Exactly. The rules of chess are the right rules for chess because those are the rules. There can be other rules, but they are the rules for other games.

If you want to do science, construct experiments; if you want to do mathematics construct proofs. — unenlightened

That's odd. Chess is an invention; naturally, everything about it is arbitrary - for instance, the rules are the way they are because the inventor said so.

Physicalism is not like chess. It's a claim about the universe i.e. it has to correspond to reality. Nothing arbitrary about that. It's not that the universe has to conform to our theory (here physicalism), our theory has to conform to the universe. Again, nothing arbitray about that.

You speak as if I can, at will, on my whim and fancy, make the universe anything. Incorrect! Try making gravity disappear by changing the rules, something you must be able to do as per your own admission that the rules can be anything you want them to be (like chess), and see how that works out for you. If you want my advice, don't jump out of windows higher than those on the ground floor.

I presume

Circularity is a good thing — unenlightened

Because

Circularity is a good thing — unenlightened

:ok: :up:

I did a volte-face! Check out the OP. It's a bit too long for my liking and I'm sure you won't have the time so I'll summarize it for you here.

Definitions:

To be physical = To be matter or energy or the laws that govern them or some combination of the aforementioned

To be perceivable = Possible to become aware of through the senses or instruments following such procedures as necessary to rule out hallucinations

1. To exist implies To be physical [All things that exist are physical = Physicalism]

2. To be physical implies To be perceivable [all things physical (matter, energy and the laws that govern them) are, for certain, perceivable]

3. To be perceivable implies To be exist [See definition of perceivable]

4. To exist implies To be perceivable.

Suppose 4 is false. If 4 is false then, it's possible for, say, x exists & x is unperceivable

5. x exists & x is unperceivable [statement 4 is false]
6. x is unperceivable [from 5]
7. To be unperceivable implies To be non-physical [from 2]
8. x is unperceivable implies x is non-physical [6 and 7]
9. x is non-physical [6 and 8]
10. x exists [from 5]
Ergo,
11. x exists & x is non-physical [9 and 10]

Statement 11. x exists & x is non-physical is precisely what non-physicalism (some things exist that aren't physical) is. Ergo, the physicalist can't reject statement 4 i.e. for the physicalist who insists that 1. To exist implies To be physical [physicalism], statement 4 can't be false.

Now, the physicalist argument must have the conclusion,

1. To exist implies To be physical [Physicalism]

We know,

4. To exist implies To be perceivable [If the physicalist says this is false then it leads to non-physicalism (see above). So, the physicalist has to say 4 is true]

The physicalist wants to conclude 1. To exist implies To be physical.

The premise required to accomplish the physicalist's goal is,

12. To be perceivable implies To be physical

Then, the following argument takes form,

4. To exist implies To be perceivable
12. To be perceivable implies To be physical [necessary premise to conclude physicalism, 13 below]
Ergo,
13. To exist implies To be physical [from 4 and 12 and is physicalism]

Statements 4, 12, and 13 is the argument for physicalism. It's sound but only if statement 12 is true. Is statement 12 true?

Let's check...

We know,

3. To be perceivable implies To exist

So, now for the physicalist to prove statement 12. To be perceivable implies To be physical, a premise is required. That premise is,

14. To exist implies To be physical

The physicalist's argument that statement 12. To be perceivable implies To be physical is true should look like this,

3. To be perceivable implies To exist
14. To exist implies To be physical [???]
Ergo,
12. To be perceivable implies To be physical [3 and 14]

Take note of the fact that statement 14. To exist implies To be physical is physicalism i.e. physicalism is being presupposed by statement 12. To be perceivable implies To be physical.

Let's rewrite the physicalist argument as it actually is below,

3. To be perceivable implies To exist
4. To exist implies To be perceivable
14. To exist implies To be physical [Necessary premise]
12. To be perceivable implies To be physical [from 3
and 14. Necessary premise to conclude physicalism, 13 below]
Ergo,
13. To exist implies To be physical [from 4 and 12 and is physicalism]

Look at premise 14 and the conclusion 13. They're identical i.e. argument for physicalism is circular - the conclusion is assumed among the premises.

Oops! Too long again. Sorry, it's the best I can do without compromising my argument.

@khaled@Wayfarer I made some changes to my post? if you're interested https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/476568

You seem to have answered your own question but do give the following argument some consideration.

1. If our brains shut down then our consciousness ceases to exist

2. If we die then our brains shut down

Ergo,

3. If we die then our consciousness ceases to exist (from 1, 2 Hypothetical syllogism)

4. We die

Ergo,

5. Our consciousness ceases to exist (3, 4 Modus ponens)

Sad!!!

Art, to me, is a luxury in the sense it comes after, much after, the basic form has been attained. For instance, look at the evolution of vehicles. The first cars were simple in design and the fact that they worked, i.e. we could drive around, was all that mattered. As time flew by, we perfected the functional aspects of cars - we no longer needed to worry as much about whether cars would start, move, stop as desired - and that point in the history of cars marked the beginning of art's involvement in the car industry. Cars from then on needed to be aesthetically pleasing too - dazzling colors and artistic form (interior and exterior) were necessary to ensure customer appeal. I guess this answers the question, "where did art begin?" Not exactly what the OP was looking for.

Anyway, "where is art going?"

Take a moment to consider what, to us, is grotesque? I gave it some thought and the first thing to cross my mind was evil. Of course we have the "beautiful" painting of Tarquin and Lucretia by Titian depicting rape and countless, again "beautiful", works of Jesus' crucifixion about what is essentially torture and killing but, all paintings with evil as a theme evoke, if one gives adequate attention to what's being conveyed, disgust/revulsion and that's as antithetical to pleasing as one can get. Evil can't be made into an art and if it is, it'll contradict the essence of art viz. beauty for evil is inherently grotesque.

It must be then that if art is given the opportunity, it'll reduce/eliminate evil (the mother of all that's grotesque) for its raison d'etre is to beautify. Paradise for theists/Utopia for non-theists (places where evil is nonexistent) - that's where art is going.

Perceived by who? — MondoR

This is an entirely new line of inquiry and you seem to ask this question as if a perceiver is necesssary for perceiving but you draw this conclusion from a world that could be a hallucination which isn't a good idea as far as I can tell.

That means all you have to go on to make your case is your own perceiving and to infer a perceiver from that is to beg the question because that's exactly what needs to be proven.

