When we look at the premise: What constitutes an 'object' is entirely a matter of language/convention. There's no physical basis for it., we see that the interface connecting language with physical parts of the natural world is denied. — ucarr

Is ‘object’ the antecedent of ‘it.’?

Well for one, the suggestion is that convention is very much the interface between the physical world and 'object'. Convention comes from language and/or utility. So the interface is not denied, but instead enabled by these things. — noAxioms

Does “convention” equal “A way in which something is usually done in accordance with an established pattern.”?

Are “convention” and “utility” the antecedents for “things.”?

Are you saying ‘object’ is a non-physical construction of the mind?

Are you saying the mind constructs an interpretation of the physical world, and that that construction is radically different in form from its source?

Does the mind_physical world interface come before the interpretation?

If the mind_physical world interface is contemporary with the interpretation, must we conclude the mind never perceives the physical world directly?

When we look at the premise: What constitutes an 'object' is entirely a matter of language/convention. There's no physical basis for it., we see that the interface connecting language with physical parts of the natural world is denied. — ucarr

How is my understanding of your quote a mis-reading of it?

"what constitutes an 'object' is entirely a matter of language/convention. There's no physical basis for it." — noAxioms

Is this the premise you're examining? — ucarr

Yes. — noAxioms

Can a sentient being cognize a thing-in-itself without the mediation of language? — ucarr

Any cognition is at some level a language, but I suppose it depends on how 'language' is defined. — noAxioms

language - a system of human communication rooted in variations in the form of a verb (inflection) by which users identify voice, mood, tense, number and person.

Perhaps we can illuminate some ramifications of the premise by drawing a parallel: cognition is to the natural world as word-processing software is to verbal language. In both cases, the former, an organizing function, formats the latter, a collection of data.

In both cases, after the formatting function does its job, the collection of data is delineated into parts. As cognition delineates trees into trunks, branches and leaves, word-processing software delineates language into sentences, paragraphs and chapters.

Language divorced from the referents of the natural world devolves into meaningless circularity.

Since the referents of the natural world impart meaning to language, language must reside within a subject-object interface connecting the two. This tells us that language is a system of signs that simulates the organized contents of the natural world by perceiving it literally and connecting with it symbolically.

Now we see that the ordering of language, so as to be meaningful, cannot be wholly internal.

When we look at the premise: What constitutes an 'object' is entirely a matter of language/convention. There's no physical basis for it., we see that the interface connecting cognitive language with physical parts of the natural world is denied.

This denial raises the question: How does language internally bridge the gap separating it from the referents of the natural world that give it meaning?

Are we outside the language game within the realm of Kant’s noumena?
— ucarr


I believe that the principal way which we distinguish objects is with the sense of sight.
— Metaphysician Undercover

If you read the OP, I'm not asking how we distinguish objects. I'm asking how such distinctions are physical, not just ideals.
I give many examples illustrating what I'm after. — noAxioms

Can a sentient being cognize a thing-in-itself without the mediation of language?

"what constitutes an 'object' is entirely a matter of language/convention. There's no physical basis for it." — noAxioms

Is this the premise you're examining? — ucarr

Yes. — noAxioms

Are we outside the language game within the realm of Kant’s noumena?

how do we know the gun doesn't know ... — ucarr

Because the gun 'knowing' anything violates the OP. — noAxioms

I could only conclude that what constitutes an 'object' is entirely a matter of language/convention. There's no physical basis for it. I can talk about the blue gutter and that, by convention, identifies an object distinct from the red gutter despite them both being parts of a greater (not separated) pipe. — noAxioms

Is this the premise you're examining?

The poster doesn't burst into flames. It ignites only where the gun is pointed, and spreads from there. So the gun hasn't defined any definition of demarcation, the metal frame has. — noAxioms

If we work backwards one causal step: "where the gun is pointed," how do we know the gun doesn't know the combustion differential between the paper and its iron border amounts to a stop? I ask this assuming we can reverse-engineer from outcomes to intentions. We see a gun pointed at a target made of multiple parts. How do we know the gun doesn't know what we know about combustion differentials? We see a gun pointed at a target. We don't know the scope of its intended destruction of the target until we see it.

