I think math is more than a tool for physics. Physics deals only with those aspects of the world which are mathemetizable. — Joshs

But that's my point: there are aspects of the world which are not mathematizable. They're called objects, in the literal sense of the term. They are "out there", outside of our brains, they are what Descartes called res extensa. We ourselves are a res extensa. But it does not follow that we are not also a res cogitans in the Cartesian sense. We are both. Our body in general, and our brain more speciffically, is a Cartesian res exstensa and res cogitans at the same time. So, by grammatical simplification, you can remove the word "res" from both of those terms. What that leaves you with, is two "disembodied" predicates: just extensa, and just cogitans. And the argument here, is that there is something to which the predicates extensa and cogitans apply. So, there is something. That something is the brain as a res extensa, and as a physical body more generally, which is physically related to other physical bodies, some of them containing human brains just like yours, just like mine. And the brain is the object to which the predicate cogitans applies as well. One thing (the brain), two predicates (extena and cogitans). The brain is a thing, but the mind is not a thing, the mind is simply what the brain does, in the same sense that digestion is what your gut does. Your gut is the object (the res extensa) in that case, but your digestion is not: your digestion is a process that your gut undergoes (it's more complicated than that, biologically, but that's "how this works" at the basic level of ontology)

It sounds like you seem to emphasize theoretically demons and ghosts can't exist metaphysically. I don't exactly understand what you mean by that. Why suddenly metaphysically? What does metaphysics have to do with the existence of demons and ghosts? — Corvus

For the reason that you just said: it has to do with the existence of such and such (i.e. stones, tables, trees, dogs, people, computers, the Internet, numbers, mathematical objects in general, fictional objects like Pegasus or Sherlock Holmes, demons, ghosts, poems, songs, music, sports, theater, history, Nature, philosophy itself, etc.). Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the topics of Being and existence. It also deals with other concepts, such as Nothing or Nothingness. So, demons and ghosts are "within the province", "within the domain", "within the realm", of what metaphysics studies. They are "elements of itself as a set", so to speak (poetically, not Platonically, of course).

And what I'm arguing is that ghost and demons do not exist. They do not have the property of existence, because in my personal philosophy, existence is a property. Ghosts and demons do not have that property, therefore they do not exist. I did not invent this idea myself, this is simply something that I took from Mario Bunge's philosophy.

The point being, when last checked a continent contained more land out of water than under water ( not ice like Antarctica) to achieve the geographic recognition of being a continent rather than an ocean ( at this scale). "Oceania" says it all. — kazan

Folks are talking about an 8th continent now, which they are calling "Zealandia". It's almost entirely submerged. Their main country is New Zealand. Some people go one step further and they read this politically: New Zealand, as country, does not want to be considered a part of Oceania (to say nothing of Australia).

What do you folks make of this? Does it make sense? Let's start with that. Thanks for letting me, a non-Australian, participate in this Thread.

It is clearly garbage reasoning, for the following reasons:

We have little to no control over orcas, and even if we wanted to prevent orcas from doing what they do, we would need to insert ourselves into an ecosystem and disrupt it which could have catastrophic consequences for that ecosystem. So, it is true that orcas cause suffering, but it isn't something we should or can prevent imo. This applies to any predatory animal.

Furthermore, humans very well can mold their behavior such that we don't give in to the darkest parts of our natures, and that is not possible for something like an orca. They just kill to eat because they have to. So, humans can act ethically apart from our evolved instincts, whereas other animals almost certainly cannot.

So, deflecting to orcas is pretty dumb. — ToothyMaw

Right, but this is the part where the "orca lawyer" steps in and says: "But mate, orcas kill for sport sometimes, they get a kick out of it, they think it's fun. So if the orca can hunt for sport and enjoy it, why cant I? Why can't I go and hunt whatever I feel like hunting? Why can't I shoot a 'roo or an elk or a guanaco or whatever it is that people hunt in their respective continents?"

What would you respond to the "orca lawyer"? This is an open question, anyone can join the Thread and answer it.