A hallucination. — khaled

:ok:

Numbers and logical laws are intelligible, not physical. — Wayfarer

This amounts to rejecting statement 4. To be perceivable -> To be physical. Please go through my argument which I've summarized below for khaled.

That would mean that by your definition their mental image is a physical thing. — khaled

Well, that's correct but not by my definition. It has to be correct for physicalism to be true.

I'll state the physicalist argument for your consideration.

1. To exist -> To be perceivable [Can't be falsified]
2. To be perceivable -> To exist []
3. To exist -> To be physical [??? necessary for 4]
4. To be perceivable -> To be physical [Necessary for 5]
Ergo,
5. To exist -> To be physical [Physicalism]

In other words, Physicalism is a circular argument [3 (a premise) is necessary for physicalism to be true but 5 (the conclusion, Physicalism) is just a restatement of 3.

A note on the critical statements 1 and 2.

For statement 1 to be false, there must be something that exists that's unperceivable. If so, consider the statement that's undeniably true:

6. To be physical -> To be perceivable [matter, energy and the laws of nature are perceivable]

From statement 6, we get the following,

7. To be unperceivable -> To be non-physical

For statement 1 to be false, let's suppose that y is the thing that exists but is unperceivable. Then,

7. To be unperceivable -> To be non-physical
8. y exists & y is unperceivable [statement 1 is false]
9. y is unperceivable [from statement 8]
10. y is non-physical [from statements 7 and 9]
11. y exists [from statement 8]
Ergo,
12. y exists & y is non-physial [from statements 10, 11]

Notice, statement 12 is precisely what non-physicalism is.

For statement 2 to be falsified, we need to have "something" perceivable that doesn't exist but this is impossible because there's nothing there (doesn't exist) and so how can it be perceivable? Ergo, statement 2 can't be falsified. The rest of the argument proceeds as shown.

Now, some have pointed out that hallucinations count for things that don't exist but are perceivable.

However, by perceivable I'm not referring to the perception of one or a handful of individuals or even measurements by instruments in a piecemeal sense. There are standard procedures for ruling out hallucinations and these are invariably scaled-up versions of the normal act of perceiving; people, more people, instruments, more instruments, you know the deal but the bottom line is the entire exercise is nothing but the act of perceiving just ramped up. In short, by perceivable I'm talking about something being perceived in this fashion - hallucinations having been ruled out. Ergo statement 2 stands as it is, in its full glory - true.

It seems that physicalism is either false or circular. :chin:

Are physical laws observable? — Marchesk

Yes. They can be seen, i.e. perceived, in action in the way matter and energy behave. I suppose one needs to think of "perception" in the broadest sense of what it means to be perceivable.

rational beings perceive intelligible truths through the eye of reason. — Wayfarer

That's the heart of the issue. The physical is defined in terms of us being able to "perceive" or not. Ergo, the moment you say "...rational beings perceive intelligible truths through the eyes of reason." you'll have to concede that whatever it is that's being perceived is physical.

It boils down to the relationship between perceptibility and physicalism outlined in the OP.

1. To be physical -> To be perceivable.

Statement 1 isn't difficult to accept. All that's physical - matter, energy, the laws of nature - are perceivable. No room for doubt there for someone who's a non-physicalist.

2. To be perceivable -> To be physical.

This statement provides the only opportunity for non-physicalists to validate their position for it were false, then there would be something perceivable but not physical. Your claim that "...rational beings perceive intelligible truths through the eye of reason." would then be an instance of something being perceivable but not physical. This (a perceivable thing which isn't physical) would then pave the way for a proof of non-physicalism because it no longer contradicts the essence of proving existence which is: to exist means to be perceivable to the senses/instruments.

Let's study the situation we have more carefully:

We have to agree, for good reason, that the statement,
1. To be physical -> To be perceivable. [matter, energy, and the laws of nature are perceivable] is true.

Now, if we also agree that statement,
2. To be perceivable -> To be physical is true then it means the following is true,

3. To be perceivable <-> To be physical

Statement 3 is just another way of saying,

4. The physical = The perceivable [The physical is defined as the perceivable]

Now, let's see how existence relates to perceptibility. We need to do this because non-physicalists claim that some things are not physical which is another way of saying non-physical things exist.

As far as I can tell, the relationship between existence and perceptibility can be expressed as,

5. To Exist -> To be perceivable

And statement 5 is equivalent to,

6. To be unperceivable -> To not exist

Now, if physicalism insists that the following is true,

2. To be perceivable -> To be physical

then it would mean,

7. To be non-physical -> To be unperceivable

But, if 7 is true then, taking 7 along wih statement 6, the statement about existence, we get the statement,

8. To be non-physical -> To not exist

In other words, non-physicalism is about nonexistent things!! Nonexistent things are Nothing! Non-physicalism is about Nothing! Absurd!

If you disagree then, you must falsify the following two statements:

2. To be perceivable -> To be physical

and/or

5. To exist -> To be perceivable

That's to say non-physicalists have to prove

9. There are perceivable things that are non-physical

and/or

10. Unperceivable things exist

We can't prove statement 10. Unperceivable things exist i.e. we can't reject/falsify statement 5. To exist -> To be perceivable because Nothing is unperceivable and that's why it's nonexistent. If I say, for instance, that here's x, x is unperceivable and exists, I wouldn't be able to distinguish x from nothing, both being unperceivable.

Nothing doesn't exist because it's unperceivable i.e. we're using the following statement in deciding the nonexistence of Nothing,

11. To be unperceivable -> To not exist

and statement 11 is equivalent to statement 5. To exist -> To be perceivable

So, rejecting/falsifying statement 5 would mean, at the very least, Nothing could exist. Another Absurdity!

Going by how some philosophers talk of the mind being non-physical, I'd have to say that non-physicalists are rejecting statement 2. To be perceivable -> To be physical because the mind is perceivable but the claim is, it's not physical i.e. statement 9. There are perceivable things that are non-physical is true. So, from a non-physicalist point of view, mind can't be matter, can't be energy, and, at this point, we can forget about it being some kind of law of nature.

Now a summary of all that's been said.

5. To exist -> To be perceivable [can't be falsified]
2. To be perceivable -> To be physical [necessary premise]
Ergo,
12. To exist -> To be physical [Physicalism] (from 2, 5 Hypothetical Syllogism)

If now physicalists claim premise 2 to be true then that would imply the following statements are true,

13. To be perceivable -> To exist [this is true even considering hallucinations because for existent things, perception is a sufficent condition in order to infer existence]
14. To exist -> To be physical [necessary but ???]