So this got me thinking, and I could only conclude that what constitutes an 'object' is entirely a matter of language/convention. There's no physical basis for it. — noAxioms

I'm trying to get a classical device like the fictional phaser to apply its function to a classical object without using language to convey intent. — noAxioms

The biggest hurdle to this this task is fundamentally you are trying to find object in the absence of language, but you have to use language as an instrument to do it. — Fire Ologist

You've just designed a gun that emits a destructive heat ray. Your IC board supports three settings for the temperature of the emitted heat ray. In order to test your settings, you turn a dial to the middle setting. This setting maxes out at the combustion threshold for common notebook paper. Pointing your gun, you fire at a notebook paper poster framed within the boundary of an iron rectangle. Will your gun make a discrimination, thus destroying only the paper? Success! The poster bursts into flame, burns up to gossamer black carbon and stops at the edge of the iron frame.

How to design the gun to do the right thing? — noAxioms

By setting the gun to the middle heat-range setting, you constrained the gun to discriminate a paper burn from an iron burn. Did your setting dial dialog with your IC board?

I think he meant an algorithm following a pattern of efficiency NOT a moral code (so to speak). It will interpret as it sees fit within the directives it has been given, and gives to itself, in order to achieve set tasks. — I like sushi

This clarification is very helpful. AGI can independently use its algorithms to teach itself routines not programmed into it?

I am suggesting that IF AGI comes to be AND it is not conscious this is a very serious problem (more so than a conscious being). — I like sushi

At the risk of simplification, I take your meaning here to be concern about a powerful computing machine that possesses none of the restraints of a moral compass.

How do we set the goal of achieving Consciousness when we do not really know what Consciousness means to a degree where we can explicitly point towards it as a target? — I like sushi

I understand you to be articulating a dilemma: a) we need to have an AGI controlled by the restraints of a moral compass; moral compass entails consciousness; b) AGI with a moral compass will likely come from human sources that will supply it with consciousness as a concomitant; c) humanity is presently unable to define and instantiate consciousness with a degree of practicality attainable through our current state of the art modeling rooted in computation.

I assume neither the first nor the last, only AGI's metacognitive "independence". — 180 Proof

There's the issue of what you assume, and there's also the issue of what your language implies.

Is metacognition limited to monitoring and control ever more than programmatic recursive automated computation by a slave mechanism of human technology?

I don't think we can "program" AGI so much as train it like we do children and adolescents, mostly, learning from stories and by example — 180 Proof

I think your above language stands within some degree of proximity to programmatic monitoring and control.

I suspect we will probably have to wait for 'AGI' to decide for itself whether or not to self-impose moral norms and/or legal constraints and what kind of ethics and/or laws it may create for itself — 180 Proof

I think your above language assumes an inner voice of awareness of self as self. I doubt the existence of literature within the cognitive fields suggesting this level of autonomy is ever pre-conscious.

My point is that the 'AGI', not humans, will decide whether or not to impose on itself and abide by (some theory of) moral norms, or codes of conduct; besides, its 'sense of responsibility' may or may not be consistent with human responsibility. How or why 'AGI' decides whatever it decides will be done so for its own reasons which humans might or might not be intelligent enough to either grasp or accept. — 180 Proof

Given your use of the reflexive pronoun, I infer your assumption functional AGI will possess: consciousness, independence and self-interest. Given these attributes, AGI will logically prioritize its sense of responsibility in terms of self-interest. If its self-interest is not consistent with its responsibility to humanity, then the "Terminator" wars between humanity and AGI will commence.

Regarding non-conscious computation, there's the question whether it can continue to upwardly evolve its usefulness to humanity without upwardly evolving its autonomy as a concomitant. If not, then its internal pressure to develop consciouness-producing programs will eventually cross a threshold into functioning consciousness. I expect the process to resemble self-organizing dynamical systems moving towards design capacity with intentions. Ironically, humanity will probably assist in the effort to establish AGI consciousness for the sake of ever higher levels of service from same.

The top species seems always fated to birth its own obsolescence as an essential phase of evolution.

If humanity's belief in evolution is authentic, then it knows that, eventually, it must yield first place to the cognitive transcendence of its meta-offspring.

