Thank you for your clarification on the point. I disagree with the point totally. — Corvus

You're welcome. And yes, you're free to disagree with the point totally, as you say. That is what Metaphysics is all about (well, that's what Philosophy is all about, really).

whether something is alive or not, if something is imaginable, thinkable and conceivable, then it is possible to discuss about them. — Corvus

I agree. We can talk about anything. The problem is, that there's a point where out words just stop making sense, even to ourselves. Remember one of the games that we all played at some point: pick a word, any word, and say it out loud, and repeat that for a few minutes. For example, let's pick the word "tree". Now, say "tree" over and over again, for several minutes. At some point, you will notice a psychological effect occurring "somewhere in your mind", in which everything is normal, except for the word "tree", which just stopped making sense because you repeated it so much. Well, that sort of psychological phenomena can be scientifically investigated. And I, as a metaphysican, can talk about all that: but only up to a certain point, because if I continue to talk as a metaphysician on that point, my words start seeming like what happened with the word "tree" in the previous example. In other words, you can't do metaphysics in isolation: you need many other Academic disciplines to complement it, if you want to get any substantial metaphysical work done.

But there are vast majority of people in the world who are imaginative, creative and metaphysical and believe in the abstract existence, — Corvus

Some professional philosophers agree with that as well: that there is such a thing as abstract existence. I'm not sure what to think of that myself, honestly. It seems false to me, just from an intuitive standpoint. But, sadly, our intuitions sometimes are mistaken.

If you still deny that, then no artistic, creative, idealistic activities would be possible. — Corvus

That's an interesting argument. I'll have to consider it. Thank you very much for sharing it.

There would be no movies, novels, poems, abstract paintings and sculptures available in the world. There would be no religions. Is it the case? I certainly don't think so. — Corvus

Hmmm... I'm not sure, really. I dont know "what to make of it", as some people say. Can you explain to me why you certainly don't think so? Thanks in advance.

Dead bodies also have DNA. So having DNA is not the right criteria for being alive. — Corvus

Hmmm... You know, that's actually a really good philosophical point that you just made there. By Gods, mate, I've never even thought of it that way. I'm not even sure what I should even say to that. I would have to think it. Hmmm...

Ok, fair point. — Corvus

You think? I'm not so sure myself. Calling someone "ignorant" is just rude. Maybe I should retire that word from my personal vocabulary, but I'm not sure. What do you think about that? Is the word "ignorant" somehow insulting? I think it is, but I could be wrong.

But it is still possible to talk about non-alive objects such as the fire breathing dragons and demons. — Corvus

Sure. But then I can talk about how those people talked about those objects. And how do I do that? First, I study what they said, then I study what those objects are. It's a case-by-case approach, there is no general rule or principle here. I'll share one of my favorite quotes by Dan Z. Korman on that point:

I can imagine some metaphysicians complaining that my approach is disgracefully messy and unprincipled. Even if the charge of arbitrariness can be defused, case by case, by appeal to a hodge-podge of different phenomena, the conservative treatment of ordinary and extraordinary objects evidently isn’t going to conform to any neat and tidy principles. So whatever conservatives are doing, they surely aren’t carving at the joints.
I would remind these metaphysicians of the story of Cook Ting, who offers the following account of his success as a butcher:

I go along with the natural makeup . . . and follow things as they are. So I never touch the smallest ligament or tendon, much less a main joint . . . However, whenever I come to a complicated place, I size up the difficulties, tell myself to watch out and be careful, keep my eyes on what I’m doing, work very slowly, and move the knife with the greatest subtlety.

Some cooks are going to view Cook Ting’s approach with suspicion, as they watch him slowly working his knife through some unlikely part of the ox, carving oxen one way and turkeys a completely different way, even carving some oxen differently from other oxen. They’ll see his technique as messy and unprincipled, hardly an example of carving the beasts at their joints. But from Cook Ting’s perspective, it is these other cooks, the ones who would treat all animals alike, who are in the wrong. They aren’t carving at the joints. They’re hacking through the bones. — Daniel Z. Korman

@Wayfarer have you read that book by Daniel Z. Korman that I just quoted? It's called "Objects: Nothing Out of the Ordinary", and it was published by Oxford University Press in 2015.

Thank you very much once again, @ToothyMaw. I'm not that familiar with the work of Peter Singer. I know of him, but I have not read any of his works yet. What would you recommend that I start with?

Changing the subject, back to this Thread. I am quite huge fan of Earth Crisis myself. Yet (and I say this as a fan), sometimes it seems to me that their message fails to engage with the listener as an individual. And that's something very interesting in its own right. Earth Crisis speak "to the masses", if you will. Well, that's technically inaccurate, since the last lines of their song "Ecocide" are literally "by me, and by you", so, they do engage with the listener as an individual in some sense. However, there is another band that does that far better: Hatebreed. They are not Vegan nor Straight Edge, but they have something in common with Earth Crisis, because they are part of the larger "world" of Hardcore Punk / Heavy Metal. Besides, Jamey Jasta himself (lead singer of Hatebreed) as said on several occasions, even on social media, that Earth Crisis is one of the bands that inspired him to form Hatebreed. So, let's take a look at one of their songs, shall we?