The whole argument now looks like this:

5. To exist -> To be perceivable [can't be falsified]
13. To be perceivable -> To exist [true for reasons above]
14. To exist -> To be physical [necesary but ???]
2. To be perceivable -> To be physical [from 13, 14 Hypothetical syllogism]
Ergo,
12. To exist -> To be physical [2, 5 Hypothetical Syllogism]

In other words, physicalism begs the question. There's a circularity [premise 14 and conclusion 12] in the physicalist's position.

Wayfarer, what say you?

:chin: :chin:

perceive their effects. — khaled

That's all that counts.

del

That does mean that by definition we could never find anything non-physical, because anything that we could somehow find we would have to count as physical. So “physical” vs “non-physical” is really a meaninglessness distinction in the end — Pfhorrest

I'd like to bounce this off the two of you:

1. IF It's real THEN It's physical (Physicalism)

2. IF It's detectable (find) THEN It's physical (Pfhorrest)

Ergo,

3. IF It isn't physical THEN It isn't real (Contraposition 1)

4. IF It isn't physical THEN It isn't detectable (Contraposition 2)

5. It isn't physical (assume for Conditional Proof)

6. It isn't real (3, 5 Modus Ponens)

7. It isn't detectable (4, 5 Modus Ponens)

8. It isn't real AND It isn't detectable (6, 7 Conjunction)

9. IF It isn't physical THEN [It isn't real AND It isn't detectable] (5 to 8 Conditional Proof)

10. IF [It isn't the case that both It isn't real AND It isn't detectable] THEN It's physical (9 Contraposition)

11. IF [It is real OR It is detectable] THEN It is physical (10 DeMorgan)

How many ways can the antecedent [It's real OR It's detectable] be true so that the consequent [It's physical] follows?

12. It's real AND It's detectable [both disjuncts true]

13. It isn't real AND It's detectable [one disjunct true]

14. It is real AND It isn't detectable [one disjunct true]

We can ignore statements 12 because it makes complete sense

Statement 13 claims that something isn't real but is detectable and statement 14 states that something is real but isn't detectable.

Both seem problematic, don't they?

However, statement 13, the easier to deal with from the two, can be denied by asserting that,

15. IF it's detectable THEN It's real

Statement 15 feels right and, much to my relief, is right. It's impossible that something isn't real but detectable.

What about statement 14?

If it's one of the possible combinations that's compatible with the truth of statement 11, it implies that [It's real], [It isn't detectable] and [It's physical] form a consistent set of propositions. In other words, the following is true,

16. It's real AND It isn't detectable AND It's physical

Now take a look at non-physicalism. Non-physicalism states that,

17. It's real AND It isn't physical [non-physicalism]

Now take the contraposition of statement 2,

18. If It isn't physical THEN It isn't detectable

Using the definition non-physicalism (statement 17), specifically the component [It isn't physcial], we get the following for non-physicalism,

19. It's real AND It isn't physical AND It isn't detectable

Now, compare statements 16 and 19 which I will reiterate for the sake of clarity below,

16. It's real AND It isn't detectable AND It's physical [physicalism]

19. It's real AND It isn't detectable AND It isn't physical [non-physicalism]

There's no difference between physicalism and non-physicalism!!??

That's absurd! Right?

Ergo, we has to do something about statement 14 and the most reasonable way out of this tight spot is to make the following assertion,

20. IF It's real THEN It's detectable

Now return to premise 2. IF It's detectable (find) THEN It's physical (Pfhorrest)

We get,

21. IF It's real THEN It's physical (2, 20 Hypothetical Syllogism)

But statement 21 (the conclusion that physicalism is true) is identical to statement 1 (the premise that physicalism is true). In other words, begging the question.

How did we end up with this circularity? The answer is statement 20 and statement 2. In other words, to define the real as that which is detectable (20) and the detectable as physical (2) is to presuppose physicalism. For all we know, there might be real things out there that aren't detectable and not all detectable things maybe physical.

What say you?

Well, I can't say I completely understood you but it makes sense at some level. What you call ethical work is, if I catch your drift, the place where the real action takes place in terms of entropy. I can imagine money being spent to purchase energy (fuel & food) which ultimately is expended on activities [physical (machines & humans) and mental (humans)] that, at the end of the day, is about manipulating energy in order to do useful work.

Where does entropy figure in all this?

Well, from the little I can understand, money enables us to restore/maintain a low entropy state (a necessity it seems to get any useful work done) through food and fuel we purchase with it. This low entropy state, as we do work (useful work), transitions into a high entropy state which will require energy (food and fuel) to return to a low entropy state - basically, a cyclical process made up of a low and a high entropy state made possible by food and fuel we purchase with money. In that case, money is the link between energy (food and fuel) and the low entropy state we and machines have to achieve/maintain for useful work.

However, it's not that simple. Nothing is free and just as we need money to purchase food and fuel, we need money to engage in activities - using services, buying goods, general activities we carry out everyday requires money. So, it's not only in the restoration/maintenance of a low entropy state of our bodies and machines that use up money, it's also accessing services and consuming products. Money is involved in both cases - lowering entropy and increasing entropy and this is a critical fact to keep in mind.

When it comes to using services, buying goods (food included), we have preferences - we like certain brands and a customer loyalty is a real phenomenon - and they inevitably lead to the concentration of wealth in the select few, the popular brands. This concentration of wealth is what I've described as a lowered entropy state of money and it serves the following purposes:

1. The accumulated wealth can be used to employ both humans and machines and enable the former to buy food and the latter's fuel supply can be consolidated. Put differently, it becomes possible to both create and sustain low entropy systems at a larger scale which, in turn, results in more useful work being accomplished.

We can, with immense wealth, create and sustain large scale low entropy systems.

2. How different is the useful work done when huge amounts of wealth is involved? The only thing that I can think of is improvement in quality. Quality is defined in terms of durability, safety, aesthetics, efficiency, and so on. If you take a moment to consider quality in this sense, you'll notice that, all in all, it's about preventing or delaying high entropy states i.e. the main idea is to keep a system in a state of low entropy.

Huge capital, by improving the quality of services and goods, block/delay the progression from low entropy to high entropy

It seems then that the low entropy state of money in the bank accounts of the 1% results in either restoration of a low entropy state and in the obstruction/delay of a high entropy state, both at a scale much, much larger than would be possible if the money were in a high entropy state (evenly distributed among the population).

