It means what it says. — Wayfarer

That would be evading the question. I much prefer it when people honestly say "I don't know" or "I don't understand your question".

We need to agree on what causality is. No fruitful discussion can take place if we simply skip this step. In my view, causality is nothing but a form of correlation. So when we say that X causes Y what we're saying, roughly speaking, is that X and Y are correlated, or in other words, that whenever X happens Y follows.

My view is that reality is a mass of particulars (i.e. facts, events, sensations, etc.) If we knew everything there is to be known about the world, we'd describe the world in terms of a mass of particulars. We wouldn't be talking about some underlying mechanism (i.e. a universal) that generates these events (i.e. particulars.) No, what we would do is we would say "this happens, then this happens, then this happens, and so on". There would be no descriptions such as "this happens and then that causes this to happen and than that causes this to happen and so on".

Mechanisms are human inventions. We create them for the purpose of prediction. Prediction implies ignorance. If we weren't ignorant we'd have no reason to make predictions. And we make predictions for the purpose of attaining our goals (whatever they are.)

There is a fundamental sense in which reality is constructed by the brain/mind on the basis of sense data, but also on the basis of our intellectual and even biological faculties. — Wayfarer

What does it mean that reality one's perception of reality is constructed by the brain on the basis of sense data? That is the question. More generally, what does it mean that X is constructed based on Y? Even more generally, what does it mean that X is caused by Y? What is causality?

So you are arguing against the principle of indifference by telling me all about how you personally choose to apply it. Congrats. — apokrisis

I am not arguing against what you call "the principle of indifference". I am arguing against your claim that there is no such thing as absolute difference. I agree that we are only ever aware of a portion of reality (what you call "the principle of indifference") but I disagree that this fact leads to what you claim. There is this thing that you call "the principle of indifference" and then there is this thing we call "absolute difference". They are not mutually exclusive.

I also disagree with your claim that reality is not composed of concrete particulars. I have to note that this claim does not follow from "the principle of indifference" either. Just because we are only ever aware of a portion of reality does not mean that what we are aware of is not reality itself.

Right. So as I was saying about the principle of indifference.... — apokrisis

No, you are saying that no two things can be absolutely different. I am saying that they can.

Also, you are saying that:

Reality appears composed of concrete particulars. But the emphasis is on appears. It isn’t really. — apokrisis

I am saying that reality is composed of concrete particulars.

Your ontological vagueness merely introduces vagueness. It makes things unnecessarily complicated. I see no reason for it.

your ontology of vagueness — Metaphysician Undercover

By the way, what happened to dichotomistic.com? It worked fine up until recently.

You are saying that my claim that there are objects that are absolutely different is not a claim about reality. That's not true. It might be the fact that I am expressing myself in abstract, mathematical, terms such as sets that creates the problem. This can be easily solved by substituting abstract terms with terms that are sufficiently concrete. For example, instead of speaking in terms of sets and elements I can speak in terms of baskets and fruits. Suppose that we have two baskets. One is dark brown in color and another is light brown. The dark brown contains three apples and two oranges. The light brown, on the other hand, contains five bananas. Note that the two baskets and the fruits that they contain is not something that has been imagined. Rather, it is something that has been observed. It is a portion of reality. It is not, as you say, a mere logical contrivance. Based on these facts, we can say that the two baskets are "absolutely different" to mean that they have no fruit in common. This is hardly disputable. Nonetheless, someone like you may come along and attempt to dispute this claim by saying that that two baskets have one thing in common: that they both contain fruits. He may go further than that and say that they also have in common the fact that the fruits are ripe. He may go even further than that and say that the fruits the two baskets contain also have certain molecules and atoms in common. However, in any case, he would miss the point because he would be comparing portions of reality that we are not interested in. Note that whenever we talk about reality we only talk about a portion of reality. There is no way around this. All you can do is you can change the portion of reality you are talking about. For example, you can move away from a smaller portion of reality towards a bigger portion of reality. But you can never go beyond the fact that whenever you talk about reality you are talking about a portion of reality.

I am denying your claim that there is no such thing as absolute difference.