Thank you very much for taking the time and energy to contribute to this Thread, @ToothyMaw. Much appreciated.

Isnt the notion of spatiotemporal localization based on a mathematical abstraction? — Joshs

Well I mean, if you want to get technical about it, it has a lot of math to it, but it's ultimately within the domain of what physicists study. To them, math and logic are just tools, they have no ontology. Physics is the academic discipline that deals with the ontology of the world, not math. I don't expect you to agree with that idea, I'm not so sure that I agree with it myself, but that would be the "Bungean" answer to your question, I suppose. It sounds like a fallacy to me, but that's the best I got in relation to your question.

Much has been written on the topic of precisive abstraction. And I am not an expert on that part of the literature as far as the work of Peirce goes. So it's impossible for me to give an answer to your question, to wit:

, how might we discover the rewards and avoid the reductionist pitfalls when using the tool of precisive abstraction? — Mapping the Medium

I can only suggest a sociological experiment to settle such an issue. I don't think that this is something that can be solved in any other way. But I could be wrong about that.

Hi, I'm joining this Thread because I want to know the same thing that J's asking. My knowledge of Aristotle's philosophy isn't proficient enough to answer J's question, but this is something that I'm genuinely interested in, so I'm all ears on this one.

I think life often is beautiful by default, honestly. Clearly not in some ways, as human nature appears to give way to incredible self-destruction, cruelty, and apathy. Maybe It's just my privilege or something, though; those chickens in the video certainly don't live beautiful lives. — ToothyMaw

Right, but forget about the chickens for a moment. My heart goes to them and all that, but let's discuss something else that you just said there. Because what you just said is the start of a philosophical debate about the OP of this Thread (as far as I'm concerned, anyway).

You said that life is often beautiful by default. I'm not sure that I agree with that. Can you try to convince me of that, please?

Because then you say "clearly not in some ways", and I agree with that, but then you say "as human nature appears to give away to incredible self-destruction, cruelty and apathay". Here's where I would respond with a fallacy, because a lot of people actually do use this fallacy IRL: "Well what about killer whales when they attack a poor seal that just wants to live? I don't see anyone complaining about that."

What would you say in response to that fallacy? Do you think it's a fallacy, or would you consider it good, sound reasoning on the part of the "orca lawyer"?

Existence, in my philosophy, is what has a spatiotemporal location — Arcane Sandwich


The generally Platonist objection to that would be, what, then, of numbers, logical and scientific principles, and so on and so forth? In what sense to these exist? That has been the subject of this thread the last couple of weeks, and I think it's by no means settled.

My heuristic, and it is only that, is that numbers, laws, etc, are real but not existent as phenomena — Wayfarer

My response to the Platonist there is that numbers, logical and scientific principles, and so forth, have the same ontology: they are all just concepts, which means that they are fictions, which means that they are brain processes occurring inside the living brain of a member of the biological species homo sapiens. And I mean that as a metaphysical and scientific statement at the same time. This is textbook Bunge. Which doesn't mean that he's right, since he could be wrong. I'm just saying, I didn't invent this part of my personal philosophy, I simply take this part from Bunge. I'm willing to discuss it rationally and scientifically to see if I have to abandon it, not doubt about that. But anyways, in Bunge's ontology there is a difference between what he calls "conceptual existence" and "real existence". Conceptual existence, according to him, is what the number 3 and Pegasus have in common: they only exist as fictions, which is to say, as brain processes. On the other hand, this stone on the floor and this table in my living room both have the property of real existence, even though the former is a natural object and the latter is an artificial object. How does Bunge define "real existence"? He thinks that real existence is a mereological property. One of his Postulates is that the Universe itself is identical to Reality itself, and that it is the Largest Thing of all. It is the largest Individual in a metaphysical sense, and it is the largest Whole in a mereological sense. To have real existence, he then says, is to be a mereological part of the Universe, because the Universe is Reality itself. And that is where I disagree with him (I also disagree with him on other topics): I don't think that the Universe is a single object, I think it's a plurality that composes no further object. So, my definition of existence, unlike Bunge's, can't be mereological. I agree with Bunge when he says that existence is a property. But I claim that it's the property of having physical spatiotemporality, not the mereological property of being a part of the largest whole.

