No, what allows me to avoid Cartesian dualism is Arsitotle's definition of the psyche as the actuality of a potentially living body instead of as res cogitans. — Dfpolis

OK, I did not see in the article, how you moved form that definition of soul to your rejection of dualism. All I saw supporting the rejection was the passage I quoted, where you moved from a rejection of the Fundamental Assumption (a rejection unsupported in principle), to a rejection of both property and substance dualism.

"Soul" is defined as the first grade of actuality of a natural, organized body, having life potentially in it. Within Aristotle's conceptual space, as explained in his "Metaphysics", this type of actuality is necessarily prior in time to the material existence of that body, as cause of its existence as an organized body. Therefore we can conclude that this "form" which is called "the soul" is prior in time to the material existence of the living body, therefore independent from it.

So I ask you, how do you proceed within this conceptual space, to reject dualism? You state in your article, that matter and form are logically separably, but not physically separable. But this claim is useless to this analysis because a physical body is necessarily a combination of both matter and form. To separate matter and form would give us something other than a physical body therefore this is "physically" impossible. To separate the two would require something other than a physical process. So, Aristotle uses logic, a logical process of analysis, to show that form is necessarily prior to matter. therefore separate. And since this separate form is necessarily prior in time to the living human body which performs physical observations, the separate form is not physically observable.

Aristotle is clear that hyle is a kind of physis (an intrinsic principle of change), a "source of power," and that it "desires" the new form in a substantial change. Thus, it is an active tendency, and not passively receptive, in the case of natural changes. In artificial changes, it is passively receptive. — Dfpolis

This is completely unsupported and wrong. Nowhere does Aristotle insist that matter is "active" in any sense. In fact, the whole separation between potential/actual, matter/form, is designed by Aristotle to remove the confusion created by this idea. Assigning "active" power to matter is a mixing of the categories, which renders any conclusions you draw from this procedure as invalid. If he refers to matter as being "inclined toward...", or as having "urges", he is referring to the habits of a material body, in the Platonic way, not to matter itself.

Its form must be determined by a prior potential, viz. its predecessor's hyle. Also, it must be actualized by something that is already operational/actual. That line of actualization can be traced to the Unmoved Mover. Still, the form cannot exist prior to the being, because the form is the being's actuality, and it is not actual before it exists. — Dfpolis

This shows a bit of misunderstanding. The prior potential does not determine any future forms. It is the prior form (formal cause), in conjunction with the active form, acting at the present (as final cause) which determines future forms. Material cause is simply indeterminate possibility. The prior form, as formal cause is deterministic, however, the final cause, acting at the present is teleological. In the sense that the form of the object which will come to be (through the act of the artist), exists already in the mind of the artist, prior to its material existence (Metaph, Bk 7, which we've discussed previously), the form of the thing does exist prior to the natural thing's material existence.

Ultimately, it is. Proximately, it cannot be, because change requires a prior potential to new form. That is why the Unmoved Mover cannot change. — Dfpolis

That analysis shows the necessity of prior potentials in natural processes. — Dfpolis

We need to distinguish between making what was potential actual, and making something with no prior potential (true creation). — Dfpolis

We need to distinguish secondary causality, which is the causality found in nature, from metaphysical actualization, which is what the cosmological argument relies upon. — Dfpolis

Consider the above four quotes. You recognize the necessity of "prior potentials" in natural processes. You also recognize that "ultimately" there must be a "metaphysical actualization", and this is derived from the cosmological argument.

The two types of actualization, are discussed by Aristotle in "On the Soul" when he proposes the definition of "soul" as "the first grade of actuality". Aristotle's dualism is based in the logical need for two distinct types of "form", or order, one created by the human mind as formulae, and the other being the type of actuality which is prior to the material existence of material objects as the cause of them being what they are.

I suggest that it is somewhat disingenuous of you to recognize that Aristotle's conceptual space necessitates this duality of actuality (form), yet you assert that this conceptual space provides the means for rejecting dualism.

It is interesting to me that the language in De Anima is more directed to recognizing different kinds of agency than coming to terms with a chain of causality. — Paine

This is precisely the reason why Aristotle's "conceptual space" cannot be used to reject dualism. What he exposes is distinct types of agency. The two principal types of agency, or "form", cannot be reduced, one to the other. In fact the further we analyze them, in an attempt to reconcile them, the further apart they get, and the more obvious it becomes, that dualism cannot be avoided. This is why Aristotle's philosophy is central to the development of the concept of free will, and this is decisively dualist.

