past as a boy raised Catholic, exhorts his parents, wife and children, to their great anguish, not to hold any type of religious services at his funeral.

A secular protestant breaks off his engagement to a beloved fiance because she and her parents insist upon a church wedding.

A secular protestant eschews observance of Christmas.

Only a "theistic" origin of the universe is "excluded". — 180 Proof

In my Apple Dictionary I see that theism derives from THEÓS or THEOI meaning "god" or "gods." Both theism and deism include God.

Christian Theism believes in an active God who relates with humans as a mentor. Deism believes in a passive God who leaves humans to their own devices.

In either case, God is acknowledged as the creator of the universe. Unless the God of deism is a physical god who created a physical universe, thus rendering deism indistinguishable from materialism, belief in a spirit God as creator is a metaphysical belief. This separates deism from atheism.

Atheism is the negation of acknowledgement of a spirit God as creator. A negation does not negate itself.

If I negate acknowledgement of light as the fastest moving material object in the physical universe, I posit a theory about what is not in the realm of physicalism. It is a physicalist theory.

In parallel, if I negate acknowledgement of a spirit God as creator in the metaphysical realm, I posit a theory about what is not in the realm of the metaphysical. It is a metaphysical theory.

Even if I negate metaphysics entirely, I posit a theory of metaphysics > non-existent.

Negation no less than affirmation attaches itself to the realm about which it posits a theory.

...an atheist only states "I disbelieve stories of 'the universe created by a theistic deity'". This is an epistemological commitment and not a "metaphysical claim" (whatever that means). — 180 Proof

If you turn away from a claim about reality because you are personally repelled by it, but make no commitment about the truth or falsity of the claim, that is doubt. Disbelief cannot be based upon doubt. Disbelief is properly based upon commitment to belief in negation. Committed negation of a transcendent God is a metaphysical claim. If you know there is no spirit realm housing a transcendent creator God, then you're trading in metaphysical coinage and that's a metaphysical claim.

I suspect a statistically significant number (certainly not all) of atheists practice their atheism as a kind of secular Protestantism.
— ucarr

I'm curious what this means, exactly; can you say more? — busycuttingcrap

Statistically significant means a set with a volume of members too large to be unimportant and not worth considering as a factor in collection of numerical data; a group too large to be considered insignificant.

Martin Luther and his followers revolted against the imperious control of the Catholic Church. Those who reject big organized religion in favor of a personal walk with God bolstered by bible readings are Protestants.

A secular protestant is a person who rejects God and the imperious control of organized religion.

Note - I abbreviate consciousness as "cons." -- ucarr

I do not understand atheism as an "ideology" or as derived from "axioms". One who claims, as I do, that theism is demonstrably not true and, therefore, disbelieves in every theistic deity, is an atheist. — 180 Proof

... atheism doesn't dictate any particular position on how (or whether) the universe began... only that whatever it is, God had nothing to do with it. — busycuttingcrap

We know from ourselves that our universe is a consciousness-bearing universe.
— ucarr

I don't dispute this, but others will, so I think that proving this should be your starting point. — RogueAI

↪RogueAI
We know from ourselves that our universe is a consciousness-bearing universe.
— ucarr
I took this as "I am conscious, and I came into being in the Universe, so therefore the Universe is capable of giving rise to something conscious." Which, as far as I know, can't really be proven, only experienced with an n=1. — tomatohorse

"I am conscious, and I came into being in the Universe, so therefore the Universe is capable of giving rise to something conscious." Which, as far as I know, can't really be proven, only experienced with an n=1.
— tomatohorse

That's actually a proof. It is not proven in an a priori way, but in an a posteriori or empirical way, but it's still a proof. — god must be atheist

If human cons can only be verified up to the level of practical experience of the everyday world a posteriori, given its presence in nature, doesn’t that allow, in the absence of preclusion, the possibility it’s source might be super-ordinate WRT nature? I'm not talking about a realm of mysterious power over humanity from on high. By super-ordinate I mean "a thing that represents a superior order or category within a system of classification."

If so, then that location might be supernatural or extra-natural, etc, right? On the other hand, if cons, like matter, takes the default position of having always existed, being neither created nor destroyed, then it’s axiomatic that nature is cons-bearing, right? If that’s so, then science begins with cons as a self-evident truth. From here it follows that axiomatically cons humans cannot, on a logical basis, be uncoupled from a cons sourced outside of nature. Thus a supernaturally-sourced cons cannot be logically excluded.

In spite of my speculations above, I’m in favor of propositional logic elaborating a continuity of symbolically representable expressions following strict rules of inference to the effect of proving nature is cons-bearing. A cons-bearing universe allows human to be Venn-diagramed with a cosmic cons, and that’s evidence of a cosmic dialogue, and that’s more interesting than the cosmic soliloquy of atheism, what with its trace of Hamlet’s suicidal despair (Camus).

Atheism excludes God as creator of the material universe. Does that not make atheism a theory of what the origin of the universe is not? If so, atheism is not independent of metaphysics. It's metaphysical claim says, “God did not create the material universe.”

Even if non-life can be scientifically transformed into life, science cannot explain scientifically the ground of physicality. Thus atheism as to the why and how of existence is no less an article of faith than is theism. Atheism is therefore a type of epistemology.