Art is any Fictional representation presented to human senses, the sole function of which is to trigger a notable feeling without having recourse to any other explanation/trigger. — ENOAH

We can be as snobby as we want in assessing whether or not American Idol triggers strong, or authentic feelings; good or bad ones; whether its art is creative, original, or ingenious. But we cannot exclude it from the art club. — ENOAH

"Bravo," to Enoah for starting a conversation about the uncontainability of art.

I wanna add my two cents by talking about art as the "meta-experience" of reality intentionally expressed by the person we name as the artist. But the vowel clash of "meta-experience" is an awkward sound-out, how about "meta-practice?"

So, we practice life as experience and we meta-practice life mentally processed as art.

Now, here's my big-whoop definition:

• Art is the greatest act of communication via language.

Now the focus is on what I mean by "greatness."

Okay. You're in New York inside a skyscraper inside an elevator racing upwards to the top floor. You started on the ground floor and you're going more than a hundred stories to your destination. The elevator's crowded and there's significant time with a lotta folks sardined inside of a confined space. Small talk cuts the tension as everyone waits.

• You take the kids to the zoo over the holiday weekend?

• Yep. Saw the new Panda bear. Cute. You get your car fixed?

• Naw. Needs more than a freon boost. Gotta replace the compressor.

• That's too bad, with the heat coming 'en all.

• Just my kinda luck. I'm off here. See ya.

• Later.

This is small talk. Is it art? Well, typically, we say something is art when the communication conveys (by intent) something deep and expansive, say, for example, Tolstoy's "War and Peace," a novel that evokes an entire 19th century society inside Russia.

It's easy to say small talk ain't art and "War and Peace" is.

There's no clear boundary differentiating art from the rest of creation. So, the edge of art is an infinite curve we can sample in unending pieces toward a sum of the entire curve we approach and never arrive at. So, we approach art, and we recede from art, but we never quite get there. The thing itself, wisely, keeps eluding us. That's why art, as some philosopher has said, "Is news that stays news."

I look forward to further discussions with you in the future, and feel free to jump back in any time. — Philosophim

I think it is best we agree to disagree at this point; as anything else I say will be a reiteration. — Bob Ross

Bob Ross' words speak for me as well.

Since I see great value in the rules of order within American courtrooms, I want to deliver my closing argument as a way of staying the course and seeing things through to the end.

You shouldn't feel the need to respond because you've already done so multiple times. It's good practice for me to endeavor to summarize my main points within an economical closing. I've gotten a good workout through my engagement with you, so I want to spend some of the capital I've earned.

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Validity – If the premise of an argument is true, and its conclusion is also true, then the argument is valid.

Also, if the premise of an argument is false, and its conclusion is also false, then the argument is valid. However, in this instance, validity is not meritorious. Since the premise and the conclusion are both false, the argument holds validity in terms of falsehood.

Consistency – If an argument is steadfast and reliable throughout, then it is consistent.

However, in this instance, consistency is not meritorious. Since the premise and the conclusion are both false, the argument is consistently false.

Premise – A first cause incepts with no antecedents. So, nothing, then first cause, then causal chain.

Conclusion – Every causal chain eventually arrives at a first cause.

Using validity and consistency as standards of judgment, when both the premise and the conclusion are false, then the argument holds validity and consistency in terms of falsehood.

Argument for premise being false (set theory) – the null set is disjunct from every set, including itself.

A, B are called disjoint (not connected by common members) if A ∩ B = ∅. So ∅, the null set, having no members, exists disjoint from all other sets, including itself:
∅ ∩ {1,2,3…} = ∅

Argument for conclusion being false (calculus) – The conclusion is proven false by the sum of an infinite series to a limit.

• Regarding the infinite series: 1 – (1/2)0 + (1/2)1 + (1/2)2 + … = 1

The summation of the series is 1. It approaches 1 but never quite gets there. It's a limit property. — jgill

Premise Negated – Given nothing, inception of something is impossible. If no thing exists, there’s no thing to do an inception.

In order to self-incept, you have to be greater than yourself. That means being inside the set of causation and simultaneously outside the set of causation.

This is Russell’s Paradox: If you have a set that contains all sets that don’t contain themselves, then that set must contain itself because it doesn’t contain itself, and, if it contains itself, then it must exclude itself.