I disagree if you are denying that the Aristotelian approach disposes of Cartesian dualism, which was my actual claim. Identifying — Dfpolis

Actually your claim was that Aristotelian conceptual space provides a means for rejecting dualism. You say it in the op, "The article rejects dualism as a framework...", and you claim it in the opening page of the article, "Aristotle’s conceptual space is unburdened by dualism". I'm sure that if you meant that Aristotle's conceptual space provides the means for replacing a simple Cartesian dualism with a more complex dualism, you would have said so.

I'm being hard on you on this point, because I believe that you ought to leave your intentions as open and revealed as possible. If your intent is to reproduce and understand Aristotle's conceptual space for the purpose of applying it to some of the problems of modern science, that's one thing. But if your intent is to find principles for a rejection of dualism, which induces you to cherry pick Aristotle's writing and pretend to reproduce his conceptual space, that is a completely different objective.

The reason I'm so critical on this point, is that in our prior discussions you and I had disagreement as to what Aristotle says about where the form of the object comes from, when a natural object comes to have material existence. I told you that Aristotle seems quite clear to me, to compare the coming into being of a natural article to that of an artificial object. In this case, the form comes from an external source, the mind of the artist, and it is put into the matter. You insisted that Aristotle allowed that the form inhered within the matter itself, in a natural object. But of course Aristotle's analogy of comparing a natural object to an artificial object does not really allow for that interpretation.

It is an important difference, because by saying that the form of an object inheres within the matter, you interpret "form" as necessarily the property of matter. This allows you to deny dualism, and cling to emergence. However, to claim that Aristotle supports this position is simply wrong, because it completely neglects Aristotle's "Metaphysics", especially his cosmological argument where actuality is shown to be prior to potentiality. Therefore form must be prior to matter, and come from a source other than matter.

While it is peripheral to my article, I think you are looking in the wrong direction for the source of the concept of potency (dynamis). As I note in my hyle article, (https://philpapers.org/go.pl?id=POLANR&u=https%3A%2F%2Fphilpapers.org%2Farchive%2FPOLANR.DOC), the source of the concept is medical, referring to the hidden healing power of medicinals. A. then applied it to the argument against the reality of change in order to go between the horns of being and non-being. Thus, the origin and original application of the concept are physical, not mental. — Dfpolis

Aristotle's principal demonstration of the concept of "potential" is provided in his biology, "On the Soul", and he uses this concept to describe the powers of the soul, self-nourishment, self-movement, sensation, and intellection. The secondary explanation of "potential" is in his "Metaphysics" where he works extensively to establish the relationship between potential and matter. As such, he reality of "potential" which Aristotle argued for, is derived from introspection. It is subjective, mental. That the concept of "matter" is used as leverage against sophists who argued that change is not real, indicates exactly the opposite of what you claim. The concept is pulled from the subjective self, as the principle of continuity and identity, and applied to the physical, to validate the intuitive notion that a changing thing can maintain its identity as the same thing, despite changing. The sophists who would deny the reality of change would insist that at each moment the changing thing is a new thing, instead of allowing that the thing remains as the same thing, while its properties change.

quote="Dfpolis;784638"]The conclusion you cite is not based on the type-token distinction. That is only used to justify the use of introspection. The conclusion is based on the Hard Problem being an artifact of a dualistic (in the Cartesian sense) representation or conceptual space.[/quote]

You very clearly use the type-token distinction as the basis of your rejection of dualism. It is actually the only real argument against dualism which you provide in the article.

[quote=Denis F. Polis, The Hard Problem of Consciousness
& the Fundamental Abstraction]What is at stake is replicability. Since science seeks universal knowledge, data must, with few exceptions, be replicable by competent observers. Replicability is a type, rather than a token, property. We can never replicate a token observation, only the same type of observation. It is as absurd to reject replicable introspection because its token is private, as to reject Galileo’s observations because he made them in solitude.

Thus, the consciousness impasse is a representational, not an ontological, issue. Since humans
are psychophysical organisms who perceive to know and conceptualize to act, physicality and intentionality are dynamically integrated. Ignoring this seamless unity, post-Cartesian thought
conceives them separately – creating representational problems. The Hard Problem and the
mind-body problem both arose in the post-Cartesian era, and precisely because of conceptual
dualism. To resolve them, we need only drop the Fundamental Abstraction in studying mind.