The bottom line is the entropy-increasing selective, preferential, work/activities (goods and services brands) we engage in is being transformed into entropy-decreasing concentration of wealth in the megarich. When the immense accumulated wealth gets distributed i.e. the money enters a high entropy state, there's a concomitant block/delay in the evolution to a high entropy system which is another name for quality.

I don't know who the 1% are but wealth seems to violate two known physical laws:

1. The second law of thermodynamics (entropy): Money distributed should have more entropy than money accumulated but the latter is the norm rather than the exception. What offsets this reversal of entropy is anyone's guess but it would do wonders if we could discover what that is, allowing us to do something about the rich-poor gap.

2. The law of diffusion. As per this law, there should be a movement from high concentration to low concentration until that which is diffusing becomes equally distributed throughout. This is false for money - money tends to concentrate in the hands of the few rather than diffuse and achieve a homogeneous state of even wealth distribution.

It seems the two laws are related but it's nice to get different perspectives on the matter. The key point to note here is that entropy reversal comes at a cost i.e. net decrease in entropy in a system, here wealth accumulating in the hands of the few, is possible only if there's an equivalent increase in entropy...somewhere (where exactly? I have no idea). If we can figure that out, we may be able to, as Yoda say, "restore balance to the force." :lol:

doing something for others is also always doing something for yourself — Echarmion

This is premise 2. It's impossible for a person to act in a way that doesn't benefit faerself of the argument in the OP and I don't contest it. What I believe is possible is that one can act in ways that benefit others more than oneself and, as I go on to argue, that is mathematically equivalent to an act that doesn't benefit oneself at all.

Imagine X acts in a way that produces a benefit b to Y and a to X and that Y's benefit [ b ] > X's benefit [ a ] such that a and b are non-zero. Let a = 2 and b = 8 for the sake of simplicity and take note of the fact that the mathematical relaltionship between 8 and 2 will be maintained for all values of a and b provided b > a

Argument A
(i). 8 > 2 [ Y's benefit is 8 while X's benefit is 2]
(ii). 8 - 2 > 2 - 2
(iii). 6 > 0 [Y's benefit is 6 while X's benefit is 0]

(iv) If [Y's benefit is 8 and X's benefit is 2] then [Y's benefit is 6 and X's benefit is 0]

Argument B
(i) 6 > 0 [Y's benefit is 6 and X's benefit is 0]
(ii) 6 + 2 > 0 + 2
(iii) 8 > 2 [Y's benefit is 8 and X's benefit is 2]

(iv) If [Y's benefit is 6 and X's benefit is 0] then [Y's benefit is 8 and X benefits 2]

Combining the two arguments,
(v) Y benefits 8 and X benefits 2 if and only if Y benefits 6 and X benefits 0

The general formulation of (v) would be,
(vi) Y benefits b and X benefits a such that b > a [altruism] if and only if Y benefits b - a and X benefits 0 [true altruism]

In other words,

(vii) Mathematically, Y benefits more than X [possible and in accordance to your claim that "...doing something for others is also always doing something for yourself"] if and only if Y benefits and X doesn't benefit at all [true altruism]

In other words, if a person can act in a way that benefits others more than faerself, this act is mathematically equivalent to true altruism.

No True Scotsman is altruistic. — Banno

This can be a charge we can level against advocates of true altruism but it's irrelvant insofar as my argument is concerned as, according to my argument, altruism = true altrusim (mathematically).

Fae = He/She
Faer = Him/Her
Faers = His/Hers
Faerself = Himself/Herself

I picked up these unisex/gender ambiguous pronouns from a website.

No, I am referring to the general idea of thinking about human interactions as governed by opposing, atomistic intentions such as self-interest vs. altruism. So that one might end up with an intention made up of "pure altruism", which would be equal and opposite to "pure self-intetest". — Echarmion

Sorry, I don't follow. Are there molecular intentions as contrasted with atomic ones? My guess is you're making a reference to the complexity of the moral sphere and that my take on it is too simplistic and fails to capture or address morality's breadth and depth.

Well, I agree with you that there's more to morality in particular and human personality in general but the point is, if I may be so bold as to say so, the underlying idea of altruism is rather simple - others must be more important than yourself. Whether this fails to acknowledge the intricacies of the "web of relations" or not is a different story. All I'm concerned with, at the moment, is showing how, within the framework of existing moral paradigms, true altruism isn't just possible but is alive and well, needing a mathematical perspective to be seen.

commercialised view of human intentions — Echarmion

Are you referring to my attempt to, in what in the eyes of many will appear not only disgusting but also in complete contradiction to the spirit of morality, reduce altruism and by extension, all of morality, to nothing more than a simple calculation, the likes of which we breeze through with the least bit of care in our daily lives?

I get, or I think that I do, where you're coming from though. My stance on altruism in this thread is consequentialist in character in that there's a quantitative element [the idea of greatest benefit seems to parallel that of the greatest good] to it and the riddle of whether it's right/wrong to hang an innocent person to prevent a riot where many more deaths will occur isn't lost on me.

At this point, all I can say is that quantification (in your terms "commecialisation") is baked into the very notion of good and bad (morality) for the selling point of morality is that good is better than bad and "better" is a word that is, from its definition, inherently quantitative.

web of relations — Echarmion

I understand that there's a complexity to human relations, relations not confined to human-human, and that interferes with, even precludes, the Benefit Calculus if not in principle, on grounds of impracticality. Nonetheless, in my humble opinion, the Benefit Calculus is a rough approximation of how people navigate the moral dimension under the consequentialist banner.

My two cents worth:

The way it seems to me, the scientific method operates at two levels:

Step 1. Detecting patterns in observational data and giving it a mathematical form. The first part of this can be accomplished, and probably has been, by linguists but I don't know whether the detected patterns in language can be expressed mathematically.

Step 2. Formulating hypotheses to explain the patterns. Linguists will need to come up with testable hypotheses on whatever aspect of language they're working on, complete with a list of predictions that can be falsified.

Step 1 looks easier than step 2.

What happens when the individuals you are competing with are a resource themselves? Altruism. — Harry Hindu

What I've tried to do or what I feel is the correct no-nonsense interpretation of cooperation is that it ultimately is about sharing resources. Whether this comes about through unthinking instinct (non-human animals) or after careful deliberation (humans) is immaterial - the bottom line is resources are divvied up among individuals. If this attitude towards cooperation doesn't suit your disposition, consider sharing to be the bare-minimum essence of cooperation - it's raison d'etre if you will.