How are we to distinguish between a memory of past experience and an imagination thereof? — creativesoul

Are you saying that you cannot differentiate between a memory (e.g. what you wrote to me just a few minutes ago) and an imagination (e.g. what you may write to me in the future)? Or are you asking by what mechanism do we know what is a memory and what is an imagination?

I think that attempting to qualify knowledge as direct and/or indirect is useless. — creativesoul

So you think there is no difference between seeing that it is raining at some point t in time (direct knowledge) and assuming that it rains at some point t in time (indirect knowledge)?

Yes, this conversation is about reality, and about reality I am talking.

Okay then. Do you see a difference between an imagination that dinosaurs lived in the past (that may or may not be based on evidence) and a memory of you seeing with your own eyes dinosaurs living? The former is indirect knowledge. The latter is direct knowledge.

It does not follow that an assumption that dinosaurs lived in the past counts as direct knowledge.

What's happening here is I am not expressing myself precisely and you are taking advantage of this to make conclusions that do not follow.

It does not follow.

The Cosmos does not care about anything.

It is.

If direct knowledge is everything I have experienced in the past, then what would indirect knowledge be? — creativesoul

That which you haven't experienced but assumed in the past. For example, I haven't experienced that dinosaurs lived on Earth but I have assumed, i.e. imagined based on the available evidence, that they lived on Earth.

Yes. The problem is that "being a set" is usually not an element of sets. Consider set A with elements 1, 2 and 3; and set B with elements 4, 5 and 6. Comparing the two sets means comparing those elements that belong to them. We didn't include "being a set" in these two sets, so it makes no sense to count it as an element when comparing the two sets.

Sometimes differences don’t make a difference. And that is determined by the context. — apokrisis

Yes, there are details that are irrelevant. And it is us who determine which details are relevant and which details are not relevant. For example, when we measure the length of an object we do so by counting how many objects of the same length (e.g. centimeters) can be put next to each other so that they appear to be the same length as the object we are measuring. When we say "the same length" we do not mean "the same length from any point of view". Rather, what we mean is "the same length from those points of view that are of interest to us". It is possible for two objects to appear the same from those points of view that are of interest to us and different from those points of view that are of no interest to us. Centimeters may appear the same from a distance but seen up close they may look different. When you move closer to a centimeter, new details may appear in your view of that centimeter. If this happens, then the two centimeters may no longer appear to be of the same length. And this is why it is extremely important to define the boundaries of a centimeter. You need to know what is a centimeter and what isn't. When you know what is a centimeter and what isn't then it becomes straightforward to determine whether any two centimeters are of the same length or not. There is no longer any room for "but if you take a closer look you will see that they are different!" because the concept of centimeter limits the set of vantage points that belong to this concept. Differences that can be observed from those vantage points that fall outside of the definition of the concept of centimeter can be dismissed on the ground that they are irrelevant. They are simply NOT part of the concept of centimeter.

All real things are never absolutely the same, nor absolutely different. They are just relatively alike or relatively unalike. — apokrisis

"Absolutely different" means "completely different". Two objects are said to be completely different if they have nothing in common. Are you saying there is no such a thing as two objects that have nothing in common? Of course not. I can easily give you an example of two sets that are completely different in the sense that they have no elements in common. Let A = {1, 2, 3} and B = {4, 5, 6}. A and B, we can clearly see, are two completely different sets because they have no elements in common. Not a single one. I don't think you're denying this obvious fact i.e. that there are objects that have nothing in common. So what exactly are you saying? What do you mean when you say there is no such a thing as "absolute difference"?

There is indeed such a thing as direct knowledge. For example, everything I have experienced in the past is a direct knowledge of the world. This is simply what "direct knowledge" means. That's how I define it. If you're going to deny what I am saying, you better understand what I am saying. Or, if you don't want to do that, you better make it explicit what you're denying, which means, you better define what you mean when you say "direct knowledge". You may find out that I agree with your statement that there is no such thing as direct knowledge and that you agree with my statement that there is such a thing as direct knowledge; it's just that we're using one and the same expression to mean two different things.

That's not a good definition, my friend. It's too vague.

