Also: is there a percentage under which it is 'acceptable' to take the risk? And, in case, what is the justification for this threshold?

Edit:

If I am not certain that my son or my daughter will be happy, it seems to me that I am accepting a possible tragedy (his or her regret for having been born) as an acceptable price for some good, which is external for them. If I am 'justifying' his or her life (which he or she might not see as a 'good' for him or her) as a mean to a possible 'higher good', it seems that I accept to treat him or her as a mean to an end (let's say also that his or her actions benefit for many people, but they do not percieve any good from that). — boundless

Of course, here I am assuming that this 'regret' is something irreversible, i.e. that this human being would regret to 'have been born' and would not change his or her mind.

So because of this round up error, humanity should end itself forthwith as some kind of supreme ethical act? — apokrisis

Well, I see what you mean. But the decision is not taken by 'humanity' but by individual human beings in their singularity.

If I am not certain that my son or my daughter will be happy, it seems to me that I am accepting a possible tragedy (his or her regret for having been born) as an acceptable price for some good, which is external for them. If I am 'justifying' his or her life (which he or she might not see as a 'good' for him or her) as a mean to a possible 'higher good', it seems that I accept to treat him or her as a mean to an end (let's say also that his or her actions benefit for many people, but they do not percieve any good from that).
I am wrong?

I am very conflicted about this issue, anyway. I am not an antinatalist but IMO this is the strongest argument for it.

If you polled a 1000 people – a proper cross-section of society – how many would say it would have been just better never to have been born than to have lived at all?

I would expect an antinatalist to at least be able to offer this data to show there was any kind of genuine consent issue. — apokrisis

While I am not a committed antinatalist, I'm not sure about the relevance of this objections.

Let's assume for the sake of the discussion, that 99,99% of people are relly happy of their life, despite the fact that death is inevitable, the tragedies that have happened and so on.
There is still the 0,01%, however, that would prefer to 'have never been born'. Their perspective is not 'wrong' only because they are a minority.

Let's say that it there is a vanishing small probability that a human being might prefer to 'have never been born'.
Then, when parents decide to give birth to a human being, they are doing this by accepting the chance, however small, that, in fact, such a human being might regret have been born. Let's say that we do accept that it is indeed a tragedy that someone wil regret his or her life.

Is it really morally acceptable to 'take this risk' for someone else, however small it might be because it is 'small'?
Is it morally acceptable for me to 'give birth' on the chance that my son or my daughter might be unsatisfied with his or her life? If his or her life is good for someone else, even for many people let's say, but would turn out to not be good for his or her, is it morally acceptable for me to give birth?

@schopenhauer1

Yes, when I was thinking about fundamentalness in a different way in terms of how physics doesn't seem to paint a picture where there is a constant, fundamental set of objects at the bottom of the universe which just change arrangement over time. And then thinking about whether this helps some aspects of the hard problem. — Apustimelogist

Yeah, I agree. Regarding the 'hard problem', I am not sure. The problem is that it seems that there are no properties present in the insentient matter (that we are aware of) that might be able to explain in an intelligible way the arising of consciousness.

Not sure I agree. Its a property of the interaction so I wouldn't say it is necessarily holistic, though I would say the two different descriptions were equivalent. — Apustimelogist

I actually agree with this. The 'holistic' interpretation is not forced, but I think it is the most reasonable.

Yes, you can say that 'conservation laws' might arise from the properties of interactions. But 'why'? It seems that if we take this position, then it seems an 'ad hoc' assumption. Why these interactions behave in the precise way that ensures the conservation laws is left unexplained.

On the other hand, if we take the view that conservation laws are properties (or related to properties) of the whole isolated system, then we understand why the interactions behave the way they behave: they are determined by the properties of the 'whole systems'. Also, Noether theorem, as I understand it, supports the 'holistic' view: conservations laws are related to symmetries. Of course, one might ask "but why there are such 'holistic' properties, then?". Well, an holistic framework doens't explain that, probably, but at least it explains something.

I think this is interpretation-dependent imo but I know many people do believe something like this. — Apustimelogist

Agreed. However note that non-locality in entangled systems is due to the fact that we cannot analyse them in separated 'parts', they are at least formally irreducible. Does this 'formal irreducibility' imply an 'ontological irriducibility'? Well, this is an interpretation-dependent question.

Anyway, as I said before, I generally prefer 'epistemic interpertations' as interpretations that inform me about what I know.
On the other hand, the study of 'ontic interpretations' might help us to have a 'glimpse' to what might be 'beyond' empirical knowledge, so to speak. I believe that quantum nonlocality and conservations laws are best understood in a holistic framework. But I would not claim that this amounts to a scientific knowledge.

But IMO, the only systems that can be considered as 'distinct realities' in physics would be isolated systems (i.e. systems in which conservation laws apply). But again, can we give a non-fictional example of an 'isolated system'? — boundless

@Gnomon, I was a bit obscure here. The 'truly' isolated system seems to be the 'whole universe', after all. So, if anything, I believe that the 'whole physical universe' is more fundamental than its 'constituents'.

Geocentrism can be viewed as a matter of perspective, and as such it is neither right nor wrong - it is apt in some contexts and not others. But if you are referring to ancient cosmologies viewed (somewhat ahistorically) as scientific theories, they posited things that proved to be untenable when more and better observations (appearances) became available, and our analytical tools improved as well. — SophistiCat

Well, I agree with that. 'Neither right or wrong' is a good way to put it.
What is common to all geocentric models was the view that the Earth was at the center of the universe and it didn't move. The apparent motion of the Sun in the sky that we see in our perspective (the one we see with our own eyes at least) can be 'explained' by this kind of models. But at a certain point, with different observations showed that in some cases these kinds of models gave wrong predictions. So, the geocentric models were discarded.
But strictly speaking what was 'discarded' was the ontological interpretation of them.

Anyway, while I would phrase differently, I think we are in agreement.

Essentially, there are always definite, objective outcomes but the statistics of the world are oberserver-dependent. This contextuality isn't specifically about observation but the statistical constraints when stochastic systems are coupled (e.g. a measurement device and system bring measured or any other kind of system-environment interaction perhaps). — Apustimelogist

Interesting, thanks.

No, if there is a reasonable explanation. Obviously explanations may seem reasonable or unreasonable to different people. — Apustimelogist

Agreed!

In what sense? I may agree in some sense and have thought about that, motivated by the hsrd problem of consciousness. But may not have been in the same sense you mean. — Apustimelogist

Well, I wasn't thinking about consciousness, actually, but simply about what physical theories tell us.

Consider the case of a system of two interacting particles in newtonian mechanics. In this case, the interaction causes a temporal variation of the momentum in both particles. The temporal variation of the momentum of each particle, however, is exactly the opposite of the temporal variation of the second one, which means that the temporal variation of the total momentum is zero, i.e. the total momentum of the isolated two-particle system is zero. Of course, this can be proved by using the three newtonian laws. But the third law seems ad 'hoc', doesn't seem to have any kind of justification whatsoever if the particles themselves are considered the 'fundamental entity' here.
On the other hand, consider the reverse perspective. The conservation law of the total momentum says that the total momentum of any isolated system is constant, i.e. the temporal variation of the total momentum of the system is zero. But if this is true and if the interaction between the two particles changes their momentum, then these two assumptions imply that the variation of their momentum must be opposite. This perspective is clearly 'holistic': a property of the 'whole system' (the conservation law of the total momentum) 'dictates' how the properties of the subsystems (the particles) behave.
Of course, newtonian mechanics doesn't tell us which 'perspective' is right. But the second has the advantage of being more intelligible. It also implies that a 'physical object' can be quite extended, composite and yet 'holistic' not reducible. And, of course, the same can be said for more advanced theories. In fact, possibly the single truly isolated system is the whole universe. It seems that ontological primacy is given to the whole universe rather than to its 'components' (or in any case, this is true for the 'isolated system').
In 'realistic' interpretations of QM, ultimately it seems the 'universe' is seen as a single quantum object (at least, this is true in de Broglie-Bohm, MWI and the thermal interpretation).

Not only that: in the case of entangled quantum systems, there is a clear indication that what is 'more fundamental' is, in fact, the whole system of entangled objects, and this is not reducible to the subsystems.

This suggests to me that, if I were to choose an ontological interpretation of 'what physics seems to tell me', I would pick a fundamentally holistic perspective. The 'whole universe' is the fundamental object and its 'components' are secondary. Also, in some cases, some composite objects cannot be reduced.

