How do they justify believing this? — Relativist

Imagine 'how the world looks like' without any kind of sensations. Here's a quote I found from F.H. Bradley (who BTW wasn't a Berkeleyan idealist but is said to be more like Hegel apparently... I actually don't know Bradley, I just use this quote because I find it a good way to put it and here he looks quite the 'Berkeleyan' or possibly the 'epistemic idealist' - this depends on how you interpret his conclusion):

"Sentient experience, in short, is reality, and what is not this is not real. We may say, in other words, that there is no being or fact outside of that which is commonly called psychical existence. Feeling, thought, and volition (any groups under which we class psychical phenomena) are all the material of existence, and there is no other material, actual or even possible. This result in its general form seems evident at once; and, however serious a step we now seem to have taken, there would be no advantage at this point in discussing it at length. For the test in the main lies ready to our hand, and the decision rests on the manner in which it is applied. I will state the case briefly thus. Find any piece of existence, take up anything that any one could possibly call a fact, or could in any sense assert to have being, and then judge if it does not consist in sentient experience. Try to discover any sense in which you can still continue to speak of it, when all perception and feeling have been removed; or point out any fragment of its matter, any aspect of its being, which is not derived from and is not still relative to this source. When the experiment is made strictly, I can myself conceive of nothing else than the experienced. Anything, in no sense felt or perceived, becomes to me quite unmeaning. And as I cannot try to think of it without realising either that I am not thinking at all, or that I am thinking of it against my will as being experienced, I am driven to the conclusion that for me experience is the same as reality. The fact that falls elsewhere seems, in my mind, to be a mere word and a failure, or else an attempt at self-contradiction. It is a vicious abstraction whose existence is meaningless nonsense, and is therefore not possible."

F.H. Bradley
- Appearance and Reality

To the 'Berkeleyan idealist' the fact that we struggle to conceive 'what the world looks like' when all 'mental content' is removed is an evidence for denying the existence of a 'mind-independent matter'.

Physicalism is epistemically grounded in our perceptions of the world - presumably our senses deliver us a reflection of reality (so there is a bit of distinction between perceived reality and actual reality) and the success of science. It's logically possible for these assumptions to be false, but the grounding beliefs are innate - basic beliefs. Possibility alone doesn't justify abandoning them. — Relativist

As I said in my previous post, physicalism seems content to claim that intelligibility (which you assume here) is just a 'brute fact' that doesn't need to be explained. I disagree. So, for me, it isn't enough.

I can actually agree with what you said here, despite not being a physicalist. I do not deny the existence of a 'physical world', independent from our minds (i.e. which is not just mental content), but IMO it isn't ontologically fundamental.

This framework reflects, and accounts for, the structure that we see in the world. It's not a causal account, it's a structural account. — Relativist

To be honest, I actually think that your view is similar to Aristotle's account of the physical world.

I believe that the structure is intrinsic to physical reality, i.e. there would be no physical reality without structure. But the structure itself, however, is not 'physical'. I do adimit, however, that if there were no physical reality, we might conclude that the structure itself would disappear. However, while I admit that this is true for some of it, the nature of logical and mathematical principles (their seemingly being necessary and eternal) leads me to think that is not wholly 'immanent' in the physical world. That's why I think that the ontological status of math/logic is actually important in this discussion.

No. It doesn't fit into a physicalist paradigm, ontologically. — Relativist

And yet, I do find your talk about universals quite close to it. I mean, not the same as it. But similar. The only difference I can think of is that you think that universals are immanent and, therefore, nothing is independent of physical reality. Still, you seem to assume that universals aren't just 'figments of imagination' but they do have an ontic status, independent from us.
I may be wrong but I don't think you are an anti-realist about universals.

"Physical" is just the label attached to the things that exists that is causally connected to everything else. Causally disconnected things are logically possible, but because of an absence of causal connections, their existence is moot and there is no epistemological justification to believe such things exist. — Relativist

Ok. In other words, do you believe that universals/structure can be considered 'physical' because their 'existence' is immanent in the physical world?

If you still believe there's an equivocation, please describe it. — Relativist

Well, I have my difficulties to label universals as physical for instance. But I think I understand why you would do (I hope I didn't however misunderstood your view).

I am not sure what this means: the interpretative structure of following a ball and catching it? — Apustimelogist

More or less. My point is that in order to even think to follow and catch a ball, you need some interpretative mental faculties. Same goes for some basic innate concepts (like a basic notion of 'thing', 'change' and so on).

What kind of answer you want? I don't understand why you want me to explain how the world can be structured. It seems self-evident to most people. — Apustimelogist

Well, yes, but my question is how to understand why the physical world is intelligible in the first place. A physcialist might well aswer as you do. It is just a 'brute fact'. But IMO it would be ironic. The very intelligibility of the world is left unexplained (and perhaps unexplainable).

For instance Aristotle mantained that all physical things are composed of matter and form. By 'form' he meant, well, the same as Plato's forms. So concepts for him were an intrinsic part of the 'physical reality'. That would a possible answer to my question. But I doubt that a physicalist might find it congenial. It's difficult, after all, to think about Aristotle's ontology of physical things as 'physicalist'.

I don't need a platonic realm to do this, I just need a brain that can infer quantity in the sensory world and extrapolate. — Apustimelogist

Perhaps you don't need a platonic realm. But that intelligibility is left an unexplained 'brute fact'. I am not saying that physicalism is necessarily wrong because of this (even if I believe it would be a reasonable conclusion to make).

You can have an intelligible model that is incorrect. Like people used to have models of the solar system that were intelligible, gave correct predictions and turned out to be completely wrong. — Apustimelogist

Yes, the model is incorrect and intelligible. But I guess that one could then say that if, even in principle, we could not make any correct model, then the world would be in fact intelligible for us.

But, again, the very fact that we can make predictions suggests to me that, at least in principle, we could make a 'correct model'. It might be beyond our reach but still a possibility in principle. Otherwise, it seems to me that our predictions would be completely right for 'luck': that is, we get incredibly good predictions in the absence of an intelligible structure of reality. Weird.

That’s it. This is what I believe Kant means by the ‘in itself’, as distinct from ‘the phenomenal’. The issue is, empiricism tends to take what exists in the absence of any observer as the hallmark of what is real, but that entails an inherent contradiction. — Wayfarer

Note, however, that there is IMO a problem with Kant's and similar views. So, intelligibility of the world is 'brought into' by the organizing activity of the mind. Of course, epistemic idealists hold that what mind brings in is just order. So, the question becomes: how can we understand this 'ordering'?
It seems in fact to assume that there is, indeed, a mind-independent reality which is then 'represented' by the cognitive faculties of the mind. Hence, it seems that the 'ordered world' of experience arises from the 'interaction' between the mind and 'the mind-independent reality', which is never truly presented 'as it is itself' to the mind. The 'represented' world of exprience is thus like an interface (as Donald Hoffman puts it, but the idea is much older) and for the knowing subject it is impossible to know what the world is like independent from the mental categories.

But even asserting that there is an interaction that, ultimately, is what 'triggers' the interface is to suggest a minimal degree of intelligibility of the 'mind-independent world', other than giving to it an ontological status. So, I wonder if epistemic idealism doesn't in fact necessarily collapse into some variants of either indirect realism or other types of 'idealism' or whatever else, except perhaps strict physicalism. Even, say, Bernard d'Espagnat's view isn't empirical idealism, after all. He believed that we can acquire some knowledge of the mind-independent reality, which he described as 'veiled' (just like, say, by touching a statue hidden by a veil we can know some of its characteristics). Not sure if his view can be called 'epistemic idealism' (of course, he, like others, incorporates some parts of the epistemic idealist thesis, without however fully subscribing to it IMO).

In any case, to the strict epistemic idealist, I would ask: how do you explain the 'arising' of the 'empirical/experienced world' without positing an intelligible mind-independent reality (let's consider the minds here as those of sentient beings not some 'higher' Mind, which would in fact be, in a certain sense, a mind-indepedent reality, at least from the epistemic idealist point of view)?

My point that "measurement is an essential element of duration" stands. In a relativistic universe, duration isn't an absolute, pre-existing quantity that merely needs to be "counted" by an observer. In other words, it is not transcendental, but phenomenal. The duration of an event itself is dependent on the observer's frame. Therefore, the act of measurement, by defining the observer's frame of reference, is intrinsically linked to the definition of that particular duration for that observer. You're not just measuring a pre-defined duration; you are, in a sense, participating in the definition of its duration by being in a specific frame. — Wayfarer

Well, I guess that one can even say that in order to even think to make a measurement you have to assume that the 'world' is intelligible in terms of mental categories (and 'time' might be one of them). The epistemic idealist would then say that such an assumption of intelligibility is only valid when the world is analysed in the context of experience, i.e. we can't make any claim about how 'the world is' without any kind of reference to experience. So the 'perspectival' character of physical quantities might even be an indication of this.
If duration is quantized, it would still not 'falsify' epistemic idealism IMO. It would simply tell us how 'the world as is presented' is best understood.

So this modern materialism then, what does it suggest, especially above and beyond what naturalism does? — noAxioms

If I am understanding your question correctly, that 'modern materialism' would be the thesis that fundamental reality is 'physical', 'natural' etc.

It's how I use the word, but mostly just to identify 'not dualism', and I prefer to use naturalism to describe that, so I admit that the term needs something else, perhaps said ontological stance. — noAxioms

My problem with this is that there are also philosophical models that do not make any 'stance' about whether 'the physical' or 'the mental' is fundamental. Some phenomenological approach conceptualize this by saying that the 'first-person perspective' (the 'mental') and the 'third-person perspective' (the 'physical') are not reducible to one another but you need to take both into account even if it is not possible to make a synthesis of them (think about 'complementarity' in QM). To none of them, however, an ontological status is actually granted. Both are ultimately 'point of views'.
How would you classify this? It is obviously not 'dualistic' in the sense that an ontologiy is not even presumed.

No, but I don't suggest that I am composed partially of principles and laws either. Those things are the means by which physical stuff interacts. — noAxioms

Sort of agree. They are not 'parts' that we are composed of. That would be a 'materialistic' interpretation of principles and laws. But even saying that they are 'means' is wrong IMO. I would say that they 'manifest' in the way physical stuff interact. If they weren't 'there', there would be no 'way' in which physical stuff would interact.

I am trying to understand all the terms being used here. Some examples would help, perhaps of something unstructured, and how exactly speaking about a physical reality contradicts materialism.
Something unstructured would seem to not stand out to anything, and in that sense it wouldn't be intelligible. Not sure if that's what you mean though. — noAxioms

Mmm it's difficult to make an example of something unstructured... because making a description would actually assume an intelligible structure!

I am not even sure that it even makes sense to think about an 'unstructured reality'. So, probably, this implies that, after all, intelligibility is sometinh essential to anything real.

Regarding my point about 'physical reality' and materialism, think it this way. If one posits that, say, the fundamental reality is, say, the Platonic 'world of Forms' it's possible to explain why the physical world presents to us regularities. They are, so to speak, 'moving images' of the Forms or 'manifestations' of them. And physical things are instantiations of the forms.
But materialism would simply assume that there is an 'order' in the world without having a conceptual category that explains it. Is being intelligible intrinsic/essential to be material? Is the 'order' material? etc

OK, but I've always associated that with just 'idealism'. Perhaps I should ask what non-ontic idealism is then. I mean, epitemic idealism makes sense, but almost in a tautological way. You only know what you know. — noAxioms

I quote my previous post which tries to explain 'epistemic idealism':

Then, of course, we have epistemic idealists. These would say that, in fact, we can only know the world as it is represented by our own mental categories. For them, it isn't at all surprising that the world seems intelligible: our experience is structured by our own mental categories. This specific type of idealism, however, makes no claim about how the world is 'outside' of experience. — boundless

Assuming a reality to make a case for a reality? — noAxioms

Assuming some kind of reality of mathematical and logical principles to make a case for the intelligibility of physical reality.