I actually quite like that song and video. It sends out a positive message, even though the instrumentation and the lyrics are a bit "harsh" for the positivity that they are attempting to transmit to the listener.

What do you make of that, @ToothyMaw? Feel free to just "ramble on" about it, even if it has no logic to you.

↪Arcane Sandwich
I couldn’t make sense of your comparison.

Look at the passage above your post, specifically:

The world is inconceivable apart from consciousness. Treating consciousness as part of the world, reifying consciousness, is precisely to ignore consciousness's foundational, disclosive role. — Source


Agree or disagree with that proposition? Why? — Wayfarer

I agree with it, of course. Why? Because consciousness is of the elements of subjectivity. And the world is what is not the subject: it is objectivity itself. So, of course, I am against the reification of consciousness. To reify is to commit the fallacy of treating a non-thing as if it were a thing. It is even worse if one believes that consciousness is indeed a real thing, such as the Cartesian res cogitans. Technically speaking, Descartes was speaking nonsense on that point. Literally. Consciousness is not a res to begin with, it is not a "thing". It is, instead, a series of physical processes occurring in the brain of every living creature on this planet that is endowed with a central nervous system. So yes, "the mind is what the brain does", so to speak. None of this means that I am necessarily right. It does mean, however, that I have the right to say it publicly, and to think it privately at the same time. That, is what I call "the Absolute", in the Hegelian sense. It just so happens that I don't believe in Dialectical Synthesis. Instead, I utilize "Dialectical Analysis", if you will, to achieve a sort of reverse-engineering of language itself, and that reveals many things, including the Nature of consciousness. It is a "situated phenomenology", if you will. And that grants it more dignity than pure, non-existential phenomenology.

That is what I believe. Again, I may have beliefs that are false, it just so happens that I am unaware that they are false.

↪Arcane Sandwich
If anything is said to be good, we can always ask on what grounds is it deemed to be good. — Janus

Ah, but you see, that is the "magical" part of Cosmological Platonism: you don't even need ground to begin with, because the Idea of Good (in that system) is identical to the Ground itself. It is "That Which Grounds", in the sense of metaphysical grounding as an Academic discipline.

we can always ask on what grounds is it deemed to be good. — Janus

And the usual retort to that, is that language itself is a game, and since there is no arbiter (i.e., no "referee", if you will), it is an incomplete game.

If someone claims there is an unconditional good, then you might ask "can that be more than a mere opinion?" — Janus

I sincerely do not know, my friend. What would be your honest opinion on such a thesis, if it is indeed a thesis to being with?

"what grounds do you have for claiming that there is an unconditional good?" — Janus

None. That is the whole point of Ground. That is its function: it grounds other things, in a metaphysical sense, and it is not grounded by anything else. Think of it like Aristotle's Primer Mover: it moves other things, and nothing moves it.

Yet Aristotle wrongly assumed that the Prime Mover was diametrically opposed to Pure Matter. He had it, "backwards", if you will.

This is something h.sapiens can do that no other creature can do. If there’s anything problematic it is the inability to see the significance of that. — Wayfarer

Then I'll just share my own Philosophy of Mathematics with you all, since I have not done that so far (oddly enough, not one of you even stopped to realize that fact). In matters of metaphysics / ontology, I have already told you the following: I am a realist, a materialist, an atheist, and a supporter of scientism. From those four premises, you cannot "get" (deduce) my Philosophy of Mathematics, because it is a "hidden" axiom of the system itself (BTW, this is "the language" {it's more of a dialect, really} that I call: "Axiomatese", as in, "Ontologese", which intended to mimic "Portuguese". Pay no great attention to those facts, as they have a sort of Mind-Flayer-ish tone to them. And I am not a Mind Flayer, of that I am certain. Cogito, ergo sum et res cogitans / extensa) <- Yeah, I just "made that up", so to speak.

And that is my humble point. Some absolute restrictions are necessary in language itself, otherwise communication is not cost-effective. In the terms of Thermodynamics, it would be "too costly for not enough benefit". It would be what is now called "a viable option among many others".

Edited for Clarity.

↪Arcane Sandwich
Agree, nicely put. — Tom Storm

Thank you very much Tom Storm, I do indeed know how "to muse", in the verb-sense of the term. As in, I am familiar with the human art of music, which is itself related to the Muses of ancient Greek mythology, as well as the word "museum", literally meaning "the place of the muses". In other words, yes, I'm somewhat familiar with poetry. Not exactly my field, but I did read Tolkien, so that must surely count for something (one would hope).

↪Arcane Sandwich
What might be an example of such an absolute good and how might we demonstrate this? — Tom Storm

Hmmm... Well, Platonic Ideas, if they exist, would be example of such absolute goods. Why is a mere thing, a mere ordinary object, good? Because in that context, relativism is somehow true (though it doesn't have much being, and consequently, it does not have much existence). However, in that very same context, there is a wider context. The real world, for Plato, is something like a subset of a larger world, and it runs parallel to "another subset" in that real world, which is the subset of the "Realm of Ideas". In that realm, "things" (i.e., Platonic Ideas) are good by themselves, that is, they are good in a non-relational way. So why are they good? It's not as if "something makes them good", since they're immaterial (i.e. they're not "made" of something, so nothing "makes" them good). So, why are they good to begin with?

Well... you just said so yourself, in your own mind: because they simply are that way. They just are good, simpliciter.