BTW, at the same time, as I said before, I lean towards an epistemic interpretation of QM, because I think epistemic theories, i.e. theories that do not make ontological commitments, better represent 'what I know'. But, if I allow myself to speculate, I think that physics is fundamentally 'ontologically holistic' (of course, in many cases an analytical, reductionistic approach is the right one)

*But on the other hand, it somewhat makes my point. Yes, we tend to be naive realists when 'we leave the house to go to work' and when we are in a dangerous sistuation (and this is useful for our survival and the survival of our species as Hoffman might say) but at the same time we tend to be naive realists even with respect to the apparent movement of the Sun in most our daily life even if such a take is erroneous. But naive realism being 'useful' doesn't imply it being 'truthful'. And we instictively also seek truth. — boundless

To put in another way, in order to function, we are usually 'forced' to live assuming naive realism is true. However, on reflexion, we recognize that we live as if naive realism was true but we generally recognize that it is false.
How much importance we give to this awareness is another matter.

The people were 'bad' but I regret nothing. — Tom Storm

Ok!

Of course - and if I argued that I'd be making a fallacy. I make no claim about higher consciousness as an idea, I was referring to who the subject seems to attract and the innate difficulty (perhaps impossibility) of persuing it a useful way. But I'll leave this to others who are more interested. — Tom Storm

Fair enough. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

I think phenomenology may do away with the need to pars the world into realism or indirect realism or idealism models, but I am not sufficiently versed in the thinking to articulate an argument. — Tom Storm

Well, neither do I. I tried to study phenomenology and I enjoyed some ideas I found. But, unfortunately, I found the language and the exposition too taxing and unclear, so to speak.
BTW, Husserl's 'epoche' I think is quite close to what I was getting at, i.e. 'suspension of judgment' (at least for a transitory phase).

That's fair. I'm skeptical that we can access ontological truths, or that we should we be overly concerned to identify them. I'm content with tentative models of the world, which is all science can provide. But even an idealist becomes a naive realist when he leaves the house to go to work. That's paraphrasing Simon Blackburn. Which comes back to my take on all this. None of it much matters since the world we inhabit can't be denied in practice and for the most part it makes no difference to how we live if we believe that all is an illusion. — Tom Storm

Ok! Well, I agree up to a point. The fact that the 'model' of the 'two truths' is so prevalent (either explicitly or implicitly) suggests to me that there is something very important about it. But at the same time, one cannot ignore the extreme diversity of how that distinction is conceptualized and this can be taken as a suggestion that we can't have a 'true knowledge'.
Personally, I think that even if we are unable to 'discover for ourselves', the distinction between the 'provisional' and the 'ultimate' is important, it's hard to deny how widespread this 'theme' is (as I said with Epicurus and Pyrrho, in ancient times even materialists and skeptics endorsed some version of it), so you can't agree with what Simon Blackburn* says if it is taken as a conclusive criticism. For my part, I try to be as open-minded as possible and go on with the 'search'.

*But on the other hand, it somewhat makes my point. Yes, we tend to be naive realists when 'we leave the house to go to work' and when we are in a dangerous sistuation (and this is useful for our survival and the survival of our species as Hoffman might say) but at the same time we tend to be naive realists even with respect to the apparent movement of the Sun in most our daily life even if such a take is erroneous. But naive realism being 'useful' doesn't imply it being 'truthful'. And we instictively also seek truth.

Yes, Ontology is the most debatable aspect of Philosophy*1. Anything created from scratch is indeed dependent for its existence on the Creator. But I don't see how the self-existing Ontological creator --- what I call eternal/infinite Potential --- could be dependent on the space-time creature. — Gnomon

Yup. That's why I think that the view that the 'Creator' is 'simple' is the right one, independently of the particualr idea of the nature of this 'Creator'. If the 'Creator' weren't simple, then its 'parts' would be uncreated themselves.
The problem is IMO that even panendeistic systems at the end of the day must renounce the view that, for instance, 'we' are 'parts' of the 'Creator'. But if one accepts that the 'Creator' is unchanging, then all change is ultimately illusory.

In order to overcome this problem, I think that something like 'process philosophy' is needed if one wants to save both the 'absoluteness' of the 'Creator' and the 'reality' of change. Heraclitus' probably was the first known attempt in this direction.

n the links below*2, Energy is described as a "property of a system", and Holism is about Systems, not things. So, systemic properties can only be rationally inferred, not physically observed — Gnomon

Not sure how this is relevant. Yes, we cannot take 'energy' to be something real if we do not take the 'system' as a 'reality' that bears the property of 'energy' (the confusion arises when 'energy' or 'mass' is taken as a fundamental substance and physical systems and objects are seen as a sort of 'manifestations' of 'particular configurations' of 'mass' or 'energy'). And yes, 'energy' seems more a 'collective property', so to speak, rather than the property of an individual 'object', when systems of interacting 'objects' are taken into account.
But IMO, the only systems that can be considered as 'distinct realities' in physics would be isolated systems (i.e. systems in which conservation laws apply). But again, can we give a non-fictional example of an 'isolated system'?

↪boundless Thanks for the considered reply and interesting comments. I was connected the New Age movement and the Theosophical Society through the 1980's and into the 1990's, so I am moderately familiar with the thinking. Most of the folk I knew in those days were as anxious, status seeking, consumer obsessed and money oriented as any contemporary yuppie. But I guess the serious thinkers are always in the minority. I have never arrived at a reason to take this kind of metaphysics seriously. True or not, it makes no practical difference to how I conduct my life. I suspect a lot of this comes down to person's disposition. Some of us are unhappy in particular ways that seem to be ameliorated by philosophy and thoughts of higher consciousness. And perhaps some of us ruminate less and are more distractible. :wink: — Tom Storm

I see, thanks for the clarification. I am sorry for your bad experiences.
Anyway, I do believe that it is a case of 'abusus non tollit usum', i.e. even if the bad practicioners, teachers etc were the majority, this doesn't a priori negate the validity of a particular tradition.

BTW, in my previous posts I was however arguing for sonething else: if one rejects naive realism (and here I mean the unsophisticated kind which is IMO the true naive realism, not more 'refined' ones that are actually not naive realism), then one accepts automatically some kind of notion of 'two truths'. Naive realism errs in interpreting pragmatic 'truths' as ontological ones. But this insight is shared by practically everyone that is not a naive realist (even by skeptics). We can interpret what the naive realist take as 'ultimate truths' as 'pragmatic truths', eventualmente if we do not have a position about what the 'ultimate truth' might be.

I re-read your very informative post and, well, I don't think that I am capable to make a counter-argument about the consistency of stochastic models. So, I'll accept that one can make a CFD stochastic model without violating relativity. After all, the non-locality that violats special relativity is a faster than light causal influence*, i.e. a specific kind of non-locality.
Just for curiosity, has been treated the 'Wigner friend' scenario in stochastic realistic models?

*As I said previously, there are also propoents of deterministic non-local realist models that say that their models are not in contrast with relativity. Other than some de Broglie-Bohm proponents, the thermal interpretation of Arnold Neumaier (I am not sure if it is accepted as among the 'viable' interpretations of QM, as it is new and it seems to have a single proponent. It has, however, produced a quite number of discussion among experts on Physics Forums for instance.).

I mean, there is no alternative. There are extreme nonlocal correlations in quantum mechanics; you cannot get rid of the strangeness. — Apustimelogist

Agreed, we have to accept some kind of strangeness. But my question was: do you think that 'physical realism' is undermined by the fact that the 'fundamental building blocks' of 'physical reality' are not spatially separable? I think that Einstein made an interesting point here about 'realism'. I do believe that we have to reject the idea of 'fundamental building blocks' altogether BTW.

I believe that the confusion is also due to an incorrect interpretation of Einstein's 'mass-energy equivalence', which in fact is due to a misunderstading of 'mass'.
It is somewhat instinctive to regard 'mass' as a measure of 'the quantity of matter'. After all, this is the very first definition one hears in middle school (which is of course appropriate for the age). But even in high school, this definition of mass is replaced by the more sophisticated definitions like 'inertial mass' and 'gravitational mass'.

It's unfortunately simple to misinterpret the concept of 'mass' - and, consequentlly, the concept of 'energy' via the 'mass-energy equivalence' - in a substantialist way. But 'mass' and 'energy' are physical properties/quantities, just like 'momentum', 'angular momentum' or even 'velocity', 'acceleration' etc. Any kind of substantialist interpretation of 'energy' or 'mass' errs due to an incorrect process of instinctive 'reification'. Physical objects are not made of mass, energy just like they are not made of momentum or velocity.

Yes. To portray G*D as a "composite", of which we humans are the parts, seems to be a materialistic/physicalist notion. It views G*D as a mechanism with interdependent interacting parts. A machine (e.g. a watch) is indeed dependent on its constituent parts. Take away one cog and the machine no longer functions properly. — Gnomon

Well, the ontological dependence is also true for an organism, even if one accepts an holistic model. If a living human being is more than his parts, the human being qua human being still seems dependent on them.

