33% is not a valid answer no matter how you slice it. It completely ingores the distribution. — Jeremiah

Not so. You just refuse to slice it the way some others are.

The people saying 33% are demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of basic probability. — Jeremiah

This misunderstanding comes from an imprecisely wording of the problem, and you're assuming everybody interprets the problem the way you are.

So back to the red, yellow, and two blue balls example. I have one of those colors in mind, and I ask the odds of you guessing correctly. The odds are 25%, 33%, or 50% depending on the choice and the interpretation. 25 and 50 come from blindly reaching into the bag and selecting a ball. 33% comes from looking at the available colors, randomly selecting one of the valid options, and then choosing a ball that matches that choice.

Similarly, your original problem had three unique answers to choose from, and there is a 33% chance of each of those if I choose from them randomly. But there is a 25% of each of A,B,C,D and I don't need to look at the answers to choose those randomly.

Am I choosing randomly from the 4 bullets, or from the three unique answers? Never mind that in both interpretations, all the answers provided are wrong.

There is only one purposed chance event. It does not loop back on itself, it is not a circle and, as long as you don't say C), then you are not wrong until after the chance event, only then can you be wrong. — Jeremiah

????

You're wrong no matter what you choose. There is thus zero percent chance of choosing correctly, which is what the question asks. That the thing is self-referential doesn't seem to change that. It's not a paradox as written.

The problem as I see is that the outcome changes the solution and I not sure if I would consider that truly circular. — Jeremiah

Of course it is circular. Perhaps there is a paradox that is not, but I cannot think of one offhand.

The question concerns the answer to the question. That's a circle, or more formally, self-referential.

You ask about the odds of correctly guessing the answer giving the correct odds of correctly guessing the answer giving the correct odds of correctly guessing the answer giving the correct odds of correctly guessing the answer ....

0% is not a possible outcome, which means there is a 0% chance of it being 0%. — Jeremiah

If none of the choices is correct, then the correct answer is simply not among the choices. 0% is the answer since it cannot be chosen. This itself is not paradoxical. Hence my comment that (C) should have been 0%, not 60. That forces the paradox.

It is not necessarily invalid for a question to be circular.

How many letters does the correct answer have?

• two
• three
• four
• five

Sorry. See edit

Guessing what correctly though? — StreetlightX

of correctly guessing the answer giving the correct odds.
Yes, circular, but that doesn't mean there's no actual question.

Heh
Thought of a variation of the original one:

If you choose an answer to this question at random, what is the chance you will be correct?

A) 25%
B) 50%
C) 100%
D) 50%

Each answer is correct (not necessarily in the same way), so are any of them really?

There's no criterion for correctness, so there's no possible answer. — StreetlightX

But there is. It asks about the odds of guessing correctly.

Therefore, the correct answer is 0% which is correct because it is not a choice on offer. — unenlightened

I agree, and the consistency of this makes it not a paradox. Choice C should probably have been 0% instead of 60%. Then it would be a paradox I think.

Is your existence dependent upon the existence of our conversation? — Harry Hindu

Non-relational use of 'existence', so no . We can converse partly because of our existence in relation to each other. That is not a sufficient condition. It also requires the relation of 'can interact'. I have only the former relation with Napoleon, and thus cannot converse with him. I have questionable existence in relation to Napoleon. I was presuming (as I stated many posts back) a mono-world deterministic interpretation of QM. If not, even that relation goes away.

What is the difference between the relationship of the Moon and a mailbox and the moon and yourself? Doesn't the differences lie in the attributes that make up the objects of those relationships?

Not much difference. There is the additional relationship of 'can experience' that I have with the moon.

And you keep cherry-picking my post, ignoring the point I keep making about the universal structure itself needing a relationship with something else in order for it to exist. How do you prevent yourself from falling into an infinite regress?

Yes, it would need a relationship with something else in order for it to exist, and then only in relation to said other thing, degrading the 'no-longer-universe' to a component within a larger structure. For example, for there to be a way for a non-deterministic interpretation of QM to work, there would need to be a relationship between the physical sub-structure and whatever is rolling the dice for it.
But I never claimed the structure exists or needs to. That would be the different premise that I am rejecting. There is no infinite regress because there is no unqualified existence in the view.

..or a multiverse.

I am using 'universe' as 'the whole structure'. Multiverse is another term for this, with multiple universes. I would alternatively call the complete structure 'the universe' with multiple worlds. The difference is just choice of terminology. For example, distant (say 30BLY away) stars do not exist in relation to our solar system. There is no direct relation between us. So the natural QM fit is the relational interpretation where the state of one thing is defined strictly in terms of specific other states. Such and such is true in relation to Alice, but a different state of affairs is the case for Bob or Bob a minute hence or the cat in the box. Other worlds do not exist in relation to any of them.

It must have a name and maybe an article somewhere.
— noAxioms

Process philosophy?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q6cDp0C-I8

"The universe is a set of relationships between relationships, between relationships - all of which change over time. None of these relationships is ever static."