Atheism is not an ideology? I suspect a statistically significant number (certainly not all) of atheists practice their atheism as a kind of secular Protestantism. They don't want to live under the rule of a dictatorial, humanoid deity whose self-serving morals are brutally mediated by an elite priestly class of
clerics.

I'm trying to approach the premise of a super-ordinate theism from within the field of science.

My main idea herein is drawing a parallel with Riemann's zeta function.

Prime numbers are the axioms of number theory. The Riemann Hypothesis examines this. The zeta function yields primes on a critical line extending along the complex number line. This is where the primes are organized. So far, the critical line appears to be of infinite extent. How does one categorize the entire set mathematically?

I say in parallel axioms are the primes of scientific theory. Within scientific theory, they are the irreducible singularities. Do they too have a mathematical function that produces a critical set of axioms along the complex number plane?

Deus = the axiom plane. As the ground and source of existence, the axiom plane is a transcending, non-local dimensionalizer of actuated possibility.

Deus is uncontainable, even as an abstract concept. That it is super-ordinate to anything is a fiction of language.

Deus is prior to the singularity of the Big Bang.

Deus is evidence numericality is an essential attribute of the material creation. Numbers are discovered, not invented.

Some of the American Founding Fathers embraced an ideology that posits God the creator as the power that designed nature, there after withdrawing to his own council of self-sufficiency. Human was left to tease out the natural attributes by power of reason.

by reason the inherent features of the natural by the power of reason.

Partly for political reasons this ideology sets divine will and reason upon level ground. The Christian mandate for a transcendent God could thereby be somewhat appeased while the human pursuit of reason and practical production thereof could go forward free of incursions by a meddling church.

This ideology is Deism. It is an eighteenth century iteration of intelligent design. It discovers by rational examination teleology within natural processes. The headwaters of reason are acknowledged to be God’s will expressed as axioms funding and organizing the algorithms of rational practice.

Atheism, the ideology of only nature, no God* immerses itself within rational practice with axioms included. Axioms are “explained” as self-evident truths. Self-evident truths are claims of reason without reasoning arguments to support them.

Existence is the limit of reason. With an existing thing embraced as a given, reason proceeds thereof towards myriad permutations of rigorously parsed continuities.

Reasoning upon an existing thing can unfold and compact itself through oscillations that are sometimes deemed natural cycles.

When a new narrative gets expressed such that it turns a curve in the established narrative unfolding from self-evident truths, the comprehensive rational understanding deepens and new tributaries of reasoning emerge. This is a paradigm shift.

A paradigm shift occurs when a new facet of an existing thing flashes its presence like a scintillation into the comprehending mind of a thinking sentient.

Manipulation of permutations of self-evident truth continuities, logic, ranges out from its tether, the axiom. In so doing, logic falls prey to becoming arrogant, believing its axiomatic foundation is another part of itself, albeit a self-sufficient part.

Reason is a derivation of existence that only completes itself in the doing of being as presence. Presence, an existing thing, stands mystical in the pantheon of creation because the knowing of reason doesn’t know whereof presence arises.

Atheism, reason falsely divorced from the inscrutable otherness of axiom, the IAM speak of Deus, talks to itself within the oscillations of self-referential logic. It bites the hand that feeds it, axiom. Instead, it praises itself, swathed in the glowing raiment of self-referentiality. When you deny otherness, self-referentiality is all that remains.

We have thus the Big Bang Theory. This is the grand oscillation of nature. It is a continuity writ large that enfolds itself like a Mobius as it remains silent upon the seminal question of the origin ontology of the singularity.

Shall we intuit the singularity as the axiom of existence of the self-evidently true and physical universe?

*180 Proof

To Joshs,
God_human, though co-created simultaneously, are Venn diagrams, thus overlapped only partially; much of the makeup of each does not overlap. Just as different languages don't translate completely, God_human don't translate completely. This untranslateability entails some of the mystery of otherness.

Eliminate essential mystery and the understanding becomes overburdened. By rubbing against the unknowable, we keep ourselves vital and our imagination fertile.

I know from your writing you already know all of this. I'm just letting you know I too respect some of the essential and necessary contradictions that glitch the complacency of a smooth running understanding.

Is QM's vector-cloud of probability and its collapse not part of the observer effect?
— ucarr
Wtf? — 180 Proof

QM perceives the vagueness of the electron's position within an attached nucleus as a cloud of possible positions of the electron prior to establishment of a definitive valence under observation.

If God was “co-created alongside of human”, what accounts for the dualistic split between the natural( the human as a physical and biological entity) and the spiritual? These two realms seem to be interacting from across an unbridgeable divide. — Joshs

What do you make of the Venn Diagram problem?

What makes scientific naturalism ‘isolated and solipsistic’ if not as
one pole of a nature-spirit dialectic? In other words , don’t we first have to assume your nature-spirit co-creation , and then by subtracting away God arrive at a solipsistic physical nature? — Joshs

Do you find the unparsible nature of axioms interesting? Since nature has no approach to axioms save acknowledgement, there is the implication of duality with respect to origins: a) nature; b) unsearchable self-evident truths as arbitrary starting points for narratives. The natural sentient can decide the source of axioms is a mysterious power beyond the physical world or embrace natural phenomena as a creation of unknowable origin or understand the natural world as an eternal system without origin.