But my hypothetical god-model is more meta-physical, and imagines G*D as Enfernal (infinite/eternal) Potential, and our space-time world as one of infinitely many possible Actualized systems. Potential is not a thing that can be divided into smaller things. Instead, Potential is more like a Whole which is more than the sum of its parts. The "more than" is not more Parts, but more Potential. Just as physical Energy is not a material object, meta-physical Potential is infinite and inexhaustible. — Gnomon

I think that 'holism' per se is not enough to answer this objection.
Also, IMO 'energy' is a property rather than a 'physical substance'. A rock is not 'made by' mass-energy but has mass-energy. Unfortunately, I think that even physicists themselves sometimes indulge in some confusion about this.
We can't say that 'fundamental physical reality' is 'energy' because 'energy' is a property.

IMO rather than 'parts' it would make more sense to speak of 'manifestations' or 'features'. Something like Heraclitus' fragment 67 (source):

God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger; but he takes various shapes, just as fire, when it is mingled with spices, is named according to the savor of each.

Or maybe something like 'God' in Whiteheadan process philosophy (but I am not really familar with that).

Wow, thank you for the informative answer. I need some time to reflect to answer back. TBH, however, I feel that many things are above my 'level'. So, I'm not sure how useful will be my answer.

Anyway, forgive me for asking you another question, more a curiosity actually. But, how would you answer to Einstein's claim that a 'nonlocal' theory can never be 'realistic' in a meaningful way?

*Regarding non-locality, Einstein (probably influenced by the 'principium individuationis' of Schopenhauer) thought that undermines physical realism by itself (and this is the reason why he didn't like Bohm's interpretation, which is realistic). As he said to Born in a letter written in 1948:

I just want to explain what I mean when I say that we should try to hold on to physical reality. We are, to be sure, all of us aware of the situation regarding what will turn out to be the basic foundational concepts in physics: the point-mass or the particle is surely not among them; the field, in the Faraday - Maxwell sense, might be, but not with certainty. But that which we conceive as existing (’actual’) should somehow be localized in time and space. That is, the real in one part of space, A, should (in theory) somehow ‘exist’ independently of that which is thought of as real in another part of space, B. If a physical system stretches over the parts of space A and B, then what is present in B should somehow have an existence independent of what is present in A. What is actually present in B should thus not depend upon the type of measurement carried out in the part of space, A; it should also be independent of whether or not, after all, a measurement is made in A.

If one adheres to this program, then one can hardly view the quantum-theoretical description as a complete representation of the physically real. If one attempts, nevertheless, so to view it, then one must assume that the physically real in B undergoes a sudden change because of a measurement in A. My physical instincts bristle at that suggestion.

However, if one renounces the assumption that what is present in different parts of space has an independent, real existence, then I do not at all see what physics is supposed to describe. For what is thought to by a ‘system’ is, after all, just conventional, and I do not see how one is supposed to divide up the world objectively so that one can make statements about the parts. (Born 1969, 223–224; Howard’s translation)
(source: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/einstein-philscience/#ReaSep) — boundless

No doubt the quest for enlightenment or spiritual relaxation seems attractive to some but how likely is it you will arrive there? I often think that this quest is just a spiritual equivalent of consumer culture and status seeking. Thoughts? — Tom Storm

Well, different people and different traditions would give you different answers. This will be a long post but of course not exhaustive about what how much these 'different' answer are among them, despite sharing a structural similarity. Clearly it doens't go into much 'depth' in this analysis, but I hope it should give the 'right' 'gist'.

Anyway, the reason why I 'introduced' the concept of the 'two truths' is that, IMO, it gives a general framework for evaluating the validity of some claims about empirical knowledge. The 'version' of this 'two truths doctrine' that I 'proposed' had the purpose to be as general as possible, i.e. someting that should be accepted by many people as possible. For instance, the phrase 'The Sun and stars move from east to west' if taken to denote a description of 'what appears' to an observer on the Earth's surface is clearly 'true'. But if it is interpreted the way the geocentrists did, of course, we know that is 'false' (because the 'literal' interpretation of the geocentric model implies some predictions that were discovered to be erroneous). Still, both a geocentrist and a modern scientist would agree about the fact that that phrase is a valid descriptor of what 'we observe'. Note, however, that I made absolutely no claim about the 'ultimate truth', which in the present contest is an 'ontological theory' of 'what external reality really is', 'how the external reality really behaves' or whatever.

Following, this premise, since you seem interested, I now make a long digression about how the 'two truths' doctrine/framework has been present in some 'Eastern' and 'Western' ancient models. Let's start by making a distinction, between what I would call 'gnostic theories', i.e. doctrines that say that indeed knowing the 'ultimate' is something that, at least in principle, at least some people can do (by spiritual practice, philosophical reasoning or whatever) and 'skeptical theories', i.e. doctrines that deny this possibility. Let's start by four examples about the first.

Epicurus clearly believed that, following Democritus, the 'ultimate truth' was that there are only '(indestructible and eternal) atoms and the void'. This belief led him to adopt the view that 'trees', 'rocks' but also 'humans' are derivative realities and also that something like 'consciousness', the 'soul' is an emergent propery, which disappears when the atoms change a determinate configuration. Hence, according to him, 'whatever happens after death' would not something to fear or to hope.

Parmenides, on the other hand, believed that there were two levels of 'truths'. At the 'higher level' of understanding, there was really one Being, eternal, indestructible and so on. How we get to 'realize' such a 'truth' and the supposed effects of such a 'realization' are unfortunately unclear, due to the fragmentary nature of the reamaining writing. But maybe it would have some positive effects.

In the East, I can cite the 'traditional Abhidharma schools' of Buddhism which, as far as I understand, held that 'trees', 'mountains', but also 'peoples', 'sentient beings' were only 'concepts' (prajnapti*) which didn't represent something 'really' real (they were merely useful 'fictions' for pragmatic purposes, that the 'unenlightened' mistake for something 'really real') - the reason being that such 'things' and 'beings' are composite and for them only waht is simple would be truly 'real' (these useful concepts made up the 'samvrti satya'*, usually translated as 'conventional truth'). On the other hand, the 'ultimate truth', 'paramartha satya*', is given by a collection of 'simple, irreducible things(dharmas*)' which are either 'conditioned' or 'unconditioned', like Nirvana*. The experiential realization of the ultimate truth was said to have salvific effects, i.e. the 'attainment' of Nirvana.

The Madhyamaka school, associated with Mahayana Buddhism, agrees with the distinction between 'samvriti satya*' and 'paramartha satya*'. But, this school (or maybe 'schools'), as far as I understand, denied that we can make any kind of 'conceptual representation' of the 'ultimate'. For them, both the composite objects and the 'dharmas*' proposed by the 'Abhidharma schools' were to be regarded as part of the 'samvrti satya'. The 'ultimate truth' is totally indescrivable. Again, the experiential realization of this ultimate truth was said to have salvific effects. However, it should be said that in Mahayana, the 'lower' versions of the 'doctrine of the two truths' found in the Abhidharma system could be still salvific because it still regard the 'self' as an 'illusion'/'illusion-like'.

On the other hand, there are skeptic schools. For instance, the Pyrrhonists believed that we should suspend judgments about metaphysical theories, while eomploying something like 'conventional truths' in order to function. This 'suspension of judgment' would give us some kind of 'peace of mind' or 'ataraxia'.
Christians too are somewhat 'skeptics' in this matter, as far as I understand. After all, the existence of the 'living God' and other spiritual truths were thought to be revelead truths (of course, some Christians believed that they could made 'proofs' for the existence of God, but I doube that they really believed that such proofs proved the existence of the 'God who revelaed himself in the Bible'). Also, St. Paul believed that in this life our knowledge is imperfect, confused (like he says in 1 Cor 13:12) and theerfore we should relie on faith according to them.

I could go on with more recent examples like Spinoza, Kant, Schopenhauer etc. But I'll stop.

To give a conclusion of this rather long post, I believe that these philosophers/religious figures etc believed that either the realization or the the faith or even the absolute denial of the possibility of knowledge of the 'ultimate truth' had serious positive consequences. Clearly, it wasn't for them a matter of 'idle' speculation and IMO the 'search' of any kind of 'correct version' of the 'two truths' was seen as something of the highest importance, certainly like a 'status seeking' or 'consumistic'. It also required probably less 'skepticism' that there is nowadays (even, ironically, for the Pyrrhonist in their ability to 'prove' the impossibility to find the 'ultimate truth'). So even if they might agree with you that it is 'unlikely' to arrive to such a 'correct doctrine', they still regarded it as extremely important or 'the most important thing to do'.
Of course, I am not saying that this 'ancient perspective' is unfindable nowadays or that in those time no one approached this kind of things for 'status seeking' or in a 'consumistic way'.