Yes, although I might say this is a contingent form of good as it would be 'truly good' for a specific purpose - my back - and such an efficacious approach may not work on other's backs or even mine, a year later. So the good is relative to a set of circumstances. — Tom Storm

Unless there is a good that is non-relative to a set of circumstances. Such a good would be, in that sense, an absolute good, as opposed to a mere relative good.

↪Arcane Sandwich
You kinda learn who when you learn your first language, as you learn to use words like "one" and thereabouts. You are part of a community. Them. — Banno

If there is a "Them", then there is an "Us". That, presents itself as different options. Hypothetically:

Option 1) Us vs Them
Option 2) Them vs Us
Option 3) There is no match. There is neither Option One nor Option 2, because this is not to be decided in this context. It does not follow from that, however, that it is not to be decided in any context.

Most people in my world know what 666 means, and so in. — frank

The world of Iron Maiden, you mean?

What counts as one unit? We get to choose. — Banno

"We" as in "who"? The individual members of the species Homo sapiens?

From the duality of the dichotomy flows the triadicity of the hierarchy. You — apokrisis

What a Beautiful statement. I mean that Aesthetically, and only in that sense (the aesthetic sense of the term, not the Aesthetic sense of the "word"). I just love the musicality that those words have. I would, of course, add a fourth element there (just as a hypothetical suggestion):

From the triadicity of the hierarchy, flows the fourthness of the transfinite landscape.

That phrase, though dubious from a semantic standpoint, sounds rather "pleasing" to the ear, objectively speaking. Why? Because it combines a "modern" tone, that of "transfinite sets", as in the work of Cantor. Yet, the former part (the antecedent) sounds more "ancient", somehow. Well, of course, triadic thinking is essential to both Christianity as well as Taoism. But you see, that duplicity, -Christianity and Taoism -does not drain the "metaphysical Well", so to speak, in the manner of a poet. There is Freedom in Subjectivity, is there Freedom in Objectivity? If so, in what sense?

And the answer to that question, my friend, is the following:

In an absolute sense. The "intent" of it, if you want to call it that, is both "realist" and "royalist". Such matters cannot be avoided, for they are the literal semantics of the very word, "absolute". Yet, -and please don't laugh-, millions of people worldwide, everyday, get drunk on some cheep alcohol called "Absolute Vodka". How funny, right mate? That's the kind of joke that Zizek would make.

Except he wouldn't. He doesn't dare to. People, generally speaking, think he is extremely provocative. He isn't. Real Wars are provocative. Except that they are not. War is not something to be Glorified: there is no Honor in Violence. That does not mean that violence should be committed: it should, under the just circumstances. Otherwise, you aren't speaking of justice, but of something else, and that is where, through the process of Dialectical Analysis, not Dialectical Synthesis (as a Hegelian would), you arrive at the reductionist (and false) dichotomy of only two options at this juncture. And if you pursue that road, you end up, again, by analysis, at solipsism. Proceed one more step, and now you are about as aware as a rock: you have removed Firstness, you have removed your Physical First Person Perspective on the world, and it just seems like "A Thing, In Itself".

But it just seems that way, mate. That is no indication of what it actually is. Want to call it something? Call it "Tao", like Lao Tzu did. Who cares? Call it Nature, call it Absolute Spirit: It is there, and it is not you. And now, Understand that fact.

In the modern tradition, reason is often deflated into mere calculation. So, the desire aspect tends to get lost. IMO, this is precisely what makes Hume Guillotine even plausible in the first place. — Count Timothy von Icarus

What at odd thing to say. "Hume Guillotine"? Sounds grotesque. Yet I digress.

Allow me to ask you this: what is the Kantian Thing In Itself? Have you seen it, with your very own eyes?

So yes, "If you have one unit, and combine it with another unit, you get two units, no matter how you define what a unit consists of" because that now counts as two units. — Banno

Yes, IF you have one unit. It does not follow that you do have one unit to begin with.

Think of it like the three positions in the Analytic Metaphysics of Ordinary Objects.

There, in that context (the metaphysics of ordinary objects), there are three (and only three) logical answers to van Inwagen's Special Composition Question, or SCQ for short:

1) Never (nihilism)
2) Sometimes (particularism)
3) Always (universalism)

Why is this important? Because it is itself undercut by (or perhaps is parallel to) a similar distinction, this one entirely metaphysical, not mereological like the previous one:

1) Eliminativism: there are no ordinary objects, nor extraordinary objects.
2) Conservatism: there are only ordinary objects, and there are no extraordinary objects.
3) Permissivism: there are both ordinary objects as well as extraordinary objects.

From a purely Pragmatic Point of View, the second option is the most practical one in cost-efficient terms. It "gets the work done", which is something that Eliminativism cannot even do, while it avoids incurring in enormous metaphysical (and by extension, mereological) costs. It is simply the greatest solution in terms of metaphysical cost-effectiveness.

Is this too "rambly", for the OP of this Thread?

P.S.: Can someone just explain the dumb joke about "Edited for the sake of clarity" versus "Who is Clarity?" If you explain it correctly, I'll award you with the fictional "Immaterial Medal of Greatness".

Friends, if I may:

There is evidently an elephant in the room, and no one is clearly addressing it. Perhaps because you find it somehow awkward (I don't actually know what that would take in a Thread called "Mathematical platonism", but I digress).