↪Arcane Sandwich
Not quite following - the latter, so you prefer there be at most one reality; but which includes both subjective and objective realities?

And this makes things simpler? Again, I don't think the objective/subjective dichotomy is of much use, nor that it can be tightened up. We can mostly get by without it. — Banno

Then let me just quote the Tao Te Ching:

Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu - chapter 25

Something mysteriously formed,
Born before heaven and earth.
In the silence and the void,
Standing alone and unchanging,
Ever present and in motion.
Perhaps it is the mother of ten thousand things.
I do not know its name.
Call it Tao.
For lack of a better word, I call it great.

Being great, it flows.
It flows far away.
Having gone far, it returns.

Therefore, "Tao is great;
Heaven is great;
Earth is great;
The king is also great."
These are the four great powers of the universe,
And the king is one of them.

Man follows the earth.
Earth follows heaven.
Heaven follows the Tao.
Tao follows what is natural. — Tao Te Ching

The lesson here, in my opinion (the most important one) is that the Tao itself is not the Ultimate, be-all, end-all, sort of thing, because the Tao itself follows something else: it follows what is natural. So, if you "believe" in the Tao, you must, at the very least on logical grounds (to say nothing of moral grounds) follow what is natural, instead of following the Tao, because the Tao itself follows what is natural.

I hold that material objects, and only they, are the ones that exist. — Arcane Sandwich


But now you've lost me. Is this a coincidence? You've said there's no definitional relation, so how and why does this relation obtain? — J

If by "coincidence" you mean something like an atheist version of occasionalism, then I would say no. It's not a co-incidence, as if two "things" were "inciding" with each other somehow. Let me just go back to my definitions (as in, the context of my personal philosophy):

Existence: it is a property. It is something that material objects have. It is the property of having a spatiotemporal location (which can be fuzzy or clear-cut, it doesn't matter).

Matter: it is not a "stuff", and it is not a single object (i.e., a universal "blob"). Let me explain it like so: to exist is to have a spatiotemporal location, and to be material is to be able to change. I need the concept of matter (in my philosophy) in order to be able to explain why things can change (at the very least, their current spatiotemporal location). Otherwise, you end up with a Parmediean universe. Someone from the school of Parmenides (like Einstein, arguably) will tell you that there is no movement, no change. In other words, a Parmenidean would agree with my definition of existence: it is the property of being in a place and at a time. But then she would disagree with my definition of matter: she would say that nothing changes, that spatiotemporality is in some sense eternal, we are not really moving in our ordinary lives, we just can't see the truth of the immobile, Parmenidean Being, etc.

1) There is no ontologically significant difference between science and phenomenology. — Arcane Sandwich


That's an assertion not an argument. How would you justify that? And what do you mean by 'ontologically significant'? — Wayfarer

I can craft a new argument in support of it, like so:

5) If science can be compared to phenomenology but not to astrology in some sense, then there is no ontologically significant difference between science and phenomenology.
6) Science can be compared to phenomenology but not to astrology in some sense.
1) So, there is no ontologically significant difference between science and phenomenology.

In regards to what I mean by "ontologically significant", I'm alluding to the type of difference that would be a difference-maker when we compare science and phenomenology. Like, it's not apples and oranges, it's not that sort of debate. If science and phenomenology are not like apples and oranges, then they have something more important in common than being "just two fruits".

Pure intuition, yes; “common sense”, absolutely not. — Bob Ross

I believe in both. I don't know if I'd call it "pure", in any sense of the term. Just intuition. What is your reason for calling it "pure"? Are you somehow suggesting that as human beings we also have an "impure" intuition? Or am I way off here? I any case, can you explain why you said "pure intuition" and not just "intuition"? Thanks in advance.

(AV1) If some things have a sufficient reason and others do not, then it is possible for there to be a sorites series for the universality of the PSR.