Haven't watched it yet. The summary you give seems true of realism as well, so not sure if it is what I'm seeking.

The law simply says "in the same way". Time is simply one of the ways that might not be the same.
It is daytime, and it is not daytime can both be true if they are truths about different times of day. The two statements are not 'in the same way', so there is no violation of the law.

Relatvity allows one to say that event A happens before event B in one frame, but in another frame B happens before A. A precedes B and B precedes A, but in different frames, so they're not 'in the same way'. Again, no violation of the law of non-contradiction.

I used the word, "object", as you did. I said nothing of physical objects. — Sapientia

Ah yes, so I did. And we're not using the word to mean physical objects.

You said that you want to explore this point about objects needing to be real for them to have properties and relations, and, in relation to this, you seemed to be taking the Mandelbrot set as an example of an object. You are also calling it a mathematical structure. But, is the latter what you're saying it is specifically, or is it what you're saying it is instead of an object?

I admit that the word has connotations of being a member of something bigger. Earth is an object, but the universe isn't really thought of that way, unless in context of something larger like a god and his creation-object that he puts on the shelf next to his five other ones. So I suppose it was careless language use since those connotations are not intended. A side of a square is an object of sorts more than is the structure that is the square that is not in a larger context like a coordinate system.

Anyway, what I'm interested in, is what the consequences of committing to the alternative stance would be. That is, if objects don't need to be real to have properties and relations, then what does that entail? Anything of significance?

Well the OP mentioned that it removes the perplexing question of how existence comes to exist. I can't say how it was created since that puts existence inside the larger context of time, reducing it to an 'object'. Objects in our universe get created. The concept is confined to the rules here.

So committing to the alternative stance eliminates the designation of 'is real', which only serves its own purpose. If the universe is real, the stuff in it is also real, but if it doesn't need to be real, then we don't either. It's like presentism's assertion of a real slice of spacetime (events not on that slice are not real) that changes position over a different sort of time than what clocks and other physical processes measure. While intuitive, it is completely undetectable and explains nothing, and there is no way to measure the pace of it. Seems superfluous. So around a century ago when all this was realized, they proposed that it could be eliminated without empirical difference, and eternalism was the result. I'm trying to see if that can be done with 'is real' in general since it seems to serve only its own purpose but doesn't really add anything.

On the face of it, it seems to be right to say, for example, that a property of a unicorn is that it has a horn, or that a property of the Mandelbrot set is that it is complex or contains numbers. But you ask how it is that things like unicorns, which are not real, can have properties. That's a good question. There does seem to be something counterintuitive about that. I'm going to give this encyclopaedia entry on nonexistent objects a read, as I think that it relates.

Well thank you for giving it fair consideration. Most of the responses have been knee-jerk protests based on assumptions of realist views. And hey, I identified as a realist for some time, but I'm learning not to identify as anything, because that just closes you off to further exploration. There are few stances I've not given fair consideration. I don't think idealism is incompatible with physicalism. Both are relational views, but relative to different things. Mine is sort of a generalization, but minus a fundamental core of reality.
So it is a bit nihilist I guess, but not the usual sort. I don't think there are no morals or that life is meaningless, but those are what pops up under nihilism.

Surely I'm not the first to consider all this. It must have a name and maybe an article somewhere.

Well, it seems to me that it would make sense to start by questioning what kind of thing the mandelbrot set is. You seem to suggest above that it's an object. But is it? What makes it an object, rather than anything else? — Sapientia

Not a physical object. I didn't use the word. It is a mathematical structure, one that can be referenced but not really instantiated. Again, I'm not talking about our awareness of the structure (it's concept), but about the structure. Only the latter has that property of being connected. The concept only has an awareness of that property.

I can draw a crude depiction of the set the same way I can draw a crude square. Neither of them has the properties we've been discussing, but it's all the instantiation either is likely to have.

The wording ("there exists", "such that") is associated with first-order logic — Sapientia

That is exactly what 'existential quantification' means. It is not an assertion of the realism of the thing in question. But in the relational view, perhaps that is all there is.

Anyway, I want to explore this point about objects needing to be real for them to have properties and relations. Take the mandelbrot set. That set cannot be instantiated by any means known. We can sample it a bit and print pretty pictures of the result of that, but it is just a sampling, not the set itself. So how can it be said that it has properties like being everywhere connected?

But each of us existed prior to our conversation. In order for our relationship to exist, we must exist prior to our conversation. Our conversation is a relationship, but not one that is necessary for each of our existence. — Harry Hindu

Not following this. Are you talking about temporal existence? For that, the conversation requires sufficient proximity and simultaneous overlap of existence in spacetime to allow interaction. The square isn't a temporal structure, so I don't think this is what you mean.
But the relational view has no un-relational existence, so nothing can depend on that in order for there to be relations within the structure.