It seems to me that it makes more sense to believe it IS physical, because otherwise we must make some unparsimonious assumptions about what else exists, besides the physical. — Relativist

Viceversa, I just don't understand why many physicalists are so sure that using the term 'physical' is appropriate for the 'structure'/'order'. To me it's just equivocating the term.

I just don't get why so many are embracing idealism- it seems to depend on skepticism about the perceived world, and then makes the unsupported assumption that reality is mind-dependent. I see no good justification for believing that. Sure, our perceptions and understandings are mind dependent, but I see no justification to believe that's all there is to reality. The innate, basic belief has not been defeated, and if we merely apply skepticism- we should also be skeptical of the hypothesis of idealism. — Relativist

Note that unlike an idealist thinks that the 'physical world' is just mental content they also believe that there is something 'outside'. And, in fact, even someone like Berkeley would say that the order is 'mind-dependent' if 'mind' is taken to be the individual mind.
Of course, Berkeley would probably say that mental content and minds are all there is. But 'idealism' includes a much more diverse picture.

That is, only some idealists would claim that the physical world is reduced to perceptions and understandings. They would probably agree with you that, instead, the world is 'external' from the mind and it is intelligible. They would probably contend that its intelligibility is an indication that shares a common structure with the mind and, therefore, it is (for them) an indication that it is ontologically secondary to Mind (I use the capital letter because these types of ontological idealists often believe in a higher 'Mind' as the ground of the physical world).

Then, of course, we have epistemic idealists. These would say that, in fact, we can only know the world as it is represented by our own mental categories. For them, it isn't at all surprising that the world seems intelligible: our experience is structured by our own mental categories. This specific type of idealism, however, makes no claim about how the world is 'outside' of experience.

The metaphysical physicalist, on the other hand, assumes that the physical world is primary and intelligible and mind is derived from it. But how can a purely physical account explain its intelligibility without just assuming it as 'taken for granted'?

And, yes, skepticism works in both ways. But note that I was thinking about the consequences of accepting the assumption that the physical world is intelligible.

No, I'm being consistent with physicalism in terms of what a property is: properties are universals that exist immanently where they are instantiated. — Relativist

Aristotle for instance agreed with this and he wasn't a physicalist.
Anyway, assuming that a 'hylomorphic' physicalism holds (i.e. a Aristotelian picture of reality without the 'super-natural' aspects of his worldview), do you believe that formal causes exist? I mean if there is an 'order' in the physical world, it just seems that the world has a 'form' in a quite Arisotelian way.
Note that this is different from saying that math can be used to make predictions. It assumes that we can truly understand something 'essential' of the world.

In the case of properties (universals) - you can recognize that two or more things have it. It's true that we aren't visualizing redness as a thing- we're visualizing a red surface, but we are intellectually just identifying the sameness that red things have. — Relativist

Note that this wasn't my point. I said that reductionism cannot explain a structured world because 'structure' is a property (if it even can be considered a 'property') of the whole, not of the parts.
It was something separate from universals.

I don't think so, because I don't explicitly need concepts for the world to be intelligible. I can see the trajectory of a thrown ball, predict where it will end up and catch it without overt need for any concepts. We apply concepts after the fact, mapping them to what we see. Much of the time they are wrong and make false predictions. The ones that happen to be empirically adequate may survive, generally. — Apustimelogist

And yet, on the other hand, probably even in order to 'see' the trajectory, you need to have already some kind of interpretative structure. So which comes before which?
And BTW, you are assuming that the 'world' to be structured but you are not explaining how it can be. If you did, you would use precisely those concepts you think are totally derived from experience.

Its almost trivial to observe the world around you and be able to identify that there can be more of something or less of something, bigger things and smaller things. — Apustimelogist

So, where 'more or less' comes from? Isn't that evidence, then, that concepts do map 'reality' in some way? How is that so?

I am not presuming some exclusive dichotomy of invented or discovered. Something can be both. You can invent a system of rules and then discover implications of following those rules that you did not know before. — Apustimelogist

Fine!

If math was an extremely small field that entirely described physics exclusively then I would say you have a point but math can describe thing that are physically impossible or physically don't make sense. — Apustimelogist

Actually, the history of physics clearly showed us how some 'obscure' mathematical concepts have been used in physical theories. Moreover, I do believe that this property of math as being 'more' than what is actually employed in physics gives more credence to platonism. If math wasn't so 'broad', its truths would be accidental. And, frankly, I am not even sure in a purely physicalist perspective how can we even conceive something that has no relation to '(experienced) reality'. What would even the point of that?

Even if your models are wrong beyond some limit, the fact that you can construct models that give correct predictions suggests that there is an intelligible structure to that part of reality which is being captured. If reality wasn't intelligible, you wouldn't be able to do that. — Apustimelogist

Agreed. More precisely, if reality wasn't intelligible and still we can make successful predictions this would imply that we can do that due to sheer, inexplicable luck. It is sort of possible, I guess. We can't exclude that. But it just doesn't seem 'right'.

Intelligibility is about understanding and comprehension, it isn't about being right or wrong. I would say something is unintelligible when you cannot create any model that gives correct predictions; even then, I am skeptical that such a thing even exists except for say... complete randomness... even paradoxes and contradictions are intelligible and understandable... even the concept of randomness itself to some extent. — Apustimelogist

Not sure how can you understand something without being 'right'. In a way, one might even say that 'reality isn't intelligible' is self-refuting: in order to be true, it must correctly 'describe' reality. But if it does describe reality, then...

Why do I need aome special explanation for the fact that I can count things that I see in the world (under the assumption of identifying those counted things as the same)? — Apustimelogist

Partly it's psychological...because, well, for me it isn't 'obvious'. It isn't something I would take for granted. BTW, personally I also marvel at 'existence' itself.

And, in fact, I guess these two things are related. Why reality is 'ordered' when it could be otherwise? Is it even conceivable to speak about 'order'/'structure' without assuming some mental categories? Does this have implications?

Again, was not aware of that, but there is probably more than one view lumped under the term. — noAxioms

I did some googling and it does seem that you are right, in fact. It does seem that physicalism is used to denote some positions that are not about ontology.
Since this thread is about ontology, however, it would be probably more appropriate to refer to 'materialism', then, without using that term to indicate a specific form of 'materialism' that, say, is equated to ancient atomism or a literal interpretation of newtonian mechanics but it is compatible with modern physical theories.

Still, I am not sure why people would call 'physicalism' a non-ontological view, but that's me.

The definition of 'physical' definitely gets shaky when one steps outside of our own particular universe. — noAxioms

Yes, that's the problem that I have with using that term. Anyway, personally, I would not call principles, laws and so on as something physical.

In fact, they are more like the transcendental conditions for the existence of something physical. Personally, I would not say that they are 'physical'. To me that leads to an equivocation of the term 'physical' that renders it meaningless, in fact.

A purely 'unstructured' (i.e. intelligible) 'physical reality' is not a 'physical reality' at all. And the structure is more like a 'principle' than an 'object'. To me this means that the mere assumption that 'physical reality' is intelligible (which seems to be in fact necessary to speak about a 'physical reality'), contradicts materialism (and hence 'physicalism' as a metaphysical/ontological position).

I perhaps am one open to accepting structure as more fundamental than physical. — noAxioms

:up: Nice! I am also of the same opinion. An unstructured world is IMO a contradiction in terms. But the structure is more like a 'transcendental' for the world (i.e. a precondition of it).

Which may just bring it back to an objective truth, yes. — noAxioms

Right!

Is there such a thing as ontic idealism? — noAxioms

Well, it is often referred to the position that reality is exclusively mental and, therefore, there are only minds and mental content as we know them (a position that is most often attributed to Berkeley, but I think that he was more sofisticated than how it is often presented). In a sense, however, I would sat that even positions as diverse form that like, say, classical theism, neoplatonism, and other metaphysical positions which accept the existence of a 'material' world (which is not assumed to be fundamental, of course, but intelligible), are 'ontological idealist' because they assume that some kind of 'Mind' is the most fundamental reality (and mathematical/logical truths are concepts in that 'Mind'). But generally, these positions are not included under the label 'idealism'.

Anyway, I was not trying to 'make a case' for any of these 'idealist' positions. I was more like 'making a case' for the 'reality' of 'mathematical and logical truths' by simply assuming that there is an intelligible physical/material reality.

Roger Penrose, for instance, endorsed the existence of a 'platonic realm' which for him is independent from both the material/physical and the mental 'realms' (see this video, for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujvS2K06dg4). I would distinguish Penrose's positions that the ones mentioned before. Plato himself seemed to me unclear about whether the 'forms' are 'concepts' (and are in some kind of 'eternal Mind') or if they are 'independently real' and, in fact, something ontologically different and independent from either minds/souls and 'matter'. I guess that those mathematicians that are deemed platonists are in both camps (for instance, Kurt Godel was both a platonist and a theist, so I would suspect that he considered mathematical 'forms' as concepts (in the Divine mind). The early Bertrand Russell was an atheist but a platonist, so I would imagine that he held a similar view to Penrose. Also G.H. Hardy mantained a similar view). In any case, if one assumes the 'reality' (and the 'indipendence' from the physical world and our minds) of math and logic, then one cannot be a 'materialist' and possibly even endorse some forms of ontological idealism, for that matter.

I don't agree. Set physicalism aside and just consider the evolutionary advantage of associating effect with "cause" (something preceding) with "effect" - even in nonverbal animals. This mirrors "if....then", the most basic form of inference. — Relativist

As I said in my previous post, if one speaks about 'evolution' and 'evolutionary advantage' as an explanation and, indeed, if one thinks that explanation is true, I don't see how one can escape the conclusion that the 'process' considered is intelligible. If it is intelligible, this means that our concepts do mirror the regularities of that which is 'happening'. Of course, if one embraces a quite radical skepticism where this evolutionary explanation is not considered true but 'useful', then, yes, one can avoid to attribute intelligibility to the 'evolutionary story'.

Such a 'skeptic' attitude, however, IMO goes against every 'physicalism' I can think of. Ironically, it's closer to epistemic idealism and some forms of phenomenology.

If the world does have structure/order, then it would be amenable to rational description. — Relativist

If it doesn't, then, I doubt that one can have a coherent form of physicalism. After all, a minimal degree of intelligibility is IMO assumed to talk about coherently of a 'physical reality'.

My only point here is that the capability of recognizing patterns is consistent with physicalism, so it doesn't require magic. — Relativist

My point stands, however. If the world does have structure/order which is intelligible and amenable to rational description, how we have to understand that 'order'? Is it something 'physical' (in a sense of the word that is not equivocal)? If there is not, how can we speak of 'physical reality'?

I mean even saying "there are objects that interact" assumes basic concepts like 'sameness', 'diversity', 'oneness', 'plurality' and so on. So, I guess that any account of 'physical reality' must be intelligible. Which to me raises the question of how to understand that intelligibility, that order in purely physical terms.

Or, consider the spectatular success of mathematics in predicting physical phenomena. How is that even possible without the assumption that mathematics does indeed enable us to 'capture' the structure of a physcial world (again, let us set skepticism aside)?

Order is not a property, per se. It is a high-level intellectual judgement. Properties are not parts. "-1 electric charge" is not a part of an electron, it's a property that electrons have. I don't see a problem with identifying an aspect (a property or pseudo-property) that 2 or more distinct objects have and then focusing attention on that aspect. Explain the problem you see. — Relativist

IMO you are oscillating between a position that requires some degree of intelligibility (the assumption that there is a physcial reality) and a skeptical position which would require to abandon all attempts to rational understanding of reality.
I would say that the 'order', if we take it seriously, would not be just a 'judgement' but also a property of physcial reality itself.