I don’t see how this follows. A thing which has a sufficient reason for its existence and one which doesn’t isn’t analogous to concepts which refer to gradations (e.g., short vs. tall, shades of colors, etc.): it is analogous to non-gradations like ‘being a circle’ vs. ‘not being a circle’, and so it is not subjected to the problem of the heap — Bob Ross

Think of AVI in the following way. Some philosophers (such as Plato) believe that existence comes in degrees: a shadow has less existence, and less being, than an ordinary object such as a table. And the idea of table, as a perfect concept, has more existence and more being than an ordinary object such as a table. So, in such scenarios (i.e., Platonism) it makes sense to say the sort of thing that AV1 is saying: In Platonism, the PSR has less "strength", if you want to call it that, in the case of paintings, it has more "strength" in the case of an ordinary object such as a stone, and it has even more "strength" in the case of an Idea, such as the Idea of The Stone. If you deny AV1, you have to explain why our ordinary life is not like Platonism.

I would suggest writing your argument out into proper syllogisms just to ensure the logic is sound. — Bob Ross

I agree, it's good advice. Believe it or not, I'm really lousy at syllogisms. I mean, I know how modus ponens and modus tollens work, instinctually, as a matter of habit at this point in my life, but I'm just not a good "artist" when I try to craft a rarer kind of syllogism. And there's a lot of them.
But to tell you the honest truth, I'm just not as passionate as you about proper syllogisms. As far as Logic goes, there's other areas of Aristotle's logical legacy that I'm interested in. That's on me, though, because what I just said there is technically an excuse. And it is. An excuse, that is. I mean, I just don't love Western culture enough to even care to be proficient at classical syllogisms in general. I like modus tollens, sure, and modus ponens not so much, and I'm proficient in both of those. But the rest? It's just too "Western-ish" in a stereotypical sense, if you will. And I don't consider myself a "Westerner". What does that even mean? That I was born in the western hemisphere? That doesn't mean anything to me, it carries no moral nor ethical value by itself. I'm a South American before being a "Westerner". Like, what are Australians, then? Easterners? And if they are, how much "stock" do you want to put on that fact? Like, it's meaningless. You're an Oceanian before being a "Westerner", is what I would say in that case.

@Wayfarer Happy New Year. You seem like a lovely soul. Let me ask you an honest question. Does phenomenology have a blind spot? Here is what I would argue:

1) There is no ontologically significant difference between science and phenomenology.
2) If so, then: if science has a blind spot, then phenomenology has a blind spot.
3) Science has a blind spot.
4) So, phenomenology has a blind spot.

This is known in the literature as a "parity argument". Think of it like the Ying and the Yang. And you can transition, in a liminal way, from science to phenomenology.

It's a Dream-like level of awareness.

That’s not to say you are doing anything wrong by asking people’s opinions; but the OP ideally should be clearer IMHO (no offense). — Bob Ross

Mate, I say this with no ill intent: it genuinely doesn't make sense (to my mind) for you worry so much about etiquette, to the point of saying "no offense" when you give your honest opinion about something, especially considering the fact that you jumped into this Thread without even saying "hello". Like, relax mate, you're not offending me by stating your opinion on something.

I'll consider your feedback tomorrow, thanks for taking the time and energy to contribute it.

Happy New Year.

Don't forget that the Tao follows something else: it follows what is natural. It follows "the way that things are":

Earth follows heaven. Heaven follows the Tao. Tao follows what is natural. — Tao Te Ching

Don't follow the Tao. Follow what the Tao follows: follow "the way that things are".

Good! But that must mean that "existence" is being given a much broader interpretation than "made of material stuff." So here we go again . . . — J

Existence, in my philosophy, is what has a spatiotemporal location. It has nothing to do with the concept of "being made of material stuff". To be material, in my philosophy, is to be able to change, at least with regards to position in space and moment in time. So you see, existence and matter are not the same thing. True, I hold that material objects, and only they, are the ones that exist. But that does not mean that existence is the same thing as the plurality of material objects that we call "the Universe".