Wait a minute, what are you talking about, "a square" or "any square". The former is a particular square, the latter is a general idea allowing for the possibility of a particular. Am I correct that you are assuming a Platonic Form, "the mathematical form itself"? Doesn't this mathematical form exist as an eternal object? — Metaphysician Undercover

Going to need more time with this one. I think the question is important, but most of Platonic views are ones of realism, not relativism. Nothing exists as an external object, so no 'is real', but only 'is real to...'.

Squares are not just that. There is pure mathematical square, which has fewer properties than unit-square, or square in a coordinate system. There is the square cross section of a tetrahedron. All these make the square a part of a larger structure, and thus not the structure itself.
I don't think a square is necessarily a particular, but the cross section is is a particular cross section of the tetrahedron. So 'particular' itself seem to be a relation. The overall structure seems not to be a particular since there is nothing with which it has that relationship.

OK, I'll see if I can make sense of this. You are assuming "a square", that is your premise. Now you are talking about the sides of that square. It is all in your mind, the square and the sides, so you say that it has no objective existence — Metaphysician Undercover

Not talking about a square in my mind. Talking about any square, the mathematical form itself, and not merely the concept of it, which would require a relation with a conceiver.

Really, when it comes down to it, all of these conscious machinations are doing nothing to address the 'hard problem' -- i.e. what is consciousness? — snowleopard

Not a consciousness thing. The moon stands in relation to my mailbox, so each exists to the other, despite neither having awareness of each other.

If you are not claiming the ontological existence of anything, then what are you actually saying? You are not saying anything interesting or meaningful.
Are you describing a state-of-affairs that exists, or no? Are we actually having this conversation or no? — Harry Hindu

We are having this conversation since we stand in relation to each other, through this forum as well as other means. That is what ontology is in the relational view. The question is not "does A exist?", but rather "does A exist to B". You among others are reaching for non-relational assumptions. So the universe exists to me and you, and that means we can have this conversation.

That can be better put logically, as folows: if there exists a square, then it is such that its opposite sides are parallel. — Sapientia

It not worded that way in the relational view, and I've never seen in worded that way anywhere. It seems weak, since there are no actual squares (since there are no actual line segments or planar objects for that matter. There can be no truth to the statement above, lacking anything real to give any weight to the right side of the statement. I might have well said that if there exists a square, then it is round. That isn't false since there are no squares outside of platonism. Hence my comment that platonism would be necessarily true, but nobody uses this line of reasoning to prove platonism.

For purposes of this discussion, the relational stance says that opposite sides of squares are parallel, an ontology-independent property of parallelograms, and squares are parallelograms.

Similar, the moon and I stand in relation to each other, and so I say it exists in relation to me, but that is not a declaration of absolute ontology. Yes, the view is a form of ontological nihilism, but I've read up on nihilism, and it is something else. — noAxioms

I think I'm also saying that existence of things is not necessary for the experience of those things. Only a relationship between the experiencer and the experienced.
— noAxioms

This is confusing. Are you sure you mean what you just said? How can the experience be of those things, if those things don't exist? If a unicorn doesn't exist, then I can't experience it. I can experience something resembling a unicorn, but I can't experience a unicorn. — Sapientia

I just quoted what I just posted above. I am not being careful with my wording. I say the moon exists, but formally I say it exists only in relation to me. We're part of the same structure.

So as to what I said in the bit you quote there, I'm saying the absolute (objective) existence of things is not necessary for the experience of those things. But my experience depends on there being a relation between me and the thing, meaning both need to be part of the same structure. So one side of a square could experience its neighbor if it was the sort of thing with enough complexity to experience something, which it isn't. A square isn't even a temporal structure, and I cannot imagine experience in a structure without process.

So I relate to a horse because we're both parts of the structure, with sufficient interaction for there to be experience. The unicorn is an imagination, and that imagination is part of the physical process that is part of the same structure as me. So I relate to my imaginations. The imaginations exist to me, and the unicorn is one of them. Different relation than the one I have with the horse where the interaction is through external senses. Yes, you said it. You experience something resembling a unicorn, but it is an imagination, not a physical object like the horse.
I can speak of a horse or unicorn interchangeably. You can interpret that as speaking of the concept of either of these things, or of an actual horse or unicorn, despite the lack of relation of "empirically observable" between people and the unicorn.

<These:> Wat? — Sapientia

I am going to fall back to my square again. I seem to be on my own. The view must be faulty if nobody seems to grasp what I'm trying to describe.

I think a relation requires things that are related, and the recognition of the things is prior to the recognition of the relations. — Metaphysician Undercover

The sides of a square are parallel, a relation. That relation does not make the square exist. I'm not claiming relation prior to existence. But one side of a square exists (existential quantification, not a designation of ontology) in relation to the other sides and to the angles. This doesn't mean any of it has objective existence.

Assuming that you must exist in order to argue, is not 'begging anything' and is not 'bias'. It's a simple statement of fact and not a matter for debate. — Wayfarer

A different premise, not fact.