*these words are from Sanskrit terms.

Of course I agree with you, but then that is a distinction that we both discovered through Buddhist philosophy, whereas most folks on this forum (and I know this from experience!) will treat that with utmost suspicion. I think I’m going to try and write up something on this topic. — Wayfarer

Yeah.

Anyway, while I believe that in Buddhist schools the formulation is more clear (after all, in their view it also had a salvific importance), the distinction is also present even in pre-socratic greek philosophers. Parmenides, for instance, developed a version of the 'two truths' doctrine similar to Advaita Vedanta. But even someone like Democritus developed one for his own philosophy. It is IMO a very useful framework to discuss any epistemological theory.

(As an aside, I believe that 'conventional truth', the translation that we give to the 'lower' truth in Buddhist/Indian philosophies can be misleading to us. We in it read a 'social convention', but it is more like a 'provisional truth' IMO I am not disagreeing with the translation but the point is not that the 'conventional truth' is a social convention...)

I don't agree with that arbitrary conditional hypothetical if-then scenario. It seems to be placing restrictions on what an omnipotent deity can or cannot do*1. If there are no parts or aspects, then what is G*D*2 the Whole of? That negative definition of Perfection seems to be a bunch of nothing : no boundaries, no parts, no change. no properties, no place for an evolving world with imperfect creatures. Nothing to do : Eternally Boring. — Gnomon

But if G*D is not simple, i.e. if G*D is composite, then it necessarily depends on the parts. If those parts were to 'separate', G*D is no more. BTW, G*D being simple doesn't mean that G*D has no properties, just that G*D has no parts.

On the other hand, it has also been a historical philosophical problem how to explain an evolving world that originate from a timeless and changeless Creator/Source etc.

On the other hand, I can only guess that G*D is not frozen into a boundless timeless changeless blocktime popsicle, but is instead a dynamic entity capable of creating an imperfect world internally without compromising He/r own boundlessness or wholeness. Just as a human mind can imagine a Utopian or Dystopian world without reducing its own unity & wholeness, a G*D-mind could move imaginary chess pieces around without compromising its own integrity. As some have expressed the idea : G*D is dreaming our world, so our "real" existence is imaginary or fictional from the perspective of the dreamer. :smile: — Gnomon

I have some sympathy for this kind of view, BTW. Anyway, if G*D is a 'dynamic entity', then it is easier to explain changes. Maybe G*D has some changeless aspects and some dynamic aspects. Don't know.

Lately I prefer "the sun, its sunrays & their heat" (rather than "the ocean & its waves") as an analogy because "the sun" is so remote and not visibly manifest at night even though its effects of "light & heat" are always manifest on Earth (e.g. gravity-well, climate, weather, seasons, photosynthesis); and also, that staring directly at the sun with naked eyes is blinding more or less like fully comprehending 'eternal & infinite substance' with temporal, finite reason is impossible. So for me, in this limited (physical) sense, analogously "the sun" is naturing and Earth, etc are natured ... even though our local star is, according to Spinoza, just another mode (of the attributes of substance (i.e. 'laws of nature')). :fire: — 180 Proof

Well, I see your point but maybe it is a 'middle way', so to speak, between the two kinds of analogies.
Natura naturans and Natura Naturata IMO are two aspects of the Substance - an unmanifest and one manifest. The modes are particular features of the manifest aspect, which we erroneously take as independent substances.

I don't know. Maybe a further analogy might be that natura naturans is like a code of a program, natura naturata is the 'manifest' execution of that program and the 'modes' are some 'steps' of the execution, which cannot be thought as separate from the whole execution of the program.

No, I still don't know what you mean by 'external world as it is,' in general and specifically in this context. You say that the description is good, but it is not true to the 'external world as it is'. How can we know that? Apparently, not from appearances, since that is what is being described, and the description is good. — SophistiCat

In fact, we can from appearances. After all, the model makes predictions that are in constrast with observations in some contexts. As I said here, actually (here you can substitute the word 'experience' with 'appearance'):

But note that if one accepts that experience is the starting point of knowledge and if one accepts that experience is also the way we 'validate' our judgments, then corrispondence is difficult to maintain.
I can infer something about the 'external world' from my experiences but how can I 'prove' that my inferences are correct? How can I have a certain/true knoledge** of them?
Induction is not compelling. Even if all my experiences were to be consistent with some of my inferences about 'how the world out there should be', then I would still not have a certain, true knowledge. All I can have is a 'best guess'.

But I can still detect errors in judgments. I can still determine that some of my inferences are incorrect if they contradict some of my experience. In other words, while I cannot determine 'truth', I can determine (at least some) 'falsity'. Induction might not be a solid foundation for truth but it is still able to determine the falsity of some judgments.

But of course, this validation that we get from experience doesn't give us true knowledge and so it is not enough for truth (I reject 'coherence theory of truth', because a judgment that is coherent with all experiences is not enough to be called 'true'). So what? I think that, at least philosophically, we should 'suspend judgment' about the 'external world', i.e. the world outside experience. There is no denial here about the 'external world', or how it might be. — boundless

In other words, we can 'falsify' a theory or a model if we discover that it makes erroneous predictions in some contexts, i.e. we find an incoherence between what the theory predicts and what we actually observe. This is enough to falsify the theory as a valid 'picture of physical reality'.
Still, however, this doesn't mean that 'falsified models' cannot be useful and correctly describe appearances in some contexts. So even if the 'picture of the physical reality' that they give is wrong, we can still use them in some contexts and for some applications - hence, they are pragmatically true (in some contexts).

BTW, why do you think that the geocentrists in ancient times and middle ages were wrong? What was their mistake?

The book this is quoted from is considerably clearer than Hoffman, while also grounded in cognitive science. It makes the sense in which the brain constructs the cognitive arena we call 'the world' much clearer. — Wayfarer

Thanks for the reference. BTW, I actually read and enjoyed Pinter's book and as you say IMO it is clearer than Hoffman's.

Anyway, what I was getting at is possibly more 'general', in a way, that Pinter's point. My point was that we can make a distinction between 'provisional' and 'ultimate' truths without any kind of 'explanation' on the reason why we tend to perceive the way we perceive. For the sake of the discussion above, I think that before giving such an explanation, it is important to make clearly the distinction between those kinds of truth and why it should be important.

To give an analogy, I believe that if the 'ocean' is 'natura naturata', a wave is a 'mode'. Regarding 'natura naturans', maybe water itself. But I'm not sure how much the analogy makes sense. — boundless

Other possible analogies:

let's say that there is a house totally made of wood. The house itself is 'natura naturata'. Doors, rooms, walls etc are modes (both finite and infinite modes). The (totality of) wood is natura naturans.

Also, let's say that a statue of a man is made out of a block of marble. The 'man' is 'natura naturata'. Each 'part' of the statue is a mode (for instance the 'nose' or the 'arms'). The marble is 'natura naturans'.

In both cases, there is a sense in which the 'manifest whole' (natura naturata) is 'more' than the sum of the 'parts' (i.e. the modes, both finite and infinite).

What do you think about these analogies?

I wasn't talking about geocentrists, I was commenting on the plain facts about the rising and setting of the sun and the stars. This is the stuff of astronomy textbooks, not to mention thousands of years of observations by people all around the world. I don't know what is not veridical about that. Yes, this is a description of appearances. — SophistiCat

Well, yes, I fully agree with this. Probably, I wasn't clear enough.

"The Sun and the stars move from east to west" is a good descriptions of appareances. In this sense, it is 'true' and 'valid', yes.

The problem is the interpretation that we give to that statement. The ancient and medieval geocentrists clearly implied that such a statement described the 'external world as it is': the apparent motion of the celestial objects, to them, wasn't a mere appearance but the 'real motion' of the celestial objects.
They clearly didn't consider their model as a mere 'predictive model' but as an accurate description of the 'external world as it is'.

BTW, clearly we still use a 'geocentric model' in our daily lives, for practical purposes. As you say, it correctly describes the appearances. But we recognize, on reflection, that these appearances are mere appearances, so to speak.
So that's why I said that the statement "The Sun and the stars move from east to west" is provisionally/pragmatically true. But if it's interpreted in the way the ancient and medieval geocentrists did, it's false. Their mistake was an incorrect interpretation of appearances.

Do you agree with my analysis? If not, how do you explain the fact that those people were mistaken?