Coming to the matter of individuals themselves being resources, my hunch is that once something (animate/inanimate) becomes a resource, the same principle I mentioned in my earlier post will apply - at first the resource will be shareable - there'll be enough to go around for everybody - but then there's a cap on how many individuals a particular resource can support (the carrying capacity) and once that limit has been reached, competition becomes inevitable.

Altruism is an odd creature so to speak - it's born in and around what is basically the transition between cooperation and competition. The altruist, to make the long story short, removes itself from the competition so that cooperation remains sustainable. So, if youre seeing a lot of good people (altruists) around lately, it would be, paradoxically, a bad sign, an indication that cooperation is becoming unsustainable and some of us have to make sacrifices. :chin:

you can't do this — Mijin

I didn't do anything. Talk to the person who thought that light travelled instantaneously.

Using what units?

If you plot distance in lightyears and time in years, position over time at the speed of light draws a 45 degree slope.

If you plot miles per hour (which you probably did), you get a much shallower slope.

If you plot kilometers per second, you did a different shallow slope.

If you plot gigaparsecs per femptosecond, you get a much less shallow slope.

The units make all the difference.

If you're concerned with time in hours and distance in miles, then yeah, a beam of light can travel such an absurdly huge number of miles in an hour that for all you (or your personal calculator) care it might as well be infinite

But it's technically not, and measuring in different units shows that. — Pfhorrest

My only concern with your post has to do with your comment on units being arbitrary, especially you mentioning about how the speed of light could be expressed as 1 lightyear per year. Indeed, units are arbitrary as you so kindly pointed out and with speed of light as 1 lightyear per year it the angle subtended by c would be 45 degrees - very far from my intended target of making this angle as close as possible to 90 degrees.

I did some back of the envelope calculations and here are my findings:

1. 1 lightyear = 9,460,800,000,000 km

2. 1 second = 3.17 * 10^(-8) years = 0.0000000317 years

3. The fastest object, call it x, (other than light) detected in the universe "far beyond the Local Groups" traveling at 1026 km/s and,

1026 km = 5.84 * 10^(-12) = 0.00000000000584 lightyears

So,

1. the space component of object x = 0.00000000000584 lightyears

2. the time component of object x = 0.0000000317 seconds

The angle subtended by worldline of object x = atan( (5.84 * 10^(-12))/(3.17 * 10^(-8)) = 0.0001842271 degrees

Now, cos(0.0001842271) = 1 which implies that the object x's wordline = object x's time component i.e. the object x has no space component. The same argument applies to all objects with speeds less than object x's speed and, in fact, the angle subtended by the speed graphs of other objects to the x-axis (time) would be lesser than that subtended by object x and that would mean that all objects in the universe, except light and probably some particles, are at rest.

This gibes with the speed of light being constant. No matter how fast or in what direction you move, the speed of light will be constant because all objects in the universe are at rest relative to each other [all their worldlines will coincide with the x-axis (time) because the angle subtended by each object's worldline to the x-axis (time) will have a cosine of 1 implying that the worldline is identical to the x-axis (time)] which means the speed of light relative to any object will be a constant. [Proof of why the speed of light is constant??]. Again, I must stress on this being an angular argument.

How can we make sense of the absence of motion as implied by your 1 lightyear per year speed of light? If there's no motion then all objects in the universe must be experiencing pure time as space is out of the equation. Are we, as Martin Heidegger thought, time itself? Food for thought.

If we use normal units for distance (miles/km/m/feet/etc) only light and some particles are found in the extremes where the angle subtended by their speed graphs to the x-axis (time) approaches 90 degrees. Yes, light seems to take a non-zero amount of time to traverse a given distance but, as I said, this isn't about lengths (distances), it's about angles.

In conclusion then (in terms of angles):

1. The speed of light is constant
2. The speed of light is infinite

It makes complete sense if you ask me.

Consider that relative velocity is calculated in terms of addition as in (v1 + v2) if two objects are moving toward each other with velocities v1 and v2 and in terms of subtraction as in (v1 - v2) if two objects are moving away from each other with velocities v1 and v2.

If an object is moving with velocity v1 and measures the veolocity of light coming towards it or is moving away from it, the relative velocity between this object and light would be (c + v1) = (c - v1) = c. The only way this is possible is for c to be infinite: infinity + v1 = infinity - v1 = infinity.

It appears that infinite speed, for some reason I can't figure out, manifests in our universe as 186000 mph/299792 kph or 1 lightyear per year. Go figure!

I'm fully aware of the division by zero but you seem to be ignoring the fact that it's implied by assuming light travels instantaneously or has infinite speed.

Yes, nonsense begets nonsense but, for better or for worse, it's not my nonsense.

By the way, I'm not as confident as you seem to be about nonsense and how it's somehow an indication or poor thinking or something much worse.

I read the rest of your remarks and :rofl: :rofl:

No, poor arithmetic at line three results in division by zero. — Banno

The division by zero is implied by assuming light travels instantaneously. Instantaneous means time taken = 0. Speed = distance/time and if one claims light travels insatantaneously, it implies c = d/0.

I'm not going to read the other remarks because they're irrelevant.

No, dividing by zero results in an undefined result. The mathematical rule is, don't do it. — Banno

That's the point. Division by zero is undefined. Thinking that the speed of light is infinite amounts to dividing by zero. There's no other way for speed to be infinite. And you completely ignored this:

For light to travel instantaneously, t = 0 for any distance d. The speed of light c would then be d/0 [division by zero. A big no-no] — TheMadFool

Same goes for most of your other threads; don't break the rules and you will have far less trouble talking about what is going on. They are not arbitrary; they set out what can be sensibly stated. — Banno

Now you're just making random remarks.

Is the universe mathematical?

You divided by zero. — Banno

That's precisely the point. Infinite speed breaks mathematics and thus the "mathematical" proof.

For light to travel instantaneously, t = 0 for any distance d. The speed of light c would then be d/0 [division by zero. A big no-no]

Also, look at in terms of limits. For c = d/t, for a given distance d, the speed c approaches infinity only if the time t approaches zero.

Competition and Cooperation are two sides of the same coin.

I'll frame these two notions in terms of resource consumption:

1. Cooperation: individuals sharing a resource
2. Competition: individuals fighting over a resource

These two facts of life can be understood in terms of a consumer-resource relationship.