If things need other things to exist and those things are defined by their relationships with other things, why would relationships themselves be excempt from this rule? Wouldn't relationships need the existence of non-relationships to exist as relationships?
— — Harry Hindu

They don't need other things to exist since they don't exist. The structure simply has these relations, and those relations are independent of the existence of the structure. — noAxioms

Well, the wording there wasn't my best effort. I'm not claiming ontological existence of anything, or of the relations. The opposite sides of a square have a relation of being parallel. That doesn't make the square exist or the relation exist. It means that squares have that property. If only existent squares have that property, then either platonic existence is necessarily true, or the opposite sides of squares are not parallel because there are no actual squares, only abstractions/concepts, and concepts don't have sides that can be said to be parallel.

Similar, the moon and I stand in relation to each other, and so I say it exists in relation to me, but that is not a declaration of absolute ontology. Yes, the view is a form of ontological nihilism, but I've read up on nihilism, and it is something else.

Assuming that you must exist in order to argue, is not 'begging anything' and is not 'bias'. It's a simple statement of fact, so if you wish to take issue with facts, you will no doubt find others willing to oblige. — Wayfarer

I must have absolute existence to produce an argument that has absolute existence, but my arguments are all relative to the structure of which I am a part. Nobody addresses the square. Why must it exist for its opposite sides to have the relation of being parallel? It is perhaps a valid premise to assume, but it is still just a different premise than the one being proposed here.

It is a different premise, not a statement of fact.

What could I have possibly done wrong to deserve this? Now the next point the premise "that there is something" supports the cosmological argument. You still agree? — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, I feel it does support it. But then the argument falls apart by not solving the problem. It just adds one more turtle under the current unexplained turtle pile, and violates the spirit of the argument by asserting that no more turtles are needed. If that is a valid option, no new turtle is needed. You just declare the bottom one not to need anything to stand on just like you did with the God turtle.

So I did away with all the turtles. There doesn't need to be anything. There is nothing in need of rationalization on this front.

Again I thank everybody for their contributions. I am attempting to keep up.

Those are all relational observations.
— noAxioms
Even if they are, why does that matter? — Sapientia

It matters because empirical observation cannot be different, and therefore cannot be evidence one way or the other. This is an interpretation of observations, and like any interpretation, suggests no falsification test. If there is one, then it is science and the matter can be settled by running the test.

The nonexistent structure would still have those relations. There is something to see.
— noAxioms

That doesn't make any sense. You're committing the reification fallacy by talking about a nonexistent structure as if it exists. There would be no structure whatsoever, and nothing to relate to.

That's right. There is no structure to relate to, but its components still relate to each other. A square's opposite sides are still parallel despite no explicit existence of the square. The structure still has those internal relations, and our empirical experience is nothing more than such internal relations of the structure of our universe of which we are a part, whether that structure exists or not.

There wouldn't be anything, there would be nothing. If there is something to see, then it can't be nothing. So what are you talking about? Something or nothing?

I am talking about the structure, whether it exists or not. It only needs to exist to relate to something outside the structure, and then only in relation to that outside thing. The reification fallacy concerns relating two things with different ontology (map and territory, horse and unicorn), not denial of the relation that the opposite sides of a square are parallel. The unicorn exists in my imagination, so that's a mental relation, but not in the same way I relate to a horse. So the unicorn doesn't exist in relation to the horse.

Well, I'm a foundationalist, because I think that being a foundationalist leads to a picture which can best reflect reality. Starting from a foundation, I can demonstrate a thing or two.

I guess I'm building from a different foundation here, experimentally perhaps. I don't really identify with any particular <something>ist, even if I have a particular distrust of anthropocentrism, or views where we're special.

A concept is not the same as an instantiation. What do you want to talk about?

My simple example has been squares, not the concept of squares. I have examples of little universes like chess, Conway Game of Life. The chess one is interesting because it has entropy and the beginnings of quantum mechanics, but it has limited use in illustrating the point being pushed in this thread. The square seems to serve quite well for now.

The concept of nothing, which I have no problem granting has relations, or nothing, for which there would be nothing to relate to anything, as there would only be nothing. There could only be nothing.

I'm just being logical here.

So squares must exist (in concept or other form) in order to have properties? My definition of a square doesn't include that requirement. The requirement seems only necessary for our knowledge of those properties, and I've really tried to emphasize that the stance is not an epistemological one.

Experiences are representations of things and are not necessary for the existence of those things. — Harry Hindu

I think I'm also saying that existence of things is not necessary for the experience of those things. Only a relationship between the experiencer and the experienced. Without the experiencer, relationships might still exist between things, but experience-of isn't one of those relations. The moon still caused tides without humans to experience that, but those prehistoric tides never existed in relation to human experience.

How can relativism say that there is nothing more than some thing (like a mathematical structure)? — Harry Hindu

I didn't say that. I don't say the structure is, since there is nothing for it to be in relation to.