Are implying that there is a world beyond appearances that can somehow be known? — SophistiCat

Actually, no, my epistemic position is neutral about that. Still, I recognize that the 'existence' of a such a 'world' would explain better intersubjective agreement, the fact that we observe some regularities in phenomena and not others and so on. But at the same time, I recognize that empirical knowledge cannot give us a knowledge of such a 'world'. Nor we can be sure of its 'existence'.

Is that what you are referring to by the honorific 'a correct description of (external) reality as it is'? — SophistiCat

Yes and no. I think that the ancient and medieval geocentrists incorrectly believed that 'the world as it appears to me' is 'the world as it is in itself', i.e. their mistake was that they assumed a naive realist view (or at least a particular version of it). If one is a realist, but not a naive realist, I believe that yes the 'honorific' is correct.
Of course, some deny that there is a 'reality' beyond appearances. But IMO such a view does suffer to some serious problems (maybe not necessarily fatal, but they are serious).

I don't know as an empirical matter whether or not Spinoza is an "emergentist"; metaphysically he's certainly not. — 180 Proof

OK, I see.

In other words, sub specie durationis I interpret Spinoza's natura naturans as ontologically deterministic and unbounded (i.e. unmanifest ... vacuum ("void")) and natura naturata as ontically chaotic and bounded (i.e. manifest ... fluctuation-patterns ("swirling recombing atoms")). — 180 Proof

Maybe we disagree about 'natura naturata', then. IMO 'natura naturata' is the totality of modes, but this totality is not reducible to the mere collection of them, so to speak. By this I meant that it 'holistic', i.e. the whole is 'more' than its parts and its relations (that is enough for a 'holism', but IMO 'natura naturata' has also an ontological primacy over the 'individual modes').

To give an analogy, I believe that if the 'ocean' is 'natura naturata', a wave is a 'mode'. Regarding 'natura naturans', maybe water itself. But I'm not sure how much the analogy makes sense.

... which is why I describe compatibilism as conditionally deterministic. Neither strict determinism nor strict indeterminism are compatible with "free will / free action" (i.e. human agency). — 180 Proof

:up: Ok, we seem to agree then here!

The definition of God as "simple & unchanging" may or may not be true ; but it's irrelevant to you & me. I have no way of verifying that "standard position". But, in the evolving space-time world, where you and I are operating, Complexity and Change are the context from which we vainly try to imagine a First Cause capable of producing an evolving world. Presumably, enfernal G*D does not evolve, but He/r space-time creation may be a machine for evolving little gods. — Gnomon

I think that the argument goes like: if God weren't simple, i.e. it God was composed of parts (which themsleves are entities) then it could not be eternal, or at least God would be contingent. God would be ontologically dependent on its parts.

In other words, God's ontological necessity and eternity requires an ontological simplicity.

Anyway, maybe you could say that some aspects of God/Whole evolve and some aspects do not, in order to accept both a panendeistic world view and God's eternity and necessity. But I am not sure if this helps.

I disagree about the relevance of Probability to Free Will*1. Calvinistic Classical Physics assumed that the fate of the world is pre-determined by the absolute Will of God. But Quantum Physics has undermined the philosophical certainty of that presumption. According to 21st century science, the physical foundation of reality is Relative, not absolute, and Uncertain, not pre-destined, and Organic, not Mechanistic. The Probability "gap" in quantum physics is anywhere a mind makes a measurement. No minds : no gaps in Determinism. — Gnomon

But note that, even if we assume that mind is somehow required to make a 'quantum' measurement, the measurement itself is a probabilistic, i.e. random, process. So, while I agree that probabilism is, in a sense, closer to the kind of indeterminism that is required by free agency, it's still not enough. Our choices are neither fully determined nor random.
QM might not be 'mechanicistic' as newtonian mechanics is, but is still not enough.

Of course this is so ... sub specie aeternitatis. — 180 Proof

I am not sure if you say this is true according to Spinoza. IMO Spinoza was a parallelist, he would never say that 'mind' emerges from 'matter' (extension) even sub specie durationis.
Of course, this is not necessarily means that he is 'right'. Can you give some reference/arguments to argue that he was an emergentis?

Also, I would say that the holistic character present in Spinoza was absent in Democritus, Epiricurs, Lucretius et al. This doesn't mean that one can build a 'Democrito-Epicurean Spinozism' of sorts but I believe that the ontological primacy of the 'whole' was completely foreign to the classical atomists.

IMO a better example would be actually Friedrich Nietzsche who at least in his private notes seems to endorse the possibility of a 'pantheism/pandeism':

That the world is divine play [göttliches Spiel] beyond good and evil―for this, my predecessors are the philosophy of Vedanta and Heraclitus.

(It was a note the wrote in 1884. In his unpublished and unfinished book 'Philosophy in the tragic age of Greeks', written in 1873, he wrote his interpretation of Heraclitus.
Edit: I borrowed the quote about the 'divine play' from this thesis that I randomly found online, at page 34 of the pdf. I didn't read the thesis and I actually found the quote in another source online that I wanted to share but I didn't found it...)

If not conditionally "deterministic" (i.e. constrained by your (my) nonlinear dynamic, ecology-nested, embodied cognition), then what makes any "choices" yours (mine)? — 180 Proof

In a sense, yes. But if 'compatibilism' is strictly deterministic then it is incompatible with any meaningful notion of free will or free agency. A free agent necessarily has some degree of control on his or her choices and such choices aren't predictable by either a deterministic or probabilistic model.
For instance, a 'Laplace demon', if determinism were true, could be, in principle, able to predict all of my choices. Since compatibilists often remark that determinism and free will are consistent, they must redefine one or the other in some ways. Problem is that this 'redefinition' renders one of them ininitelligible. If the 'Laplace demon' could predict all my choices in advance, how can I say that I am a free agent in a meaningful sense?

On the other hand, yes, choices must be in part deterministic (after all, if a free agent makes the choice A instead of B, his or her actions deterministically follow, unless there are other causes that prevent those actions).

Ha! You'll have to ask the Deus why He/r system of Cause & Effect is not strictly dictatorial & deterministic, but statistical, and frivolously creating novel arrangements of matter & energy as a basement hobby. Apparently you think the Deity is incapable of internal change, or oblivious to the little independent-minded creatures running around inside the Whole. Either our evolving world is accidental or intentional, or Deus is just having a bad dream. — Gnomon

Well, I wasn't talking about my ideas on the matter. But anyway, the 'standard' philosophical position about God (even for the classical theists) is that God is simple, unchanging and transcends time. Spinoza accepted this kind of view. If you say that 'Deus' changes, then yeah I think that my objections do not apply strictly speaking. Still, by 'statistical' you don't mean 'probabilistic'. Probabilism is just as incompatible as determinism to free will/agency (choices are not random).

All I can do is guess : that the evolutionary system was intentionally designed to produce living & thinking creatures, with abilities that allow for some self-determination. Or, that our universe is a divine experiment gone disastrously awry. Why would an eternal/infinite/omnipotent Being have unruly pockets of space-time scrambling around in He/r bosom? Why would an absolute Entity allow little bubbles of evolving matter to grow inside He/r womb? How could Omniscience/Omnipotence have statistical "gaps", unless they were designed to provide opportunities for creativity? — Gnomon

The problem is IMO that the 'Whole/Deity' is or contains, according to you, the whole universe 'sub specie aeternitatis' - where past, present and future are fixed - and yet you also claim that change is real. IMO you have to let go one assumption or the other.

Either the 'Deity' evolves, changes in some way and therefore it's not 'outside time' or change is ultimately illusory.

The statement 'the Sun and the stars revolve around Earth and they move from east to west' is, if taken literally, perfectly true, as anyone can attest*. What is unclear is the honorific 'what really happens in the external world'. — SophistiCat

Not sure if you are disagreeing with me or not. If by 'taken literally' one means that it correctly describes the appearances then, yes, I agree that it can be said to be 'literally true'.
On the other hand, the 'geocentrists' believed that our experience was totally veridical: the Earth was at the center of the universe and didn't move and the Sun revolved around it. It wasn't a mere 'it appears as if' but 'it appears because it is so'. In other words, they were extremely naive realists.

The 'honorific' simply means that it was taken as 'a correct description of (external) reality as it is'

"Unmistaken" is not "certain". To be knowledge, a belief must be true. That means for empirical beliefs we can never be totally sure that our beliefs are knowledge or not. And that is ok. — hypericin

Well, by 'unmistaken' I meant without error, i.e. correct. To me this is 'certain', unless by 'certainty' we mean the certainty of, say, a logical deduction or a mathematical proof. I think we agree.