Experience on its own is neither subjective nor objective. Rather, it is objects of experience that can be either subjective or objective. To say that an object of experience is subjective or that it is objective is to say that it belongs to the category designated by the word "subject" or that it belongs to the category designated by the word "object". To determine whether any given object of experience belongs to the category designated by the word "subject" or to the category designated by the word "object" one must first understand the membership rules of these categories. The problem with saying that all experience is subjective (i.e. that every object of experience belongs to the category designated by the word "subject") or that all experience is objective (i.e. that every object of experience belongs to the category designated by the word "object") is that it does nothing but change the rules of these two categories so that one category becomes all-inclusive (which means there are no longer objects of experience that it excludes) and another all-exclusive (which means there are no longer objects of experience that it includes.) One must first understand the definition of these categories before one proceeds to determine which one of the two categories any given object of experience, or even every object of experience, belongs to. Given my understanding of the definition of these two categories, my position is that experience as a whole, i.e. the set of all objects of experience, does not belong to any of the two categories. Rather, some objects of experience belong to the category designated by the word "subject" and some objects belong to the category designated by the word "object".

There is no need for Charles Sanders Pierce kind of obscurity.

You need to define what it means to see the world indirectly as opposed to directly. Otherwise, I am afraid, no fruitful communication can take place.

I make a distinction between facts and interpretations. Facts refer to what has been experienced in the past e.g. an observation that an apple on a table is red is a fact because it is something that has been experienced in the past. Interpretations, on the other hand, refer to what hasn't been experienced in the past but has been assumed in the past e.g. an assumption that there is a tree in a garden when noone is looking at it. Facts are direct knowledge of the world, interpretations are indirect knowledge of the world.

It is clear to me that you operate with a different understanding of what it means for knowledge to be direct as opposed to indirect. What I am asking you is to make this explicit.

We don't see the world directly — apokrisis

And before we can make such a claim, i.e. that we don't see the world directly, we must have a clear understanding of what it means to see the world directly as opposed to indirectly.

For example, what does it mean to say that an observation that an apple on a table is red is not a direct knowledge of the world? Most people will agree with this statement, i.e. that an observation that an apple on a table is red is not a direct knowledge of the world, but how many will be able to explain what that statement means? Very few, right?

I agree. Though I understand the practical and emotional reasons for seeking this mechanism. — 0rff

In order to attain our goals, we must predict all of the relevant events. In order to be able to predict them, they must be predictable. That's why we love predictability. If there is a mechanism that generates every event that we observe then this means that, if we knew how this mechanism operates, we could predict these events with absolute precision i.e. without ever making a mistake.

The fact is that it is us who create such a mechanism. And we do so based on our direct knowledge i.e. based on what we have observed in the past. Such a mechanism can be formed to the extent that there is regularity, or more precisely homogeneity, within the observed events. If our data isn't regular or homogenous then no such mechanism can be formed. You can proceed to collect more data with the hope that there is a hidden order you are not aware of but this isn't a guarantee that further experience will make your data homogenous. Finally, no matter how homogenous your data is, further experience can always destroy its homogeneity.

The only way around this is dogmatism or absolutism: you just declare that the universe works according to some mechanism regardless of any evidence.

I suspect that we are all reductionists whether we like or not, but I like philosophy that strives against our tendency to clamp down on a particular mechanism. — 0rff

Reductionism isn't a bad thing per se. Reduction is a very useful tool. It allows us to create models of reality which in turn allow us to make predictions. We cannot make predictions without reduction.

As usual, you missed the fact you also had to mention the "you" that has "the experience". — apokrisis

As usual, you miss the fact that subject (that which we say perceives) and object (that which we say is perceived) are both part of the experience. Subject-object relation is nothing but a relation between two objects of experience. You are confusing direct knowledge (what has been experienced) with indirect knowledge (what hasn't been experienced but can be assumed, expected, guessed, predicted, retrodicted, inferred, etc based on what has been experienced.) Your position is that all knowledge is indirect knowledge. That's not true.