Any time you talk about some thing that exists independent of our senses you are implying that it has an objective existence. — Harry Hindu

Just non-idealistic existence, but the negation of objective existence is not existence necessarily in relation to our senses. I pointed this out in my second post.

If things need other things to exist and those things are defined by their relationships with other things, why would relationships themselves be excempt from this rule? Wouldn't relationships need the existence of non-relationships to exist as relationships? — Harry Hindu

They don't need other things to exist since they don't exist. The structure simply has these relations, and those relations are independent of the existence of the structure.

This post has two components, one is an attempt to sketch the construction of a ridiculously inclusive mathematical object which serves as the background 'model of things' in the OP, and the other attempts to situate what an ontology is in relation to the ridiculously inclusive object. — fdrake

Pretty much agree. That the universe is a mathematical structure (and is not merely modeled by one) is not new. The latter half seems to be what I've been exploring, and one which I have not necessarily seen litterature, let alone even a name for the stance.

If you take any particular, there will be various different types of relation that apply to it. Every event can be related to any other event through the relations of antecedence and subsequence - occurred before and after interpreted as an ordering relation. Each proposition can be related to every other proposition through the relation of consistency partitioning arbitrary well formed logical formulae into consistent and inconsistent models. I think it's reasonable to posit that every particular can be related to every other particular in some way, and all relations can be related (and so on).

Good so far, but the particulars you speak of here are components of the structure. The structure itself seems to be neither a particular nor a universal. Earth exists as a particular within my simplified uni-world QM model. It exists in relation to the structure, although not completely. It has no absolute coordinates for instance, only relative coordinates, and for that reason it is arguably a universal of sorts. I probably digress from where you're going with this.

Imagine that we have access to the set of all particulars and every n-ary (generalised) relation between them (a construction similar to this but allowing 2-morphisms to map to 1-morphisms and introducing such 'cross' relations of arbitrary order and scope). This collection is a mathematical abstraction, but let's say that all of its elements are as real as any other, and every concrete particular and every relation between concrete particulars and abstract particulars (including all higher n-ary relations thereof) is contained within it. This is essentially the universe as considered in the OP. It's a jumble of everything in the broadest possible (or at least ridiculously broad) mathematised sense of a jumble of everything. Unsurprisingly that kind of object is not well understood.

I think I followed that, even if I could not have written it.

Examples of elements in the jumble to remove the jargon - rocks are in it, the relationship between rocks and hills as 'currently rolling down' are in it, the relation between 'currently rolling down' and every possible physics-based description are in it, the individual rock's relation to every physics-based descriptions are in it, the rock's relationship to the mathematical abstraction of a group are in it.

OK. I have only an objective description of the mathematical abstraction, so the B-series wording seems more appropriate. "The rock is rolling down the hill at time X" is better than the use of 'currently' which carries implications of time not being part of the abstraction, but something within which the abstraction exists. The whole idea is that the fundamental abstraction doesn't exist in any deeper abstraction.

The abstract relationships between groups and every possible pairing and sub-pairing between these abstractions and rocks are in it. Everything in it is considered as an object in the same sense. Is anything interesting gained by asserting the existence of the whole thing or denying it? Probably not, as Quine noted:

A curious thing about the ontological problem is its simplicity. It can be put in three Anglo-Saxon monosyllables: ‘What is there?’ It can be answered, moreover, in a word—‘Everything’—and everyone will accept this answer as true. However, this is merely to say that there is what there is. There remains room for disagreement over cases; and so the issue has stayed alive down the centuries.

OK, "Everything" is just a tautology then. Of course. But what if that list is empty, and there isn't even a list? So poorly answered. Mine was simply that it makes no difference, at least not to the relations.

...

Unfortunately, the task of ontology is not to decide whether the giant jumble object exists or does not exist, it is to filter what obtains (questions of relation) and how/why it does so. In this formal sense a question of whether something exists in any sense is really only answerable to the sense in which it operates - Pegasus and a stick operate differently, who cares what we call existent and not, the operational difference suffices.

I didn't quote your entire post, but it doesn't sound like you're trying to disagree with this view, but attempting to formalize it and see where it fits into works done by several others.

Ontology neither begins nor ends with a decision on what exists, it concerns itself with the hows and whys of those things. So when you say 'it doesn't matter whether it exists or it doesn't' - you're missing the sense of why in question. Even if it doesn't matter there's still a hell of a lot of work to do interpreting the thing.

This makes sense. I've had my ontology expressed as a version of existential quantification, but I'm not sure if that term applies to the sort of structures of which we might be a part. So there is still ontology, but it isn't able to be simplified to "what is there?".

I have returned. Can't be online all the time.

How we know what we know is epistemic (the starting point as Descartes showed), it must precede (in time) what we know, our ontology, but once we have decided on our ontological stance, then we can understand how it formed the conditions of our epistemology. — Cavacava

This sounds reasonable. Suppose I have decided on a relational stance on ontology. From that I am forming the conditions of our epistemology.