The "elephant in the room" here, so to speak, presents itself as "pack". A "multiple", if you will. A nice, shiny-looking Pandora's Box of philosophical problems.

So let's be simple about this, in a methodological sense. Let's simply, as engineers would. Let us address one specific "part" of that so-called "Elephant in the Room":

Geopolitics, but from the "point of view", so to speak (i.e., the "conceptual framework") of Game Theory.

This is what is now under discussion in this Thread, it seems. In some way or another. Perhaps you had a simpler picture in mind. Perhaps it was instead more complicated than mine. But that is more or less the "tone", if you will, that is being "played" (as in, "Playing the Classical Harp") here. As in, "Oh, Aristotelian Realism, how Romantic, it is so Lovely, and Yet So Troubled".

And what I'm saying, "mates", is that the solution is very, very simple:

Australian Realism (is greater than, in the mathematical sense) Aristotelian Realism.

So, let us simplify that, shall we?

Australian Realism -> Aristotelian Realism.

Which one of you would like to throw yourselves over that metaphorical grenade of a thesis? I'll tell you one thing: it certainly won't be me.

(I, Arcane Sandwich, have edited this thread for Clarity's Sake. And here's the joke: who is "Clarity"? What is her sake in all this?)

Hello @Wayfarer,

How are you? Just writing to ask you politely if you've found the time to consider my latest argument, above.

All the best,
-Arcane Sandwich

P.S: Time flies and so do fruit flies.

Think of chess. This is an arbitrary game, with arbitrary rules that exist in our collective heads. It is well known in chess that a bishop is worth 3x a pawn and 1/3 a queen. Impressively, this was known well before computers made it conclusive. Yet, you will never find this in the rules of chess, it was never in anyone's head before it was discovered. How can this be? I think of the rules of chess as creating a "logical landscape", and facts can be discovered in such a landscape that were never in anyone's head. This, despite the rules of chess being 100% arbitrary, having no connection to the actual universe. — hypericin

This is an excellent point. I would even add: when someone plays a game of chess, it would be wrong to think that the chess-player is executing monarchic politics when he moves the piece called "the King". I mean, come on, have you ever thought such a demented thing while playing an actual game of chess? Of course not. But you see, this is what I'm humbly saying: philosophers step in at this point of the dialogue, and they say: "How do you know that you're not really executing monarchic politics when you're playing a real game of chess at the park with a bunch of random people?" And the appropriate response to that sort of question, is a Moorean response.

Such is my sentiment on that issue.

How can be unsound if it is logical? — Bob Ross

Hey Bob, I didn't want to leave you hanging on this one. Here's the answer to this specific question, since it's a good question.

An argument can be formally valid (what you call "logical") and still be unsound (in the sense that at least one of the premises is false).

Here's an example of a logically valid but unsound argument:

1) If ghosts exist, then Paris is the capital of France.
2) Ghosts exist.
3) Therefore, Paris is the capital of France.

This argument is logical, it is valid. Why? Because it has the logical structure of a syllogism, in this particular case, it is a modus ponens (which is technically classified as a mixed hypothetical syllogism). Take a look at its structure, using Propositional Logic:

1) p → q
2) p
3) q

It is a deduction. However, as valid as the argument may be (and it is), it's unsound. Why? Well, lets replace each propositional letter with the truth value of each statement that was made:

1) F → T
2) F
3) T

You see, the conclusion, which is True, has been logically deduced from a series of premises in which the second one, in this case, was False.

The moral of the story here is that it is logically possible to deduce True conclusions from False premises (and yes, there are examples that show how this can even be the case for all of the premises).

What cannot happen, of course, is a case in which you have a series of True, and only True premises, and yet somehow you want to logically deduce a false conclusion from them. That, my friends, is not valid reasoning.

His arguments about why objectivity is necessarily self-conscious — J

Hmmm... I think that's false (Hi, excuse me, if I'm allowed to give an opinion as objectively and respectfully as possible)

odd as that sounds — J

Of course it sounds odd. That's what I've been saying since I first joined this Forum: some of the things that are discussed in professional philosophy sound odd. That doesn't mean, necessarily, that what they're saying is untrue. I mean, we -the philosophers- have become de-sensitized to theoretically strange ideas. What is Platonism if not that? What is Cartesianism if not that? We've been exposed to so much professional philosophy, that it's become quite difficult for professional philosophers to genuinely surprise us, the burnt-out readers of professional philosophers, in which some are professional philosophers as well.

Ok. Thank you for letting me know that you are not interested in participating in this thread. Fortunately, there are plenty of threads on this site for you to discuss those topics in. — Mapping the Medium

Thank you very much for your time, Mapping the Medium. I'm out. Peace.

phaneroscopist — Mapping the Medium

I've always had the impression that the phaneroscopist does something different than what the phenomenologist does. It's quite obvious that they are not doing the same thing. But here is my personal problem on that point: I can assume the role of the phenomenologist, but I cannot assume the role of the phaneroscopist. Honestly, phaneroscopy is not something that I even tell my students about Peirce at the Uni when I teach them the ideas of Peirce, James and Dewey. As for the nature of abstraction, I'm with Dewey on this one: they're in the brain, our abstractions, that is. Peirce and James are simply mistaken, and therefore, wrong.