Seeing dualism as a representational artifact disposes of both ontological and property dualism.
Properties depend not only on an object’s nature, but also on how we conceptualize it. For
example, we can justifiably think of an apple as red, or as having a certain spectral response.
While the intentional and physical theaters of operation seem disjoint, our abilities to know
material objects and to will physical acts spans them. Thus, a conceptual rather than an
ontological partitioning of human nature underlies both the Hard and mind-body problems.[/quote]

The statement that each instance of observation is particular, unique, and cannot be replicated is an ontological principle. That the truth and reality of this ontological principle produces a representational problem is another issue. It does not make the ontological issue into a representational issue, it just shows a representational issue which manifests from the ontological issue. To reject the FA, and deny the ontological separation between the representation and the thing represented, as the means for rejecting both ontological and property dualism, is just an imaginary fiction. It is not based in reality at all, therefore it serves no purpose toward a philosopher's seeking of truth.

I am not sure what you are saying here. We are able to know from experience, and so a posteriori, that all knowing involves a known object and a knowing subject. Whether we focus on one (as the FA does) or attend to both, is a matter of methodological choice. If attend to both, we are not employing the FA.

Further, I see no reason to think we know anything in a truly a priori way. — Dfpolis

To demonstrate my point, let's assume, as you say, that all knowing involves a known object and a knowing subject. There are certain necessary conditions, essential aspects of what constitutes a "knowing subject". One of these necessary conditions is the FA, (that there is a distinction between known and knower) as an a priori principle. The something known is not simply the knower, or else there is just a supposed knower, and no knowledge. Therefore we cannot know anything about knowing without reference to the FA. This is Descartes' principle. The thinking is logically prior to the being, and the point is that we cannot get access to the being without the thinking. Therefore we must address the thinking first, of which the FA is a basic part, there is something separate from the thinking, which is thought about. To proceed without the FA is to put the being before the thinking, but this renders the FA, which is very real as an intuition and a priori principle, as unintelligible. As a result the whole act of thinking and consequently knowing, also become unintelligible.

Evidence of this unintelligibility is your statement "I see no reason to think we know anything in a truly a priori way". Your method of placing being as prior to thinking has rendered the a priori as unintelligible to you, so your response is that the truly a priori cannot be apprehended by you.

The agent intellect does not create content. It actualizes (makes known) prior intelligibility, which is the source of known content. — Dfpolis

I believe this statement is derived from your faulty interpretation of Aristotle. What you call "prior intelligibility" is characterized by Aristotle as potential. Prior to being "discovered" by the geometer, (brought into actuality by the geometer's mind), the principles of geometry existed as potential. Within Aristotle's conceptual space this is an act of creation, just like the actions of an artist described above, creating a material object. The artist works to put form into the creation, and the form is not within the matter (potential) prior to the creation. So in the case of "discovering" ideas, the form, which is the essence of the idea, comes from the mind of the geometer in an act of creation, and this is an act of creation by the agent intellect. The need for the "agent" intellect is to account for the real causal activity of the intellect, creativity.

If the intelligible object had actual existence in some mode independent of the mind which "discovers" it, then it would have to be the passive intellect which receives it into the mind. The passive intellect is posited as a receptor, because it is necessary to have something which can receive the forms of sensible objects through sensation. So if these intelligible objects exist independently they would have to exist as potential if it is the agent intellect which acts on them. However, the cosmological argument demonstrates that it is impossible for potential to exist independently of form, therefore the reality of such independent potential is denied. Therefore the Christian theologians posited independent Forms, as prior to material existence, to account for the forms of natural objects.

That is the standard Scholastic view. My view is more complex, and is given in my hyle article. Briefly, hyle plays a passive role in cases where there is an intelligent agent informing a result, but not in natural substantial change, where it is a "source of power." — Dfpolis

But don't you see this as an inconsistency? You are assigning to matter special powers to act which are inconsistent with the concept in Aristotle's conceptual space. This is the problem which the Neo-Platonists ran into, assuming The One, to be absolute infinite potential. It has no actuality, therefore no act, and the becoming of material objects cannot be accounted for because there is no act as causation. That matter cannot have such special power is the reason why the cosmological argument is so powerful. So we need to release this idea, which gives matter special power, creating inconsistency in Aristotelian conceptual space, and respect the force of the cosmological argument. Potential (matter) on its own could have no power to act. Therefore we need to assume some source of actuality, a Form, which is independent from matter, and prior to the existence of material objects, which produces an actual material form.