I think the assumption "there is nothing", would need to be supported, and this would be impossible to support. — Metaphysician Undercover

I would have perhaps worded it as "Not anything is", and I'm not asserting it, but just asserting the viability of it.

All the evidence indicates that there is something, therefore "there is something" is a more sound premise than "there is nothing". And, "there is something" is the premise which supports the cosmological argument. — Metaphysician Undercover

But that evidence is based on only relations, so the premise of "there is something" is unfounded since the same empirical evidence is had in either interpretation.

There is of course something. There's you and I, and the world which we inhabit, and everything in it. This is known, at least in part, empirically. I can see people and other stuff. — Sapientia

Those are all relational observations. Subjective observation has zero access to absolute reality, else platonism would not be philosophy, but would be empirically verified one way or the other by noting if something like numbers actually exist.

If there was nothing, however, I wouldn't see people or other stuff or anything at all, because there would be nothing there to see. It would be impossible.

The nonexistent structure would still have those relations. There is something to see.

You can call it "bias", but it's what I know.

Isn't that what a bias is? You know it, but can't demonstrate it without presuming it. I've given examples of how structures have relations independent of their ontology. To assert that an abstract square does not have right angles unless instantiated seems to be just that, an assertion that is a different interpretation. Show why it is a contradiction of logic for the angles of an abstract square to be right angles, or why the analogy is invalid.

Ontologically, either you're a realist or an anti-realist.

So why not a 'real' Mind that emanates its 'real' ideations, being in essence not-two, as per Idealism? — snowleopard

'Realist', unqualified typically refers to the position that there is an existence independent of human mind. Anything else would need qualification, so idealism is 'realism of mind', and a theist is a realist of God, and a presentist is a realist of a preferred present.

What is "real", and is "reality" which must be for us, the same as the "real". — Cavacava

What is real for us is each other and the moon, but none of that is just 'reality' since that is not a relation, so they're not the same.

How we know what we know must precede what we know, even if what we know provides the conditions for how we know.

No?

Try to say it fast!. Kindly rephrase a bit. Got lost there. Sounds like an argument I might have expressed in opposition to idealism.

This Leibniz question of 'why is there something rather than nothing?' it seems can't be answered unless we first agree on what precisely is meant by the terms 'nothing' and 'something.' As for the idea of 'nothing', the very act of giving it a name -- i.e. a 'mathematical structure' -- seems to render it as 'something', in an abstract sort of way. — snowleopard

Well, it has a name relative to me, but it isn't a mathematical structure. Nothing is the lack of anything. There is no thing that has objective existence, not even the fact of there not being anything. Not only is the set of things that exist an empty set, but that set itself doesn't exist.

And talking about it at all implies some 'state' that can think and talk about it, therefore denying its nothingness. In a sense the question could be reframed as: why is there something that can conceive of 'nothing vs something' as opposed to there not being anything that can conceive ... aka 'the hard problem' and hence the attempt to resolve it with Idealism, positing the primacy of Mind.

We are talking about it in the context of this current Earth state which part of the structure that is this universe. I've attempted to illustrate just above how that is not impossible just because the structure itself exists no more than does the square that nevertheless has relations.

Buddhism addresses this seeming paradox, or dilemma, with its revelation that emptiness, or formlessness, or no-'thingness', is not other than form, which seems to imply an ontological primitive that must account for both, but then is unwilling to apply a name to whatever that is, perhaps recognizing that language, being a subject/object modality, is inadequate to resolve the apparent duality.

What I'm getting at here in a very cursory sort of way, is elaborated upon in the following blog post, which is surely of relevance and interest here: The Inconsistency of Nothing. Subjective or Objective?

Will read the post, and hope it contains the sort of analysis that attempts to demonstrate the inconsistency for which I am seeking.

There is a difference, since you exist. — TimeLine

I exist in relation to my thoughts. "I exist" (in any absolute sense) does not follow from that. This is pretty straight-forward relativism, except it is ontology this time, a topic rarely covered. Usually it is about morals or aesthetics or something. But a relativist would say that just because it is not objectively wrong to do act X, it doesn't follow that it isn't wrong. I still bear responsibility for doing X in the context in which X is wrong. Similarly I exist in relation to my thoughts despite absence of absolute existence.

I am having trouble distinguishing this 'clear line' between epistemology and ontology vis-a-vis this mathematical structure and you would need to explain this further. The problem I am having is that mathematics is our way of interpreting the world and not that mathematics itself exists outside of us. It is a useful heuristic we created to translate the patterns of physics and nature using numbers. This physical reality exists independent of you and I, but for you to claim this physical reality is a mathematical structure imposes the very invention of describing the universe you seek to avoid and thus quasi-empirical, particularly since mathematics is limited in articulating all possible realities in a cohesive formal system. Is realism and constructivism mutually exclusive? I have my reservations with mathematical realism and you would need to do somewhat better, however alluring Tegmark or Plato are.