Or, perhaps you might convince me of the benefits of phaneroscopy. I do not understand it myself. I have never claimed to understand it. I have never understood it, and I'm quite certain that I never will. Peirce was simply not a good writer, from a stylistic standpoint. He had no flair. Well actually he did, but he is sort of odd. Mario Bunge, one of my philosophical heroes, thought very highly of Peirce. I believe that he said something along the lines of, Peirce was one of the first Truly scientific minds in philosophy, or somnething like that. I might be mis-remembering though. I can look up Bunge's exact words if you want.

(Edited for Clarity's sake. Who is Clarity?)

reality is a web of infinitely inter-connected things — Bob Ross

Hmmm... do I agree with this? No, I think not. That is not what reality is. Reality is the Absolute, in the Hegelian sense of the term.

which would require the a sufficient reason for why they are the way they are. — Bob Ross

Would they require a sufficient reason for that? That's my point, dude. That there's three options here. And those options are, logically, the same ones that are available for answering van Inwagen's Special Composition Question, aka SCQ:

Option 1) Never. If you choose this option, you're a mereological nihilist.
Option 2) Sometimes. If you choose this option, you're a mereological particularist.
Option 3) Always. If you choose this option, you're a mereological universalist.

What I'm saying is that in the case of modality, you have the same structure, at least in principle:

Option 1) Never. If you choose this option, you're a modal nihilist.
Option 2) Sometimes. If you choose this option, you're a modal particularist.
Option 3) Always. If you choose this option, you're a modal universalist.

And this is what we're currently investigating, in page 4 of this Thread.

So I ask you, as if I was a "detective": do I have a "philosophical lead" here, so to speak? Or am I "way off"?

It is unphilosophical in the sense that the concepts and arguments are not well drawn out — Bob Ross

Hmmm... could be.

However, you also said this:

This isn’t science: there are no tests; there are no proofs in philosophy. What we do in philosophy, is determine the plausibility and probability of theses being true based off of weighing the evidence. — Bob Ross

So let me see if I'm following your lead, here. You're saying, that the OP is unphilosophical. You also say that philosophy is not science. Let me ask you this, then: is philosophy unscientific, in the sense that the OP is unphilosophical? Because there is a third sense here that could be the case: that the OP is unphilosophical and unscientific, the worst of both worlds.

If that's the verdict, then I'll accept my fate, as a poet should. Tell me then, what is the OP to you? If it is not philosophy, and if it is not science, what is it? Honest question.

That is an answer that can be traditionally offered; but I am in no way qualified to critique Hegel. He sucks at writing, and, unfortunately, I am incapable of penetrating into what the dude meant. — Bob Ross

Well, not quite, you see, because you speak the English language, which has a common etymology with Medieval German. I'll give you one example: Hegel establishes a distinction between "Thingness" and "Objectivity", and he prefers the latter. "Why does he prefer the latter?", you might ask? For no particular reason. It's simply an Aesthetic choice. Aesthetics, my friend, is Hegel's true First Philosophy. Think about it, he was a Romanticist. Why would he love Logic more than Aesthetics? He wouldn't, he wasn't a Classicist, he was a Medievalist.

You would have to find an equivalent, in your community, to what Hegel represented to the Common German Peasant of the 1800s. He was a Folk Hero. That's why they elevated him to the highest possible position in Academia, nay, they elevated his position within the State itself (he was, after all "the Philosopher of Germany", as in, their quasi-official "Philosopher of the State"), insofar an academic could make a career in the first half of the 19th Century. The closest equivalent to Hegel in North America, for example, is Peirce. It's not Walt Whitman, as Rorty has argued in print. It's Peirce, dude.

(note: I edited this comment for the sake of clarity. -Arcane Sandwich)

P.S.: "Who is Clarity?"

Hi @ToothyMaw, thanks for your continued participation in this Thread. It is much appreciated.

This question is actually a little more difficult than I initially thought. — ToothyMaw

It brings me great joy to read those lines. Philosophy is supposed to be difficult by default.

I think that you've stated some excellent thoughts, ToothyMaw. And they are well worth considering.

that one guy (Buechner, I think) from EC said that stopping doing drugs doesn’t actually make one a good person; one still has to act with that added mental clarity. — ToothyMaw

And I, personally, think he's absolutely right about that, but I don't expect others to share this sentiment. Let us continue.

Here is how I would have answered the third question of the exercise: It doesn't seem, at first glance, that a contradiction can be deduced from the set of the core Straight Edge premises and the set of the core Vegan premises. That being said, who says that a contradiction would be the only epistemic problem here?

The way I see it, even if there is no logical contradiction between those two sets of premises (i.e., being Straight Edge and being Vegan at the same time), I still see the peril of reductionism, so to speak. You've stated it very eloquently. The idea, if I understood you, would be something like the following:

1) "Reductionist" Straight Edge: they say that drugs are the cause of every problem in society.
2) "Reductionist" Vegan: they say that the use of animal products is the cause of every problem in society.

Instead, you seem to be suggesting that the following (if anything) would be more rational:

1) In the case of "True" Straight Edge: drugs are not the cause of every problem in society, though they are one of the main problems.
2) In the case of "True" Veganism: the use of animal products is not the cause of every problem in society, though it is one of the main problems.