That is, if all there is is the natural , by comparison to what can we call it ‘isolated’? — Joshs

Do you understand the natural world as an eternal system without origin?

Kant made human conceptualization and empirical nature inseparably co-dependent, — Joshs

I see this is Kant's prescient understanding of QM that you told me of earlier.

What's 4D logic? Just curious... — Shawn

It is continuity of spacetime dimensional expansion within a hyper-cube.

Is Shroedinger's cat never super-positioned as a life/death ambiguity?
IIRC, the "live/dead cat" is only a construct within a thought-experiment that makes explicit some of the ways imeasurements of quantum phenomena are epistemically inconsistent with classical physics; the "live/dead cat" is not itself an actual phenomenon. — 180 Proof

I hope you'll agree thought-experiments are road maps to practice and experience. Google's qubit computer is not a thought-experiment. Is it?

I agree with you. Entanglement has all interested parties ruminating. Great!

But how do we know enough about consciousness to recognize it as a player in the universe in relationship to 'physical' components you refer to as accepted facts? — Paine

More than one physicist living today has claimed QM the most experimentally and phenomenally verified scientific theory of all time. Please present your counter-narrative.

Anthromorphizing compositional fallacy at the very least. — 180 Proof

If there's one thing that's not anthropomorphic, it's human consciousness. What does human consciousness look like? Does your sentience, considered as a whole, look like your physical body? Yes, your sentience has an impression of your physical body. Does that motivate you to claim your sentience is a facsimile of your body?

...without a clear conception of "consciousness" either in philosophy or science, the phrase "consciousness-bearing" is uninformative. — 180 Proof

We also know from QM there is crosstalk between observer and observed, thus establishing the essential sociability of both existence and consciousness. — ucarr

Without addressing its veracity, can you elaborate how the above claim is devoid of intelligible content?

The rest of your post, trafficking as it does in pseudo-science / misinterpreting QM's 'observer effect', doesn't make much sense either except maybe as wishful thinking (i.e. "theology"). — 180 Proof

Is QM's vector-cloud of probability and its collapse not part of the observer effect? Is Shroedinger's cat never super-positioned as a life/death ambiguity? Is the wave function not hard to establish and easy to collapse within the lab?

Lastly, I don't recognize the theisms of Abrahamic, Vedic, or any other pagan faiths in your account, ucarr, so on that point, again, I don't know what you mean by "theism" or, for that matter, "atheism". — 180 Proof

Theism claims God-Spirit dwells beyond the natural world and, moreover, causes its histories and experiences as physical events. — ucarr

What is it about the above description of theism you fail to recognize?

Does my premise that atheism, in denying God-Spirit's dwelling outside of the phenomenal universe, (thus rendering it a solitude of self-contained physicalist sentience), position itself as a point of obscurity to you?

Did you not introduce transcendence as what the 'physical' could not provide? — Paine

Life propagating spontaneously from a physical ground is transcendent holism. — ucarr

In the above statement I'm trying to say consciousness is an emergent property of elements and compounds. This claim presumes a physical foundation of awareness that supports it non-reductively. The foundation and the emergent property, being linked, are not mutually exclusive.

How do you know that a 'physical ground' is bereft of life? — Paine

You first suggested I deal in the currency of non-vital substance.

This is the dilemma that both modern religious and scientific thinking has created for itself. — Joshs

...it still insists on deriving this dynamism, interconnectedness and historical becoming from a ground which is anything but dynamic. — Joshs

Why does change have to ‘ come from’ something unchanging , some dead first cause, either nothingness or a God who creates axioms? Isn’t such a creator the essence of solitude and isolation? — Joshs

I have tried to show that God-Spirit is never alone, was co-created alongside of human. I have tried to say identity is socially negotiated by insight of QM. I have placed the self-and-other dialogue at the core of reality. The gist of my premise, that IAM speak forestalls the isolation of solipsism, abhors a vacuum. Where have I said or suggested the creation is static?

How do you know that a 'physical ground' is bereft of life? It seems like you excluded the possibility as an assumption in order to introduce it as a necessity. — Paine

If life has no discrete physical boundaries, does not emerge from non-vital substance, then the universe is wholly alive and the animism of the ancients has always been true. I hold no opposition to this claim. If I have implied otherwise, I have blundered in some of my assumptions and in some of my language.

Premise – {a,b,c} ⇚⇛ a,b,c

Set abc leads to a,b,c as independent members of itself and independent members a,b,c independently and respectively lead to set abc.

Argument

Set abc includes members biology, chemistry, physics. These disciplines are grounded upon general concepts of set abc and are thus members of set abc.

The particulars of each discipline imply, as generalizations, the general concepts of set abc. This allows us to say a,b,c independently and respectively lead to set abc.

The general concepts of set abc lead to the particular applications a,b,c and vice versa.

This argument therefore supports {a,b,c} ⇚⇛ a,b,c.

Conclusion

The greater scope of inclusion (of a set) does not necessarily logically prioritize this set above its members.

The upshot of the above argument is that the discovery of science and the general conceptualization of metaphysics comprise an oscillation between deduction/induction.

The claim made directly below exemplifies with particulars the oscillation between deduction/induction.