Tegmark did a pretty good job of demonstrating how our universe could be nothing more than such a mathematical structure. I think he then went a bit into Plato territory and presumed the existence of this structure. Not sure of this, since the structure itself is all that matters, and that doesn't change with ontology. A square still has 4 equal angles whether it has platonic existence or is just abstract.

Thank you all for responding to my thread.

So I noticed the question presumes there is something. What if there wasn’t? What empirical difference would that make? While difficult to get past the bias that there needs to be something, it turns out there is no difference.
— noAxioms

The fact that the question can be asked rules out the possibility of there not being simply nothing. There could be no empirical anything if there were not anything to begin with. And it turns out that in order for someone to be around to even ask this question relies on there long having been a causal sequence that seems inextricably interconnected with what exists now. — Wayfarer

You are presuming the very bias of which I spoke in my quote taken above. This view stands in opposition to that premise, so asserting it is just begging a different position. Demonstrate why it leads to contradiction, without at any point presuming this absolute realist premise.

Let us presume for simplicity a single-world deterministic interpretation of QM and a monist interpretation of mind. In that view, the universe is a 4D mathematical block structure, but not one requiring absolute existence. A person in that block is a worldline, and there is another worldline for an apple. The person worldline is a series of states, and a state has no experience. Thought is a process, and process is the difference between states. So the person-worldline in this structure would have the exact same experience in an existing structure as it would in the same structure without absolute existence. The structure is no different, only the ontology of it, and the experience depends only on the difference between states within the structure, not the ontology of the structure itself.

By "objective" here, do you mean "absolute"? — Andrew M

Absolute, sure. I mean as opposed to exists-in-relation-to, not as opposed to 'subjective'.

On your view, numbers seem to have an existence independent of matter (and mind) which would qualify as Platonic realism about universals.

Platonic realism says they have absolute or objective existence in a third realm of abstract things. The relativist view says they are real only to each other. This is independent of matter, sure. Something like the color red (universal) has existence under platonism, but is probably not independent of mind/matter since the 'red' is pretty meaningless outside that context. I explored platonism (lower case) for a while, but it is still a position of absolute reality.

"Ontologically, either you're a realist or an anti-realist. Either you accept facts are real independently of the "human mind" (realist), i.e. objective, or you accept that reality is only subjective (anti-realist)." [from Research Gate]

I agree that absolute/relative is a different axis to realist/anti-realist (objective/subjective). Einstein's theory of relativity is a realist theory, for example.

This view is not the objective/subjective axis either, so your initial comment is relevant. Absolute/relative is the axis in question here. Einstein's theory of relativity works on all sides of the objective/subjective axis, so it doesn't necessarily seem to be a realist theory. It is a relational theory, but not an ontological one. Time is relative to a reference frame, and there is no absolute time. Similarly, I am proposing that ontology is relative to something, but not anything in particular. It is not limited to being relative only to consciousness, but that is one valid thing to which the relation can be expressed. Idealism is a subset of relational ontology.

Technically, "Not (the apple is red)" or "not (Swamy crossed over the fence)"
Is there a difference? Probably if there is no apple. The Not (the apple is red) is true, but The apple is not red isn't really true since there is no apple to be not red.

This is a spin-off thread from a side discussion in Wayfarer’s thread on particle-wave duality.

I think I'd like to take this offline and start a new thread since it only has small bearing on Wayfarer's OP. The relational QM bit was very relevant, and is a good answer to the OP, but what I'm pushing here goes way beyond the confines of QM, and thus seems off-topic. I want relational everything.

Give me a day or two to frame it. — noAxioms

I'll leave the rest for now and we can pick it up in the new thread. — Andrew M

I guess it was far longer than a day or two, but I wanted to attempt some research first. I found some dubious leads. The Stanford entry on Relativism doesn’t really go into it. It’s mostly about relativism of morals, aesthetics, truth and such. There is section 4.2 concerning conceptual relativism, but it seems to be again a form of idealism on concepts, not necessarily mind.

I found a Q/A on the Research Gate site.
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_are_the_terms_for_various_ontological_positions_Are_realism_and_relativism_ontological_positions_If_yes_what_do_they_mean

They ask the question you see there in the link. Most popular answer was this from Luca Igansi,
Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos:

We need to draw a clear line between ontology and epistemology. Ontology regards the existence of facts and objects, while epistemology regards whether we can know them or not, and if objectively or subjectively.

OK, I am on track with that one. We’re not talking epistemology.

Ontologically, either you're a realist or an anti-realist. Either you accept facts are real independently of the "human mind" (realist), i.e. objective, or you accept that reality is only subjective (anti-realist).

Here I must disagree, and this seems to be the point of my OP here. He says the only alternative to an objective reality is one relative to (or supervenes on) human mind. How very anthropocentric. Ontological relativism means relative to anything, but not supervening on that thing.

According to QM the moment one entangled particle is measured the other's orientation or measured properties are determined by the measurement of the other, instantaneously. — Ben St Clair

QM says nothing of the sort. QM simply predicts that the two measurements will correlate when compared at a later time.