I think that some people, the so-called holistic thinkers among them, have a difficult time accepting that what happens, what we observe, is not generated by some underlying, hidden, mechanism. I don't care how much they hate reductionism; if they think the universe unfolds according to some sort of hidden mechanism, as every metaphysician and ontologist does, they are still ontological reductionists. I don't care if this mechanism is deterministic, indeterministic or dichotomistic (involving the interplay of determinism and indeterminism.) The point is that you're still trying to reduce everything to a mechanism, i.e. a set of rules, regardless of whether the evidence that we have permits it or not. Reduction is possible only to the extent that observations permit it. If there is little to no regularity in the observed events, there is little to no reduction that can be performed. It is our EXPERIENCE that limits what kind of reduction we can perform.

OK, I hear your assertion and await the supporting counter-argument. What could be more accurate than saying the past constrains the future? — apokrisis

The past does not constrain the future. Rather, our method of reasoning is founded on the premise that the future will be maximally similar to the past.

The reason such a method of reasoning is useful is not because the past constrains the future. Rather, it is because the events, within the environment that we live, happen to mostly unfold in a manner that fits models created using such a method of reasoning.

It is inaccurate to say the past absolutely determines the future - that there is no actual quantum grain of free spontaneity. — apokrisis

It is inaccurate to say that the past determines the future in any sort of way, relative or absolute. Instead, what is accurate is to say that there is a relation between two points in time. Relation is nothing but a measure of similarity/difference. For example, a later point in time can be very similar to an earlier point in time. The degree of similarity can vary. It can be absolutely similar (i.e. no difference in all relevant aspects) or relatively similar (i.e. minor differences in some of the relevant aspects.) Similarly, a later point in time can be very different from an earlier point in time. It can be absolutely different (i.e. no similarity in all relevant aspects) and relatively different (i.e. minor similarities in some of the relevant aspects.)

And it would be even more inaccurate to say the past leaves the future completely undetermined, or radically free and spontaneous. On the whole - as you agree about stability - the future seems pretty classically predictable. — apokrisis

It is not inaccurate to say that the past leaves the future completely undetermined. What is inaccurate is to say that the future breaks free from the past in any sort of way, relative or absolute.

The presence of relation between two events, i.e. a degree of similarity or difference between them, requires no underlying mechanism. Rather, it is intelligent organisms that require such a mechanism because they want to predict the future so that they can more effectively attain their goals (whatever these goals are.) Mind you, such mechanisms can only be useful in relatively stable environments. But that does not mean that stable environments are a product of some underlying mechanism. They aren't. It is an unnecessary assumption.

So why is my constraints-based view of causality incorrect when - strictly speaking - it covers both the classical determinism and the quantum indeterminism? — apokrisis

It makes things unnecessarily complicated.

How is it sufficiently stable? — apokrisis

It does not matter whether you ask "why" or "how". These two types of questions are very similar to each other. In fact, I'd say they are two sides of the same coin. I'll try to explain what's wrong with them in another post.

So now you show you don't get that to be constrained just means to be constrained, not to be determined?

Saying the past shapes the possibilities of the future is quite different from saying the past determines the future. — apokrisis

I understand that. I understand the difference between absolute and relative limits. The thing is that you do not understand my point. My point being that it is strictly speaking incorrect to say that the past constrains the future. It does not. That might be how we speak. But that's not correct.

My point was that constraints-based causal thinking works better than talk about absolute laws or mechanical determinism. So my stress is on the evidence for a fundamental indeterminism in nature - the quantum facts. And then how that gets resolved by a constraints-based or contextual understanding of why the world seems classically determined on the whole. Classical regularity and predictability emerges due to large numbers and an emergent regularity that is probabilistic. — apokrisis

I can agree with that.

Well duh. Why is it sufficiently stable? Has change been regulated by a past that is an absolutely stable context? — apokrisis

But then you say something like this and I cannot help but think that you're doing something wrong. You need to understand what a "why" question means before you ask one.

Better yet, can you transform Evolutionary Biology into data sets? I'd love to see how natural selection falls out of that. — Marchesk

It's possible. However, it would require a lot of work. One of the reasons we create theories is in order to make knowledge independent from experience. Once you come up with a theory, anyone can use it. It does not matter whether or not they have the experience necessary to come up with. All they have to do is to follow the instructions.