EDIT: In other words, I believe that existence is a property of material objects. And it just so happens that only material objects have that property. Fictional entities like Pegasus do not have that property.

Can you say how? — Banno

It's a tough notion to articulate coherently, I acknowledge that. So, sadly, no, I can't say how. I lack the knowledge.

But also, you now have two realities. Contrast that with the view that there is at most one reality. Which do you prefer? — Banno

The latter. I prefer the one that has both: objective reality and subjective reality. Why? Because it makes everything else more simple. It's true that it's more economic to have one premise than two, but sometimes having two premises can lead to more economic consequences, because realism / anti-realism isn't your only premise. No one has just one premise that they believe in, that's not how the human mind works.

This is why those who try to associate Peirce with Platonism are so off base — Mapping the Medium

I'm going to say something extremely controversial about that, which I don't expect you (or anyone else) to endorse, or to even agree with me in what I'm about to say. Platonism, in all of its forms, in all of the areas where it spreads, is an intellectual epidemic. That's how I would describe it, trying to be as objective and respectful as possible. At the level of the individual, it's an "intellectual drug".

It's true that you are reading this screen. What more is said by "It is objectively true that you are reading this screen"? — Banno

Hi. Let me contribute something, in that regard. To me what that means (and I might have a different interpretation than @Tom Storm on that point) is that by saying that something is objectively the case, you're necessarily saying that something subjective is not the case. Or, at the very least, that one (i.e., as a human being) is both a subject and an object at the same time. Objective reality, in some sense, would be different from subjective reality. You can have both. They're not mutually incompatible with each other, at least not necessarily so.

So wouldn't what you say provide reason for going in the other direction - for showing that rights and truth and justice do exist? — Banno

He's wrong about that, in my humble opinion, Banno. He's right when he says that most materialists are like that, but not all of us (materialists, that is) deny emergence in an ontological sense.

People who think only physical stuff exists -- materialists, in other words -- are the same people who often want to say that "rights" and "truth" and "justice" also don't exist. — J

I'm a proponent of Emergent Materialism, more or less how Bunge has articulated it throughout his publications. And, as a materialist, I can confidently say the existence of rights, truth and justice is not incompatible with the materialist premises and conclusions of my philosophy.

EDIT:

So wouldn't what you say provide reason for going in the other direction - for showing that rights and truth and justice do exist? — Banno

My thoughts exactly.

treating monadic predicates as relations is problematic. — Banno

Exactly, that's what I'm saying. Maybe I didn't argue well for it, but what you just said there was my intent: how do you actually turn a predicate (i.e., a monadic predicate) into a relation? Like, syntactically. You can't. Not within the context of predicate logic, at least. And by that I mean all of them, all of the types of predicate logic: first-order, second-order, higher-order, etc.

So what's "the proposal" here, exactly? What's "the pitch"? Because it seems to me (and I could be wrong about this), that the proposal is to use something other than predicate logic. Right? It has to be something like, I dunno, set theory. But that's overkill, depending on your objective. If you want to use logic to analyze the validity of arguments, then first-order predicate logic is fine for that. You don't need fancy stuff like set theory just for that specific purpose. You use set theory for other things, it has other purposes. And what I'm saying about set theory here, I would say of every logic that is intended as something other than a formal language that allows us to analyze the validity of such arguments.

When you perform the hypostatic abstraction, however, you take that predicate and turn it into a relation — ToothyMaw

This is the part (one of many) that I don't understand. That just makes no sense to me. How can you "turn a predicate into a relation"? A predicate, in the context of any predicate logic (first order, second order, higher order, etc.) is literally a letter of the alphabet, typically instantiated by the letter "P". As such, it is neither a property nor a relation, it's just a predicate. A predicate cannot "turn into" a relation. You can use a two-place, three place, four place etc. predicate to represent relations, but the predicate itself cannot "turn into" a relation, because the predicate itself, in this context, is just a meaningless sing. It has no semantic import. It is purely syntactical. That is its "Nature", if you will. That is simply what it is. You cannot turn that into a relation. Arguably, it would be, at the very least, a category mistake, in Gilbert Ryle's technical sense of the term.