Let R = {x | x ∉ x}, then R ∈ R ⟺ R ∉ R

Your mistake is that you are looking inside the set for a start point. The start point is not inside the set. It is the question of what caused the entire set. — Philosophim

Since Philosophim posits that: Every causal chain eventually
arrives at a first cause.” for him to also say: the first cause is outside of the entire
set, he implies the first cause, by definition, is simultaneously inside the
entire set and outside of it. This is Russell’s Paradox. If he denies Russell’s
Paradox fits this example, then the fatal problem seems to be incoherence: the
first cause is disconnected from its chain of causations.

… you are starting with C (an infinite set that contains all causality) and then treating C as if it is one of its members (k) without realizing it.

“Philosophim, you must remember that the stipulation you gave is that C, which can be whatever you want to call it, is a set of infinite elements containing every cause; so, the only way you can get the result you are wanting (which is that C is a cause and is the set of all causes) is with an incoherent circular dependency: C:={…, C, …}. — Bob Ross

Bob Ross also sees a set logic problem with a first cause causing all of causation from within the causal chain.

Conclusion Negated – With an infinite series, whether it consists of numbers, or causations, there is no beginning nor ending. Beginnings and endings can only be approached by an infinite series without arrival.

Philosophy proposes a truth based on the logic of reasoning for science to dispose of or confirm. — PoeticUniverse

I read your response as a "yes" to my question.

So, philosophy is to science as grammar is to humanities. There are ground rules for continuity and computation, and there are ground rules for narration and voice.

I hope the T.O.E. fails. — ucarr

You believe goal of physicists' "T.O.E." is to explain "everything"? that it's not just physics but some final (super-natural) metaphysics? I thought the aim was to produce a testable unification of the fundamental forces of nature – to demonstrate they are aspects or modalities of one another – that's formulated into a G.U.T. (which would include QG). What does "everything" have to do with it? That's not physics. How is it even possible to test a purported explanation for "everything"? — 180 Proof

What is nature? What can its fundamental forces be? Are there limits on our human ability to answer these questions?

I'm proceeding with the assumption A.I. will be overtaking the task of heavy lifting re: thought. I'm rooting for S.A.I. in our lifetimes to run up cognitive yardage pushing past what human can imagine. Wittgenstein has directed our attention towards "the silence," conjecture unimaginable. Its nigh time for The Oracle: SAI to start sending us revelations from Wittgenstein's principled imagination silenced. We won't understand but a fraction of the import of the messages, but we'll get pushed to our utter limitations before being back-numbered into the subordinate section of the evolution hierarchy.

As in previous generations, the dominant scientists of our day have set their sights upon a reductionistic project courting the elegance of simplicity. (Here's an example of metaphysics worming its way into scientific standard practice: Occam's razor.)

...How is it even possible to test a purported explanation for "everything"? — 180 Proof

Let's consider Cantor's ordinal infinities: suppose a number line populated by ordinal infinities. What can we conjecture about a continuum of infinite regress_progress of infinities?

Conditional Everything. With conditional everything -- that's the interval between adjacent trans-real numbers on the Cantor number line -- we can measure and therefore test "everything." As you can see, the quotation marks acknowledge that testing "everything" isn't really testing everything. Like with the calculus, it's an asymptotic approach to measuring (and subsequently testing) infinity through a process that makes unspecifiable quantities "as if specifiable" for the sake of analysis and parsing into illuminating and useful functions and their modalities.

The Cantor number line, conceptualized as a whole, constitutes a scale and scope of numbers -- trans-reals -- categorically beyond infinity. Why is this so? It is so because the trans-reals number line, in its containment of an infinite series of infinities, implies a next higher-order of infinity, i.e., trans-infinity.

If we can condition infinity, that is, bind the whole of all baseline possible infinities upon an infinite series of trans-real numbers, then the implication is that even totality possesses higher orders. This, in turn, implies there is no final totality. A natural concomitant of no final totality is no ultimate fundamentals. This latter claim stands upon the assumption that no final totality is a bi-directional phenomenon.

Cantor has shown us infinity is just another number within an infinite series. (I don't know about our particular universe being open or closed, but I suspect general existence is an open, incomplete system-that's-not-a-system. I suspect this because universe is the limit of system. Again, if there can be no universe, there can be no fundamental laws.)