The seed of this idea is found in Aristotle's biology, the definition of soul which you cited, the first actuality of a body having life potentially in it. When we look at living things, we see that organization is within the body even at the most fundamental level. The body is organized as soon as it is a body, it comes into being as an organized, living body. Further, there must be an actuality which causes the existence of the organized body. As cause of the organized body, this first actuality must be prior to the body itself.

This is the principle which is drawn out further in his Metaphysics, to apply to all natural things. A material object consists of matter and form. And, by the law of identity the object must be what it is, it cannot be something other than it is. Therefore when the object comes into existence as an orderly thing, its form must be prior to its material existence, to account for it being what it is rather than something else. As in the case of the artist, the form comes from somewhere other than the matter. And, absolutely speaking, there must be a Form which is prior to all material existence, so this reinforces the conclusion that the form comes from somewhere other than the matter.

ou know... light passes through the pupil, etc. — L'éléphant

Wow, light passes through the pupil. Where does it go, into the brain? It's very black in there.

The pupil is a black hole.... — Wikipedia: Pupil

Can you present an actual example of such a cause? — Janus

Sure, when I pick up my tea cup to have a drink, that's an actual example. You might say it was my brain that caused this action, but what caused my brain to do this? That such acts do not have a physical cause is understood by the concept of free will, elementary philosophy.

Hi D.f., I just finished reading your article. I thought it was quite good, well written, and easy to read. I think you did a very good job of exposing the problems of the SM of neuroscience, and covered the difficulties from many different angles. However, I disagree with your conclusion which you draw from your proposed solution. Specifically, I disagree with your claims of bridging the dualist gap.

The article rejects dualism as a framework, qualia as essential to consciousness, actual information in computers, and the reduction of biology to physics. It also clarifies the concept of emergence. — Dfpolis

The Aristotelian duality of matter/form, potential/actual, does not provide the basis for a rejection of dualism as you claim, it only reinforces the need for dualism. I will attempt to briefly explain the issues in the following.

First, in the general sense, the separation between potential and actual is proposed by Aristotle as a sort of dichotomy. This means that your attempt to reduce, and resolve them into one, rejecting dualism, is a basic misunderstanding of these principles, in the first place. Consider the difference between potential and actual as analogous to the difference between future and past, in time. The difference between future and past is very real, and only a fool would deny this because, that it is real, is an idea which is fundamental to all human decision making in relation to action taking. It is only in a purely theoretical setting, imaginary I might say, that the difference between past and future might be denied. Now, as you describe, there is always an intermediary between the two, which relates them, and this is "the present" in time.

The intermediary can be apprehended in two different ways, as relational (as unifying the two), or as divisional (as a boundary separating the two). Regardless the two are distinct. Your example, the relativity of simultaneity does not demonstrate that the boundary does not exist, or is not real, it shows that the boundary is vague in our understanding, not well understood, allowing that constructive (conceptual) relations between the two distinct parts may be created in different ways, from different perspectives (frames of reference).

So I think your basic premise, that dualism can be rejected through an appeal to Aristotle's hylomorphic dichotomy, is fundamentally misguided. What Aristotle showed was that the classic dualism of mind/body needed to be expanded to include all of physical reality. The broadening of this dualism under the categories of matter/form, potential/actual, would allow us to properly position the duality found within the living being, discovered through subjective introspection, in relation to a wider duality which encompasses all of reality. Therefore he proposed a duality of matter/form for physics, which would accommodate the duality of potential/actual derived from subjective introspection.

The second point is that when you describe the Fundamental Abstraction (notice "the present" above is a fundamental abstraction) you improperly conclude that dualism can be rejected by excluding the need for a fundamental abstraction. Yes, it may be the case that if we could exclude the need for the Fundamental Abstraction, we could reject dualism, but we cannot realistically exclude the Fundamental Abstraction.