Particulars aren't enough. This is because theory isn't merely a mass of particulars. Theory is an invention that is based on a mass of particulars. The purpose of theory is to go beyond known particulars. Its purpose is to determine the best guess regarding some unknown particular (whether it is in the past or in the future.) Reasoning is fundamentally a process of extrapolation. You have some data set K that corresponds to a mass of particulars that are known to us (i.e. we have experienced them in the past.) Now, to reason means to find some data set U that is a superset of this data set K. Our method of reasoning works by choosing the most similar data set. In other words, it goes through every data set within some category of data sets that are supersets of data set K in order to choose the one that has the highest degree of similarity to K. That's all there is to reasoning. Of course, when multiple data sets have the same degree of similarity to data set K, we speak of randomness.

That's hilarious. How else do you think you can form a theory? By simply making shit up? That's what dogmatists do. They invent a theory and then they acknowledge those facts (i.e. particulars) that support it and ignore or deny those that contradict it.

Then scientists are dogmatists and absolutists, because they certainly go beyond brute particulars just happening to behave a certain way to overarching theories explaining how living things came to exist, or starsy formed, or how stellar fusion results in heavier elements, which gravity acts upon to form rocky planets and so on. — Marchesk

The two aren't mutually exclusive. The fact that the universe is a mass of particulars, and not a mechanism that generates these particulars, does not mean that there is no reason to create theories.

The problem you have is that you cannot accept that predictions and theories are fallible. You cannot live with this fact. You think that if something is fallible that it is necessarily useless. That's not true.

Of course the past constrains the future in terms of what is possible. If you break your leg, you won't be running any races. History is the accumulation of a whole lot of events that limit the scope of the future in a definite way. — apokrisis

The future is under no obligation to mimic the past. It can but it does not have to. The important thing is that the future is not compelled, forced, obliged, caused or otherwise constrained by what happened in the past to be a certain way. Rather, it is how our method of reasoning -- and reasoning is a process by which we guess the unknown -- works. It is based on the premise that the future will be maximally similar to the past. The reason our method of reasoning proves to be successful is because the environment we live in is sufficiently stable.

Right, but the point was that Kant saw a big problem with Hume's view of causation, which was that it led to widespread skepticism, and made science impossible. — Marchesk

Hume's view does not lead to skepticism and it does not make science impossible. Hume's view is merely a very accurate description of what was already there. In other words, he merely described how science works. You, and many other people, on the other hand, are mystics.

Or to show how correlation differs from causation. — Marchesk

There is a difference between the two but it's not the kind of difference that you think it is. A simple way to put it is that every causation is correlation but not every correlation is causation.

It's not that there are brute particulars that happen to always behave a certain way, it's that all the particulars are related in a way that necessitates their common behavior. And that's why physics has been so successful in unifying phenomena, such as electricity and magnetism. — Marchesk

It's precisely that there are only "brute particulars that happen to always behave a certain way". Laws are merely human inventions that are based on a selection of these brute particulars. Any other way of thinking is already a form of dogmatism and absolutism.

In short, there are fundamental underlying relationships to the cosmos that explain the observed regularities. — Marchesk

No. There are events that happen in a certain order. Each one of us is aware only of a selection of these events. Based on that selection of events, we invent laws. The purpose of laws is to allow us to go beyond what is known to us. This makes it possible for us to predict what's going to happen in the future and to take preventive measures.

That's exactly how I feel about what you're saying.

I declare to the love of my life that she is the love of my life for the sole purpose of manipulating her mind into believing and/or knowing it, because she doesn't.

According to your (mis)conception of what counts as a lie, I am lying... — creativesoul

It is according to your misconception of my conception of what counts as a lie. In your example, you are describing reality before proceeding to use that description to manipulate a woman's mind. That's not a lie. It's not a lie because your description wasn't formed with the aim to manipulate a woman's mind. It was formed with the aim to map reality.

Assuming sincerity, a speaker believes what they say. An insincere speaker does not. The former is honest, and the latter is not. The former is not lying, the latter is.

It's that simple. — creativesoul

It's not.

History has a way of constraining possibility. — apokrisis

History does not constrain possibility other than in the epistemological sense i.e. our method of reasoning relies on history to tell us what is most likely to occur in the future.