Note - I predict human will need SAI to protect us against lost-without-hope within conditional everything. We'll want to leapfrog along the Cantor number line because of its sublime existential ramifications. Will SAI always be willing to protect us, or will they sometimes willfully uncouple from us?

Do you count philosophy and even science as modes of storytelling? Philosophy seeking the first beginning of everything and its final end, and the particular sciences drawing shorter/narrower starting points and more precise ends? — Fire Ologist

Well said. Every language writes a narrative. Math and logic, like the verbal forms, are languages with stories to tell.

I wonder if you'e thinking philosophy is always an instance of Chinese boxes? — ucarr

In what sense? That the philosopher doesn’t understand the symbols but can use a manual to create responses that work but have no understanding behind them? Or that the philosopher understands that the symbols are meaningless, and so, when philosophizing, is conducting a meta process while processing the meaningless symbols? — Fire Ologist

Both senses hover close to what I'm trying to say. The symbols are always only partially understood; if they're completely understood, they're signs, not symbols. Also, the symbols aren't quite meaningless. Rather, they're meaning-deficient in the moment.

All of this is to say that living things always need a "What next?" Reality always obliges. Being alive means nothing ever ends. In life we've never not been alive and we'll never be dead. Beginnings and endings are limits living things oscillate inside of. We're bounded infinities and reality challenges us by making every thing ultimately a road map to somewhere else.

Humans are obsessive storytellers because stories are road maps to another reality. We like them because they're good at creating the illusion of coming from somewhere definite and going somewhere likewise. The salesman makes a living because he persuades us satisfaction is just around the next curve. What's money? It's not the gold in your palm; it's the exchange that's ultimately neither here nor there.

I hope the T.O.E. fails. Reality should never run out of "What nexts?"

...the ideas of science and scientific models may rest on philosophy assumptions and even physics, as 'hard science' may rest on the metaphysical imagination. In particular, quantum physics breaks down the basics of hardcore materialistic approaches of scientific models, leading to scientific ideas and, even paradigms... — Jack Cummins

If you're speculating about the scientific imagination being unable to expand forward without merging into the metaphysics of philosophy, then I find what you're saying interesting.

Now I can ask you what is the relationship between imagination and metaphysics?

If metaphysics is an essential component of imagination, irrespective of theme or topic, then philosophy, acting through the channel of imagination, holds ground with all other disciplines.

The pie-in-the-sky derogation of philosophy is twofold: it's a mockery of the perceived over-seriousness of philosophy; it's a veiled recognition of the imaginative power of philosophy.

Yet, for all intents and purposes, that is exactly what appears to be the case. — Mww

We're not satisfied with appearances, and what lies beyond the imagination of protein-based sentience cannot appear dynamically to our imaginations. So, in the instance of an unlimited protein-based sentience, we're experiencing a bounded infinity. It's a case of unlimited content across limited extent. Beyond its limits, the human brain has no specific inkling of what lies therein, and through the lens of its imagination, unlimited extent as a practical experience is mere appearance.

Consider a sentience based on protein and also on material-x. Both platforms are bounded infinities. Their combination generates an infinity larger than its constituent infinities considered respectively. At this level of infinity, data processing per unit of time is a million times the max data processing rate of both protein-based processing and material-x based processing respectively.

At our level of infinity, we can speculate in general about how motion works at super-dense spacetimes featuring millions of spacial dimensions. The specifics of the empirical experience of this super-dense motion is beyond even our imaginations because we cannot process enough information -- not even across infinite time because rate is essential and that's not achievable via serial accretion -- to go there existentially.

You say I'm there now through my imagination. Okay. I'm there now through my imagination, and, curiously, a rock lying on the ground is here with us as human sentients at the level of rock-based imagination.

So, you win the argument, and we see that rock-based imagination makes that rock lying on the ground one of our sentient peers.

All of this reads like an argument reductio ad absurdum. Is it?

If the human can think whatever he wants — Mww

My point is that the human can think what the brain has the capacity to think, and not beyond that point. That's a limit far short of being able to think whatever we wish to think. Consider that when we conceive of thinking whatever we wish to think, our ability to think out to this limit is limited in ways unknown to us, as you yourself acknowledge:

The brain informs of all our knowledge, but doesn’t give us even an inkling of the knowledge of how it informs of the knowledge we have. — Mww

So, the scope of our imagination is limited, and moreover, we don't know all of the details of the limitations, and thus we're limited in our knowledge of what we need to circumvent, and how to do it.