Of course a cutting edge philosopher must have absorbed the most most advanced scientific ideas of their day. This is because those sciences are philosophical positions articulated via the conventionalized vocabulary of science. If they don’t, they will simply be repeating what a science has already articulated. The same. is true of science. If an empirical
researcher in psychology or biology has not assimilated
the most advanced thinking available in philosophy they will simply be reinventing the wheel. — Joshs

There is an open, bi-directional flow between the two poles. For these reasons, I claim that physics_metaphysics are logical contemporaries. Anyone who performs both functions moves between the roles of scientist and metaphysician.

There are some useful distinctions between the two roles.

Science is discovery through direct interaction with the material universe. In the wake of these discoveries, generalizations can be induced as metaphysics.

If a thinker induces generalizations a priori, henceforth oscillating therefrom to the particulars of their application, s/he is first a scientific theoretician and thereafter a scientist.

When a thinker induces generalizations from scientific premises, theories and experimental data, s/he is a metaphysician.

In my Apple Dictionary I have an animated graphic most instructive. It starts with a black dot (point) that expands to a line that expands to an area that expands to a cube that expands to a hypercube.

This exemplifies "an upwardly dimensional axis of progressively complex dimensionally unfolding matrices."

This is my view of the ultimate medium, reality.
— ucarr

Not sure I follow. Are you saying that the possibilities for a human life are immeasurably fecund and the most authentic life is one of continual learning and reinvention? — Tom Storm

You and I live in a reality that has three spatial dimensions expanded + spacetime. Time and motion are a part of everything we do in our lives.

I'm saying our universe, as evidenced by QM and string theory, includes expanded spatial dimensions additional to the four mentioned above. Newly discoverable types of time and motion are available for our enrichment. In saying this, I'm answering your earlier response to something I said (both quoted below).

This leads me to the following difficult conceptualization: all of existence is physical, and yet the metaphysical is integral to this physicality. I proceed forth from this puzzle by claiming metaphysics_physics are coordinate and contemporary with each other. Furthermore, metaphysics_physics are both independently and mutually non-reductive. Lastly, all of the preceding suggests to me our universe is an upwardly dimensional axis of progressively complex dimensionally unfolding matrices.
— ucarr

If this is the case, what does this contribute to your understanding of the world and models of reality? — Tom Storm

Well, the metaphysical ideas of identity and causality, for instance, are themselves abstracted from experience, and most (if not all) of these abstracted ideas of metaphysics are in application to the "real world" as we best interpret it. — javra

You, like Joshs, acknowledge the person-world interaction (PWI) as the starting point for cognition. IOW (In other words), PWI is the ground of cognition. I'm struggling to see how metaphysics jumps to the top of the logical flow chart WRT (With respect to) translation of PWI into awareness_analysis_understanding.

As to the issue of normalization, I merely intended to evidence that there cannot be concepts in physics without a preestablished foundation of metaphysical concepts. — javra

...one can work with metaphysical concepts abstracted from experience - however tacitly they might be held - without in any way entertaining concepts in physics... — javra

With the above two statements you begin to claim metaphysics is the first category of learning done by humans. The suggestion is that metaphysics is cognitive scaffolding for logical structuring of data from scholarship across the spectrum of academic disciplines.

a toddler will actively learn and apply metaphysical concepts such as those of identity/change and causation - this non-linguistically - without making use of concepts pertaining to physics, be it Newtonian physics or that of relativity. — javra

Also, humans first learn metaphysically from informal empirical experience, such as that of a child learning causation after touching a hot stove.

In my view your examples show categorical learning across the spectrum of academic disciplines occurring simultaneously with generalized logical organization of over-arching, multi-discipline concepts. I'm wondering if you and Joshs are crediting the broad reach of metaphysics that over-arches the spectrum of disciplines and empirical experiences with the additional merit of logical priority to said without warrant.

The crux of our disagreement might be your view: placing metaphysics logically first, conflicting with my view, placing metaphysics_physics logically simultaneous. (Note - In the preceding sentence, "physics" is a special usage gathering the spectrum of academic disciplines and empirical experiences under the rubric "physics.")

Generalization of logical data organization to a multi-disciplinary scope of inclusion does not necessarily grant such expanded scope logical priority to the disciplines included.

On the contrary, exploration within the separate disciplines generates discipline-specific data which is then subsequently generalized to a scope of application perhaps characterizable as metaphysics.

I accept top placement of metaphysics on a flow chart tracking scope of inclusion.

I don’t accept top placement of metaphysics on a flow chart tracking logical priority.

I think you and Joshs, in your conceptualization of metaphysics, are conflating scope of inclusion with logical priority.

When I say that metaphysics is prior to modern physics I just mean that theorization is ‘prior’ to any particular historical content of a theory. — Joshs

Let's focus on the difference between historical priority and categorical priority.

With the former, we have a linear sequence of ordinal positions. As the sequence grows it increases the number of positions prior to latter positions. If this ordinal sequence expands along a temporal axis, then we have an expansion of historical priors. A latter position may or may not inhabit a causal relationship as a derivative of a prior. Thus a prior position and a latter position might be logically equal, with a relationship devoid of the attribute of derivation. Their respective dates of temporal occurrence have no bearing upon their logical equality.

With the latter, we have an analytical sequence of logical positions. As the sequence grows it increases the number of derivatives with prior causes. Each latter position inhabits a causal relationship as a derivative of a prior.