However, if by 'knowledge' we mean a 'true belief' we need to understand what 'true' means. IMO, believing that 'Sun moves from east to west' can be considered a kind of provisional/pragmatic knowledge. But of course if the same statement is interpreted, as you correctly point out, as a 'correct description of external reality' is false.

I feel you are muddling things here. Statements are only true or false wrt an interpretation. Given the same statement, some interpretations may be true, others may be false. This just demonstrates that uninterpreted statements, "statements in themselves", don't have truth values.
Only interpretations do. — hypericin

Ok, point taken. We need to establish some kind of criteria before be able to assign a truth value to a statement. I think that a 'doctrine of two truth' is able to do that.

To use the same example:

• "The Sun moves from west to east" is false pragmatically/provisionally (it contradicts the appearances) and false ultimately (it isn't a correct description of the 'external reality as it is')
• "The Sun moves from east to west" is true pragmatically/provisionally (it correctly describes the appearances) and it is false ultimately (it isn't a correct description of the 'external reality as it is')

So, I would say that I agree that the truth value of a statement is dependent on the interpretation. This also means that there are different types of knowledge.

Also, it's possible to consider the issue in another way.

The statement 'the Sun and the stars revolve around Earth and they move from east to west' is, if taken literally (i.e. as an accurate description of 'what really happens in the external world'), false.
But at the same time if we interpret the same statement in a non-literal way, in some sense is true.

Clearly, the truth of this statement is provisional, pragmatic - not 'ultimate'. The mistake of those who believed in the accuracy of the statement was that they took it literally. You can take these statements seriously (i.e. as statements of provisional, pragmatic truths) even if you don't take them literally (for instance, I can say 'I want to have the sunlight in my room in the morning, so I should have windows that face the east because the Sun moves from east to west during the day' is a valid inference even if my reasoning is based on a geocentric model, which is used in a practical way. I can use such a model even if I do not take it literally).

So, we can say that it is a 'pragmatic, provisional knowledge' but not a 'true knowledge'. IMO the distinction between these two concepts is important.

You are making the common mistake of equating knowledge with certainty. Certainty has no place in empirical knowledge, only in math and logic. Your over restrictive "true knowledge" limits knowledge to the latter. I suggest you abandon the obsession with certainty. — hypericin

I would not say that this kind of certainty is the same as the one found in math and logic, but yes I would say that in order to be 'true knowledge' (and not a 'provisional', 'pragmatic', 'transactional' or even an 'approximate' one) it must be unmistaken. Do you think that a false (but reasonable) belief can be said to be knowledge?

If we grant a 'fallible knowledge' the status of a 'true, unmistaken knowledge', then our ancestors that believed that the Sun and the stars revolved around Earth would correctly claim 'I know, based on observation, that the Sun and the stars revolve around Earth and they move from east to west'. If this is taken as a statement of 'knowing how the world really is', then we know that is mistaken.

But of course the same statement 'I know, based on observation, that the Sun and the stars revolve around Earth and they move from east to west' can also be considered correct, if it describes the apparent motion of these celestial objects. Also, it is correct if it is taken to be a claim of provisional or pragmatic knowledge. The problem arises when one clings to such a statement as an affirmation of 'how the external world really is'.

To conclude, I am not sure I disagree with you, actually. If 'knowledge' is taken to mean as a reasonable belief then I think we agree. If 'knowledge' is taken as meaning an unmistaken belief, then no.
IMO the distinction between 'provisional truth' and 'ultimate truth' that I made in my previous posts doesn't by itself denote an obsession for certainty. It can also denote an 'open minded perspective' that doesn't consider our beliefs based on empirical evidence and inference from such evidence as unmistaken beliefs.

I.e. if we are more like droplets of spray from a wave of the ocean (or rays of sunlight from the sun) than e.g. passengers riding on a moving train... — 180 Proof

Good analogies. But this 'separateness' leads to deism or theism IMO.

For Spinoza, no doubt an "inadequate idea" (i.e. imaginary, illusory) sub specie aeternitatis. — 180 Proof

Agreed!

Fwiw, my view is that sub specie durationis (e.g. Husserl's "natural attitude") acosmism seems cogently pandeistic (or consistent with classical atomism). :fire: — 180 Proof

Well, Spinoza's Natura Naturata would be cover both the 'vacuum' and the 'atoms', the union of them (also, according to him, the attributes are independent from each other, so emergentism is not compatible with Spinoza).

As to "how", I must assume that the binding chains of natural Cause & Effect have some "gaps" or "loopholes" that can be exploited by Autonomous Agents — Gnomon

Ok. But how these 'gaps' arise in a pantheistic/panentheistic/pandeistic/panendeistic system?

In his book Freedom Evolves, Daniel Dennett concluded that some degree of Free Will*1 is compatible with Natural Law. He refers to certain "abilities" of homo sapiens that allow us to make choices that are not dictated by physical laws. Among those abilities are Logic and Language. Regarding the rigidity of natural law, I'll just mention that Thermodynamics is based on statistical averages not specific instances*2, and Quantum physics is also statistical, not mechanical. So some slack (statistical loopholes) in the chain of Cause & Effect seems to be allowed. — Gnomon

The problem I have with 'compatibilism' is that it redefines 'free will' and 'free agency' in a way to render them meaningless. For instance, if a compatibilist argues that my choices are 'free' because they do not have 'external' causes but they are still deterministic, I fail to see how this can be true 'freedom': actions and choices would be still inevitable. Even if one includes the (apparently) probabilistic nature of QM into play, nothing really changes IMO. Our choices would be determined by a combination of deterministic and probabilistic processes. Something more is needed.

@Count Timothy von Icarus

For instance, if I cling to the expression 'the sun rises and sets' as some truth about 'how the world is' I would be in error. Still, in a sense, is a 'valid' statement: it correctly describes some experiences (but not all) and has some practical utility. The same goes for, say, newtonian mechanics. — boundless

To expand on this...

I believe that 'the sun rises and sets' might be called a 'provisional truth'. It is valid in some contexts but if we cling at is it were a 'true description of the world', what we might call an 'ultimate truth' about the 'external world', we would be in error.
So, in a sense, yes, we can make 'true judgments' in the sense they are coherent, at least in some contexts.
But at the same time, 'experiences and inferences from experiences' alone cannot give us true knowledge. Provisional, pragmatic 'truths' yes, but these 'truths' are not truths in the 'classical' philosophical sense. Accepting these 'provisional truths' is not really the problem, the problem seems to be clinging about them.
Without additional assumptions we are not justified that we can know 'truths' which are 'higher' than 'provisional truths'. And IMO it is up to who upholds these additional assumptions to give a justification of them. BTW, I am not saying that such assumptions cannot be 'reasonable', so to speak, but 'reasonableness' might not be enough to be a philosophical justification, in the sense that of a rationally compelling justification. And, also, as our progress in science revealed to us is that even the most 'reasonable' ideas human beings have had about the world turned out to be incorrect, incoherent with observations (which ultimately are experiences, after all, if one thinks about it). And these 'reasonable ideas' were supported by equally 'reasonable assumptions', which themselves were found incorrect.
Note that I am not saying that all our reasonable assumptions are necessary false and will necessarily be found false but simply that we seem not to be able to justify them in a 'rationally compelling' sense and also that clinging about them have been a source of mistakes.

BTW, actually more than Pyrrhonism, my view of knowledge is mostly inspired by some versions of the 'theory of two truths' that I encountered in some schools of Indian philosophies/religions (especially some Buddhist schools). At the same time, similar ideas are also present in some western thinkers and philosophical schools, e.g. Pyrrhonism, which maybe is actually close to my own views on epistemology as I don't make any claim about 'ultimate truth' (after all, even in Indian philosophies/religions, positive claims about the 'ultimate truth' were made in a religious context and often had a religious 'justification', not a philosophical one, at least not completely philosophical one. But I am digressing...).

Well, on the error point, I don't think someone like Berkeley has the same problem here. For Berkeley, we see the world as it is under normal conditions, although of course we see it from our individual perspective. Error is its own category. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ok, Berkeley was an ontological idealist, so yeah, I agree with this. After all, ontological idealism is actually more similar to realism than some forms epistemic and transcendental idealism, skepticism, phenomenologies etc. After all, ontological idealism is, well, a metaphysical theory of 'how things really are'.