Anyway, yes, relativity denies the arbitrary simultaneity and simply says that the ordering of the two measurement events (assuming both are measured) is ambiguous if the events are outside each other's light cone. Other experiments blatantly appear to 'change' the past based on a future decision, altering measurements taken unabiguously in the past of some decision event.

No, Platonic existence is abstract and immaterial. — Andrew M

Being abstract and immaterial is just a relation to our universe. To the number 7, the moon is abstract, as is 'red'.

Almost everything seems to be a relation. Redness seems to be a 3-way for instance. The banana and my avatar (particular objects) evoke the experience of yellow (the universal) to you and me (subjects). Take away the particulars and we'd not know of yellow. Take away the yellow universal, and I suppose it would not be platonism. Change the subject experiencer, and the truth of it goes away. The banana, but not the avatar evokes the experience of yellow to a squirrel, a being that actually senses the yellow wavelength. My avatar does not emit any yellow light. So the relation to a human is necessary.

I have a hard time coming up with an example of a property. A proton (not even a particular one) has X much rest-mass. That seems to be a property, relating possibly only to "in the physics of this bubble of spacetime".

The meaning of '2+2=4' derives from particulars — Andrew M

Seems not necessarily so. Our knowledge of the truth of it (an epistemological thing) stems from interaction with particulars, but I was after the truth of it, not our knowledge of the truth of it or what meaning 2+2=4 has to us.

I realize that there are stances where sans-particulars, '7 is prime' is false. I might even agree, since insufficient relation is specified. Better is '7 is prime in the set of whole numbers'. The truth of it is now not objective, but only relative to something.


I think I'd like to take this offline and start a new thread since it only has small bearing on Wayfarer's OP. The relational QM bit was very relevant, and is a good answer to the OP, but what I'm pushing here goes way beyond the confines of QM, and thus seems off-topic. I want relational everything.

Give me a day or two to frame it.

I don’t really claim anything one way or the other on universals. I need to see how this fits in, since you seem to lean on the problem of universals as a counter-argument to my idea here. — noAxioms

I rescind this. The position does stake a claim here, that the universe is a universal, and that it does not have Platonic existence since that would be something concrete.

The Aristotelian position is that cases like '2+2=4' derive from concrete particulars, they don't have an independent existence. For example, there are two apples in the basket and I add two more. By generalizing from apples to any object and abstracting away physical constraints, we derive a formal rule for adding things without limit. — Andrew M

Then the position I am proposing is not compatible with the Aristotelian position. To frame what I am proposing in such terms is to say that our universe is a (non-Platonic) universal with no necessary particulars. For it to be a particular, said particular would need to be in (relative-to) some container universe which again would be a universal at its foundations.
As for the apples, I don't see how 2+2=4 would necessarily not be the case just because there are no apples (or any other concrete particular) to instantiate the relationship.

This is an empirical account of mathematics that doesn't require positing a Platonic existence for abstract mathematical entities.

I am absolutely not proposing Platonic existence for what I see to be universals.

As an example, I see two apples on the table but I don't see the number two. The apples are concrete particulars, the number two is an abstract quantity. — Andrew M

Because you share the same structure as the apples, and not with the number two. It is abstract to you (and you to it), a weaker or at least different relation than the one you have with the apples.

I agree that the universe doesn't need an observer. But given that we are observing it, it follows that it is concrete (since we can't observe universals). Just as the apples must be concrete in order to observe them.

You’d observe them the same if they were not concrete. The exact same relations would exist, just between two things (observer/apple) in the same structure that happens to not be concrete. If the empirical experience is different because of this, the relations would be different, meaning it was not the same structure. I’m assuming a closed structure here, but I think no more.

Now your claim seems to be that that is just us humans talking about the universe in our human way - the universe could really be something else in itself. But my argument is that abstractions (and representations) have an essential logical dependency on concrete particulars in our language use. So we can't then just posit something as being purely abstract (which we never observe) and expect that to be a meaningful statement.

I observe it, being part of it. Indeed, I could not observe it from outside, lacking a particular ‘it’ to observe. It could be simulated, but then it is the simulation being observed, not the structure itself.
Again, I reach for the simplest cases like 2+2=4, which has no particular, but the relation between 2+2 and 4 exists, particular or not. I can simulate (perform the addition) to observe this, but doing so is just for the benefit of the performer of the operation and has no effect on the truth of the relation.

I do disagree since, on my view, an uninstantiated (purely abstract) universe would be just nothing.

It would not be at all, which is different from being nothing.

But I do also agree that we are internal experiencers of the universe and that dualism is mistaken. While my specific arguments are the observation and coherency arguments above, generally speaking it's really just the philosophical question of the problem of universals.

I don’t really claim anything one way or the other on universals. I need to see how this fits in, since you seem to lean on the problem of universals as a counter-argument to my idea here.