I'm just saying, I find Chinese culture and language remote and incomprehensible from my Anglo upbringing. — Wayfarer

Same. It's unfortunate. Anecdote: I'm thinking about learning Mandarin, but I don't know if I should.

Whereas Indian languages, notably Sanskrit and Pali (the formal language of early Buddhism) are Indo-european languages. — Wayfarer

They're as difficult as Mandarin, I would say. Not that I would know anything about that, though.

You can trace the connections between ancient Greek, Indian and Persian cultures (did you know Iran is a version of 'Aryan'?) — Wayfarer

Yes, everyone knows that, it's no big deal. Honestly. There are more important things to discuss.

And Indian philosophies, notably Mahāyāna Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta, have had huge cultural impact on the West since about the mid-19th Century — Wayfarer

Not really. I think Christianism had a far stronger impact in these 2,000 or so years of Christian history.

So overall, I have found the Indian sources (including those filtered through Chinese and Japanese culture, like Zen) — Wayfarer

Same. That is what they are, essentially.

(It's not like that for everyone. I know a New Zealand guy who learned classical Chinese and wrote a doctorate on Chinese Buddhist texts, in Chinese. I'm in awe of his achievements but I could never emulate that.) — Wayfarer

Neither could I. You would have to love the Mandarin language in order to do that, you would need to love Asian culture in general to do that. But I don't think this is a problem that we have as Westerners. It's a problem that we have as Euro-descendants. It's a problem at the level of "continental awareness", or "awareness of the continent that one belongs to." For example, my heritage is entirely European, but I wasn't born in Europe. I've never even been to Europe, not once. Instead, I feel like a South American, because that's literally what I am: a person that was born in the continent of South America, in 1985. And I have joined this Forum because I want someone to tell me, why was I born in South America, and not Africa, or Europe, or Oceania, or Asia, or North America, or Antarctica.

Sorry if that last part was Off Topic. Let's get back to discussing the Tao Te Ching, the Tao, and Taoist thought.

P.S.: Thank you for your answer to my question, @Wayfarer

Reminds me of this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_ontology#Withdrawal — schopenhauer1

Real objects withdraw for OOO, but sensual objects don't. Sensual objects, unlike real objects, have direct access to each other.

... and with that, I'm out of this Thread.

the Tao is so quintessentially Chinese in character. — Wayfarer

I believe you. Can you please explain that to me? Please be charitable to my intellect, I'm not very smart.

The words "exist" and "existence" cause nothing but trouble, because they call like Sirens to philosophers — J

But, you see, this is my argument. Ordinary people philosophize from time to time. How could they not? Everyone does. But we, as philosophers, have a responsibility towards them, because, like it or not, they are indeed our colleagues when they philosophize. We have the moral responsibility to vindicate their use of the very "word" existence like they mean it in ordinary language, as something that rocks have and that winged horses from Greek mythology don't. That's on us, philosophers. We have to explain why appealing to a rock is not a fallacy, why it's not fallacious to rely on good common sense in all matters, not just the ones involved in ordinary life.

↪MrLiminal
I'm very interested in non-dualism, but I've found the versions derived from Hindu and Buddhist sources rather more intelligible than the Tao, as the Tao is so quintessentially Chinese in character. I studied various Taoist texts in undergrad comparative religion, and they're edifying, illuminating, and, in the case of Chuang Tzu, also often hilarious. I recall a particular translation of a collection of a Taoist physicians notebooks that originating early in the Common Era that had vivid descriptions of day-to-day life in that culture. But I always had the feeling that to really penetrate 'the Way' would take much deeper engagement with Chinese language and culture than I was equipped for. One of the reasons being that there are great differences between English translations of Tao Te Ching, so plainly there must be things, if not lost in translation, being interpolated into it. — Wayfarer

I read it in Spanish first, then years later in English. It's a trip.