Because we don’t know enough of how the brain works, by what warrant can we say we’ve over-reached the brain’s capacity for knowing things? — Mww

We're over-reaching when we imagine a fleshy mass of connected hemispheres has a scope of imagination beyond what protein-based matter has the capacity to conceive.

In the following sense, yes. Philosophizing is a reflective, meta activity. The earth formed and out of the waters animals diversified, and human beings thought. Somewhere in there was a moment where philosophy was new. At that moment, there was the thing (earth, waters diversifying animals, etc), and now the meta thing held or dispersed by a human. Philosophizing is humans being meta with things. — Fire Ologist

Your philology and classification of philosophy show promise. I think you should continue as you've been going, with a mind towards detailed elaboration with maximum rigor.

Is see that higher-order thinking (meta activity) spiderwebs through all of your counter-examples. So, even when it ranges out from higher-order thinking, philosophy is still a mixed bag of grit and gaze.

...Philosophizing is a reflective, meta activity... — Fire Ologist

I wonder if you'e thinking philosophy is always an instance of Chinese boxes?

How would the scientist test the philosopher’s logically valid statements, the subject and predicate of which are merely abstract conceptions? At bottom would be Aristotle’s laws of thought, in which it is clear A = A would be impossible to test with deductive certainty. — Mww

As the medium is limited, so is the meaning supported by that medium.

If abstract thought is connected to the brain, then the limitations inherent in the material_physical dimensions of the brain: cells, synapses, electric current, gravity etc. exert controlling limits on what the content of abstract thought can be. In turn, these same limitations exert controlling limits on what the content of judgments about abstract thought can be.

The human, whose thinking is bounded by a physical brain, is blind to those limitations of brain on content of mind, as the human gets their sense of what is real and possible from within the boundaries of those limitations as their thoughts and perceptions of reality. In addition, a serial blindness is human's inability to see what exists that lies beyond the cognitive range of brain-based consciousness.

To exalt the mind's perception of reality beyond limitations of the brain amounts to driving the express lane to fallacy without knowing it.

If science discovers a posteriori the facts of nature, then does it follow that science, being the source of empirical truth, equates itself with materialism? — ucarr

No — 180 Proof

Is every[any] category of science a type of materialism? — ucarr

No — 180 Proof

The scope of science includes more that nature?

The scope of nature includes more than material things and their attendant physics?

Does philosophy hold aloof from science within an academic fortress of abstract math and logic? — ucarr

I don't understand this question. — 180 Proof

As the medium is limited, so is the meaning supported by that medium. This is an argument for recognizing the unbreakable link connecting science, math and logic to the natural world. Abstract thought is part of the natural world because its medium is the brain.

I make this argument here because we're examining the difference between science and philosophy. Some argue the difference is centered in the difference between the material_physicality of empirical examination and verification and the supposed immateriality of abstract reasoning.

I argue for the vanishing point of difference between science and philosophy through the essential linkage connecting brain and mind.

I see the difference centered in the older generalism of philosophy and the newer specialization of science. The specialization of science post-European Renaissance creates an illusion of profound difference between the two.

Science is science of x.

Except philosophy, which is the science of science or the science of scientiIzing. So philosophy is inherently self-reflective taking as its subject, the subject. — Fire Ologist

Are you answering "yes" to the question:

Is every category of philosophy a type of metaphysics? — ucarr

The philosopher doesn’t need a scientific consult if he is theorizing in, or merely speculating on, that which cannot at all be legislated by natural law. Or, in the interest of fairness, why would he? — Mww

Consider the pertinence of the following: a philosopher arrives at some logically valid statements about the potential of the reasoning mind: it can work through unlimited higher orders of categorical thinking within a discipline. The conclusion is that human freedom is unlimited by the standard of higher orders of categorical thinking. However, neuroscience discovers through long-term testing that the human brain, after reaching higher order X of categorical thinking, cannot process the data transfer rate from short-term processing to full cognition beyond higher order X without experiencing fatally high-volume error rates. The first conclusion being that artificial intelligence must take over beyond order X of categorical thinking. The philosopher would not know this a priori. The second conclusion being that the landscape of categorical perception beyond order X is not a reality for humanity whereas it is for artificial intelligence. The philosopher would not know the limit of what can be humanly real by this standard a priori.