Yes, properties are not parts.

My point was that, if intelligibility of physical reality is assumed, then, you can't 'conceive' the more elementary parts of physical world independent of anything else. Mine was a criticism of reductionism rather than physicalism in that case, I should have clarified better.

From this standpoint, I don't really see the problem you raise. I don't need to assume rational knowledge for my brain to do stuff... it just does stuff in virtue of how it evolved and developed. And none of what the brain does os strictly arbitrary because it depends on its interactions with the outside world. — Apustimelogist

My point is that the 'story' you're telling presupposes intelligibility in order to be 'right'. If you admit that the physical world - at least in some features - is intelligible (apparently enought intelligible to be certain of these things), then, at least the most basic concepts that ground describe the order of the physical world, which seem to imply that they are actually also part of the order of physical reality itself.

Also about predictions: unless one adopts a quite skeptical approach (for instance the one about 'perspective' I mentioned earlier), these extremely accurate predictions seem to imply that, indeed, mathematics does describe the 'structure' of reality. But if that is true, mathematics isn't invented (at least, the part that describes the structure of the world).

Anyway, I am not sure I understand your point here. The world is intelligible to us because we have a brain that is designed to model the world. — Apustimelogist

No, the world is intelligible because it is intelligible (if it is indeed intelligible). On the other hand, I can't exclude the possibility that it isn't really intelligible, in which case we evolved in a quite 'lucky' way that enables us to make useful predictions by using models that are in fact wrong.
The very fact that we speak of evolution - which is indeed intelligible as a concept - to explain why we can have knowledge presupposes that the world is intelligible in some sense (unless, as I said, one wants to embrace skepticism).

Two times two is two twos. Thats just two plus two. Its the same. If you are using the notion "equals", you are giving a numerical equivalence, a numerical tautology. — Apustimelogist

If 'equals' is only about the value, ok. But, in fact, the semantic content of the two expression is different. And this IMO shows that mathematics is more than 'tautologies'. It does enable to get access to non-trivial truths.

I would also add that the mathematics that is used in physics is becoming via via more abstract and general principles like symmetries tend to become more and more prominent. And that IMO suggests to me that it can't be a human invention because it is quite surprising how far it is from what one expects from immediate experience.

Good points. Curiously enough, if I had to pick a term based on etimology I would go with 'materialism'. The reference to 'mother nature' is just too poetic.

Physicalism necessarily requires mathematics to be a mental product only? I was not aware of that. Materialism, sure, but not physicalism. — noAxioms

Just a quick terminological point. I believe that 'physicalism' and 'naturalism' are treated as synonyms. But, I would say that 'materialism' also can mean the same thing, unless we call 'matter' only a subset of what is 'physical'. But considering that 'matter' etimologically comes from 'mother', i.e. 'Mother Nature', I find odd that physicalists, according to which ultimate reality is 'natural/physical' object to call themselves as 'materialists'. Maybe 'materialism' seems to be somewhat less 'sophisticated' as a term. But IMO, it isn't necessarily the case. After all, saying 'ultimate reality is material' or 'ultimate reality is physical' for me is equivalent.

We seem to have an innate, basic belief that there's an external world that we're perceiving and interacting with. As we develop from infants, we are making sense of the world. The process continues throughout our lives, and underpins our study of nature. Maintaining a basic belief is perfectly rational, unless there's some undercutting facts. It's of course possible that we're wrong, and it's fare to acknowledge that, but possibility alone is not a rational reason to drop a belief. — Relativist

I agree with you here. If we also give credence to the basic belief of the intelligibility of the world would imply that we assume that the world has a 'structure' that can be 'mirrored' by our mental categories.

But note that this does have implications, after all. If we say, for instance, that logical inference derives from physical causality, we are assuming that physical causality has the same character of 'necessity' that logical inference has. So, it would imply that physical processes 'follow' regularities that are the same as the formal structure of coherent reasonings. But this is more or less something close to 'hylomorphism', rather than a physicalism that tries to derive the rules of logical inferences from the 'physical'.

The big question remains in this case: why would the 'physical' follow the same 'rules' that make a coherent reasoning 'coherent'?

As I said, logic is semantics -a formalization, based on assigning sharply defined definitions to terms. You could question the grounding of our semantics, I suppose. But again, the grounding seems to be basic, innate beliefs. Of course we learn a language, but we have a common understanding that depends on our hardwired mechanism for perceiving the world - and similarly, rational to maintain. — Relativist

Note that I am questioning the 'grounding' here. All explanations we can possibly make must be coherent. If we realize that an explanation is incoherent, we reject it.

I've identified the specific way universals are connnected to reality, and how we manage to perceive them. This seems a better account than saying they are "somehow connected".

Regarding "laws of thought": an orderly world producing orderly thoughts, enabling successful interaction with it. — Relativist

If I am not mistaken, however, you are assuming that the world has a structure/order that is amenable to rational description. But here we get the same question that I raised before in the case of causality.

It seems a minor step from pattern recognition, which Artificial Neural Networks can do. — Relativist

Note that Artificial Neural Networks are still, ultimately, our inventions that are programmed by us. So, I am not sure that this can lead us to the conclusion that the world is 'orderly' in the same way as our thoughts are.

But IMO, assuming that is the case, I just find weird from a physicalist point of view that the order is the same.

Anyway, if one assumes that the 'order' is an intrinsic property of the world this would mean that reductionism is wrong. Parts can't be understood as 'abstracted' from their context of relations. In fact, parts must be understood as, well, being intrinsically 'parts' and, therefore, wholes are not reducible to them.

Physicalism necessarily requires mathematics to be a mental product only? I was not aware of that. Materialism, sure, but not physicalism. — noAxioms

Well, I believe that physicalism posits that the 'physical' is fundamental. It all depends, after all, on what we mean by 'physical'. If we 'stretch' the meaning of that world enough, I guess that a platonic realm of forms can be thought as 'physical'.

But the risk here is equivocation. For instance, if I say that there are really 'physical laws', it seems that we end up with something like 'hylomorphism', i.e. the position that the 'physical' is also something that has a structure that is intrinsically intelligible (at least, in part). Is that 'structure' also 'physical'. I guess one can say so. But note, for instance, that assuming that 'structure' is not merely something we mistakenly impose on 'physcial reality' would imply that something like 'reductionism' is false. After all, reductionism tells us that fundamentally parts are ultimately real. But if one accepts that 'structures' are as fundamental as 'physical things', it certainly implies that wholes are not really reducible to parts (as parts cannot be 'abstracted' from their context).

So, I guess that at the end of the day the problem can be terminological.

I do agree that such an assertion results in circularity. Logic cannot be used to derive logic as an end product instead of something far more fundamental. — noAxioms

:up:

Those aren't counterexamples, but rather examples to show that 2+2=4 requires context, and a context requirement seems like an awful big asterisk to the claim of the objectiveness of its truth. — noAxioms

I can agree with that. And yes, you need to posit the 'truth' of the whole context.

I do believe that natural numbers ultimately derive from very basic concepts like 'sameness', 'otherness', 'unity', 'plurality' and so on, which can't possibly be 'invented'.

If it's a mental construct, it would seem dependent on time. I don't think it's a mental construct, so I'll agree with your assertion of it being eternal. — noAxioms

:up: on the 'eternality' part. Actually, I do think that maybe logic and math are 'mental constructs'/'concepts' (I do have my sympathies with 'idealism'*), but not in the sense that they are conventional.

*By 'idealism' I mean a very broad category that includes epistemic idealism, or whatever position that posits 'mind' as (at least part of) fundamental reality. In fact, I moved towards the second category recently (albeit, I do recognize that epistemic idealism is a very interesting perspective). I do admit however that strictly speaking I can't make any logically compelling argument from that position.

Non-eliminativist physicalists don't assume the physical world to be totally mindless of course (unless the minds under discussion are defined as being incompatible with physicalism). — wonderer1

No, but they either have to 'derive' them from purely physical things. I think that many physicalists are emergentists. The problem with that view is that it seems impossible to pin down properties of physical things 'in virtue of which' conscious experience - and, I would add, logic - can emerge.
The problem is that, until now, I never encountered a fully satisfying physicalist account of consciousness, logic, math and so on.

Furthermore, from the perspective of many physicalists, 'laws of thought' of some sort are to be expected. And 'laws of thought' are expected to be consistent with the sort of information processing that occcurs due to the structure of our brains. — wonderer1

In other words, here there is the hidden assumption of intelligibility of the physical world, i.e. that there are regularities in physical phenomena that are more or less the same as 'laws of thoughts'.

To make an example, it seems to me that you can't derive logical inference from mere physical causality. Or, if you can, you either (1) end up assuming that physical causality is more or less the same thing as inference or (2) we 'invent' inference from our experience but we are mistaken that experience can really be described by our reasoning.

Although my definition of "the natural" precludes things existing that we can't infer, I don't preclude the possibility of things existing that we can't possibly infer. But if so, they are unknowable and therefore we're unjustified in believing any specifics beyond the basic ackowledgement that are are possibilities. — Relativist

Don't you think, however, that you are assuming that this 'natural' world is intelligible, though? That is, your model, actually presupposes the validity of inferences, logical explanations and so on?
The orderly structure you are attributing to the world mirrors the structure of rational thought.

The "laws of logic" are nothing more than a formalized, consistent semantics - for example, the meanings of "if...then...else", "or", "and", "not" - all sharply defined by truth tables. — Relativist

Problem is that any explanation presupposes coherence. If an explanation is incoherent we do not think that it can be true, or convincing. So, you can't ground logic without assuming it in the first place. It's just fundamental.

Suppose there were no intelligent minds to grasp them - in what sense do these transcendental objects actually exist? — Relativist

IMO one might say that transcendental objects are in some way connected to the regularities of phenomena. But I would assume that it would be somewhat inconvenient for a physicalist to admit that, say, the 'laws of thoughts' are actually an essential aspect of that physical world which is assumed to be totally 'mindless'.

From a physicalist's point of view, if some physical phenomenon is describable with mathematics, it is entirely due to the presence of physical relations among the objects involved in the phenomenon. — Relativist

And yet these 'physical relations' have a structure that can be 'captured' by mathematics. There is unmistakable 'affinity' between physical regularities and 'laws of thought'.
Problem is: can physicalism explain that without assuming that logical and mathematical principles are just an essential part of the world (and therefore, ironically, unexplainable in purely physical terms)?

To repeat: my qualms about physicalism is that it still requires to assume the validity of logical and mathematical principles that it wants to explain. After all, all explanations that we can think of must presuppose the validity of those principles. At the same time, however, physicalists seem to say that logical and mathematical principles are just 'inventions'.
But if are not, how can be they considered in any way as 'physical'?

I suggest that it is justifiable to believe the physical world is at least partly intelligible - justified by the success of science at making predictions. I don't see how anyone could justify being skeptical of this. Nevertheless, we should keep in mind our limitations. The known laws of physics (which I contrast with the ontological laws of nature) may be special cases that apply in the known universe but are contingent upon some symmetry breaking that occurred prior to, or during, the big bang. If so, it's irrelevant to making predictions within our universe. — Relativist

Ok, I agree with that. But the problem of how to explain (even partial) intelligibility remains.

I don't see a problem with abstractions. The "way of abstraction" (see: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abstract-objects/#WayAbst) is a mental exercise associated with pattern recognition. This describes the process by which we isolate our consideration to properties, ignoring all other aspects of the things that have them. The properties don't ACTUALLY exist independently of the things that have them, IMO. And I don't see how one could claim that our abstracting them entails that they exist independently. — Relativist

Note, however, that in order to even recognize a pattern, you need to assume a basic capacity of recognition of 'sameness' and 'different', which actually means that a capacity of interpretation is assumed. So, how abstraction is even possible if we do not assume the validity of certain basic and seemingly fundamental mental categories (which seem to be unexplainable but, in fact, the ground of any explanation)?