The "Fundamental Abstraction" can be apprehended as the a priori, and since the a priori is very real, and supported by real introspective analysis, we cannot simply reject it just because we desire to absolve ourselves from dualism. So, you refer to a type/token distinction, which is an ontological distinction, then you draw the invalid conclusion: " Thus, the consciousness impasse is a representational, not an ontological, issue". Only one side of the distinction is representational, the type side. The token side is not representational, therefore any understanding of what a token is, in itself, is not representationally based, but ontologically based. So the type/token distinction cannot be understood through representation alone because the token cannot be grasped. We need to apply some ontological principles. Therefore, we cannot avoid the need for the Fundamental Abstraction, as a basic ontological principle which separates the type from the token, rendering such a distinction as a valid distinction. And this necessitates a metaphysical dualism. To derive the Fundamental Abstraction we turn to our most primitive and basic intuitions such as the difference between past and future, mentioned above. And your claim that the type/token distinction is representational rather than ontological, is nothing but a fundamental abstraction itself..

The final point I'd like to make concerns your focus on the agent intellect, and neglect of the passive intellect. The difficulty that the Scholastics, like Aquinas had, was to explain the reality of the passive intellect. The agent intellect, as the creative source of imagination and conception, "the agent", was somewhat taken for granted, as actual, formal, therefore consistent with the classical notion of an immaterial intellect. The problem they had was with how to understand the passive intellect. Aristotle demonstrated the need to assume a passive aspect which could receive impressions from the senses. To be a receptor requires passivity. And under Aristotle's conceptual structure, passivity, and potential, are the defining features of matter. So one could interpret Aristotle as demonstrating that the human intellect depends on the material brain for its capacity to receive sense impressions. And Aristotle states that this is a requirement for all intellectual activity.

So Aquinas was perplexed by the problem of assuming an immaterial intellect, as agent, active and immaterial, directly united with the immaterial soul, yet still having a passive aspect, i.e having some features of potential. I believe that what Aquinas suggested is that this passive or potential aspect of the intellect ought to be understood in terms other than "matter". This is consistent with your rejection of the term "matter". What Aquinas suggested is that this potential, or passive aspect ought to be understood in relation to time rather than to matter.

I wouldn't count causality as metaphysical because I see causality as intimately tied with, indispensable to, the understanding of the physical, and I don't think we have any idea of causes which are not physical. I mean we can think the possibility of non-physical causes, but we have no grasp on what they would "look" like. — Janus

What a non-physical cause "looks" like is a freely willed act of intention (final cause as javra explains). We have lots of experience with such non-physical acts of causation, and all you have to do is look into yourself, in introspection, to "see" them. The problem is that the attitude of scientism has induced some people to enter into a condition of self-denial, refusing to recognize the basis of one's own existence as a self-moving being.

I would not count someone as having learned the history of ideas unless they understood the ideas. — Janus

Well I guess no one has learned the history of metaphysical ideas then, because no one truly understand them all yet. That's even more reason why metaphysics ought to remain in the curriculum. We need more people working on those problems.

Previously I put this down to contrariness. I now wonder if it might be vacillation or trepidation. Or simple failure to commit? — Banno

It's neither contrariness nor trepidation, it simply demonstrates the pervasiveness of the attitude of Janus, displayed above. There's no need to teach metaphysics, we ought to just let people grope in the dark when it comes to metaphysical issues. And if you add in the fact that "non-skeptical realism" is essential equivalent to "no metaphysics" you can see that the attitude of 'no need to teach metaphysics' is extremely pervasive.

If you are interested in metaphysics then learning about the history of metaphysical ideas would be a good idea. — Janus

Learning the history of ideals is a lot different than actually learning the ideas. The former is like memorizing a list of named ideas, in chronological order, the latter requires actually understanding the ideas.

However it's arguable that most people don't give a flying fuck about metaphysics, so it's not likely to be on the school curriculum any time soon. — Janus

This all depends on what school you go to. If you have an honest interest in the ideas of metaphysics, you will choose a school with a curriculum suited to your desire, as is the case in any field of study. That there is a smaller percentage of the population who are interested in metaphysics than in some other studies, and so there are less schools offering a good curriculum, is really not relevant. The trends as to what the majority of people are interested in, change with the shifting sands. But there is never a time when a good metaphysical curriculum is not available to those who want it.

The whole idea of being educated in metaphysics is absurd, because there is no settled metaphysics and never has been. — Janus

This statement is what is absurd. If there is a multitude of distinct attitudes toward metaphysics, then education in metaphysics is even more important in order that we get exposed to all the different possibilities.

Causation

Cause – an agent of change that transforms the state of being of its object

Effect – a transformation of the state of being of the object of a causal power — ucarr

Right, according to these definitions, things are as I said. The agent of change (cause) is gravity. The effect is the falling of the person.