Imagine the earth's resources as a layered cake of chocolate and vanilla. Life emerges on earth, call these X, these first lifeforms consuming the vanilla resource. There's plenty of vanilla for everybody, the vanilla resource will be shared and there'll be cooperation. It so happens that 2% vanilla is the minimum needed for the survival of an individual X. As soon as the population of X exceeds 50 [50 * 2% = 100%] competition is inevitable as there are more individuals than the vanilla portion can support.

What happens next is diversification; some of these early lifeforms begin consuming chocolate, call these Y.

Again, there's plenty of chocolate for every Y and there's cooperation. If the minimum requirement of chocolate for one Y is 5% then as soon as the population of Y exceeds 20 [ 20 * 5% = 100%] competition will begin.

This cycle of cooperation-competition will repeat for every available resource on earth until all ecological niches are filled with life of one kind or another. :chin:

There's more that can be said but this much is more than enough to chew on.

I suppose the matter of "everything is..." is settled then. I agree with you on all counts. Thanks.

Coming to the issue of selfishness/selflessness, my view is that both J1 and J2 are true but there's a catch - the existing definitions for selfishness/selflessness are unrealistic for the ones that make J1 and J2 true violate a moral rule that makes complete sense and this rule is: ought implies can

Ought implies can, in ethics, the principle according to which an agent has a moral obligation to perform a certain action only if it is possible for him or her to perform it. — Google

It's impossible for anyone to do something that doesn't benefit faer in any way at all - there's always something to gain, no matter how small such a gain. In other words, selflessness defined as a state of moral existence of value zero (no benefit at all) or value negative (a complete loss) can't exist and so such selflessness fails to qualify as an ought. It's, literally, asking for the impossible.

That being so, selflessness needs a more realistic definition and I propose one that simply states that selflessness is, all said and done, the act of valuing other people's wellbeing [in addition to one's own]. A selfish person, on the other hand, cares only about faer own wellbeing and ignores/harms others in the process of achieving it.

Such an interpretation is more in line with facts as they stand. One only needs to do a survey of all the various deeds we've done/we're are doing/we'll do that have been classified as selfish/selfless to come to the conclusion that indeed accruing personal gain doesn't disqualify an act from being selfless. This probably reflects our (correct) intuition regarding ought implies can.

Perhaps one of the reasons why selflessness is considered impossible by some, some who think, and I quote, "if it isn't selfish, it doesn't count as a motive" is that the word "selfless" is confusion-apt and misleading because the first impression that it gives is that the self shouldn't be part of the equation so to speak and that, I've discovered, is complete nonsense; it's demanding the impossible (the self is a permanent fixture). The correct antonym, in my humble opinion, for selfish should be otherish rather than selfless; after all, 1) the opposite of "self" is "other" and 2) it's closer to the meaning of what we've labeled mislabeled as selfless.

I'm not sure about how much of your theory I understand but in my humble opinion, there seems to be complication with "the principle of least action".

Firstly, I'm totally with you in how inanimate matter behaves in accordance with the principle of least action. The only example I know of is sphericity as a preferred shape, the reason being, hopefully for my sake, the lowest potential energy attainable for a given mass and volume. Feel free to correct me.

Secondly, consider life as composed of two parts: 1. humans and 2. non-humans. Against this backdrop take a close look at how life behaves. Your theory that life breaks and bends "the principle of least action" is accurate - even for me, someone with little training in science and math, I can make out how our behavior (some but not all) is not, from any angle, the shortest distance between two points so to speak.

Thirdly, what about the fact that (one of) humanity's primary goal, especially with the aid of science, is to be as efficient as possible and efficiency is a notion that seems related but in a backwards kind of way to "the principle of least action" - the aim being to expend the least amount of potential energy required for a desired end. This seems to fit like a glove with your theory that life violates or puts a stress on "the principle of least action" interpreted as reducing potential energy to a minimum.

Fourthly, non-human animals, since they can't think like humans, generally expend more potential energy for a given objective than not i.e. non-human animals seem to be more aligned to "the principle of least action" and that because if more energy is spent than required for a particular purpose, the net potential energy of a non-human life-forms will bottom out faster i.e. a minimum potential energy state will be attained faster than for humans.

Fifthly, given the above facts, your theory would need to account for why non-human organisms are more attuned to "the principle of least action" than humans. Your theory is, after all, saying all life contradicts "the principle of least action" but, if I'm correct, non-human organisms, because of their wasteful energy-expending-behavior, would achieve minimum potential energy states at a faster pace than humans and that's another way of saying non-human life-forms are aligned to "the principle of least action", if not relative to inanimate matter, relative to humans.

Sixthly, the only difference between humans and non-human life-forms is our brains which seems to be hell bent on devising novel and ever creative ways of preserving potential energy. Taking this a bit further, the greater the potential energy of a system, the greater the possibility of that system being the handiwork of intelligence. The highest potential energy state of the universe was, I'm guessing, the Big Bang singularity. Ergo, it must've been the work of a supreme intelligence. God???

Seventhly, I'm a bit confused here so bear with me. "The principle of least action" says that "...finding the path of motion in space that has the least value". Now, observe how potential energy is calculated for an object (X) with mass m. The potential energy of an object with mass m, PE1 = m * g * h where g = acceleration due to gravity and h = vertical (straight line) distance of m from the surface of the earth. "The principle of least action" states that X will, given there are various paths available, travel to the floor (PE1 = 0, minimizing PE1) by the shortest route (vertically, straight line) but notice that this whole notion depends on PE1 reaching a minimum (zero on the floor) and remember PE1 was calculated using h [vertical (straight line) distance].

Consider another scenario for the moment, one in which PE (potential energy) calculation is done using non-linear distance (curved paths). In the case of X, suppose its PE is calculated by a curved path distance, let's call this PE2. Compare PE1 and PE2 and PE2 > PE1 [assuming energy is proportional to distance (here h and d)]. If X now takes the shortest route (h) to the floor, the reduction in X's PE will be the smallest (h is the shortest possible distance between X and the floor) and that means X will be left with the maximum amount of PE possible and not the minimum PE possible for the change in position that X undergoes. In other words, "...path of motion in space that has the least value" has maximized instead of minimized the potential energy.

I guess what I'm saying is that minimizing potential energy as a function of "...the path of motion in space that has the least value" is baked into the idea of potential energy, calculated as it is on "...the path of motion in space that has the least value". It's like filling up your car's gas tank precisely based on the distance between your town and an unspecified destination and then being amazed (the principle of least action) at how at the journey's end your gas tank is empty.