What do you mean by 'eternal' here? I have two definitions of that, and neither seems appropriate. I seem to favor the idea of mathematics being fundamental, but not all would agree. — noAxioms

Time-independent in the case of math and logic.

I agree that physicalism is reactive but it's like a 'half-made reaction' when one wants to have his cake and eat it too. That is, one wants to retain the idea of intelligibility of the physical world and, at the same time, wants to avoid to posit also the necessary conclusion that, in this world picture, the structure of the physical world actually is similar to that of our reason and at the same time trying to affirm that math and logic are the products of our minds. The problem is, of course, that in order to explain anything you have to assume that the explanation and, therefore, logic (and at least some parts of math) must be assumed to be true. In other words, physicalism would like to have a 'physical' explanation of everything and, yet, if it were true there would be no explanation that assumes the very thing it wants to explain as its starting point.

It's seems to me, then, that if one doesn't assume that logic and (at least some part of) math are irreducible, one can't assume that any kind of rational knowledge is possible. If they were simply 'inventions', nothing would be truly intelligible. So, instead of a 'physicalism' we would have an extreme form of skepticism of some sorts.

...

I have no problem with people being skeptical with this description because its obviously not rigorous and comes a lot from my intuition. But I don't feel the need for anything added to explain things about how math or logic works. Once we pre-stipulate conditions for things to be the same or different, we are just extrapolating those properties in tautologous ways. These things can be gotten straight out of reality, or describe reality very well in suspicious ways, purely because reality has structure in which different parts of the reality act in the same way! And so there is nothing special about maths relation to reality if these are just tautologies. — Apustimelogist

But note that basic notions like 'oneness', 'plurality', 'same', 'different' seem to be innate and do not seem to be 'fabricated' by us as mere abstractions. They do seem to mirror the 'structure' of the world 'external to us' as far as we can know. So, while we can't 'prove' it (and, therefore, we can't have certainty about it), the physical world seems to be (in part) intelligible and, therefore, knowable.
Furthermore, these 'basic concepts' seem to be the very categories that we use to interpret our perceptions even before we are aware of that. We distinguish different things, we distinguish change, we discern sameness, regularities and so on. If we had not these 'innate categories', how could we be able to make any sense of out experience at all? And, everything suggests that, while they maybe not 'without error', they still give us an approximate picture of reality. Which would then mean that the world is intelligible, which would mean that its structure is like that of our reasoning...

The antinomy I was talking about is this: while it does seem to us that the world is intelligible, we can't verify it from the 'outside' of our perspective. So, we might presume that the structure of our thought mirrors (in part) the structure of the 'external world' but we can't just prove that.

Count two fingers, then another two fingers.

Now count four fingers. — Apustimelogist

I am surprised that you made this point, actually. 'Two plus two' is a different concept from 'four'. Just because the numerical value is the same it doesn't at all imply that it's a tautology.

Think about 'two times two' being equal to 'two plus two'. Of course the two mathematica operations are not the same. Conceptually they are different. It is an informative truth, not just a tautology.

Ah, I think I understood your point now. But note that neither solipsism nor physicalism can explain why mathematical truths aren't contingent.

Furthermore, physicalism(s), if true, can't derive mathamatical truths. And yet, these ontological systems seem to presuppose them. So, if we do not say that 'mathematical truths exist' we still have to explain IMO why they are needed and how we have to understand them in a physicalist ontology.

After all, mathematical and logical laws, truths etc seem to be 'laws of thought'. If thought is derived from physical entities, it would seem that even that that mathematics and logic should somehow derive from physical entities (Edit: in other words, if physical entities form the ultimate reality from which everything is derived, all the properties of thought - reasoning included - must be explained in terms of physical entities. I am not sure how physicalists can explain, say, why mathematical truths are true if physicalism is assumed to be true...).

Presumably, then, you also believe in the existence of propositional truths, e.g. if "bachelors are unmarried men" is true then the truth that bachelors are unmarried men exists? — Michael

Well, the problem here is that 'bachelor' means 'unmarried man' if I am not mistaken, so here we seem to have a tautology. '2+2=4', however, IMO isn't a tautology.

If so then if "only I exist" is true then this propositional truth exists, and if this propositional truth exists then "only I exist" is false, giving us a contradiction. — Michael

Unless, however, I say that 'only I exist' is wrong. For instance, that statement, if true, would contradict everything I think is true about 'reality'. I do believe that my being is dependent and, therefore, "only I exist" probably is a contradiction because, after all, I can't exist without something else.

It doesn't seem a 'contradiction', but I am actually not sure.
I am not sure about your point, though. Propositions (or even models, theories, philosophical systems etc) can be formally valid (i.e. coherent) but still wrong.

@noAxioms, @Relativist, @Apustimelogist, @Wayfarer

I actually believe that, often, physicalists equivocate the meaning of 'physical', in order to explain consciousness, abstract objects and so on. If by 'physicalism', we mean that the physical is fundamental and everything else is derived from it, we would like to find a reasonable definition of 'what is physical'.

If we mean 'physical reality' as whatever exists in space-time and space-time itself (a definition that IMO is not without criticism), we have to explain how the apparent eternity and necessity of mathematical and logical truth can be explained by such a system, without falling into equivocity.

One way is to try to explain mathematical and logical truths as 'abstractions' that we derive from particulars. The problem, however, is that mathematics and logic seems to be transcendental, i.e. truths that we have to accept to even construct explanations, models and so on. An explanation, for instance, should be logically consistent. If fundamental reality is, indeed, 'physical' how can we explain the laws of logic in purely physical terms?
The same actually goes for mathematics. Mathematical truths seem to be independent from any particular circumstance. They don't seem to be contigent. We can't 'prove' that "2+2=4" by testing it with experiments, no metter how many time, as induction doesn't give us any 'proof', at least in the way mathematicians use the term.
If they were contingent, we could not even imagine to write physical theories in a consistent way. We would always have the expectation that all the mathematical structures of our theories might someday become unreliable.
A very strong 'empiricist' approach to explain mathematics and logic IMHO fails because, after all, we formulate explanations by assuming that mathematics and logic are correct. The very assumption that physical reality might be at least in part intelligible seems to be based on the idea that, indeed, logical and mathematical truths are not contingent and eternal.

If, however, we do accept that mathematical and logical truths are eternal and not contingent, the next step is to ask about their ontological status. Do they possess some kind of 'reality'? The fact that we assume that we can know them strongly suggests to me that they do have some kind of reality. This would mean that they are either fundamental in themselves (as say Penrose IMO suggests) or depend on something else that is also not contingent and eternal.

Of course, a physicalist might argue that the physical world is not contingent and eternal but the problem here is that this would go against what many physicalists seek in physicalism, i.e. a 'view of reality' where there is no 'Absolute'.

Of course, one might reject the premise that the 'physical world' is at least in part intelligible. But that's hardly a 'physicalism' IMO. It is more likely some kind of radical forms of skepticism (there are more than one) where we have the illusion that 'reality' is intelligible by our reasoning. That it seems like so. But this appearance is a self-deception so to speak and, in fact, the 'ultimate reality' is in fact completely 'beyond knowledge'.

Personally, I find the problem of 'abstract objects' a very difficult for any physicalist worldview, at least if we mean that 'physicalism' means that 'ultimate reality is physical' in a comprehensible meaning of the term. Also, the very assumption that reality is (at least partially) intelligible by our conceptual knowledge is, as I said before, something that suggests that logical and mathematical truths are not contingent etc as they would be the preconditions for any kind of explanations. In other words, physicalism(s) seem to be unable to explain why physical reality is intelligible and at the same time the ultimate level of reality without also introducing the assumption of the non-contigency of logical and mathematical truths. But once that is given, then, how can we call such a philosophical position 'physicalism'?

So IMO physicalists seem to be in a difficult position between some radical forms of skepticism about our conceptual knowledge and, instead, give some ontological status to abstract objects (at least logical and mathematical truths) something that IMO would hinder the physicalist project itself.

Thanks for the words and for the answer. I'll actually leave you the last word for now, as I would repaeat myself in my answer and I doubt that it will be useful. Maybe in the future the discussion will restart. Before that, however, I want to study more about some topics that have been discussed here.

↪boundless That's the debate between Aristotle and Plato in a nutshell: Plato has it that the ideas are real quite apart from any instance of them, Aristotle that they are only real as manifested in concrete particulars. — Wayfarer

Agreed! The problem with Aristotle's view is IMHO that at least some abstract concepts do seem completely independent from their particulars. Mathematical and logical truths are an excellent example of that. Incidentally, I believe that theistic philosophers mantained that God's mind was actually the 'receptacle' of those forms and we can understand them because we are also rational beings created by God (Christians would say 'created in image and likeness'). A middle way of sorts between Aristotelism and Platonism. So in this latter view ('conceptualism' I think it was called), these forms are neither ontological independent from anything else (as in Platonism*) nor dependent from the particulars (as in Aristotelism**).

*Of course there is the possibility that Platonism actually was closer to conceptualism that is often recognized. After all, there was a hiearchy of the Forms in Plato's thought, with the Form of the Good as the Highest. Neoplatonism, certainly, was close to 'conceptualism' and incorporated some of Aristotle's views.

**Similarly, one wonders how much Aristotle's thought was also far from conceptualism, given that Aristotle was also a theist.

But such principles as the law of the excluded middle would presumably obtain in any world. That is what 'true in all possible worlds' means - although that is not highly regarded nowadays, because, as we've been seeing, we're prepared to entertain the idea of 'other universes' where such principles may not hold at all, But the question I have about that is, how could a world exist, if such principles didn't hold? In a sense, such principles are like constraints. — Wayfarer

I think I agree with that. Mathematics, logic and so on seem 'transcendental' with respect of the world (at least if we assume that the worlds are at least partly intelligible).

In any case, the specific point of the Eric Perl quote is to show that the idea of a 'separate realm' is not referring to a literal place. 'They are thus ‘separate’ in that they are not additional members of the world of sensible things, but are known by a different mode of awareness.’ — Wayfarer

Agreed. It is useful to note that there are various forms of Platonism. Penrose's view seems to be indeed of a separate ontological realm, accessible to our reason, albeit certainly not a 'place'. Probably some platonists have a 'quasi-materialistic' view of the 'world of Forms', but generally do not.

How could they not be? I mean, OK, under idealism, mathematics is nothing but mental constructs. I get that, and there are even non-idealists that say something similar, but since they can be independently discovered, it seems more than just a human invention. — noAxioms

Well, it depends on the idealist, after all. Some idealists would contend that mathematical truths are concepts. But maybe there is an eternal and necessarily existing mind of some kind that always knows them.
A purely physicalist view, however, is difficult to reconcile with the existence of abstract objects. For instance, logical operations do not seem to be reducible to physical causality, which seems contingent.
Generally physicalists oppose platonism due to the fact that it posits an irreducible non-physical reality.

On the other hand, an idealist that doesn't posit any eternal mind shares the same difficulty.

If a mathematical structure is going to supervene on mathematical truths, then those truths are going to need to be accessible by far more than just reason, which sounds like a mental act or some other construct that instantiates the mathematics (such as a calculator). — noAxioms

It depends on what we call 'reason'. If by reason we mean the mental ability to make deductions, inductions, reasonings and so on, well, at least a good part of mathematical truths are accessible to our finite minds. Complex calculations do not but we do understand them. So, either mathematics transcends reason or reason at least potentially can understand everything in math.

I'm actually being moved by this reasoning, so yes. — noAxioms

:up:

I think not the point. Said intelligence would need to be presented with an environment where such tools would find utility. It need not be 'of any kind' for mathematics to be independently discoverable. — noAxioms

I take this as an agreement. I mean, the potentiality to understand 'our' mathematics would be there. So, at least in principle, that intelligence could understand our mathematics.