In Example B we see that before and after retain their meanings in the absence of a causal relationship that connects them (with respect to lung cell metabolism). — ucarr

Of course, the designation of before and after is not sufficient for a judgement of causation, it is only one of a number of necessary factors. Do you understand that if X is a necessary condition for Y, the occurrence of X still does not necessitate Y?

Did you not read the reference I put up, the Bradford Hill criteria for causation? There's a list of nine criteria for causation, which he proposed, one of them is a temporal relation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_Hill_criteria
I'm not saying that this is the only, or best, list of criteria. I posted it because you did not believe that temporality was an accepted criteria for causation. Now I'm referring to it to show you that temporality is not the only criterion for causation, there are other conditions which need to be met as well. The argument which I posted is concerned with the temporal aspect of causation.

Maybe he’ll come back in the past. ;-) — Wayfarer

I think I should revisit some old posts, and see if anything has mysteriously changed. If so, I'd be seriously spooked.

Perhaps space and time are not "actually quantized in real discrete units". — jgill

This is a respectable proposition, but the problems involved in applying mathematics (Zeno's to begin with) demonstrates otherwise. Let me explain, starting with some fundamental principles:

First principle, divisibility is very real, we can physically divide things, therefore division of space or time must be real.
Second principle, if space or time is divisible, and there is nothing real which restricts or limits the divisibility, then it is infinitely divisible.
Third principle, if there is something real which restricts or limits the divisibility of space or time, then these restrictions provide the basic premise for real quantized discrete units.

What has been evident ever since the time of Zeno (and probably even before this formalization, from Pythagoras), is that the second principle (stated above) is problematic. Representing our capacity to divide things with mathematics that provide for infinite divisibility creates various irrational ratios (Pythagoras), and paradoxes (Zeno). The mathematical axioms assume a continuity which is infinitely divisible. However, it can be demonstrated in theory (Pythagoras and Zeno), that these axioms will inevitably lead to problems in application. The conclusion we can draw, or which I would say we ought to draw, is that this idea, of infinite divisibility, is just an ideal which does not truly represent the nature of reality. And this is very intuitive too, because space and time are our fundamental representations for how the world really is, and if you think about it, it doesn't make sense to think that we could keep on dividing the real world, in the very same way, into smaller and smaller bits, forever. It's just not realistic, because this would imply no real substance to the world.

This is why the ancient Greeks proposed a fundamental indivisible base, "atoms", or "matter", to provide substance for our principles of divisibility. So this brings us to the third principle, "substance" is the real thing which limits and restricts our capacity for making divisions in the real world. The conclusion therefore is that we need to understand how "substance" limits and restricts our capacity for division, and formulate our axioms of mathematics to properly represent these restrictions. Then the numbering system which we employ will properly represent the world's real capacity for division.

For example, look at the principles for dividing the octave in music, the basic principles of "scale". Distinct tones, as specific frequencies, are supposed as the substance around which the divisions are made, and the scale is produced. But no tone is absolutely clean, crisp and clear, so there are complexities, overtones, timbre, etc.. Also, the scale of tones must be created so as to be useful in combination for the production of harmony, so "the scale" is intended to relate a multitude of octaves.

Now in dividing the octave into specific tones, to produce a scale, we must also consider what happens when we multiply, because this is how harmony is created, and that is just as important to the scale as the division into tones. Therefore proper, or true division, is not a straight forward act of dividing in any way that the physical world will allow, good proper division practises must be conditioned by the reality of what may be produced through the re-combination of the parts which are divided for. We could say that this is the role of "the good" in the practise of division, or analysis, that the things produced in division are a true representation of the actual parts which went into the production of the whole, rather than a random division. Like for example, cutting with a knife slices through the cells, providing a glimpse inside, but not providing a good principle of division.

So we divide the octave into parts, and produce a scale of individual tones or frequencies. But there is a possibility for random division here, and this would not produce a good scale. So we must keep in mind what will be created from those parts, harmonies, and we must create the scale accordingly. Basing "the scale" in good principles of harmony is what produces consistency in the production of a conceptual multi-leveled spatiotemporal reality. That is the need to represent how the various parts create a harmonic whole, as the reality of substance. In other words, "substance" in its real existence, is a multi-layered harmony through the micro/macro range, so that any production of a base scale must be consistent with intermediate scales, and upper scales, in the way of harmony, so that "substance" is properly formulated.