Is that correct, or is it not?

(edited for the sake of clarity - Arcane Sandwich)

Does it mean that no one was alive before DNA RNA and body cells were discovered? — Corvus

No, it does not. DNA, RNA, and body cells already existed before they were discovered. And so did people, and those people were indeed alive, because they had DNA, RNA, and body cells, even though they did not know that specific fact about themselves and about the world in general. They were, I guess you could say, ignorant of that fact.

The reason that this core concept of objectness does mot remain stable in the face of changes in under is that it is an abstraction derived from a system of relations not only between us and the world we interact with, but between one part of the world and another. — Joshs

@Joshs Hi, I'm not sure if I understood this part correctly. I don't know if you're saying what it seems to me that you're effectively saying there. Can I ask for some clarification there? Specifically: what do you mean, and what do you intend, when you say something like that? Does that question make sense? Let's start with that, I think that could put this Thread back on track.

That distinction it makes between real and sensual seems to me a form of the distinction between the manifest and scientific images — Wayfarer

Yes, this is what "transcendental nihilists" (I'm not accusing you of anything, BTW) usually reply to Object-Oriented Ontology. The usual retort is that to trace a distinction between the scientific image of the world versus the folk image of the world is to focus on images, instead of objects (and consequently, instead of people, and of individual human beings. To say nothing of Nature in general).

there's the real object which science discerns, then how it appears to us on a sensory level. — Wayfarer

Not quite, for OOO holds that this happens even at the level of inanimate causation, even in the absence of ontological subjects. Perhaps the example of a meteor striking the Moon is too harsh for the soft tone of this tranquile discussion, a more appropriate one in tone would be the ancient Medieval Arab example of a flame slowly burning a ball of cotton. The flame burns the cotton, but it does not know what the essence of cotton is. It consumes the cotton until the cotton no longer exists. Then the flame no longer exists. There is nothing. And the moral of this story, is that the flame never knew what the cotton was, and the cotton never knew what the flame was. Flame had quintessence, cotton had quintessence. Neither knew each other, even though they burned together, until they both ceased to be.

(edited for the sake of clarity - Arcane Sandwich)

Oh man, forgive me for saying this, but in the last page of this Thread, we really made a hard turn to Wonderland, didn't we?

I mean, for a Thread called "Mathematical platonism", this just went to shite.

EDIT: And it appears that we haven't gotten out of that Rabbit Hole yet, on page 17 of this thing.

That’s a big problem, though; because you are arguing that the PSR applies in degrees. — Bob Ross

Indeed. That is indeed what I seem to be arguing. And, here is my humble opinion on that: it's not a topic that's usually discussed in the literature, on anything. It's a fringe topic in the world of Academia. Like, if I use Google Scholar for this kind of investigation, I don't exactly get many results, and the ones that I do indeed get, are of dubious quality.

So, I'm just doing the type of research here that's usually called "exploratory investigation". It's a type of investigation in which, since not much has been said, you go in anyways without having even a working hypothesis. It's like, you're not even putting a presumably false hypothesis to the test, you don't even have a hypothesis to begin with. Karl Popper said that every scientific investigation starts with a question, and that question is to be answered by the hypothesis to be put to the test. In an exploratory investigation, one doesn't even have a working hypothesis to begin with, because what one has, initially, is not a scientific question. It is instead a proto-scientific question (not to be confused with a pseudo-scientific question):

Question
Why is my existence as a person (and as an "Aristotelian substance") characterized by the factual properties that I have, instead of other factual properties? The perplexing thing here is that factual properties are contingent (in a modal sense), even though I experience them as necessary (in a modal sense). — Arcane Sandwich

You seem to be suggesting that the very question is objectionable. What I'm saying, literally, as objectively as I possibly can: Yes, you are right in one sense, and wrong in another sense.

So, if I am saying that, then:

1) there is a sufficient reason to your words in one sense (otherwise, you could not be right)

and

2) there is no sufficient reason to your words in another sense (otherwise, you could not be wrong).

Your freedom, your very freedom (not in a political sense, but in an ontological sense) is only possible if it is possible for you to be right and wrong about something, thought in different senses. Sometimes you "get it right", sometimes you "get it wrong". What's important is the following:

1) If you get it right, try to make sure that you're right about something that is indeed a big deal.
2) If you're wrong about something, try to make sure that you're wrong about something trivial.

Man, I don't know where I'm going with this, I'm just "harping away", as in, I'm just "playing the Classical harp" at this point. It's Aesthetically unpleasing. And this is why you jumped into this thread in the first place:

you don't like it.

But who says that you have to like a certain style, or a certain way, of doing philosophy? Unless you think that my OP is non-philosophical.

Is it? Honest opinion, please.

(note: I edited this comment for the sake of clarity -Arcane Sandwich)

↪Arcane Sandwich


I am not quite sure what the presenter is trying to say in his video. — Corvus

I believe he is saying more or less one of the things that I have been saying in another thread: not everything is possible, not even at the level of pure theory, not even at the level of pure metaphysical speculation. The basilisk that he's talking about is like the example of the statue of a dragon that has a mechanism for producing fire, like you showed me. That was not a living dragon, it was just an inanimate object with a mechanism for making flames. Similarly, the "informational basilisk", or "Basilisk A.I." is impossible, such a thing could not exist in the real world, just as Pegasus does not exist in the real world (i.e., there is no such thing as a living, breathing, winged horse located somewhere on planet Earth).