An approximation of it can be, yes. A classical simulation is capable of simulating this world in sufficent detail that the beings thus simulated cannot tell the difference. Another funny thing is that GoL is more capable of doing this than is our universe due to resource limitations that don't exist under GoL. — noAxioms

Well, to be honest, I don't think that conscious beings can be understood in purely computational terms. But, I still don't see how it can be considered a separate world from the one where the simulation is run (unless you mean from the 'perspective' of the simulated 'entities', assuming that such a concept makes sense).

A world is what it is, and a simulation of it is a different thing, sort of like the difference between X and the concept of X, something apparently many have trouble distinguishing.. — noAxioms

Ok! Yes.

I need more of a mathematics background to give an intelligent answer to that. — noAxioms

Don't worry, neither do I. It is an interesting idea nevertheless IMO.



I know that you do not expect a reply but thanks for the thoughts. Something you said is above my level. I'll think about your answer and maybe I'll write some thoughts about some parts of it.

Yes, that's a possible view and I sort of agree with it. But note that this raises the question: would those principles still 'exist' if they are not instantiated in the things they 'regulate'?

I believe that mathematical truths (and not only them BTW), would still 'exist' even if they were not instantiated. This of course would ask the question: how? What then would be their ontological support?

I believe that the problem with this discussion is that its scope is becoming too large. Originally, it was a discussion about a question of how to reconcile the idea of the traditional view of hell as (some form of) unending torment with the notion of justice. From this, we then talked about St. Thomas Aquinas' argument that the orientation of the will has a central role. But then our discussion touched different issues like evangelization (in particular how to view it in an universalist context), God's salvific will and so on.

As I said some time ago, I am an agnostic and I wanted to make this discussion philosophical/theological but not exegetical or mainly exegetical. Not because I don't believe that exegesis is unimportant, but because I simply I do not have the education to make a serious exegetical discussion. Also, I don't know all the Christian universalists' answer to the verses and passages you cite (which might vary BTW among the universalists). Finally, I don't think that I am going to be persuaded about these kind of arguments, unless I find a convincing philosophical defence of the traditional doctrine of hell. To me none of the defences that I read have been convincing, mostly due to the fact that, in my opinion, they are difficult to reconcile with other, in fact, traditional doctrines.
If you are right about your claims regarding Scriptures and/or Tradition either these two things are true: (1) the traditional doctrine of hell is true or (2) Scriptures and/or Tradition are wrong in this respect.

Having made this premise, let's consider again what we said before and the things about which we agreed upon.

First, about repentance. It seemed to me that we did agree that the possibility to commit mortal sins, orienting the will to sin, alone is not enough to explain the thesis that it is at a certain point it's simply impossible to repent.
(Incidentally, I believe that the dogma that during this life it's assumed that it's always possible to repent lends support for this conclusion. it's interesting that you seem to say that experience here suggests to us that in some cases even during this life repentance is not possible... to me this would contradict the dogma.)

So, either the future life will be quite different from this life and the orientation of the will, will be inalterable for the sinners or not. If it will be, then, the thing remains unexplained. You mention that change of the will is not possible while disembodied, but at the same time you also believe in the resurrection (why, however, change is not possible while disembodied is something not obvious to me). But, anyway, the orientation of the will alone isn't enough to explain that the damned are beyond any hope. I believed we did agree with this.

This leads, in my opinion, to the conclusion that something else is needed to explain the hopelessness about the fate of the damned, especially if one believes that God, indeed, has a universal salvific will. It would appear to me that if God's desire/will is to save everybody, then creating the conditions that someone might be beyond any hope of salvation at a given point is problematic. The only possibility here is to claim that the sinner can become incurable even for God.

A problem with classical theism, however, is that God is assumed to be omniscent and, if I recall correctly, God already knows how everything will end. So, in this case, it is weird to me to think that God would desire that everybody if He already knows that some will never be saved*. So, probably, this means that what God wants is just to offer salvation to everybody, rather than to save everybody (which however is difficult to reconcile with the view of a God that desires and actively acts for the best of the creatures He loves... also it is quite strange to say that God offers salvation of everybody but He doesn't want that those who He is offering salvation will accept it). Or, maybe, the classical conception of Omniscence has to be modified. Or maybe I did misunderstood the concept.

Regarding the 'cohercion' part, well, I am not sure that this is coercion. After all, if one believes that the human highest Good is communion with God, then, it simply part of the human nature to have some kind of inclination for that Good, which maybe at some point would orient the will to that Good. Anyway, even if you were correct, it would not exclude the hope in universal salvation.

FInally, regarding the evangelization, you continue to think that the traditional view of hell is essential for it. It might be. I don't know. But to me the traditional view of hell is necessary for evangelization if either (1) one believes that all the unevangelized will go to the traditional hell or (2) believing in the traditional view of hell is necessary to evangelize or (3) if a Christian doesn't evangelize will go to the traditional hell. Perhaps, there are other possible reasons that I am not understading right now.
I said that universalists generally allude to other possible motivation for evangelization, which you don't find convincing.

Anyway, I want to thank you for this discussion. It is has been an interesting discussion for me. Possibly, you are right that it's time to stop the conversation for now at least.


*Edit: or even if God expects that some will not be saved without 'truly' knowing it.

Well, there are infinitely many mathematical truths, so the realm they inhabit is going to be infinitely "large" (if that word even makes sense). Also, is some kind of interaction going on between our mental realm and the platonic realm? When you think 2+2=4, do you interact, in some way, with one of these mathematical truths, and that allows for the grounding of mathematical knowledge? If so, then the interaction between the specific mathematical truth and one of the infinite mathematical truths in this realm...how does that work, exactly? And if there is no interaction, why posit the existence of objective mathematical truths? To avoid contradiction? — RogueAI

Yes, that's the problem with platonism. If mathematical (and other types of) abastract concepts and truths abide in a separate realm from the physical world and the mental world (including our culture), how can we know them? How the realms 'interact'?

I don't think that there is a fully satisfying answer to this question. That's why I said that I think platonism is right, but I don't think that there are fully compelling arguments for it.
The strongest evidence is the apparent eternity and necessity of these truths. To me platonist positions are the best explanations. But I can't claim knowledge or certainty about this.

For one, I distinguish mathematics being objectively real, and mathematics being objectively true. The latter seems to hold, and the former I thought was what mathematical Platonism is about, but you say it's about being true. I am unsure if anybody posits that the truth of mathematics is a property of this universe and not necessarily of another one. — noAxioms

Well, platonism asserts that the mathematical truths are objectively real, so you aren't wrong. The problem is, however, that if mathematical truths are independent from both our minds and all the contingencies of the world, it would seem, indeed, that they are, in some sense, objectively real.

Mind you, not as 'things'. Plato himself for instance argued that they reside in a different level of 'reality', the reality of intelligible objects, accessible only from reason. I believe that many theists would say that mathematical truths are concepts in the mind of God and we are able to understand mathematics because our minds have a structure that is able to understand them. In recent times, Penrose popularized the idea of the 'three worlds', the physical world, the world of consciousness and the 'platonic realm'. All these worlds for him both transcend and relate to each other.

I believe that mathematical platonism is right because it seems to me that mathematical truths are objectively true and independent from both the world(s) and our minds. They can be known, so they are not 'nothing' (or figments of our imagination because they are independent from our minds) - they seem to have some kind of ontological reality.

Being objectively true (and not just true of at least this universe) does not imply inaccessibility. The question comes down to if a rational intelligence in any universe can discover the same mathematics, and that leads to circular reasoning. — noAxioms

Well, yeah, right. And also, this objection seems to miss the problem. The point would be "can a rational intelligence of any kind learn mathematics as we know it?". For instance, I read that some propose that a rational being that lives alone in an undifferentiated environment would not coinceive numbers. But the scenario presented here is made in terms of concepts that accessible to us and, even if that inteliggence could not conceive numbers, our arguments would be still correct.

Only a simulation of it. The things in themselves (all different seed states) are their own universes.
Funny thing is that our universe can be simulated in a GoL world, so it works both ways. — noAxioms

Well, you are assuming that our world can be simulated. That's a big assumption. Anyway, if our world were a simulation, I would not consider it a separated world from that which runs the simulation.

Totally agree here. — noAxioms

Good!

A perspective seems to be a sort of 5 dimensional thing, 4 to identify an event (point in spacetime), and one to identify a sort of point in Hilbert space, identifying that which has been measured from that event. All these seem to be quite 'real' (relative to our universe) — noAxioms

Interesting take, thanks. But maybe here the risk is to conflate the 'map' (the mathematical description) and the 'territory'.
But as far as descriptions go, probably one can describe a 'perspective' with a particular division of space time in 3d space, one dimension of time and a point in Hilbert space.
An interesting question would be what is the relation between spacetime and the Hilbert space.

If they are invented, not objective, then wouldn't 2+2=5 be an equally valid invention? — Patterner

I believe that formalists and, in general, mathematical anti-realists would say that "2+2=5" would not be correct because it would be coherent with the system of definitions, rules of argumentation and so on in which the operation "2+2" is found. But for them, mathematics is like, say, the game of chess. It's an invention where you can establish 'objective' rules (i.e. rules valid for all), but it's still an inevention.
On the other hand, if you invent a different 'game' where "2+2=5", that would be just fine.

Right. I don't know a whole lot about mathematical Platonism, being unsure about the arguments for each side, and why 2+2=4 perhaps necessitates it or not. — noAxioms

Well, the general term is matheamtical 'realism'. There are different variants. Platonists assert that mathematical truths are both independent from our minds and also from the world. The main argument is that mathematical truths do not seem to rely on any kind of contingency. So they seem to be eternal and independent.
Opponents of platonism question the possibility that such a 'realm of truths' can be known by us.

I personally lean towards platonism. But I don't think I can make compelling arguments about it.

Well, a plurality of worlds that don't depend on minds at all. — noAxioms

Well, they might not depend upon minds. But if each of them is dependent on a 'perspective'.

I came up with a world from Conway's Game of Life (GoL), which is very crude, 3D (2 space, 1 time), and arguable has 'objects'. Does an evolution of a given initial GoL state exist? It certainly is a world. That's what I mean by questioning where the line should be drawn (from what does it stand out?) Nobody has answered the question. I have only vague answers, none supported by logic. That's a great deal of the reason I'm not a realist. — noAxioms

Well, to me it would be a subset of 'our world', wouldn't it?

So I'm using 'perspective' here in the same was as 'measure', just meaning physical interaction with environment. I confine 'observer' to something with mental interaction. I'm not asserting that a perspective is that, I'm just using the word that way. — noAxioms

Ok! Sorry for the equivocation. In fact, you have already said that and I insisted to use the word 'perspective' in a way that would be compatible with both the cases. It inevitably lead to confusion.

Anyway, the point I am making would be that the division into 'objects' might be a conceptual division, i.e. something that makes sense in the context of an 'observation'. There is no guarantee IMO that outside the 'observations' it is indeed possible to speak of such a division. The relationality of physical propoerties for instance suggest to me that the way we carve the world into objects is in large part a mental construct. So, describing the world outside the context of observations with concepts that are being introduced to make sense of observations would be a leap that might have to be justified.

Thinking about stuff rather than giving a quick knee-jerk response is always a good thing. I'm often delayed in replying precisely because I'm looking up sites relevant to the response. It's not like I think I have all the answers already. I certainly don't. — noAxioms

Thanks! Here's an idea. Maybe the 'change' of my perspective is just an useful abstraction. 'My' 'observing perspective' is the same even when the description changes because I moved in my worldline. So, maybe any kind of perspective that physics tells about is an useful abstraction, which doesn't necessarily connect to something truly real.

Forms of idealism might be more unified in covering certain aspects of quantum mechanics or QFT but they most definitely do not make such notions more easily dwelt with.