With categorical priority, the temporal axis of dates of occurrence of positions is excluded. This means that a position temporally latter can be logically prior to a position that predates it. Thus a scientist of antiquity who, after observing a stone roll downhill numerous times, declares that space is a neutral expanse inside of which a tug of war rages between a little stone (the one rolling down the hill) and a big stone (earth at the bottom of the hill), makes a statement derivative of Einstein's Relativity. This notwithstanding the scientist of antiquity working twenty centuries before Einstein.

This is so because the ancient theory, having no concept of light speed velocities, comprises a volume of truth content derivative of Relativity, a concept comprising a volume of truth content containing both everyday and light velocities.

My position rejects the categorical priority of metaphysics WRT physics, modern or otherwise.

Metaphysics is not prior to the self-world interaction, but it is prior to ( the condition of possibility for) modern physics. — Joshs

With your statement above, do you reject the categorical priority of metaphysics WRT physics, modern or otherwise?

I ask this because saying "Metaphysics is prior to the condition of possibility for modern physics." is far from saying "Metaphysics is only temporally prior to modern physics."

With the former, you leave in the proviso that "a sequence of necessary metaphysical concepts predates their culmination in modern physics."

You are again addressing the issue in terms of metaphysical worldviews rather than, as I specifically asked for, metaphysical concepts. — javra

Metaphysical concept Vs. Metaphysical worldview > Is the difference that concept is an abstract idea whereas worldview is an abstract idea in application to the real world and thus contextualized empirically?

I believe the main function of metaphysics is taking abstract concepts and contextualizing them empirically. Its job is to show how ideas operate in our everyday lives.

It is the job of science to discover abstract descriptions of the world via experimentation. Einstein does this with Relativity.

It is the job of metaphysics to normalize empirically those descriptions of the world that are abstract, thus making them pictures of the everyday world. Heidegger does this with ontology.

Asking the same question I previously asked in greater detail: How can one justify physicality in manners that make no use of identity or change, space or time, causation, and necessity or possibility? All these being subjects of metaphysics and most of these not being topics of investigation in physics. — javra

If I make one substitution to your above statement to the following effect "How can one contextualize physicality in manners that... and necessity or possibility?" then I get a statement that leads directly into> metaphysics normalizes empirically those descriptions of the world that are abstract i.e. "identity or change, space or time, causation, and necessity or possibility."

Normalize means herein to place into an operational environment. For an example consider that Spacetime, as an abstract concept, actually is grounded in a string of neural networks communicating via modulated electric currents. From this cerebral ground, the metaphysician talks about how it is that a ball rolls downhill and comes to rest there. She then goes on to talk about how humans, living within a gravitational universe, must strive, via sweat and brow, to conform to a moral imperative that mandates a vigorous work ethic that, at bottom, is counterforce sustained against a world of resistance. The scientist discovers the math narrative of spacetime. The metaphysician narrates the moral compass described by the the curve of spacetime in humans' everyday world.

Indeed, metaphysics is morally grounded.

As far as how to justify physicality (in a way that makes use of identity or change, space or time, causation, and necessity or possibility), abstractions such as those listed here become indirect objects "affected" by justification of a string of neural networks communicating via modulated electric currents i.e. by justification of abstract concepts within one's head.

When the metaphysician tells me I must work hard and strive to achieve worthy goals, she's dialoguing with her concept of spacetime, an abstract concept neurally grounded within her head. That is what she justifies. She makes no direct justification of a ball rolling downhill.

I didn’t mean to leave the impression that I thought a metaphysical framework is generated ‘in the head’ before and outside of exposure to an outside world. — Joshs

...subject and object, are not two separate realms, they are only poles of an indissociable interaction. — Joshs

Through this interactive experiencing we construct and evolve schemes of understanding and predicting ( metaphysics) — Joshs

Using the physical object as the starting point for our understanding of the self-world interaction is getting it backwards, — Joshs

In your first three statements quoted above, you acknowledge the physics_metaphysics relationship as being a kind of mobius strip of "indissociable interaction."

In your fourth statement quoted above, you jump to a linear-time conceptualization of the physics_metaphysics relationship. You ascribe to me an erroneous sequencing that makes physics prior to metaphysics (and thus falsely causal) while implying with "backwards" that the correct sequencing makes metaphysics prior to physics (and thus correctly causal).

...because we are starting with a sophisticated metaphysical scheme without recognizing that modern concepts of the physical object are the products of a long constitutive development , the evolution from one metaphysical scheme to the next( scientific paradigms) that involves the communication among many subjective perspectives within an intersubjective scientific community. — Joshs

In your fifth statement quoted above, you proceed to an argument that buttresses metaphysics as the cause of physics by stating that "modern concepts of the physical object are the products of a long constitutive [cerebral] development..."

Your statements, considered as evidence, suggest deep internal conflict within your mind. You know cerebration is indissociable from experience, and yet, when push comes to shove, according to your heart's desire, you must assert that metaphysics is both temporally and logically antecedent to physics.

You go all the way to implying humans cannot perceive physical objects but through the lens of humanity's collective conceptualization (over time) of physical objects.

We're wrestling with a gnarly interweave. This interweave is a complex nexus of bi-conditional syntheses_analyses. Both poles are foundational to sentient life. Their dance together, a swirling dervish, creates a dynamism of yin-yang conflict, the soul of great debates.