As far as 'being part of the larger whole', perhaps that is something that many traditional cultures afforded more so than in today's world, which if fragmented and individualised, and with a powerful undercurrent of nihilism. But I'm sure that if you incorporate Taoist disciplines and ways into your life, then they can become a support for that sense. It is after all an immensely durable cultural form which has existed continuously since the dawn of civlization. — Wayfarer

Could be.

I don't know that "mutually beneficial" is the same as selfless, as it is by definition, beneficial to both parties. — MrLiminal

I mean it as mutualism in the ecological, biological sense of the term. And I mean it in the ethical and moral senses of the term as well.

For a specific verse, here is one from Wayne Dyer's translation:

“It is through selfless action I will experience my own fulfillment." — MrLiminal

I agree with this. It makes philosophical sense. It makes ethical sense. And it makes moral sense.

've been told I would "Light myself on fire to keep others warm," which seems like it falls within the selfless action — MrLiminal

I sincerely, honestly, do not think so. That example, "lighting yourself on fire to keep others warm", does not fall within the selfless action. At least not necessarily so. It depends on each specific case. In some cases, it will fall within the selfless action (i.e., if you give your life to save theirs), and in other cases, it will not (i.e, if you sacrifice yourself to merely amuse them).

I have not seen it lead to much fulfillment long term, and have been told repeatedly by people I, essentially, need to be more selfish. — MrLiminal

Yes, those people are correct, from a purely technical point of view.

How do you see this line working in a practical sense? — MrLiminal

Quite easily. Do for others what others would do for yourself, in such a way that both are benefited by such actions. For example, I have something that you want, and you have something that I want. What I want from you will benefit me, and what you want from me will benefit you. For example, if you play the guitar, and I play the piano, I would want you to teach me some things about the specifics of the guitar as an instrument, and in exchange I would be willing to teach you something about the specifics of the piano as an instrument.

No worries. You didn't do anything against the site rules. No one knows exactly where a thread will go, and we rarely keep things on topic with mod actions. — fdrake

I was apologizing in general. My apology was, first and foremost, to you as an Administrator. Secondly, it was for @T Clark for being uncivil towards him, and thirdly, it was for @MrLiminal for not entering this thread with the proper etiquette.

Thank you for accepting my apology, @fdrake

Arcane, T - please remain civil to each other. MrLiminal. If any of you wish not to engage with Arcane Sandwich's responses due to considering them off topic, please do so. — fdrake

My apologies, then.

please try to stay on topic and do not accuse others of being rude when we have not been. — MrLiminal

But then why do I have to put up with backseat moderation, if that's against the site's rules?

Pick a verse from the Tao Te Ching, and let us proceed. I won't warn the two of you again. I have already flagged several posts in this Thread for the moderation team to consider. @T Clark suggested that, and I agreed with him. By definition, I am not being disruptive, and you two are not moderators, so cut it out with the backseat moderation. Stay on topic, or I'm reporting you both.

Metaphysics Book X, Ch. I is probably a good place to start. How familiar are you with Aristotle's treatment of the "Problem of the One and the Many" and discussion of causes, principles, and measures? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Oh man, you're killing me. I'm an Aristotelian, through and through, and I've been meaning to talk to you, but it's just too much to take in at the moment, it's too much information.

Why don't you pick a verse of the Tao Te Ching you'd like to discuss. — T Clark

I second that motion. Pick a verse from the Tao Te Ching that you'd like to discuss, and let us proceed.

Thank you for your input, but we are specifically discussing Taoist thought in here. If you don't agree with it to begin with, I'm not sure our discussion will get much of anywhere. I'm not looking to debate it, as I get plenty of people telling me it doesn't make any sense when I try to talk about it irl; I want to learn more about it and discuss it with people who aren't going to dismiss the concepts. I've appreciated our discussions in other threads, but you obviously don't subscribe to Taoist thought, so I'm not sure what you're hoping to add to the conversation. — MrLiminal

Legalism. That's what I'm hopping to add to this specific conversation, about Taoist thought.

Will you allow me that, yes or no?