Thanks for your reply. Much appreciated.

I want to run something by you if you don't mind.

F = everything is selfish

Put statement F in the context of a particular action/inaction e.g. G = John gives money to the poor, ~G = John doesn't give money to the poor, and S = John is selfish. [All actions/inactions can be reduced to such a formulation.]

What logical statements using G, ~G, and S are implied by F?

1. Whether John gives money to the poor or not, John is selfish = (G v ~G) > S.

If this is the case then, actions/inactions, the differences therein, fail to aid us in distinguishing moral/immoral actions/inactions in general and selfish/selfless acts in particular. The statement F precludes the success of any such attempt.

In the analogy you gave of the room with everything painted red, I have two observations to make:

1. The property of redness can't be used to pick out items in the room. So, for instance, if the red room had two chairs (both red) and I told you to bring me a chair and you asked, "which one?" the reply, "the red one." wouldn't help you.

2. The property of redness becomes redundant in the sense, it no longer is worth mentioning as a property of the items in the red room. If the room had a red table, saying, "bring me the table" is the same as saying, "bring me the red table".

This is what you meant by, and I quote, "And so it is with "selfish" If everything is selfish, the 'selfish' doesn't pick anything out, and it means exactly 'everything'."

Coming to the matter of the claim, "everything is selfish", both points 1 and 2 apply. If it were true, firstly, we wouldn't be able to tell things apart and secondly, it would be redundant to mention selfishness at all.

One of the things that threw me off is the existence of universal statements in categorical logical, statements that begin with the word, "all", an example is, "All dogs are mammals." Here too, mammal[/i]ness[/i] is both useless (can't be used to tell one type of dog from another) and redundant (there's no point in saying something like, "look there's a mammal dog"). This raises the question of the necessity of universal statements like these. Why have them at all?

Well, the first thing to notice in universal statements (all statements) in categorical logic are that they're about sub-categories of everything and that means that what you call the "...background of non-red things..." exists, the set-complements of the sub-categories we're dealing with. Too, the usual thing that happens is that the subject term of universal statements is not coextensive with the predicate term i.e. for instance, though all dogs are mammals, not all mammals are dogs. The problem with saying, "everything is <insert predicate>" which you were so kind to point out is that in this case everything is coextensive with the category/set of the predicate whatever that might be and if that were true, the predicate is both useless and redundant in the sense alluded to in the preceding paragraphs.

On the same trajectory (logic), what is your opinion on the existence of (x)(Ax) as a valid logical expression? (x)(Ax) is read as "for all x, Ax" where Ax is a predicate "x is <insert predicate>". For instance, if Ax = x is an illusion (a favorite predicate of philosophers and sages alike), (x)(Ax) = everything is an illusion [for all x, x is an illusion]. In this case, what's meant is that the category/set of everything is coextensive (is identical) with the category/set of illusion. The statment "everything is an illusion" would, according to our analysis, be both useless and redundant. We wouldn't be able to tell the difference between one object and another and secondly, there's no point in mentioning that anything is an illusion.

The only way for such universal statements, statements that can be reduced to (x)(Ax), to "make sense" (to be not useless and not redundant) is if the "...background..." exists (as per our reasoning) but that seems to be impossible; after all, we're talking about everything here.

At this point I'd like to revisit our old friend, F = everything is selfish. Truth be told, my guess is that a hypothetical is involved here - the person, call faer U, who claims F imagines in faer mind what selflesness is and going by faer belief in F, this imagined selflessness precludes any and all benefit to the selfless person. In other words, there's a "...background...", the imagined selflessness U has in faer mind. However, the imagined selflesness can't be actualized in reality for reasons that are obvious (all actions/inactions are, at some level, beneficial to the self). Since there are no real instances of U's imagined selflessness, U has no choice but to say F but the key point here is that "everything" in F refers to the real world and the moment U includes faer imaginary world, U can't/shouldn't use "everything" and F would be false. All this goes to show that you're right about how the word "everything" in a formulation that looks like "everything is <insert predicate>" makes the predicate useless and redundant.

We can say precisely the same thing about the statement "everything is an illusion" because there's a hypothetical world which isn't an illusion that's the "...background..." and the word "everything" here applies exclusively to the real world.

In short, the word "everything" is being misused/abused or it needs to be qualified by mentioning that the hypothetical, or quite possibly, some other, world, the one that contains the "...background...", has been excluded.

Coming back now to (x)(Ax), as per how I've approached the issue of universals, (x)(Ax) is restricted to the real world and this assertion seems to gibe with how we talk about nonexistence in logic. The statement, "demons don't exist" becomes (x)(~Dx) where Dx = x is a demon. (x)(~Dx) = everything is not a demon. If (x)(Ax) were not confined to the real world and if the imaginary world were part of its scope, it shouldn't be possible to say (x)(~Dx) = everything is not a demon. Ergo, (x)(Ax) is acceptable as a valid logical statement for the "...background..." for it can be, is rather, the hypothetical world.

On a related note, your take on this issue seems to lead to a yin-yang (Daoist) outlook - foreground and "...background..." the two needing each other as whatever constitutes them can switch their roles. On another thread, we were discussing the Daoist notion of The Nameless and your comment "...it means exactly 'everything'." fits like a glove with my own beliefs on the issue.

Allow me to explain:

In total agreement with you, for red things to be discerned, we need "...non-red things" If there's no difference between "two" objects (identity of indiscernibles) then they are, for all intents and purposes, the same thing. Right? Ergo, differences are foundational to identity of items in our universe whether as individuals or as classes.

Now, take everything that there is and by eveything I mean, quite literally, eveything. It's obvious, by virtue of the existence of mutually exclusive classes and individuals, that no property or group of properties will unify everything into a, one, whole. In other words, the whole, the entire universe, everything, can't be made sense of in terms of properties [for mutually exclusive properties thwart all our attempts at finding that single property/set of properties that run(s) through everything]. The whole, everything, the universe, ergo, is beyond all definition and thus must remain The Nameless. Everything is....??? :chin:

So, a robot that can plug itself to a power socket and recharge its batteries, it would be a living thing? After all, it's increasing its potential energy by doing so.

Sure it can. You did it. But it's a contradiction, as you note. Condensed a little bit you've written N=~N. But what can you do with it? What's it good for? — tim wood

delete. Thanks.

The mathematical symbol for approximation consists of two "~" stacked on top of each other.