In ascribing to me a false linearity with physics in the front position, you mis-read me. I've been saying for some time now, "physics_metaphysics are coordinates and contemporaries."

What's hard to do is talk about physics_metaphysics in a way that removes temporal and logical sequencing from their inter-relationship. This difficulty here in the west is partly do to the influence of our classical culture, scientific and religious, that tends to elevate the value of cognition (especially abstractions) above the value of the physical. Removing TLS (Temporal Logical Sequencing) places the poles onto level ground qualitatively, and that's hard to do because it bucks twenty centuries of bias.

...to me our universe is an upwardly dimensional axis of progressively complex dimensionally unfolding matrices.
— ucarr

If this is the case, what does this contribute to your understanding of the world and models of reality? — Tom Storm

ma·trix | ˈmātriks |
noun (plural matrices | ˈmātrəˌsēz | or matrixes)
1 an environment or material in which something develops; a surrounding medium or structure: free choices become the matrix of human life.

In my Apple Dictionary I have an animated graphic most instructive. It starts with a black dot (point) that expands to a line that expands to an area that expands to a cube that expands to a hypercube.

This exemplifies "an upwardly dimensional axis of progressively complex dimensionally unfolding matrices."

This is my view of the ultimate medium, reality.

Making things interesting is the fact the world is full of Hemingway knockoffs who keep telling me most ideas beyond beer, dames, sports and money are twaddle spewed by idlers who need to get real jobs. You can however get exemption from assignment to the woo woo chorus by scoring a career that pays living wages for commercially viable twaddle (academics/entertainment).

Your argument is predicated upon an inter-relationship between external stimuli/internal processing. If newborns could survive in sensory deprivation chambers (they can't) no suppositions (verifiable in behavior), pre or post would evolve internally*. I presently see no way to uncouple (or semi-uncouple) metaphysics from physics.

*Let's say some infantile suppositions do evolve within. I argue the source of such suppositions is still external i.e. the intra-mural particulars of the deprivation chamber communicated to the infants senses.

If

"Some metaphysics is integral to physics. This is metaphysics. Therefore this is integral to physics". — Banno

gets modified to

"Some metaphysics is integral to physics. This is metaphysics $\leftrightarrow$physics. Therefore, metaphysics = physics for $\sum_{i=mp}^{i=p}$". — ucarr

You have a statement that correctly interprets my verbal claim, however

A$\leftrightarrow$[AAA…] ∦ ∫$\leftrightarrow$$\sum_{i=mp}^{i=p}$

so your refutation fails because of irrelevance.

I assert the physicality of language
— ucarr
Type/token. — Banno

Language, although iconic, is not abstract. Likewise thought.

↪Metaphysician Undercover Your response seems disingenuous. On the one hand you claim that Planck units are "fictitious" and then on the other you claim that "falsity often works well". :roll: — 180 Proof

Amen!



I think the characterization of your latest post by 180 Proof is spot on.

I strongly suspect process philosophy, as expressed in its claims, is much more nuanced than your present language communicates.

Over time I think you should re-read process philosophy with an aim to achieving a closer and deeper reading of the material. At present your interpretations are simplistic and your defensive counter-narratives broadsides that don’t do justice to the ideas.

You and Banno are telling me Kant, no less than Einstein, was a physicist. From this we understand language is an integral component of physics, and thus our thoughts possess materiality no less than the mountains and rivers surrounding us. Experimental results showing inescapable entanglement of observer and observed, with macro-scale dimensions of super-atomic universe stabilizing super-position of the wave function into discreteness, confirm the interweave. This is simultaneously confirmation of Logos in the Neo-Platonic and Christian senses. Thus the miracles of Jesus, sinless practitioner of Logos, are scientifically verifiable phenomena. — ucarr

Nor this [Nor does the above follow logically]. — Banno

In counter-narrating the claims of Joshs, I assert the physicality of language (and therefore the physicality of metaphysics). As examples of the physics of language, I cite the Pentatuch (Genesis) and the miracles of Jesus.

Show me where my logic is flawed.

In section two above, Joshs claims

these [metaphysics_physics] are not separate, potentially overlapping domains. — Joshs

And he also claims

There can be no physics without linguistic conceptualization, and there can be no physics without metaphysics as its condition of possibility. — Joshs

We see from the above that Joshs links metaphysics_physics as cofunctions, with the additional detail that metaphysics is a pre-condition of physics. This conjunction of co-functionality and causality intuitively feels to me messy and wrong. Also, the temporal element of causality placing metaphysics prior in time to physics I think contradicted by empirical experience.

You can't cogitate the metaphysics of a material object prior to its existence because material objects cannot be cogitated - which to say, cannot be rationalized - into being. The existence of material objects is always axiomatic. No existence of any kind has ever been rendered such (extant) via reasoning.

This leads me to the following difficult conceptualization: all of existence is physical, and yet the metaphysical is integral to this physicality. I proceed forth from this puzzle by claiming metaphysics_physics are coordinate and contemporary with each other. Furthermore, metaphysics_physics are both independently and mutually non-reductive. Lastly, all of the preceding suggests to me our universe is an upwardly dimensional axis of progressively complex dimensionally unfolding matrices.