But it's like, I already told Mapping the Medium what I think about that. It's not that I don't believe in hypostatic abstraction, I just don't understand it. And I genuinely think that you have to be some sort of Real Life Mind Flayer to even have the biological brain to understand such a notion.

EDIT: In other words, mine is a Deweyian argument against Peirce here. Dewey had it right, Peirce had it wrong, at least in relation to hypostatic abstraction. Like, you have to think this from a Darwinian POV.

EDIT 2: And that's why I'm arguing with her, page after page, about A. I. The biological difference between A.I.s and human beings are just too unfathomable: they're not alive in the biological sense of the term. They have no genetic material (no DNA or RNA), they don't have cellular organization (they are not unicellular, nor multicellular), etc. They are not like us, the living beings of planet Earth. So this is not "just politics", this is ontology. It's political ontology, but no one believes me when I say that. We're debating ontology with a machine when we talk to someone like Claude the A. I. And I humbly think that Peirce does not provide us with the framework to do that. You have to think this one like Dewey: it's Darwinism, it's survival of the fittest, our natural intelligence (as opposed to a mere artificial intelligence) is the product of the entire history of Life on this Earth, from the microbe to the homo sapiens, this is a matter of survival as living beings, plain and simple.

I'm reading about him on Wikipedia and the SEP and it appears he just transposed firstness, secondness, and thirdness (terms he used when he was feeling appropriately abstract) onto a bunch of categories because he liked threes. — ToothyMaw

Exactly, that's what I'm saying. Peirce is the North American equivalent to Hegel in that sense. Both of them "just liked" the number 3, for Aesthetic reasons.

I think one could easily come up with some sort of relation that might justify more names. I mean, I read what he said about it, and he said that he just "thinks not" that we could endlessly perform hypostatic abstractions to derive more "intentions". So, I suppose that is the closest we might get to insight: he doesn't think it is useful to repeat the process past twice. For whatever reason. — ToothyMaw

Hypostatic abstraction is indeed a "thing", it's not something that @Mapping the Medium just made up. This is why I'm following this Thread: I'm very curious about the things that Mapping the Medium is saying. I just don't think that she's using the most friendly language from the point of view of ordinary life.

EDIT: From the wiki:

Hypostatic abstraction in philosophy and mathematical logic, also known as hypostasis or subjectal abstraction, is a formal operation that transforms a predicate into a relation; for example "Honey is sweet" is transformed into "Honey has sweetness". The relation is created between the original subject and a new term that represents the property expressed by the original predicate. — Wikipedia

I've been fascinated by both Taoist philosophy and non-dualism generally for quite some time, but it's been difficult to learn about in the West for a variety of reasons. " — MrLiminal

It's because we don't speak the language in which the book in question was written.

"The Tao that can be explained is not the Tao," and all that. — MrLiminal

Wittgenstein 101, basically.

But I'm wondering if anyone else has any knowledge on the topic, as I'm eager to learn more and get other people's takes. — MrLiminal

I don't think anyone has knowledge on the topic of the Tao, and this is by definition: "the Tao that can be explained is not the Tao.". What I would add to this, to qualify my words, is that there is knowledge about the book: the Tao Te Ching.

MrLiminal is talking about what the Tao Te Ching says and his description is a pretty good one. — T Clark

It is, I agree.

f you want to disagree with a 2,500 year old philosophy — T Clark

I do, yes.

which, I assume, you don't understand very much if at all — T Clark

Then explain it to me.

your opinion is not very useful. — T Clark

It isn't.

I'm glad that we agree for the most part, @T Clark.

My understanding of the Tao is that we are all a part of a greater whole — MrLiminal

I disagree with that, for mereological reasons as well as metaphysical reasons. I am not a "part", in the mereological and metaphysical sense of the term, of any "whole", in the mereological and metaphysical sense of the term. I am an individual. There is no object in the world of which I am a part of. And if you say that I'm a "part" of the Universe, then I'll just say that the Universe is not a single object, it's instead a plurality of objects that compose no further object. The same goes for equivalent notions, such as Cosmos, Reality, Multiverse, Tao, or what have you.