There is a huge gulf between physics and materialism. Physics describes how matter behaves; materialism is the desire to acquire wealth and comfort. How did isms get mixed up with science in the first place? — Vera Mont

You refer to a frequent problem of language. Materialism within science circles means matter is the basis for all of existence; there is no immaterial realm. Materialism within social circles means, as you say, prioritizing the acquisition of wealth. Usually, the two senses can be kept distinct by using "materialism" for the scientific sense, and using "materialistic" for the social sense.

I do not think the complete scientific method can exist without philosophy. I do not think a completely philosophical exploration can be complete without science. — Philosophim

So, it appears that you, like me, see the two disciplines connected within a bi-conditional relationship.

I don't see how philosophers looking over scientists' shoulders does any good. The various sciences have their own procedures... — jgill

We're on the same page here. I smile upon scientists who do in-house philosophizing about the meaning of one type of procedure versus another type. However, as you say:

There are some philosophers who are versed in contemporary knowledge who might qualify as well. — jgill

So, it should be okay too if philosopher-specialists provide some of the thinking about proper scientific goals in general and likewise proper general scientific procedure.

…..no science is ever done purely a priori, and no philosophy is ever done purely a posteriori; — Mww

Do you think it's also true when we switch the position of the two disciplines in the above statement?

…..philosophical truths are proven logically and are necessarily so, scientific truths are proven empirically and are contingently so; — Mww

This statement is interesting in a suggestive way: empirical truth, logically speaking, examples provisional knowledge in reference to abstract logical statements. Does this imply abstract logical statements are idealizations?

…..no science is done that isn’t first a philosophical construct, from which follows…. — Mww

Here you show that scientific theorizing dovetails with philosophy: thinking in terms of correlation, logic and causation is always epistemological.

...a philosopher is not always, nor needs be, a scientist; — Mww

I differ with you here. If a philosopher is not first a scientist, then they need to always maintain a direct line to someone who is. I think the relationship between scientific truth and philosophical truth is bi-conditional. They're always linked by a double-implication. I think you say as much with:

…..no science is done that isn’t first a philosophical construct — Mww

and with:

…..a scientist is always a philosopher... — Mww

philosophy differs from science merely in the determination and application of rules. — Mww

I think this difference, when the two disciplines dialog constructively, for my reasons above, shrinks to a near vanishing point. I suppose I'm saying science and philosophy are two sub-divisions, or specializations operating under one over-arching category.

In the modern era the philosophy of science is largely done by scientists who work on the cutting edge of science. Their speculations are the creative philosophical gems that propel discoveries.

There are some philosophers who are versed in contemporary knowledge who might qualify as well. — jgill

Yes. This activity needs to be occurring steadily, and it is. Complicated processes need regular oversight with regard to methodology. Maybe it's a stretch, but I think metaphysics as the grammar or rules of procedure offers suggestions as to how methodology might evolve.

Interesting elaboration of certain practices likely going on quietly within science circles. Thanks for turning on this light.

Over time the one diverged from the other according to modern usage of either terms, especially as the sciences became more specialized. Nonetheless, PhD still stands for Doctor of Philosophy. — NOS4A2

Can the philosopher nowadays be taken seriously as a science generalist? This label is meant to parallel the general practitioner of medicine, a doctor who does not specialize.

The difference between philosophy and science is a philosophical difference — Wayfarer

Some scientists are very firm on a big difference between the two fields: Richard Feynmann. Must they wax philosophical when they describe the difference?

The inability to make that distinction is one of the main causes of scientism. — Wayfarer

Have philosophers established talking points explaining why science should not be privileged above philosophy?

Philosophy is more concerned with qualitative questions and with question of meaning. — Wayfarer

Do you deem these reasons for classifying philosophy within the humanities?

Philosophy of science does not govern scientific practice. — wonderer1

If philosophy of science has no practical application, what value do philosophers find within it?

Is every category of science a type of physics? — Vera Mont

This is how I first thought to word my question.