Forms of realism require tons of fine tuning to get them to fit and leave lots of free variables but once those issues are settled in our eyes we can quickly move one. Foundations are set and we can start building from something that our consciousness can work with amenably. — substantivalism

Interesting point. That would seem an antinomy to me. There seems no way to decide one over the other with purely rational motives. Note that I say so because I don't know how you can explain consciousness by something totally unconscious.

Classical theism has always distinguished God's antecedent from consequent will (or else has drawn other divisions that amount to the same thing). That said, the body of literature on foreknowledge or predestination and future contingents is very large. — Leontiskos

Ok, I'll try to check.

I think my example of the opium addict contradicted this idea. Empirically speaking, it seems that it is not always possible to reverse direction. Doctrinally speaking, we do not foreclose hope for the living. But here we are talking about the "logical" point, and that is what I was questioning. That is what seems tautological. — Leontiskos

Yes, sometimes it's just seem hard to change direction even in this life. I can agree with that. But sometimes, religious literature itself make some incredible examples of redemption in cases of people that seemed beyond any hope for that (both inside Christian traditions and outside... if you read the case of Angulimala, in the Pali Canon of Buddhist scriptures, you find an incredible case of 'change of mind' of a criminal that occurred during the encounter with the Buddha).
In any case, I believe that experience is indecisive here. Given these extreme cases, I would say, however, that we have good ground to believe that the 'change' can always happen (and that's one reason why I think that, say, death penalty is incompatible with Christian beliefs).

Based on what argument? It seems like you want to assume that the afterlife is no different than earthly life, and I can't think of any reason to assume that. Almost everything we do in earthly life is changed by death. Why think the ability to repent is different? There is nothing else in earthly life to which we would be tempted to say, "I'll save that for after I die," and yet you seem to think that repentance could be saved for after we die. That cuts across the grain of all our earthly experience, and I think Christianity is being deeply rational when it says that repentance too cannot be postponed until after death. The urgency found in Scripture testifies to just the opposite. — Leontiskos

Well, I don't think that if there is a future life, it will be like this one. My point was based in these assumptions:

• God's salvific will is universal (God loves and wills the best for everyone)
• If a sinner sincerely repents, then God will show mercy
• Having committed a mortal sin by itself doesn't imply that sincere repentance is not possible

If one accepts these propositions, the simple logical conclusion (whether or not one thinks that God's salvific will will inevitably be realized) is that repentance will always be possible, unless in the after life some kind of fourth proposition is true. Like, say:

• God decreed a 'time limit' to repent, after which it is not possible to do so
• God decreed that dying in an unrepentant state deserves an unending punishment and this punishment will continue even if the sinner sincerely repents
• After death, at least in some cases, it is not possible to sincerely repent. At this point the sinner is incurable even for God.

I believe that the second propositions here would contradict the second proposition in the first series. In the case of the first here, it certainly would raise the question on why God would place a 'time limit' if He truly wants the salvation for all. The third would remain. Here, one must assume that one can be incurable even for God, so it's logically impossible even for God to save the irremediably obstinate (I believe that St John of Damascus had this view). If I am not misunderstanding you, you would choose the third option here. After all, you do not view this matter in a legalistic way (in which case, you probably would have reasoned like in the second option here).

While this possibility doesn't contradict the three propositions of the first series, it is difficult to me reconcile it with the properties of God that classical theism abscribed. For instance, how can God's ominiscence allow the possibility that God wants the salvation of a persons even if He knows that that person will not be saved? But I'll probably need to do some readings on this topic.

Right, and as I've said, the logical contradiction is more pronounced than that. The universalist can say that Z is inevitable, that Z cannot occur without Y, and that Y cannot occur unless we do X. But this is a contradiction. — Leontiskos

Out of curiosity, do you believe that being evangelized is a necessary requirement for salvation? What about those who never heard the gospel, are they beyond any hope?

Okay, sorry, I must have misread you. — Leontiskos

You're welcome.

Where does the illness come from? It comes from the universe that God set up. So it still looks like the universalist God "sets up the universe in such a way that you will suffer until you finally give in."

If suffering tends to produce a certain outcome, then infinite suffering will necessarily produce that outcome. On this view there are some people who decide to love God freely, and there are others who are forced to love God after an extended period of suffering pushes them into that outcome. Even on Manichean dualism this looks like a problematic view, namely because it is coercive. — Leontiskos

Well, I see it more like an education. That's why I mentioned the substance abuse thing.

Let's say that in order to live in a true communion with God, one must sincerely accept God. For any person, the communion with God is the highest good, so any person will find true satisfaction only in communion with God (something like even St. Augustine would say...I don't think it is controversial for you). However, God let us the possibility of rejection, because if there were not such a possibility, we would not be able to freely accept God's grace. However, if one rejects God, such a person would act against one's own nature, after all, and would experience painful consequences (like, say, deciding to do a substance abuse and experiencing the consequences associated with that). The more one rejects God, the more one deprives himself the highest good for him. The experience of painful consequences of these rejections (whether in the form of remorse, the experience of exclusion and so on) could lead to a 'change of mind', precisely because the sinner here finds no ultimate satisfaction elsewhere and might become aware that his or her rejections were, after all, mistakes and then choose the good (also, if we accept that evil is privation, it would seem that it isn't inexhaustible).

So, in a sense, yes, I would say that it is the assumption that God's salvific will is universal and created people in a way that their heart is restless unless in communion with God that seems to provide an 'apparent determinism'. If you don't think that this is compatible with free will, then, the reasoning above definitely supports the idea that nobody will be beyond hope (unless one can be indeed 'incurable' even for God).

If, however, one assumes that God's salvific will is universal and created people in a way that their heart is restless unless in comunion with God and someone will never be saved, at a certain point God's salvific will is not realized and so one might ask why God allowed that possibility.

Because that's what reason tells us. It's also what Scripture tell us. Death constitutes a finality. That's the reasonable position. It is far less reasonable to hold that things can be postponed until after death than to hold that things must be done before death. The position that repentance can be postponed until after death can be logically possible and highly unreasonable at one and the same time. Perhaps we have been focusing too heavily on logical possibility. On purely philosophical premises, everything apart from a formal contradiction is logically possible, which means that almost everything is logically possible. — Leontiskos

Ok, I see. It is just difficult to me to reconcile there can't be 'other chances' after a life of finite and uncertain duration with the idea that God's salvific will is indeed universal and God created us in a way that our hearts cannot find any ultimate satisfaction outside communion with God, assuming at least that immortality will be given to all.

Yep — Leontiskos

Ok, thanks!

All we need to ask is whether it is more plausible to affirm or deny universalism, given some text. Whether the text pushes us in one direction or another. What someone finds "compelling" is fairly subjective. — Leontiskos

I hope that I clarified thay my difficulty is that I can't seem to able to reconcile the traditional doctrine of unending hopeless torment with other various traditional doctrines (all of them, I suppose can find support in Scripture). It's difficult to me that one can sincerely believe in something that finds incoherent or in a group of ideas that seems difficult to reconcile with each other. So, I don't think that I would be persuaded by an 'exegetical debate' if I am not persuaeded that, indeed, the traditional doctrine of hell is indeed compatible with other traditional doctrines.


Edited for clarity (I hope)

Realism can be relational. You can talk about it either way. 2+2=4 seems like an 'ultimate truth', but who can say for sure? — noAxioms

Do you think that '2+2 = 4' is a mind-independent truth? I actually think it is. But I can't be sure of it. That's why I lean toward some form of matematical platonism. It seems that mathematical truths are discovered, not 'invented', at least in part. But I guess that I can't give compelling arguments about it.

Take away that preference and it becomes mind independent, but it also drops the barrier to all those other worlds from equally existing, leaving open the question if there is still a barrier at all distinguishing what exists from what doesn't. — noAxioms

I think I see what you mean. But then all the worlds would be mind-dependent. Not dependent on a particular mind. So we would have a pluarality of worlds that depend on their respective 'minds'.

To exist means to stand out. This world stands out to us, making it a mind-dependent standing out. From what do these other worlds stand out? — noAxioms

Either to other minds or, if RQM is correct, they stand out to physical objects.

Only if a perspective requires a mind, which I often emphasize to the contrary. — noAxioms

Correct. I disagree, in the sense that I don't see convincing reasons to say that. It would be quite a coincidence that the world 'in the perspective of a pen' is describable in the same terms as it is 'as it appears to me'. But, I think we can discuss about this forever without convince either of us of the opposite :smile:

As you quoted Rovelli saying, he knows the other observes the same elephant. — noAxioms

I am not sure that Rovelli meant that. I think he meant that each observer when asks "what did you see?" to another will get an answer which is coherent with his observations. I don't think that Rovelli meant anything more than this.

I'm not sure what it would mean to go outside one's own perspective. I have a lot of perspectives (any moment along my worldline), but those are all mine. Nothing prevents anybody from imagining what another observes, which is exactly what's being done here with Wigner's friend. Almost all thought experiments leverage imagined perspectives. — noAxioms

That's a good point, indeed. I need to think about this to give you a proper response. Hope you don't mind.

I think we have to establish a proper methodology if we are to avoid begging the question in these matters. — Leontiskos

Well, I believe that some universalists would argue that that passage on Judas means that it would be better if was aborted. Not sure I am find it convincing - after all, it is undeniable that it does seem to suggest that he would be better for him to have never coming into existince. Assuming that you are right and it disproves even 'hopeful' universalism, it's hard to get a coherent theological picture from the Bible*.

What you say about that 1 Tim 2:3-4 is also true. Even if we accept that 'everyone' really means 'all human beings without exception', the text merely says that it is God's desire to save everyone. To make another example John 3:17 taken at face value would imply that God's intention is to 'save the world'. This of course doesn't by itself imply that, indeed, everyone will be saved.

But on the other hand, IMHO the Christian tradition has been insistent to describe God in classical theistic terms. God is omnipotent, omniscent, God's will is changeless and so on. How can God desire the salvation of the 'world' if He already knows that some will not be saved? If God is omnipotent, can God's will be frustrated?

So, it would seem to me that a classical theist way to understand the passages that seem to indicate God's universal salvific will is to simply deny that God's will is to 'offer the possibility of salvation' to all or something like that. Otherwise, the loss of someone would be a tragedy, a frustration of God's changeless plans.

* There are, indeed, some Biblical passages that seem to indicate that God 'changed his mind'. In Exodus 32:7-14 we do find a passage like that. Taken literally, it says that God changed his mind. But a classical theist would find such a literalist way to interpret the passage unacceptable. So, it would seem that nobody takes literallyeverything that the Bible says about God. Interestingly, if Moses' prayer did change God's plans, this would actually reinforce give an additional argument to the universalists. 1 Tim 2:1 says that we shall pray for everyone because it actually helps them. Anyway, a classical theist reading of the passage of the Exodus is clearly 'on surface' against what the text 'literally' says.

It seems to me then that a 'exegetical debate' doesn't give us compelling arguments.

That was our first step. I pointed to Matthew 26:24 and you pointed to 1 Timothy 2:3-4. At this point in the theological discussion, both of us having presented one pericope, I think the universalist interpretation is less plausible. I think the Matthew text has more anti-universalist weight than the Timothy text has pro-universalist weight. — Leontiskos

Probably you are right. But then, if we want to really have a theological debate, we need to get a coherent picture of God, it would seem.

So it is odd to look for someone who you think made a bad argument (e.g. Augustine or Chrysostom), isolate their bad argument, and then infer that the oppose conclusion must be true. This is a form of invalid reasoning. I could also find people who made (putatively) bad arguments for universalism, but this would not disprove universalism. Better to actually try to make an argument for universalism from Scripture. — Leontiskos

Yes, sorry for that. Anyway, I didn't want to 'prove' universalism by questioning their arguments. I just wanted to point out that even in those times there wasn't a consensus on how to interpret some ambigous passages.