By way of summary of what I have said:

Some of what is called metaphysics is just nonsense.
Some of what is called metaphysics is integral to physics.
Some of what is called metaphysics has been clearly defined, by Popper, Watkins, etc, according to it's logical structure.
So, some of what has been called metaphysics is legitimate, some not. — Banno

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

↪ucarr

Is the above an example of physics masquerading as metaphysics, or is it an example of authentic metaphysics sharing fundamentals with physics?
— ucarr

This is like asking if physics masquerades as linguistic conceptualization, or if linguistic conceptualization shares fundamentals with physics. Of course, the answer is that these are not separate, potentially overlapping domains. Rather, the former is the pre -condition for the latter. There can be no physics without linguistic conceptualization, and there can be no physics without metaphysics as its condition of possibility. — Joshs

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You and Banno are telling me Kant, no less than Einstein, was a physicist. — ucarr

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the first section above, you say "Some of what is called metaphysics..." implying this "some" can have a legitimate label other than "metaphysics." As an alternate, legitimate label, I say "physics." It's logical for me to say this because, in your statement, you claim this "some" is integral to physics.

in·te·gral | ˈin(t)əɡrəl, inˈteɡrəl |
adjective
1 necessary to make a whole complete; essential or fundamental: games are an integral part of the school's curriculum | systematic training should be integral to library management.
The Apple Dictionary

If a is essential to b, then a is of the essence of b.

es·sence | ˈesəns |
noun
the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract, that determines its character: conflict is the essence of drama.
• Philosophy a property or group of properties of something without which it would not exist or be what it is.
The Apple Dictionary

As "essence" is defined above, we see that if a is of the essence of b, then a is of the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of b. This is another way of saying a and b are one. In making your claim above, you are equating some of metaphysics with physics. It follows from here that therefore, Kant and/or other metaphysicians, when making claims essential to physics, and thus identical to physics, are no less physicists than Einstein, an indisputable physicist.

Show me where my above logic is flawed.

I can only hope we are not witnessing the invincible rise of the "machine men" to whom rigid normativity and correctness are the new gods. — Janus

:up:

I think Kubrick was also trying to say, 'yeah you lot wish you could get some useful supernatural advice written on stone tablets but the best you are ever going to get is sci fi stories like this one. The rest is on you, it's your burden to figure it all out, including all the mysteries. There are no gods to help you!' — universeness

Well said, and now, let me segue into saying, "The monolith is a MacGuffin." Tricky Kubrick knows how to stir the public imagination visually with that sleek, black slab of commercial mysteriousness. Keep cogitating on it folks, and while you're at it, keep ringing those turnstiles with repeat, paid viewings.

Is a rectangular, black, 10 feet tall monilith in any way something that would be familiar to pre-sapiens? Very unllikely, and to that extent it's a bad idea. — Agent Smith

:up:

Or current sapiens? (Sex and) mystery sells, especially when hawked by the cognoscenti.

In attempts to clarify the underlying issue of the role metaphysics (as a philosophical study) plays in physics (as the study of that which is physical):

How would anyone, yourself included, justify physicality per se without use of metaphysical concepts? — javra

jus·ti·fy | ˈjəstəˌfī |
verb (justifies, justifying, justified) [with object]
1 show or prove to be right or reasonable: the person appointed has fully justified our confidence.
• be a good reason for: the situation was grave enough to justify further investigation.

The Apple Dictionary

A foundational plank in the edifice of my concept of ontology says, "Material objects cannot be justified." No loquacious metaphysical treatise on material objects (that I know of) can justify (arrive at) the basic fact of a material object's existence. When science looks at the (physical) world, subsequently making claims about said world, it assumes, axiomatically, that such (physical) world is there, with or without an observer. This is not a denial of QM entanglement. Yes, the observer is physically entangled with the observed. This entanglement shows that the observer (even in relation to him_her-self), no less than the observed, proceeds on the axiomatic assumption of existence of self.

Descartes, in saying, "I think therefore I am." goes wrong in an interesting way. Are there a lot of people who think they think themselves into existence? There is no "I think therefore I am." There is only "I am." Likewise, there is no "I've reasoned the world of material objects into existence." There is only, "The world of material objects exists."

Like Michaelangelo's painting of God pointing his finger to the finger of man, analysis (metaphysics) makes a close approach to physics (existence), but there is a gap. Science, when commencing to proceed forth towards making a claim about the world, axiomatically fills the gap with "I am." and "World is." I know of no metaphysical treatise that adds anything further to this.

In the effort to make metaphysics anything other than coordinate and contemporary with physics, the reasoning claimant slams against a logical conundrum: in order for metaphysics to be a ground of physics not coordinate and contemporary with physics, it would have to be greater than (outside of) “I am.” However, “I am.” = existence, which encompasses metaphysics. Problematically, metaphysics cannot be greater than “I am.” because that means it’s greater than itself, a logical impossibility. This tells us that, because “I am.” encompasses metaphysics no less than material objects of the physical world, metaphysics is physical. This lets us claim metaphysics = physics, a tricky way of saying metaphysics and physics, although distinguishable, nevertheless are coordinate and contemporary with each other.