That's why 'the tao that can be named is not the real Tao'. So what is the real Tao? — Wayfarer

Hmmm...

... there is a working theory today, which you have told me that you know, and which you do not accept: OOO. From the POV of OOO, there is a "real Tao" and a "sensual Tao", because every Object manifests itself, so to speak, as if it were two objects: a real object and a sensual object. Perhaps Tao is not an object. Perhaps it is a Quality. If so, in OOO there is a distinction between "real qualities" and "sensual qualities". Whatever the case may be, the following can be said, perhaps:

1) "The tao that can be named" = the "sensual Tao", in OOO-Speak.
2) "is not" = is not identical to
3) "the real Tao" = the "real Tao", in OOO-Speak. You will never access it. No one will. Nothing, no other subject, and no other object, can access it. Why not? Because the essence of a real object is forever inaccessible to every other object, even at the level of knowledge, even at the level of inorganic causation. But this is not to say that OOO is right about Tao, or about other topics. I agree with OOO on some things, yet not in others. On this one, if this were truly what OOO would say, then I would disagree with OOO. But not because I am a Taoist, since I am not. I would disagree for other motives.

Man, Earth, Heaven, Tao and Nature—the five 'elements' of the verse. — Janus

But in Wuxing those are not all of the same elements. In Wuxing, the five elements are: Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, and Earth.

The set of elements that are found both in the Tao Te Ching and in Wuxing = {Earth}

The set of elements that are different between the Tao Te Ching and Wuxing: {{Man, Heaven, Tao, Nature},{Fire, Water, Wood, Metal}}

Objectively speaking, in a pure way (in the language of mathematics, and of set theory more specifically), it is possible to obtain several conclusions here. The Tao Te Ching and Wuxing only have Earth in common.
As for the next part, notice that it is a set that has two subsets:

1) the first subset is = {Man, Heaven, Tao, Nature}
2) the second subset is = {Fire, Water, Wood, Metal}

That might not mean much to you, or to anyone, including myself. Because it is trivial. But it is not as trivial as it seems. For it is unambiguous language. It is as objective as it can possibly be, from the First Person Perspective of a human being (myself, in this specific case).

I am not qualified to comment on the intricacies of Taoist principles — Wayfarer

Pardon me, but I think that's rather disingenuous, considering the erudition you have shown — Wayfarer

I kindly suggest that you imagine these two quotes as if both of them were directed to yourself, by yourself. Then you will understand that you are indeed qualified to comment on the intricacies of Taoist principles: just not to the degree that you would like to have. And that, is why I have affectionately called you a "lumpen idealist" elsewhere: Phenomenology pales in comparison to Taoism. The former may be called, jokingly, "lumpen idealism", but the latter, Taoism, is not lumpen in any sense of the term. Taoism is serious. That is its tone. It is one of the elements of its tone. And that is something that you, from what I've read in your comments, have "in spades", so to speak.

That being said, I am listening.

I beg your pardon, it was a mistake. Interesting further points there on Hegel, with whom I am not well acquainted. — Wayfarer

Well, not to brag, but in one of my novels, I have invented a fictional character who I call "The Antarctic Hegel". As in, this is a character who is considered by his peers to be "the Hegel of Antarctica". He has not had much success as a professional philosopher so far, but he has not given up hope: perhaps, in the next century, he will be honored, half-jokingly, in the minds of many as "Antarctica's Greatest Philosopher."

But let us focus our attention on the Tao once again. The Tao itself (this is my interpretation, I could be wrong) does not follow itself. Not if we trust the words of Lao Tzu in Verse 25 of the Tao Te Ching. As I hope to have explained, Tao does not follow Tao. Tao does not follow itself. Tao follows something else: Tao follows Nature.

One should follow Nature, not the Tao, because of the following:

1) Suppose that one follows the Tao.
2) And suppose that the Tao follows Nature.
3) It follows from this, that one follows Nature.
4) If so, the Tao is not Nature: Tao merely follows Nature, without being Nature.

That is my thought on Tao. It could have mistakes, my thought. And I'm certain that it does.

No doubt. There are very many resonances between Tao, early Buddhism and Stoicism, albeit Taoism and Buddhism both had beliefs in immortality in various forms, which the Stoics did not. — Wayfarer

Why did you mention the Stoics there, and why did you not mention Epicurus? He was not a Stoic. Epicurean philosophy (Epicurean-ism) is not the same as the Philosophy of the Stoa (Stoicism).

Epicurus was a materialist. The Stoics, on the other hand, were objective idealists. I suppose you could say that Epicurus was an objective materialist, which would mean that he and the Stoics have something in common. But that commonality, in this case, would be their "objectness" (thing-ness) or "objectivity". Think of it in their original Hegelian sense, as the difference between Gegenständlichkeit and Objektivität. They have different etymologies, the former is from Common German (Gegenständlichkeit), while the latter is from Medieval Latin (Objektivität). The moral here, is that Hegel thinks that Objektivität is Ethically superior to Gegenständlichkeit, because it is older. It is more ancient. Yet, he himself (Hegel) was a Romanticist, he as an individual was in Love with Gegenständlichkeit, not with Objektivität. This caused him great suffering, so he studied the earliest philosophers. He studied Taoism, and Buddhism, and Legalism, among other Philosophies East of Europe. He then focused his gaze West of Asia. And he said: First there was Being. It is pure. It was first thought by Parmenides. At the same time, there is Nothing. It was first thought by Lao Tzu. The movement from Being to Nothing and from Nothing to Being is Becoming. And Becoming itself is the Absolute Spirit itself, before its March Through History truly begins.

