So I'm tempted to say that where you have a 'scientific law', then you have something in which logical necessity meets physical causation — Wayfarer

Absolutely not. The universe could have been different.

I see the connection when you say, using logic, that 'a' must be the explanation for 'b'. — Wayfarer

We can usually imagine multiple explanations for the same event.

Look at this statement, P:

"The ball went through the window because Terry threw it."

P is necessarily true if it's true in all possible worlds. Why would it be? Why couldn't the ball have been shot out of a cannon?

Or we could use old style necessity where a statement about why a ball went somewhere can't be necessary. Only apriori statements are necessarily true.

science needs something other than itself to prove; metaphysics is its own proof. Science is never complete; metaphysics is self-contained, thus can be complete. — Mww

I don't understand. Why does science need something else to prove?

This thread is plagued by a misunderstanding of necessity.

but despite all that it adds up to a profound insight — Wayfarer

I'm familiar. Thanks.

The usual conception of causality is that of mechanical necessity. Some system of interactions is so constrained that its outcomes could never have been otherwise.

And it is this mechanical view - A always leads to B, never to C or D - that unites the everyday notions of causality, logic, and indeed maths. — apokrisis

Logical possibility is just testing for contradiction. We analyze an ideal cube to determine the possibilities associated with tossing dice. That's all logical possibility is: analysis.

So when we say the dice could come up craps, all we mean is that the analysis of the cubes includes craps.

There is no ontological aspect to it.

You mentioned wandering, so.... — Mww

Yep. A neuroscientist starts with a methodological confidence that we can come to understand consciousness. There's a nervous system. It has an environment. It organizes its inputs into a model. It tests the model and so on.

I don't really know what Kant is saying. It seems like a bunch of balloons. If you start poking, they just explode.

So....you cryin’ uncle? Tossin’ in the dialectical towel? — Mww

What do you mean?

HA!!!! That’s why I changed it. — Mww

:lol:

Ehhhh.....little challenge never hurt anybody. — Mww

I don't think that's true.

Ya know. — Mww

Kant wanders off into inexplicability.

Oh. That. Ya know....folks just need to get over this noumenal stuff. — Mww

Ok. So the mind is phenomenal. It's a product of itself.

Why not?

The question is about the connection between logical necessity and physical causation. It's trickier than it looks! — Wayfarer

Understanding your question is tricky. Causation is explanation. It's the answer to "why?"

Necessity is modality. It's the answer to "could it have been otherwise?“

Where do you see the connection?

I’m not sure I understand the question. What have I said he’s done, that he himself said couldn't be done? — Mww

Wouldn't he say it's wrong to think in terms of a noumenal world? Since a world is a construction of the mind?

But if so, where is the mind? Within its own contructed world (I don't think that makes sense) ? Or outside it in the noumenal realm?

Talking about mind-independence in science? Not sure what that means. Isn’t all causation non-human? — Mww

I should have said supernatural causes. Science is about natural causes. Human causes, or acts of will would be distinct from natural causes. That's built I to the meaning of "natural" right?

"In Europe, “the narrative is becoming: This is what you get if you deal nicely with authoritarian regimes,” said Ivana Karásková, a researcher on Chinese foreign policy at Charles University in Prague. “It’s becoming not only about Russia; it’s also about China.”". - - NYT

The old conflict between democracy and totalitarianism rises again.

Yes. “World” is an object in general, comprised of and representing a multiplicity of other objects subsumed under it. All objects in general are objects of reason therefore constructed a priori by it in accordance with rules, which.....for better or worse....it also constructs. — Mww

How is Kant not doing the thing he says can't be done?

He's saying there is no mind independent world. There can't be because worlds are always constructions of mind. But what's the setting for this mind that constructs worlds? It's not a world?

Also, would Kant say that when we talk about mind-independence in science, we're talking about non-human causation?

recently posted a thread on Stack Exchange on the relation between physical and logical causation. — Wayfarer

Causation is basically explanation, so in drawing a distinction between "physical" and "logical" causes, are you asking if we're bound to rely on logic for our explanations?

Are you asking if logic is innate?

it’s the rate of change which is different and destabilising — Punshhh

Absolutely.

Even if you might be saying there is the world as it is and there is the world as we think it is, we are nonetheless referring to one conceptual representation when we use the word, even if under different conditions. — Mww

That makes sense. So a world is always a construction.

The climate we’re used to had stabilised over millennia. — Punshhh

It wasn't going to stay that way, though.

Kant spoke of "space" and "time" as forms of sensible intuition, because he thoughts these were absolute. — Manuel

But Relativity emerged from thought experiments, so it indicates that the world does conform to the way we're bound to think.

but now we may have to take into account the new physics — Manuel

Quantum mechanics or relativity?

That we attribute cause to the world because it is a part of the way we view the world, does not solve the problem — Manuel

The idea of law is also built into perception, right?

If I misunderstood what you meant, and went off on a useless tangent....let me know so I can adjust accordingly. — Mww

I think you did understand me even though I did t say it very well.

So we end up with two meanings for "world". There's the world we know, which is the world that's available to science.

And there's the world we can't know.

never occurred to him that the understanding itself might, perhaps, by means of these conceptions, be the author of the experience in which its objects were presented to — Mww

And that's one way to reunite the boundaries of thought to the boundaries of possibility as long as we recalibrate "reality" to the world as we know it, right?

They can be glued together by observation. — Haglund

Although it's dubious to say we observed something that's impossible. We'll tend to continue trying to make observations fit with logic somehow even if it takes decades as with quantum theories.

Physical reality has limits. Logic has no limits. — Haglund

I think logic is about the limits of thought. We can think this way, but not that.

Physical reality not excludes the middle. — Haglund

So you're drawing a line between the way we think and the way the world is.

Once you've done that, there's the problem of how to put them back together.

Christ as the Nous.

The trinity is Neoplatonism.

If it does, I do hope nuclear winter and global warming cancel each other out. — Benkei

That would be nice, but I don't think it works that way.

There's a path from here directly to global nuclear war. Can't say that every day.

It is absolutely legitimate to heap focus on the most destructive and powerful imperial agent on the face of the Earth, especially as a bulwark against those who continue to swallow Western propaganda wholesale while spouting off racist narratives as a matter of casual conversation. — StreetlightX

Keep up the good work. :up:

The idea is that the use of a tactical nuke would cause enough fear of a strategic exchange to force adversaries to compromise. It's part of a trend towards a more aggressive nuclear posture that Putin's Russia has continually made as it falls further behind its neighbors technologically and militarily. — Count Timothy von Icarus

So an embargo would likely lead to the use of strategic missiles.

All true. :grin:

China's finally got it.

That makes a lot of sense. It looks like Zelensky also doesn't want it to escalate.

Thanks again.

So why does the head of the CIA publicly float the idea that Putin might use tactical nukes? Is he just spouting off? Or is he trying to accomplish something with that statement?

Thanks for the info.

More interesting question is what the Ukrainians will do. — ssu

What are their alternatives?

The pressure for social change was largely internal. Honestly I'd expect external pressure (especially from the French)to result in stubborn backlash. — Hanover

I was surprised to find out this isn't true. Here's an article about it. You need to have access to jstor.

What do you think the US will do if Putin uses nukes?