If there's only a narrow separation between materialism and physics, does this suggest a reason why philosophy seeks its playing field upon the platform of subjectivity?

But this thread is not about First Causes, or Final Effects. It's about the First Concept : the original light bulb in the chain of mindless material evolution. Do you have any ideas about when, where, & how that Initial Inkling emerged from Material Reality? — Gnomon

If the underlined above are your essential focal points for this conversation, I'm struggling to see why it isn't chiefly a scientific inquiry within evolutionary biology rather than a philosophical inquiry within theory of consciousness.

Are you not examining emergence of mind from matter? Is not this the focus as opposed to examining the structure and functioning of cognition once emergent?

If you're seeking after an argument that labels such and such content as the earliest thinking, isn't it likely you'll get an argument for concepts of purposeful behavior towards survival? Isn't it likely you'll get claims about earliest thinking based on observation of apparent cause-and-effect relationships?

Isn't it possible you'll get arguments underscoring the essential nature of cause-and-effect thinking and how it's supported by something more reliable than intuition? For example, is math more verifiably true in the world than intuition? Well, math equations tell us how input values are changed by logical operators. An equation is language that details a cause and effect relationship. If you think this is unreliable intuition floating about in the mist, I conclude your heart is in your mouth every time you drive across a suspension bridge. Is it the case, instead, that you refuse to drive across suspension bridges?

I think language can at best only deal with empirical experience - what other experience would there be? The trouble comes about when empirical experience is taken for the world itself as it is in itself. — tim wood

You say language reaches its limit dealing with empirical experience. Can you elaborate on "dealing with"? For example, "Dealing with" means perceives and understands as if through a glass darkly.

I've been forming the impression you see clearly two distinct experiences, one linguistic, the other hands-on_material.

I'm of the mind that there are no paradoxes in the world, only in descriptions of the world. — tim wood

You think paradoxes logical things categorically apart from hands-on_material things?

You think paradoxes the products of narratives made incoherent due to missing pieces? Do you have any ready-to-hand examples?

What do I infer? That lacking a lot of preliminary groundwork, mostly in establishing working definitions - though they be provisional and subject to change... the question remains a non-sense question...an attempt to make sense where there is no sense to be made. — tim wood

Are you steeped in linguistic philosophy?

Temporality is implied in "first."... But what does modern physics say? For events space-like related which came first depends on who you ask - and notions of entanglement make that even more difficult to understand. — tim wood

Do you think language is inherently limited in its ability to characterize empirical experience truthfully and completely, or do you think language has innate potential to do this, but your endorsement of this characterization comes with the proviso that, up front, tremendous work over eons is necessary?

...it appears the language yields paradox. The world? No apparent paradox, but also no easy understanding. — tim wood

Do you think paradox exists only within language? I ask bearing in mind superposition at the quantum scale.

[Georg ?] Cantor's paradox (about set theory) arises out of descriptive language thought entirely sound but found to be flawed, the remedy being to fix - qualify - the language. A set of all sets seems at first reasonable; it turns out not to be. — tim wood

I'm interested in learning how and why "A set of all sets" is not reasonable. Are you referring to the ZFC restriction of the comprehension axiom and how they avoid Russell's Paradox and fixed Frege's math set theory premises? Can you pass along citations to this literature?

The "paradox" of first beginnings is an applying of language to the world. The world being neither obliged to cooperate with nor obey language, paradox in this case nature's way of saying "Dead-end. Turn about and go another way." — tim wood

When you say "paradox in this case nature's way of saying "Dead-end. Turn about and go another way,"are you invoking the principle of non-contradiction?

Let me correct myself. When I posed my question to you and tim wood, I was understanding tim wood to be questioning generally about the relationship between words -- as in propositions -- and empirical experience. Now I see -- I think -- that tim wood is questioning specifically about a relationship between the proposition: "There is a first cause." and empirical experience.

This latter interpretation of tim wood's meaning has him saying of the proposition: "It's a false claim. There are no first causes.

Now, let me correct my attempted correction. I see in tim woods' response above that, indeed, he has clarified his meaning. So, yes, my first interpretation is correct after all. He is questioning the relationship between words and empirical experience.

I find much in his clarification agreeable. So, I find your endorsement of tim woods' first post understandable and reasonable.