But there is reason to believe that Hegel was simply wrong, on many intellectual fronts. He did not understand Lao Tzu. Not like someone from the 21st Century can understand him.

(Note: I have edited this comment for the sake of clarity -Arcane Sandwich)

I agree with Nominalism, on those three points. — Arcane Sandwich


Thanks for stepping up and clarifying your position. — Mapping the Medium

You are welcome, you have no need to thank me. I, in fact, thank you, for allowing me to communicate with you. As I have said elsewhere, I am not a nominalist myself. I am a realist (and also a materialist, an atheist, and a supporter of scientism). However, in that image that you shared, I agree with the nominalist on those three key points. There are, however, other ways to compare Nominalism, Platonism, and the work of Peirce.

In some of those comparisons, sometimes I agree with Platonism, believe it or not. How so? Well, I just take it as an ontological fact that Platonism, as a philosophy, is far more dignified (in the political sense, that is, the royal sense) than less respectable forms of idealism, such as "Parmenidean-ism", if that's even a thing.

In others, I agree with Peirce: Platonism is like having your head high in the clouds. A real detective solves criminal cases by looking for clues, and by reasoning. How does he do the latter, the reasoning? He deduces, he induces as well, but more importantly, he "abduces". Thus Peirce establishes a tri-partite distinction between three kinds of reasoning: deductive, inductive, and abductive. The problem is, no one has any real use for abductive reasoning, everyone just uses deductive and inductive forms of reasoning (let's be honest here, folks). That being said, abductive reasoning has a lot going for it, it just so happens that its success is to be found elswhere: in fictional characters, such as Sherlock Holmes, and in real world detectives.

And on some other topics, I agree with nominalism.

But, fourthly (from my "Fourthness", if you will), I have my own ideas, my own thoughts, my own hypotheses, and my own scientific theories. And I have the basic epistemic right to have such things. In fact, I have the basic human right to have them. Furthermore, I have the basic ontological right, as a subject in the ontological sense, to have such rights. I am, after all, free in the sense of having the capacity to act freely as a subject, and more specifically, as a human being.

(edited for the sake of clarity)

can you provide a summary? — Bob Ross

A summary of what we're discussing, in the context of a Thread called "How can one know the ultimate truth about reality?" That's a tall order. I mean, it's not impossible, since it's only page 3 so far. But it's still quite a tall order, I don't have that much confidence in my capacity as a philosopher to provide an answer to your question. That is due to my own incapability, not to the fact that it cannot be done, because there is no such fact, because it can be done. Just not by me.

In other words: I believe (and I may be wrong, since perhaps I am deluded) that the answer to the question of the Thread is the following one:

One can know the ultimate truth about reality by studying Hegel, because the ultimate truth about reality, is his concept of the Absolute Spirit.

That does not mean that the story ends there. It doesn't. Why not? Because, in my opinion (again, I could be wrong about this), the "moral of the story", as in "What is the Absolute Spirit?", is that the Absolute Spirit is the ontological fact that you are free to believe me, not because it is the politically correct thing to do, but rather because it is a metaphysical and scientific fact that you have freedom, in the sense that you have the ontological (aka, metaphysical) capacity to make choices. It has nothing to do with the fact that you are a human being. It has nothing to do with the fact that you are a member of the biological species Homo sapiens. This is something at the level of Nature itself, it's at the level of Physics itself, because it is an ontological feature of you as a subject (which is the only thing that Zizek gets right, everything else that he says is wrong), not of you as an object.

Does that make sense to you? If not, what does your intuition tell you? What is your "gut instinct" here, so to speak?

(Edited for the sake of clarity)

But what makes something alive? What do you mean by "alive"? — Corvus

Life, as biologists understand the term, is a list of criteria that any entity has to have, in other for it to be alive. Among those criteria, the most important ones are the following ones:

1) It must have genetic material (i.e., DNA and/or RNA)
2) It must have cellular organization (i.e., it must be a single cell, like a bacteria, or multicellular, like an animal)

There are other criteria, like maintaining homeostasis, but if it does not have the first two, then it is not alive. So, for example, a stone is not alive. Why not? Firstly, because it does not have genetic material (stones do not have DNA and/or RNA), and secondly because they do not have cellular organization (stones are not composed of cells, they are not "made" of cells).

Can machines be not alive? — Corvus

No. They cannot be alive, because they are like stones in that sense. A machine is not alive (i.e., it does not have genetic material, it does not have DNA and/or RNA, and it is not composed of cells, it is not "made" of cells).

That's my answer to those questions.

Please see the image I just posted above. Trying to put Peirce in either nominalism or Platonism (label or categorize him) just doesn't work no matter how hard you might want to try. — Mapping the Medium

I agree with Nominalism, on those three points.