The problem comes up only when it is assumed that it is impossible to see the world as it "really is," because such knowledge would require "knowing the world without a mind." The problem is not only that both experience under normal conditions and conditions of error share in unreality, but that we have no means of saying which is closer to "what things are really like." If the way things "really are" is inaccessible, if even space and time are the unique products of the mind, then there is no possible comparison of experience and reality. Correspondence is out. Nor will an identity theory work. We can't say that there is an identity shared by experience and reality—that, as Aristotle says in De Anima, the "mind (potentially) becomes all things," because this possibility is also excluded. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But note that if one accepts that experience is the starting point of knowledge and if one accepts that experience is also the way we 'validate' our judgments, then corrispondence is difficult to maintain.
I can infer something about the 'external world' from my experiences but how can I 'prove' that my inferences are correct? How can I have a certain/true knoledge** of them?
Induction is not compelling. Even if all my experiences were to be consistent with some of my inferences about 'how the world out there should be', then I would still not have a certain, true knowledge. All I can have is a 'best guess'.

But I can still detect errors in judgments. I can still determine that some of my inferences are incorrect if they contradict some of my experience. In other words, while I cannot determine 'truth', I can determine (at least some) 'falsity'. Induction might not be a solid foundation for truth but it is still able to determine the falsity of some judgments.

But of course, this validation that we get from experience doesn't give us true knowledge and so it is not enough for truth (I reject 'coherence theory of truth', because a judgment that is coherent with all experiences is not enough to be called 'true'). So what? I think that, at least philosophically, we should 'suspend judgment' about the 'external world', i.e. the world outside experience. There is no denial here about the 'external world', or how it might be.

For instance, if I cling to the expression 'the sun rises and sets' as some truth about 'how the world is' I would be in error. Still, in a sense, is a 'valid' statement: it correctly describes some experiences (but not all) and has some practical utility. The same goes for, say, newtonian mechanics.

On the other hand, I believe if you actually think that we can have true knowledge about 'how the world is' that we can discover by inference from our experience, we need some other assumption which is IMO unprovable.

Personally, I think I am closer to Pyrrhonism than Kantianism in epistemology.

Now, if the intelligibility of things and the intelligibility of our experiences and our knowledge of things is the same, there is no problem. Reason is perhaps the glue that holds things together (rather than a sort of "bridge between them" that we must build). On this view, we are never separated. But on this view it isn't true that we don't see things as they are. To be sure, we don't see things perfectly. There is a difference between discursive human reason and simple divine apprehension of all truths. Truth, with being, is inherently bound up in intelligibility though (e.g. St. Thomas' disputed questions on truth). — Count Timothy von Icarus

If you say that 'we can get true knowledge, at least in principle, from inferences from our experiences because the world is intelligible' this is IMO an assumption. It might be correct but we cannot prove it.

Counterfactual definiteness? Yes, I guess; but again, when people talk about counterfactual definiteness, they are usually talking about the wavefunction and perhaps things like collapse. Stochastic interpretation would be talking about definiteness in regard to something else, so the concept has arguably changed. — Apustimelogist

No, CFD (counterfactual definiteness) simply implies that physical quantities have definite values at all times. de Broglie Bohm's interpertation is a perfect example of an interpetation which has CFD. MWI violates CFD because it assigns multiple values to hypothetical measurements, so it can be realistic and 'local' (although in a weird sense... after all, what is more nonlocal than a 'universal wavefunction' split at each measurement?).

If your stochastic interpretation accepts that there is a definite configuration of particles at all times, then how can you explain Bell's experiments without non-locality? In de Broglie-Bohm's interpretation, in the case of entangled particles, the velocity of each entangled particle (which always has a definite value) depends instantaneously on the positions (which always have a definite value) of the other entangled particles. That's how the interpretation 'explains' (or at least 'gives a description of') Bell's experiments.
But this implies that you need some kind of 'simultaneity' (a long time ago, I read of some versions of this interpretation which are Lorentz invariant. So, I guess that this kind of 'simultaneity' doesn't necessarily imply a rejection of special relativity. I don't remember however the details)

So, in your view, if the particle configuration is definite at all times, how can you describe non-local correlations without a non-local dynamics/kinematics which involves some notion of simultaneity?

Well, either the state of relative perfection or the state of suffering. Which one do you pick? By nothing I didn't mean permanent death. — MoK

Of course I would pick the 'better' choice. But none of them seems 'desirable'. Also, why do you think that death is impossible?

During the expansion of space-time most emergent Actualities result from natural energy exchanges. But, since the recent advent of homo sapiens, some novelties in the world have been caused by human choices. That's what we call Culture as contrasted with Nature. Therefore, you could say that Cultural Evolution has been "co-determined" by rational agents. But I would not say that all actualities, or all phenomena, or all "actual histories" are determined by the "demi-gods" of the world. — Gnomon

Neither did I want to say that, in fact. Even the 'co-determination' of some actualities is enough. It is something like Tolkien's concept of subcreation, in a sense.

So, the Whole determines all the possibilities/potentialities. Natural processes - either random or deterministic - co-determine most actualities. Then, humans (and maybe other beings) co-determine some actualities with some degree of autonomy. I use the 'co' prefix because, after all, this kind of determination is not from 'nothing' but both from previous actualities and potentialities themselves. Is this now an accurate assessment of your view?

Still my question is: how can we have some degree of autonomy if we are not separate from the Whole?

Would Spinoza disagree? :smile: — Gnomon

Yes, to some extent. And to some extent he would agree. For instance, I think he would ask the previous question, I think.

Interesting. There is a revised version of Gödel's ontological proof of God that entails modal collapse because of the given definition of God. — Lionino

Thanks for the reference. Anyway, for the sake of completeness, some scholars disagree with the 'necessitarian' interpretation of Spinoza. However, IMO necessatarianism is the consistent way to interpret is thought.

This idea of gradations of being allows for a richer metaphysical framework, one that resonates with pre-modern views like Aristotle’s, where being is understood in terms of potentiality and actuality. — Wayfarer

To be fair, I do not, in principle have a problem with this understanding. Problem is, however, that the 'collapse' of the wavefunction is observer-dependent, i.e. it takes place in the perspective of a given observer (whatever an 'observer' might be). In this view, the collapse is a process of actualization, so actualization is observer-dependent.

So in other to be consistent, I think that this kind of understanding has to treat both the potentialities and the actualities as observer-dependent. No matter how Heisenberg saw these these things, I really doubt that Aristotle or Plato would have liked that potentiality-actuality is something that is perspectival.

The observation ‘manifests’ or is actualised in a particular outcome. I can’t help but feel that it is at least a pregnant metaphor. — Wayfarer

With this I agree.

The whole point is why would a perfect god create this kind of game of hide-and-seek of his "blessedness" and "good and evil"? — schopenhauer1

I wanted to elaborate on this point, again.

Let's assume, for the sake of the argument, that God exists and created the world and humans as finite rational agents who have an essential desire to be united with the Good (i.e. God if some kind of theism is true), even if they are not aware of fully aware of it.

Now, as I understand it, the philosopher Thomas Talbott makes a very interesting argument: maybe it is impossible to come into existence as fully developed rational beings, maybe in order to fully develop as self-aware rational agents we need some kind of contrast and frustration. For instance, I need to be aware of the distinction between 'me' and what is 'not me' in order to develop a rational mind. However, this awareness might only develop due to some kind of contrast: what is 'not me' doesn't respond always to my wishes. So, the frustration I experience is actually a way to learn, to be more self-aware. Also, at least the awareness of the possibility to make evil or bad choices makes me aware of the distinction between good and evil, good and bad. Also, seeing bad outcomes of evil/bad choices is actually a way to learn why bad choices are bad. And so on.

So, maybe some amount of suffering as well as at least the possibility to do evil and to make bad choices, is inevitable in order to develop into truly rational beings.

Note, of course, that this argument doesn't say that all suffering and the evil we experience in the world is 'necessary' or 'meaningful'. Also, it's not meant to be a complete 'theodicy' but only a possible explanation to why a 'learning process' might be actually necessary.

If we can never see the world "as it really is," then how shall we explain things like mistakes? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think that you are raising here a very good objection, but it is not 'decisive' IMO.

I believe that a 'mistake' or an 'illusion' can be interpreted as an interpretation of a given experience that is inconsistent with his inconsistent with other related experiences.

For instance, consider the case where you see a circular table from a certain distance and angolation. It doesn't appear as circular but as elliptical. And as I move around, its apparent shape is still elliptical but different and it continues to change. So, I conclude that the 'elliptical shape' is a mere appearance, an illusion if you like, because the fact that the 'apparent shape' changes as I change my position means that it is not an intrinsic property of the table and assuming naively that it is makes my judgment mistaken.
On the other hand, saying that the table is 'really circular' does accomodate all these observations and, therefore, it is 'more correct' than saying that a particular elliptical shape that I saw was the 'real one'. But of course, we know that the 'circular shape' itself when examined more closely is not true either etc.
BTW, I used the example of the physicist David Bohm (see e.g. this video).