I still don't know what that means exactly. What is "it" and what is confusing about it? Is this something about the meaning of life? Anyways I'll just read on for now — khaled

No problem.

That is a motif that permeates all no? — khaled

You mean to basically say that which is common is that which is uncommon. In other words, the similarity, the essence, we're looking for is the dissimilarity, the absence of an essence. That would amount to a contradiction, no? It's interesting though that you mention it because everything about Taoism is an attempt to unify the totality, the whole, the universe itself and as you can see, we can't escape contradicting ourselves at some point along the way. Thus...The Nameless for that's just another way of saying that the universe, taken as a whole, defies definition - we can't avoid contradictions. Too, the negation of The Nameless is The Named but The Nameless is all of The Named taken as a whole. The Named exist only as parts of the whole, The Nameless.

I'm signing off now, adios amigo.

What does "ultimate reality" mean? — khaled

I was afraid you might ask. :smile: It seems to have a specific meaning in the Abrahamic religions but in the context of my post it simply means reality taken as a whole, the universe itself as it were,

It's like a taking everything that's part of the universe and trying to make sense of it all with one word, the objective being to discover the underlying essence of it all. That essence, as far as I can tell, can't be named or described for it defies categorization as it includes "each and every" conceivable category. In short, no single or a combination of categories is adequate to describe the whole.

It might seem that the whole, Ultimate Reality itself, can be viewed as a category but the problem is it lacks an unifying essence. There's no property that runs as a common thread through each and everything in the universe - every attempt to find a common motif that completely permeates the all, the whole, the totality of the universe, will fall short of the mark.

What do we do now?

We can't just throw up our hands and give up, right? We're the kind that seek closure - everything we do must have an end and that end has to be satisfactory. So, one of the cleverer ones among our illustrious ancestry came up with a bright idea. Why not just name the god damn "thing"? And so he did - when they had no idea what they were dealing with, he decided they should use the word "thing", a word whose definition reports that it refers to objects we cannot....give a specific name to.

Mind you, from what I gather, it's not just an issue of naming in the sense of coming up with a set of sounds to refer to something like we do when we name our children for example. The name in Taoism means a good definition i.e. the name must make sense (in terms of categories and properties) and is there any other way a definition can make sense?

So, the point of Taoism's The Nameless appears to be that the whole, the totality, the universe, all, can't be defined. A problem in attempting to define the universe is that we'll encounter ontradictions - the universe is, for instance, white (snow) and also not-white (sky) - throughout the process.

One way out of this conundrum would be to use the cateogry color - white and blue are mutually exclusive - but then each such category can be negated and for color we have not-color (invisible). What this means is that no category will be able to cover all the bases so to speak for every category's negation is both possible and actual. This, I suspect, is the Taoist yin-yang emerging, quite naturally and effortlessly, from the way reality is.

Thus, with no better alternative, we're left to assign a label, an empty name, for what is, at its core, The Nameless: Thing.

Come to think of it, thing doesn't quite do the trick for it can be negated - nothing - and leaving out nothing would amount to ignoring an (important) aspect of reality.

The Taoist phrase The Nameless can also be negated and when we do that we get The Named but notice there's an important difference compared to thing: The Named collectively, the grand total so to speak, (from everything to nothing), is precisely what The Nameless is.

I'm out. :up:

You lost me there — khaled

Why? What's there to be lost about?

Except the category "ultimate reality" apparently no? — khaled

I didn't say that there's no category. All I said was that the category of ultimate reality can only be described in terms of thingness, the nameless

Can't we say that Ultimate Reality is all categories combined? The answer to that question is "yes" but when we search for an essence, as we must to create a category, all we get is thingness. — TheMadFool

Thanks for the input.

For me, there are two kinds of bad arguments:

1. The soldier: Overtly apparent. Means business. Carries a loaded weapon clearly visible and pointed at you. The fallacy is not that difficult to detect, identify and escape without a scratch is possible.

2. The assassin: Covert. Stealthy. Deceptive. Disguised. Has a concealed, loaded weapon complete with a silencer. You won't even realize you're dead ( :chin: ). Fallacy very hard to detect, identify, and unlikely that you'll emerge unscathed - bruises, cuts to be expected.

Laozi quotes that struck a chord in me:

Those who speak don't know. Those who know don't speak — Laozi

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth — Laozi

The meanings of the two quotes above gibe with each other quite well in my opinion. The Nameless is what I take to be the indescribable i.e. that which can't be put into words and, quite evidently, those who know something that's indescribable wouldn't be able to speak, comment, on that which is that they know.

What is the essence of being Nameable, the opposite of the Nameless? Let's start easy. Take a chair for instance. We've named it "chair". The word "chair" has a definition. A simple definition of chairs is "an object made of wood, plastic, or metal, used for sitting". You'll notice that there are other words like "wood", "metal", "plastic", "sitting", etc. which are, in essence, categories of materials or actions. In other words, a critical aspect of being describable is falling into one or more known categories. The same logic applies to everything describable.

Two things that need to be made clear.

At the cateogory level, we look for similarities i.e. to develop a category the technique is to look for common, shared properties e.g. the category human is based on similar DNA, physical appearance, behavior, abilities, etc.

At the individual level, we single out things by looking at differences e.g. If I want to talk about the late Kobe Bryant, I'd have to find differences between Kobe Bryant and other humans.

So, something describable means that it has properties that include it one or more categories and it also has properties that exclude other members of these categories from its personal space, its individual identity.


That's that!

Returning to the Nameless, I suppose Laozi, being a sage, would have set the bar quite high for himself and his followers which, in my book, means Laozi was after the big fish, the so-called Ultimate Reality. However, my reconstruction of Laozi's attempt to describe Ultimate Reality, reveals that he encountered, like any of us will, what I call the categorization problem.

The categorization problem is the difficulty with describing Ultimate Reality for it consists of all conceivable properties and that being the case, it would belong to all categories. No category would be sufficient for describing Ultimate Reality.

The issue of isolating Ultimate Reality, finding a unique identity for it, is moot since we couldn't get past the first step, categorization.

Can't we say that Ultimate Reality is all categories combined? The answer to that question is "yes" but when we search for an essence, as we must to create a category, all we get is thingness. The end result is that the only reasonable statement we can make about Ultimate Reality is that it's a thing.

Google Definition of Thing: an object that one need not, cannot, or does not wish to give a specific name to.

It appears that the correct translation of Taoism's The Nameless is The Thing. Watch the movie (2011) starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead (gorgeous :love: )

My two cents worth.