So it is true that the world seems to be fundamentally causal in this fashion. We can describe some general law that must be obeyed by every particular material event. Regularity gets locked in by a context. — apokrisis

Repetition isn't necessarily locked in, constrained or caused by context. Repetition, like any other kind of sequence of events, simply is. It is simply something that occurs.

The reason the universe appears to be fundamentally causal is because we live in an environment that is very stable (i.e. that does not change too fast.)

However physics also now tells us that at the fundamental level - once history and context have been stripped away - then action seems to become a-causal or indeterministic. — apokrisis

Lack of causal relations isn't always due to epistemology (i.e. lack of history and context.)

So this does not support what you call a Humean view of causation - that it could all be just one mass of amazing coincidences. — apokrisis

An event X is said to be a coincidence if there is no event Y that preceded it that can be used to predict it. With that definition in mind, events are not necessarily coincidental. Nonetheless, it is events that are fundamental and not laws that we create based on them.

That still doesn't answer the question as to why the sun would rise hundreds of billions of times in a row. — Marchesk

You don't understand what the question "why the sun would rise hundreds of billions of times in a row?" means. That's the problem. When you ask a question such as "why X at point in time t?" you are asking "how can we calculate that the event X, and not some other event Y, will occur at point in time t based on events that occured before the event X?" That's all that is being asked by such a question. And such a question may or may not have an answer. This is because it presupposes that the event X can be predicted based on the events that preceded it. That's not always the case.

The claims is that there is no reason for the sun to continue to shine, it just does. — Marchesk

That's not what the claim is. The claim is that causality is a human invention. We connect the events. They are not connected themselves. We do this because we want to predict the future. But then, that does not mean we can connect them any way we want. Observations limit the manner in which we can make connections.

There may or may not be a reason for the sun to continue to shine. But you have to understand what the word "reason" means.

This is at odds with scientific explanation, which posits reasons why the sun shines, and thus it's perfectly valid for us to expect it to continue to do so. — Marchesk

It isn't. You are merely confused. And the reason why it is "valid" for us to think that the past will repeat in the future is because we have evolved in relatively stable environments.

This isn't because of habit, it's because of gravity and nuclear physics. — Marchesk

It is because of observations + habit. Our method of reasoning is a habit. This habit has evolved in relatively stable environments.

I find this view of causality to be extremely impoverished. — Marchesk

Perhaps you find it impoverished because you are used to thinking that causality is something that it is not?

Thus Wittgenstein/Hume can preserve necessity (if B does end up always following A), while not introducing any mysterious causality. That sounds absurd. — Marchesk

See, I think that sounds perfectly sane. I think the reason you think it sounds absurd is because it goes against what you thought causality is (but is not.)

Let's take a gander at our respective notions of a lie. On my view, a lie is a deliberate misrepresentation of what one thinks/believes. That is the criterion, which when met, that counts as being a lie. I compare/contrast that to being honest, which is to not misrepresent what one thinks/believes. More simply put, a liar does not believe what they say, and an honest speaker does. It could also be talked about in terms os being a sincere speaker and/or being an insincere speaker. Speaking sincerely is precisely what one is doing when they're being honest, and vice-versa.

So... that's my take. What about yours? What exactly is the criterion, which when met, that counts as being a lie, and moreover how does it relate to being honest? — creativesoul

That's a horribly shallow understanding of what a lie is.

What is a lie?
Any declared description of reality that has been formed with the purpose to manipulate something (e.g. one's brain) or someone (e.g. one's neighbour.)

If I want person A to kill his friend person B all I have to do so is invent a reason for A to be motivated to kill B. For example, I can tell person A that his wife cheated on him with his friend person B. It does not matter whether I believe this myself or not. The point is that this alleged description of reality is formed with the sole purpose to motivate person A to kill person B. It wasn't formed with the aim to map reality.

What is not a lie?
Any declared description of reality that has been formed with the purpose to map reality.

That's also the difference between honesty and dishonesty.

Democracy is a system where the people are in power. — Zoneofnonbeing

More accurately, democracy is a system where the rabble is in power.