So, I think that you can't detect a mistake even if the 'world as it really is' is inaccessible to us.

Also IMO this doens't imply that the world is not intelligible or our experience is not intelligible. In fact, at least up to a certain point we can say that there is intelligibility.

I think it really depends on what you mean by all these terms which I often find confusing. Yes, realistic in terms of there are particles in definite configurations all the time. But it will also have all the statistical properties in the wavefunction that are responsible for violating contextual realism generally in quantum mechanics. However, the wavefunction isn't a real physical object in this interpretation. — Apustimelogist

Ok, I see. The wave-function is interpreted as an 'useful' fiction but at the same time the theory also adopts Counterfactual definiteness. How is non-locality handled in this interpretation?

It is realist, but I think he really does say there are degrees of existence:
.... — Wayfarer

I can see the appeal but IMO this view leads to some problems (some serious, some not).

First, if the wave-function is given any kind of reality, then non-locality is inescapable. If I make a position measurement, then QM literally says that the wave-function can contract instantaneously from a 'very large space region' to a 'point-like space region'. Of course, you can say that it has a 'different' degree of reality, but I'm not sure how a truly physical non-local effect can be avoided. This is not per se a 'damning'* problem (after all, I know that even the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation can be formulated in a way that is consistent with special relativity) but it is still IMO a problem for one who wants to present it as 'local'. BTW, I know that Kastner argued that the interpretation is local because the measurement only 'destroys' possibilities, not actualities but at the same time the 'actualities' do, well, become actual and if they do not come 'from nothing', something 'real' must be there before.

Second, the wavefunction itself can be changed before the measurement. In fact, the wave-function contains the information of the experimental set-up, which can be modified by the experimenter. In some ways, then, if the wavefunction is interpreted as having some kind of reality, it somehow interacts
(in some cases nonlocally) with the experimental setup and/or the experimenter.

Third, in a Wigner-friend type of scenario, some actualities seem to have become 'actual' only to an observer and not to the other. If one wants a realist interpretation, this IMO leads to an inconsistency.

I believe that this shows that the wavefunction does indeed represent 'potentialities' but only epistemic ones, i.e. gives probabilities that some experiences or observations occur.

*Regarding non-locality, Einstein (probably influenced by the 'principium individuationis' of Schopenhauer) thought that undermines physical realism by itself (and this is the reason why he didn't like Bohm's interpretation, which is realistic). As he said to Born in a letter written in 1948:

I just want to explain what I mean when I say that we should try to hold on to physical reality. We are, to be sure, all of us aware of the situation regarding what will turn out to be the basic foundational concepts in physics: the point-mass or the particle is surely not among them; the field, in the Faraday - Maxwell sense, might be, but not with certainty. But that which we conceive as existing (’actual’) should somehow be localized in time and space. That is, the real in one part of space, A, should (in theory) somehow ‘exist’ independently of that which is thought of as real in another part of space, B. If a physical system stretches over the parts of space A and B, then what is present in B should somehow have an existence independent of what is present in A. What is actually present in B should thus not depend upon the type of measurement carried out in the part of space, A; it should also be independent of whether or not, after all, a measurement is made in A.

If one adheres to this program, then one can hardly view the quantum-theoretical description as a complete representation of the physically real. If one attempts, nevertheless, so to view it, then one must assume that the physically real in B undergoes a sudden change because of a measurement in A. My physical instincts bristle at that suggestion.

However, if one renounces the assumption that what is present in different parts of space has an independent, real existence, then I do not at all see what physics is supposed to describe. For what is thought to by a ‘system’ is, after all, just conventional, and I do not see how one is supposed to divide up the world objectively so that one can make statements about the parts. (Born 1969, 223–224; Howard’s translation)

(source: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/einstein-philscience/#ReaSep)

Edit: by this I don't mean that those who think that 'non-local realism' is possible are wrong. But it would be still a quite strange form of realism where we cannot 'separate' the elements of reality by using a spatio-temporal separation.

In other words, are you saying that God/Whole determines all the possibilities but the actualities are determined or co-determined by the rational agents?
And maybe also by other phenomena?
In other words, God 'fixes' all thepossible histories but the actual one is co-determined?

I'm not sure how this doesn't lead to a theistic or theistic-like perspective (i.e. that God creates and sustaines but at the same time the creatures maintain an identity that is distinct from the Creator), but I'll wait your answers before delving into this.

Correct. Life becomes boring if it is eternal. — MoK

To be fair, I should have added that boredom would not the only one reason that after a certain point such an endless life would be unbereable. But in any case, I'm not sure how you have not conceded my point, i.e. that such a 'relative perfection' is undesiderable. We seem to agree that an endless life with only finite goods becomes after a certain point unbereable. Yet, you seem to say that a state of 'relative perfection' is 'better than nothing'. How can an 'endless unbeareable life' be better than 'nothing'?

In other words, every possibility is a necessity, modal collapse? Good post btw, keep it coming. — Lionino

Thanks!

Yep, but note that in Spinoza's philosophy such a necessity is not an 'intrinsic characteristic' of the modes, but when considered as 'modes-of-substance', i.e. when seen 'under the perspective of eternity' (sub specie aeternitatis), all modes are actually necessary 'manifestations' of the attributes of God. In other words, when seen as themselves - i.e. abstracted from the Substance/God - they are contingent. But this perspective is ultimately illusory and therefore, ultimately, according to Spinoza, it is true that even the modes are necessary (but seen in this perspective, they are not individuals anymore).

My take on the 'observer problem' is not very complicated. The answer to the question 'does an electron exist prior to being measured?' is that it just is the wave-function, which is a distribution of possibilities, right? So it doesn't definitely exist, or exist as a definite object - there really is just a pattern of probabilites. It is the observation that reduces all the possibilities to zero (collapsing the wave function.) What's 'spooky' about it is mainly that the act of measurement is not itself part of the equation. And also the ontology of the purportedly fundamental particles of physics. A realist would rather hope there was a definitely-existing point-particle somewhere along the line. It's like the measurement 'makes manifest' something that was previously only potentially existing. (This is something that Heisenberg said, referring to Aristotle's 'potentia' (source). — Wayfarer

Yeah, I sort of agree, but maybe with a qualification. If one interprets the wave-function epistemically, i.e. as a quantitative measurement of knowledge/degrees of beliefs (i.e. probabilities as interpreted in a Bayesian way), then the 'collapse' is simply an update of knowlege/degrees of beliefs. However, if one wants to interpret the wave-function epistemically, then such an approach should be followed to the end, in a consistent way: QM doens't allow us to make any ontological commitments.

Unfortunately, sometimes what is presented is a 'mixed' approach. For instance, my problem with saying that "the 'measurement' makes manifest something that was only 'potentially existent'" is that it can be misleading: if one attributes some kind of 'reality' to those 'potentialities', wehave a 'realist' view. After all, if it is supposed to describe 'what is really happening' when a measurement is done, then how is not a 'realist' interpretation?
If it is interpreted as a 'convenient way of speaking that should not be taken literally, then one remains faithful to an epistemic approach.

Of course, a truly consistent epistemic approach doens't deny that there is 'something' before a measurement/observation (or whetever word one might prefer) takes place. However, that 'something' cannot be described/known and is not an object of the theory. Indeed, an epistemic interpretation is actually like saying 'there is a limit of what I can know and what I can represent mathematically'. That's why instead of 'non-realist interpretations' I prefer 'non-representationalist interpretations'.
When one understands this IMO, all the talk about 'what is an observer' becomes irrelevant. The theory should be silent about such a question. But, of course, I can say that 'I' can be an observer - this and only this is self-evident apparently - and since I am a conscious being, every other conscious being might be an observer. Maybe only conscious beings are observers, maybe something else can also be. But how can I know that? How can I know that a computer might be an 'observer'? What can I have are speculations, maybe reasonable speculations. But real knowledge? IMO the best if we follow an epistemic/'non-representationalist' interpretation, we should admit that QM itself simply doesn't tell us what an 'observer' really is. It's silent.

Also, this 'epistemic interpretation' is not really restricted to QM. It can IMO be used also for other physical theories (after all, as I said in an another thread, nobody takes the 'forces' in newtonian mechanics as literally existent physical entities... they are useful fictions).

If on the other hand, one prefers a 'realist/representationalist' view one apparently is forced to accept non-locality (a weird kind of non-locality where non-local effects are 'hidden'*), many-worlds or something else (and weirdly enough, even if one accept a 'realist' interpretation, the epistemic interpretations can be still be used to make correct predictions...).

*non-local effects are hidden because in an experiment with, say, two entangled particles, Alice can discover that the 'non-local' effects have taken place only when she gets access to Bob's data on his particle.