Anyway, point taken, I should have at least clarify why I 'invoked' St Chrysostom's thoughts.

And again, at some point we have to wonder whether your term "logical possibility" has a specific meaning at all. It looks a lot like a tautology, "If everyone can repent forever, then everyone can repent forever." — Leontiskos

Yes, that's a tautology, but it is a tautology that follows from what we have been saying and agreeing upon. We agreed that in this life it is said that it is always possible to repent, even if we can fix in sin our own will. So the possibility of repentance can't be excluded by the claim that we can make 'mortal sins'. Arguably, this is also true in the afterlife, unless either it is seen as an extrinsic punishment of God or God doesn't give them other chances to repent. But why would God not allow the possibility of a sincere repentance at a certain point?

Does God change His mind? Did God decide from the start that the possibility of salvation is offered during life and after death there is no chance?

Asking these questions is important to understand the picture of God a doctrine is making.

I think that if our ultimate goal does not require evangelization, then evangelization is not ultimately necessary. The goal is salvation, not avoiding unending torment. Nevertheless, try to make sure that your arguments rise above a mere emotional appeal. — Leontiskos

Frankly, I am not sure why you think I am making 'emotional appeals'. I'll just ignore this insinuation.

The point is that an universalist might still say that evangelization (in some form) is needed for repentance. Of course the universalist says that salvation can happen after this life, so evangelisation is this life isn't strictly necessary for salvation. But it is certainly a cooperation to God's salvific plan (which is the salvation of all in the universalist view).

As has so often been the case in this conversation, you keep saying "maybe" when your conclusion requires that you say "necessarily." — Leontiskos

In philosophical discussions I use always terms like 'maybe', 'it seems' and so on because I recognize that I can be wrong. I can't exclude that I might miss something in my reasoning, so I'll say 'it seems to me', 'maybe' ans so on.

God here begins to look like the guy who tortures you until you finally give in. Or who sets up the universe in such a way that you will suffer until you finally give in. — Leontiskos

You seem to have missed the point here. In the analogy it isn't God who tortures but the illness. If you like, remove the word 'illness' and think about, say, a substance abuse. Arguably, the torment of the patient would be caused by free actions of the patient himself or herself, at least initially. The compassionate doctors will try always to heal the patient. Assuming that the doctors will try forever to heal the patient, will the patient at a certain point be irrecuperable.

Sure, and that's why the Church keeps at it. — Leontiskos

And yet, at a certain point, it seems that God and the Church simply stop to do that. Is it because the sinners at a certain point will be irrecuperable? If so, why?

Yes, correct. — Leontiskos

Good!

If the "hard" universalist says that at a certain point the patient will be convinced to take the medication, then the traditionalist says that some patients will never take the medication. — Leontiskos

Yes, I agree.

But note one thing, however. Let's assume that the illness is caused by the patient's free choices (like in the case of substance abuse). That is, the patient is actually responsible for his or her ill-being.
In both the 'universalist' and 'traditionalist' cases, the doctors want to save the patient. Only in one case, however, the doctors' will is realized. In the other, it won't.
In the form case, the end is the hoped one.
In the latter case, the end is tragic. Of course, it is not a refutation of the latter scenario, but it is interesting to note that.

That is because realism is a mental perspective which cannot be proven or disproven. . . only HELD or NOT HELD. Whether you hold to a particular form of realism or idealism will probably not impact much of anything as the direct nuts and bolts pragmatism of advancing science requires. — substantivalism

Up to a certian point, I'll agree. From a pragmatic perspective, in fact, realism is probably preferable than 'idealism', if by the latter we mean that anything outside the mind(s) doesn't exist. But conversely, a broadly 'idealistic' perspective actually helps in a practical sense.
For instance, even the most consistent physicalist nowadays is ready to admit that reality is not like it appears to us. That is, a suspension of disbelief about 'common sense' is needed to accept the counterintuitive facts that scientific theories sometimes require us to accept. The common sense view that we have about the world is, indeed, for a large part mind-dependent. So, I would say that even if 'idealisms' are wrong they are still useful pragmatically.



Well, thanks for your thoughts. Unfortunately, I am not well-versed to that philosophical perspectives, so I am sorry if my answer isn't satisfying.
I believe that in these kind of discussions we have to remember the historical meanings of terms like 'realism' and 'idealism'. I believe that realism is more like an epistemic position rather than an ontic one. If by 'realism' one means that there is a 'mind-independent reality' outside minds, it is pretty rare to find 'idealists' that flatly deny that (Plato or Kant for instance would be realist in this sense). But realism is more a claim that we can have knowledge of that 'mind-independent reality' and it's where things get murkier.

If I am not mistaken, ontic structural realism is the position that, while we can't know the intrinsic properties of mind-independent reality, we can, at least in principle, know some structural aspects of it. For instance, conservation laws, symmetries in physics and so on are probably the most general laws we can discover. Probably it's the least 'speculative' form of realism there is. It doesn'r require that we can describe 'faithfully' the world but just that, in principle at least, the mathematical/logical structures of our theories might mirror the structure of the mind-independent reality. In other words, it's merely the claim that mind-independent reality is partially intelligible by us.

I would say that it is a reasonable stance to hold. After all, the assumption of the existence of a mind-independent reality has much more explanatory powers than the denial of it. So, it would also seem reasonable to assert that we can have some knowledge of it. But then, if we accept that 'mind-independent reality' is intelligible, we might ask ourselves how is that possible. That is, why that mind-independent reality is intelligible in the first place. To me this is a strong argument to some kind of 'platonism' about mathematics, logic and so on: after all, if mathematical, logical truths and so on are not merely creations of our minds but in some way properties of mind-independent realities, then the partial intelligibility is easily explained. Paradoxically, then, the 'mind-independent' reality would be something that is not wholly 'different' from the mind, in a sense.

Can we have certainty of this, however? I would not say so. After all, if our knowledge is inductive it can't be certain. On the other hand, though, as you say it would absurd to deny that, say, newtonian mechanics makes correct predictions. The empirical knowledge that science gives us is undeniable. But, in a sense, we can't 'prove' in any way that this means that we do know the structure of 'reality as it is'. So, here we are in an antinomy. On the other hand, basically everything seems to tell us that we can know something about a mind-independent reality. On the other hand, however, there is no logical compelling argument that we can. It is a fascinating mystery IMHO. And what is even more interesting is that if we do accept that we can know (part of) the mind-independent reality it is because it shares something with our own mental categories. So, it would imply that, say, mathematical platonists are in some sense right to say that mathematical truths are mind-independent, eternal and so on.

The problem with Wittgenstein's tractatus is that if the 'ending' (TLP 6.53-6.54) are taken at face value, Wittgenstein at the end argued that no metaphysical position is tenable and even the Tractatus itself at the end of the day is inconsistent (a conclusion that makes sense, after all. If one believes that in order to be meaningful, propositions must be about some empirical facts, the Tractatus' proposition have no empirical content, then...).

What Wittgenstein seemed to argue in the 5.6s sections is that while the 'world' is presented in a particular perspective, the 'self' doesn't appear 'in the world' and so anything we say about the self would be nonsensical. To me, the early Wittgenstein had a very idiosyncratic idea of what realism means.
To put in another way, the 'world' for Wittgenstein is the totality of what can be known. The knower would be outside 'what can be known' and, being outside, the knower can't be known and, therefore, nothing can be said about the knower, because anything we could say would be meaningless.

Given that Wittgenstein speaks about the world in empirical terms, can what he is saying help us to understand 'how the world is outside experience'. I don't think so. For him it would be what can be known/said.

In the right reference frame, it is what happens, but it's still a provisional truth in that frame. I don't think what you call 'ultimate truths' are frame or perspective dependent. — noAxioms

Right! Can we talk about a 'realism' without 'ultimate truths' or the possibility to know them?

The bolded bit is such a perspective reference, and illustrates the point of this topic. — noAxioms

Sorry, I am not trying to be dense. But I'm not sure about what you are getting at. I would say that usually realism involves that the world can be known, at least in priciple, as it is independently of any perspective of any subject.

The friend is almost immediately entangled with the spin-measurement device, so he's going to match that every time, whether or not Wigner has measured the friend yet or not. — noAxioms

Yes. But this doesn't deny the fact that Wigner and the Friend's perspective are different. And neither can actually 'take the other's perspective'.

Interesting that Rovelli phrased it that way, but if it were not true, the view would be falsified. The statement is true of quantum mechanics and not just any subset of interpretations. — noAxioms

Yes. Some interpertations however claim that they are 'ontologically interpretable' (to use a phrase by d'Espagnat), in the sense that they can be read as providing a correct description about the world as it is in itself.

Rovelli is saying that each 'observer' can't go outside 'his' own perspective. 'He' will never find any inconsistencies because all data 'he' will be able to find will be consistent 'for him'. But if 'his' knowledge is limited by 'his' own perspective, then, he can't actually know what 'others' observe. He just can verify that when 'he' asks 'them' what 'they' did 'observe', 'he' finds no inconsistency. (I am using the scare quotes because I want to allow the possibility here that the observer might be a physical system).

RQM (like almost all ontic interpretations) doesn't treat any person different than another. It doesn't even treat pens differently than people. — noAxioms

Fine. My point above would still stand.

The syntax suggests that this world exists to the exclusion of any other, all because it's the one we see. A far less mind-dependent wording would be 'a world' which doesn't carry any implication of being the preferred world.
My whole topic contrasts 'the world' with 'this world, among others', with the former implying mind-dependence. — noAxioms

Ok. But oddly enough I would say that if there are 'as may worlds as perspectives' then the presence 'mind-independent reality' is more difficult to defend.

Sorry, but I'll respond to you in the next few days.

Thanks for the links.

Yes, that's basically right. But the key is that what is chosen is in fact a good, albeit a lesser good. It is not evil simpliciter. — Leontiskos

Ok.

There are various reasons why Roman Catholic praxis tends towards legalism, but the theological undergirding is not really legalistic. — Leontiskos

Ok, I get that.

I said that Hart's position is not secured, not that it is rejected. Indeed, if Balthasar's position is secured then Hart's conclusion can't be rejected. The securing of Balthasar's position entails that Hart's conclusion is possible, for we cannot hope for the impossible. — Leontiskos

I see, thanks for the clarification.

Rational grounds for hope are always different than rational grounds for assent. What you are effectively doing is switching from Hart's position to Balthasar's, where Balthasar is merely recommending hope. My answer is basically the same: philosophically speaking, sure; theologically speaking, no. By my lights verses like Matthew 26:24 exclude universalism, whether hopeful or firm. If no verses like that existed, then universalism would be theologically possible. — Leontiskos

I see what you mean. As I said, however, it's difficult to harmonize what the Bible seems to say in various places. For instance, 1 Tim 2:3-4 seems to say that God's will is that all people shall be saved. St Augustine in Enchiridion, ch 103 tires to harmonize this passage with the belief in eternal damnation by saying that the 'all/everyone' in an exclusive manner and he proposes two possible readings: either 'all people' should be understood as (I paraphrase) 'God wants to save the people that will be saved (but some will not be saved)' or 'God wants some people from all classes of people to be saved'. This is because St Augustine assuemed that God's plans will be realized and that some will be eternally damned. Another example is St John Chrysostom's reading of 1 Cor 3:11-15 in his Homily 9 on 1 Corinthians, where he identifies the 'fire' mentioned here with the fire mentioned in Mark 9:47-49, where St John says that the 'salvation through fire' actually means 'damnation', because the damaned are saved from annihilation, but it's not true salvation (note that Mk 9:49 says that 'everyone will be salted by fire' and St. Paul in that passage doesn't mention a third group. So, I do understand why St John felt he had to harmonize the verses in the way he did... I know however that the passage in Corinthians is generally understood to refer to Purgatory, but I found interesting that St John read in that way. After all, it is interesting that St. Paul simply didn't mention a third group there).