You've left out "the good" of Platonism here, which is not the same as "the One" of Neo-Platonism. For Plato, the ideal is "the good", but it is distinct from "the One". "The One", for Plato is a mathematical Form, a fundamental unity, as explained by Aristotle, yet "the good" is an unknown, as explained in "The Republic" which falls into the class of "Many" as implied by the arguments in "The Sophist". Therefore "the One" cannot be the same as "the good". — Metaphysician Undercover

This argument is irrelevant to the question I posed. "Do you think process philosophy shares some common ground with Platonism_Neo-Platonism?" You acknowledge both philosophies posit oneness as foundational. Your arguments for process philosophy mostly tend towards a foundational oneness obscured by artificial partitioning. I conclude the answer is "Yes. Process philosophy borrows heavily from Plato."

Let's imagine you and I standing on the street having a conversation. I think we exist as discrete individuals. You deny we exist as discrete individuals. How does your experience of the conversation differ from mine?
— ucarr

The fact that we are sharing words, conversing, indicates that there is no real boundary between us, and the idea that we are distinct individuals is an illusion, an artificial creation. This is an illusion which you seem to believe in. — Metaphysician Undercover

An example of a pertinent answer to my question "How does your experience of the conversation differ from mine?" would have you telling me what I'm thinking based upon your ability to read my mind. Your ability to read my mind follows logically from your claim "there is no real boundary between us, and the idea that we are distinct individuals is an illusion, an artificial creation..."

Are you claiming that the activity of walking consists of a series of static positions? Come on ucarr, get real. Each of those "positions" would be an instance of standing, and any activity of walking would occur between the instance of standing.

But clearly, walking does not consist of a series of static positions. If it did, then what would we call what happens between these static positions? How would the person get from one static position to the next? They couldn't walk from one static position to the next because that would just imply more static positions. — Metaphysician Undercover

There's a classic puzzle questioning how humans move through the real world since any line is infinitely divisible into an endless sequence of points. If math savvy folks are following our conversation, perhaps they can weigh-in with an explanation of how the puzzle was solved.

I can, however, say the following: regarding the separation operation, when you locate yourself at a definite position, say, the address of your home, that separation is valid and real by your own acknowledgment of transitional states of being. These imply movement between discrete positions, even if they're other transitional states!

If I take a prism and hold it before a source of white light and a subsequent spectrum of red and blue and green light emerges, are these three primary colors of radiant light, each one measurable, non-existent illusions?
— ucarr

I will address this when you show me how you will place an exact boundary between each colour. If you show me the exact division, where each colour ends, and the next starts such that there is no ambiguity, and you base your boundaries on principles which are independent from one's which are arbitrarily chosen by human beings, then you will have an example for me to address. Otherwise, your example just hands me a continuum without any real boundaries, with you insisting that there are boundaries. — Metaphysician Undercover

You misrepresent my position. I don't deny overlapping transitions between boundaries. I'm not at war with ambiguity. I've already asked you,

Does process philosophy exclude transitory existence from its list of possible existences? — ucarr

I see now, from your argument above, the answer is "No. Process philosophy does not exclude transitory existence, and thus does not exclude transitions from existence." This means, at the very least, that process philosophy does acknowledge fluid partitions between different states of existence. This renders false your claim individuals, per process philosophy, don't exist.

In your own words, cited in my previous post, you establish your understanding of yourself as a consistent POV who transitions through different states of being across a continuum of time. This is a confirmation of human individuality - yours - not a refutation.

...I'm saying that perhaps we randomly create distinct things by arbitrarily... proposing boundaries within something continuous. — Metaphysician Undercover

As I understand the above, you're claiming humans insert partitions that break up a continuum into (artificial) parts. In line with this configuration, you're fusing three different states: steam, water, ice into one continuum, H2O. Breaking up H2O into three different states or fusing three different states into H2O, either way, human performs a cognitive operation. Share with me the logic you follow to the conclusion that the fusion operation is more valid than the separation operation.

I am different today from what I was yesterday, — Metaphysician Undercover

but these differences do not make me a distinct thing from what I was yesterday. — Metaphysician Undercover

In having it both ways, as you do above, you confirm the equal validity of the partition and fusion operations.

Your example confuses "different" with "distinct". — Metaphysician Undercover

dif·fer·ent | ˈdif(ə)rənt |
adjective
1 not the same as another or each other; unlike in nature, form, or quality: you can play this game in different ways | the car is different from anything else on the market | this land seemed different than the rest.
• informal novel and unusual: try something deliciously different.
2 distinct; separate: on two different occasions.

dis·tinct | dəˈstiNG(k)t |
adjective
1 recognizably different in nature from something else of a similar type: the patterns of spoken language are distinct from those of writing | there are two distinct types of sickle cell disease.
• physically separate: the gallery is divided into five distinct spaces.
2 readily distinguishable by the senses: a distinct smell of nicotine.
• [attributive] (used for emphasis) so clearly apparent as to be unmistakable; definite: he got the distinct impression that Melissa wasn't pleased.

The Apple Dictionary

As you see above in the definitions of "different" and "distinct," the two words are synonyms, thus your claim I "identify wrongly; mistake" "different" as "distinct" is false.

Check for them as synonyms in a thesaurus and you'll find "different" under "distinct" and vice versa.

Yards and inches are based on human decided lengths, perhaps coming from some original object with no exact size, — Bylaw

Does the measurement of a material object ever have an irrational number?