Of course, one can accept, say, St Augustine's reading but it is a contrived way IMO to save the appearances. If one says that God actually wants all people to be saved, then, one must admit that God's will might not be realized if one will never be saved.

I also believe that St John Paul II said that despite what that verse you cite about Judas, the Church never made any definite pronouncements on people who are forever in Hell and this includes even Judas.

Personally, as I said, I do not know what to make of all this ambiguities I see in the Bible. I do not see it as clear as you see it.

Right, but it is broader than addiction. It is 'habit' or even 'phronema'. Humans mold themselves into definite shapes, and as far as we can tell, those shapes are not reversible (after a point). Minor moldings can be reversed, but even that can be quite hard. I think these discussions tend to overlook the empirical data that molded patterns or phronemata have a telos of stability or fixedness. Once this is seen universalism looks more and more like a deus ex machina. — Leontiskos

Empirically, reversals do happen, and they often happen in the way that you illustrate. Also empirically, reversals do not always happen. — Leontiskos

Ok, but anyway as I see it, if you allow the logical possibility that one can repent, then the logical conclusion is simply that no one will be beyond hope of repentance (assuming that they will exist forever). The conclusion is inexcapable.

So either the damned - or some of them - will lose the ability to repent or even if they do, they will not be given mercy from God. If we assume that they will lose the ability to repent, it seems to me that, based on what we have said so far, the damned will either not given the possibility to do so or they will not be allowed to do so. So, in other words, it is either an active punishment of God or a complete 'abandomnemnt/desertion'.
But it it is so, then, we have to think eternal damnation as an extrinsic punishment again.

But what traditionalists do not seem to allow is the possibility that experiencing the painful consequence of having remained in sin might not lead to repentance. — boundless

I think you probably included more negatives in this phrase than you intended. — Leontiskos

Yes, thanks for the correction.

As I've said, the universalist has non-necessary reasons to evangelize, but no necessary reasons. That's a big difference from the traditionalist. It also contradicts the urgency with which the Gospel is presented in revelation. — Leontiskos

I doubt that a Christian universalist would say that evangelization or repentance is unnecessary. They do allow that both can also happen after death. Also, I believe that universalists would say that God's help is needed for salvation.

But anyway, do you think that the main reason that one should have to evangelize, do good etc is to avoid unending torment?

So on your analogy the most significant universalist motivation is avoidance of pain, whereas the most significant traditionalist motivation is avoidance of death. What's worse? Pain or death? I don't think there is a real comparison here. And the urgency with which revelation presents the Gospel is apparently not compatible with a mere lessening of pain. The analogy is apt given the way that revelation speaks about the ultimate stakes as death, not pain. — Leontiskos

Let's say that the illness is actually fatal. The doctors try at first to convince the patient to take a painless drug. The patient refuses because of, say, pride. Then, the patient's pain worsens, the doctors then try to gove the patient a more heavy medicine but the patient refuses again. Then the patient's pain becomes intolerable, the doctors try to convince the patient to take a more serious medication. Maybe at a certain point, the patient will be convinced by his painful experience to take the serious medication, which will cause itself pain but it will lead to his or her healing. So, maybe, one can say that while the illness is, in fact, fatal, at a certain point the patient will be persuaded by the pain from the illness itself to take the medication.
Or maybe the illness is not fatal but leads 'only' to agonizing pain but the patient refuses to take the medicine. If the pain could go along forever, will the patient simply forever say 'no' to the medication if he or she will suffer agonizing pain?

Furthermore, the doctors here merely do not want to avoid death or pain but want that the patient will heal and be well. So the motivation isn't just to avoid pain/death but also to give the patient well-being.
Assuming that the medicines are necessary for the patient's well-being, compassionate doctors will try to convince the patient to accept them as long as is possible for them to do so.

The 'hard' universalists would say that at a certain point the 'patient' (sinner) will be convinced to take the 'medication' ('salvation') possibly by the painful experience (where the pain might be regret, a painful experience of loneliness and so on). The 'hopeful' universalists would say that there will be always hope that the 'patient' will be convinced. The traditionalist would say that the 'patient' at a certain point is beyond hope or is actively condemned to not take the 'medication' or even to not desire it.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to respond in the following days. I hope to come back by mid or the end of next week.

OK, I think I worked it out. You're talking about Wigner's opinion of what the friend has measured while the friend is still in the box. That's a clear counterfactual, and unless an interpretation is used that posits counterfactuals, there is no 'truly' about it. RQM does not posit counterfactuals. — noAxioms

No, I was thinking also about what the Friend measured after he exited the box. Rovelli actually brilliantly paraphrased his views like this: "More precisely: everybody hears everybody else stating
that they see the same elephant they see. This, after all,
is a sound definition of objectivity." (source: https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0604064, pag. 7). Wigner hears his Friend stating he saw the same thing Wigner observed. But this is not a way, for Wigner, to go outside Wigner's perspective.

No, not at all. Existence of anything is relative to that which has measured the thing, and so far, our 'perspective bearers' have not been measured. They will momentarily, but then they're not the perspective bearers anymore, they're the observed. — noAxioms

Not sure if I understand you. When Wigner and the Friend meet, their interaction is (also) a measurement. So, the state of the Friend is 'measured' by Wigner. Does this mean that the Friend loses his status as a 'perspective bearer'? You can't define a perspective of the Friend?

Quite the opposite. Where are you getting all this? — noAxioms

If I say that my knowledge is restricted to my own perspective, how can I claim there are other perspectives and there are no perspective-independent things?

According to RQM, their ontology relative to Wigner is a superposition of states. According to other interpretations, the ontology is different. Ontology seems to be a mental construct, a function of say one's choice of interpretation, but it also might be a physical mind-independent status, depending on which (if any) interpretation is actually the case. — noAxioms

Ok

Are you suggesting that Wigner isn't sure that the friend is like himself? That Wigner cannot discard solipsism? I suppose that's correct, but it's not considered a valid quantum interpretation since it leads to zero knowledge of anything. Ditto with superdeterminism, a loophole in Bell's proof, but you still don't see it included in the interpretations list. — noAxioms

More or less, yes. Note that my point isn't about only RQM. But all models who claim that knowledge is perspectival.

But also note that our knowledge seems to be perspectival. Wigner can't 'see' the world from the Friend's perspective in order to confirm his belief that, indeed, the Friend is, as you put it, like him. This is so precisely becuase Wigner's knowledge is limited by his perspective. So any claims that he makes about anything outside his perspective can't be confirmed. And yet, as you say here, this 'epistemic solipsism' seems to be self-refuting for various reasons. So, he has good reasons to believe that there is something outside his perspective, that there is a real intersubjective agreement (in a sense we do really see the same elephant albeit possibly in a distorted way, and we don't merely hear others say that they see the same elephant) and so on. But IMHO this 'certainty' is IMHO grounded if we assume that there is a 'mind-indepedent reality' or, in general, 'a reality independent of any perspectives'. But we can't verify this assumption.

I see this as an antinomy.

Yes. I am not using any of those words as something requiring a human or other 'observer' to be involved. — noAxioms

Ok! Don't think my points would change much anyway.

I don't understand that problem enough to have an opinion about how problematic it is or to critique any solution proposed or counter-critique.
I said I don't buy it for different reasons than it offending my delicate sensibilities (the argument put forth in the Bell paper linked by the most recent post by Wayfarer. — noAxioms

Ok, thanks!

Calling it 'the world' is already an observer bias. — noAxioms

Why?

Terminology granted, but both seem to contrast 'objective' with 'subjective', as opposed to objective vs relational.
The first means it relates despite not being seen (like say the far side of the moon, at least until the 60's). The latter is more of a property: It's there period vs it's there relative to something else. 37 exists, vs 37 is a member of the set of integers. That's different than 'we both can count to 37'.
I kind of irks me that 'objective' has two distinct meanings here, both quite relevant. — noAxioms

Yes, both terms contrasted objectivity with subjectivity. Not sure about the distinction you make here. Are you saying that a better distinction would be between "what is independent from any relation" vs "what is relation-dependent"?

I think the disagreement is that what you are attacking is some kind of unique objective description of the universe (e.g. Newtonian mechanics, falsely speaking). However, from the beginning of the conversation, I have just been talking about information about the world we gain from perception or observation. And we may put boundaries around objects in perception in different ways if we really want to; but, nonetheless, what appears on our retinas and other sensory boundaries are patterns that map to events or structures out in the world, mostly in a consistent manner. And this kind of consistent mapping (at least in some restricted relevant context) I think is actually the minimal requirement for pragmatism and use. — Apustimelogist

IMHO philosophical realists assume that we can describe the 'mind-independent world'. For instance, Galieleo and Descartes assumed that while the 'secondary qualities' of the objects (colours, sounds, tastes etc) are mind-dependent, the 'first qualities' are intrinsic properties of the physical objects.

If you say that even in principle, we can't have a 'faithful description' of the 'mind-independent world', then, one can't be a 'realist' in most meanings of the term*. Bernard d'Espagnat used the term 'open realism' to denote the minmal position where a mind-independent reality is assumed but without any claim of descriptive knowledge. Not just pragmatic one.

*Generally the term realism refers to the views in which we have at least the possibility to make a description of the world.




Some time ago, I mentioned the distinction of the 'two truths', which is prevalent in Indian philosophies but actually also appears in western philosophy.

On one hand, we can talk about 'provisional truths', which are pragmatic. For instance, "The Sun rises in the east and sets in the west" is true in a provisional sense. But it also isn't true, right? We know that it is not a correct description of what 'really happens'. It's certainly useful and it correctly describe our observations. But we can't take literally this statement.

On the other hand, 'ultimate truths' would be correct statements that in some ways describe how the world is 'in itself'.

So, if we allow that the knowledge of pragmatic truths is indeed 'knowledge' then of course we can talk about knowledge. But if by 'knowledge' we mean unmistaken knowledge, or the knowledge of how the world truly is in itself, I am not sure that we can have this second kind of knowledge.

I believe that one has to take seriously his discussion in the whole section. He uses the example of the eye and the visual field to explain why there is no 'subject'. Nothing in the visual field suggests that there is an eye. So, in the same way, nothing in the 'empirical world' suggests that there is a 'self'. The 'self', according to Wittgenstein, would be 'outside' the world. But if it is outside the world, and if meaningful propositions are about the empirical world, then, of course, one can't make any meaningful proposition about the 'self'.

Still, yes, Wittgenstein says that solipsism comes to coincide with 'pure realism'... but the 'world' in the Tractatus is the purely empirical world of fact, which is 'seen' in a particular perspective, which means that it is perspectival. So, I am not sure that the 'realism' LW had in mind is the realism most philosophers had in mind.

IIRC, if I recall correctly, the later Wittgenstein rejected the early Wittgenstein's assumptions that (1) meaningful propositions must have an empirical content, (2) there is a structural correspondence between the structure of (ideal) language and the structure of the world and (3) there are atomic propositions, which correspond to the 'atomic' facts. Also it is the later Wittgenstein that rejected solipsism by alluding that language can't be private. He also arrived to an interesting notion of 'certainty' which seem to very different from the earliest views, i.e. the notion that certain 'hinge propositions' can't be doubted if we want to function. We do not doubt them becuase, if not, we could not make sense of our experience and we could not function (for instance, when I go to sleep, I do not have the doubt that I wake up on the other side of the world) even if strictly speaking we can't have a 'indubitable certainty' about them (in my example, I could be kidnapped while sleeping and taken to other side of the world... still, I don't doubt that I'll wake up in my bed. If I did, I could not think about my future in a functional way).

The later Wittgenstein notion of certainty, however, doesn't seem to be what most earlies philosophers had in mind when they thought about certainty and knowledge. It's a provisional kind of certainty.