Let’s begin with a thought-experiment: Imagine that all life has vanished from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed — Charles Pinter

A better formulation of this thought experiment is to imagine that there never was any life in the universe, ever. It is better because imagining that all life vanishes is already providing a spatial-temporal perspective, the moment when, and place where, all life vanishes. So then we have an image, of the universe now, as we perceive it from our spatial-temporal perspective, and then the universe from that same perspective, with no life anymore.

If, instead, we assume a universe without any life ever, we assume absolutely no temporal or spatial perspective from which that universe is being observed. Therefore we have the entirety of time and space, with nothing to differentiate one billion years from another billon years, nothing to distinguish here from there, no individuation of anything at all, and it becomes very easy to grasp that it's completely nonsensical to talk about any sort of existence without implying a perspective from which that existence is observed.

Incidentally, this point can be derived very easily from relativity theory. Regardless of the supposed fact that observations from one frame of reference will always be compatible with observations from another, and that the same laws will be applicable from every frame of reference, relativity theory implies that a frame of reference is required in order for the idea of any activity in the world to make any sense at all. So first there is a frame of reference (a perspective), then there is a world according to this frame. Further, we might add worlds according to other frames. Notice "a world" is just a product of the perspective. So the perspective is logically prior to "a world". That the different "worlds" produced from the different perspectives, can be resolved into "one world" through the presupposition that they all obey the same laws is unverifiable, and highly doubtful, even though it is commonly assumed as "a law" itself. This is the law which states that the laws are universally applicable, even though we haven't the capacity to test that law. It really just a metaphysical presupposition.

The first statement means the person is causing the falling. — ucarr

No it does not. Anytime something is caused to do something by a separate force, the thing doing whatever it is caused to do is not the cause of the action. A rock is doing the falling but not causing the falling. A cannon ball, or baseball flying through the air is doing the flying, but not causing the flying. Etc..

The rest of your discussion of "doing" is therefore not relevant to how I was using "doing".

that my argument depends upon taking before and after out of their default temporal_sequential context and placing them in the ordinal context, and that doing so strips away temporal antecedence? — ucarr

Of course, but to rob a word of it's meaning is a meaningless exercise.

Sixth and eighth have different ranks, but there's no temporal relationship in ordinality, as there is in cardinality. By analogy, before and after denote different times, but as with all ordinals, there's no temporal relationship between beforth and aftereth. — ucarr

When different times are denoted one is always before the other. Otherwise they would not be different times. That is unavoidable by the nature of what "time" signifies. You are not making any sense to me at all in your latest post ucarr.

Do you not agree your attempted analogy equating red and green fails because contextualizing before and after as beforth and aftereth does not equalize them. Instead, it de-temporalizes them? Do you not see, more generally: contextualizing ≠ equalizing? — ucarr

Again, you are not making any sense. "Before" and "after" are temporally defined. Your proposal to de-temporalize them is a meaningless, useless exercise.

Okay. So, beforth and aftereth can constitute an ordinality either temporal or non-temporal. This true because ordinal specifies order by position; it says nothing about temporal order. Since non-temporal is included and temporal is not excluded, both types are valid. — ucarr

Nonsense, before and after specify temporal order which is a type of "order by position". It is not distinct from "order by position". This is the third time I've told you that now, yet you refuse to accept it and keep repeating nonsense, as if you can remove the temporal order by insisting that before and after is an order by position rather than by time. Yes, before and after is an order by position, temporal position. Give up on the meaningless nonsense, it's pointless.

Due you suppose the pursuit of usefulness always leads to truth? — ucarr

No, but truth can only come from useful concepts, those which are useful toward truth. Usefulness is necessary for truth, but does not necessarily lead to truth. Uselessness cannot lead to truth because it denies the required "useful toward truth".

Since coincidence parallels co-functionality, coincidence can sometimes example causation.

Do you agree with this? — ucarr

Definitely not, for the reasons I've already explained.

As if such a fable were more acceptable than the independent existence of trees, tables and cups of our everyday experience. — Banno

Way more acceptable!

Enough time spent with the guitar could lead to a resolution of the Fourier uncertainty.

I only mean that as n increases so does the function, with no upper bound. I don't mean it ultimately ends up at a magical point at infinity. — jgill

The problem as I understand it is if you posit the lower limit of zero, to a duration of time, this model negates as impossible, the possibility of a real quantum of time. Furthermore, in analyzing any change (force), relative to what is uniform (inertial), as we narrow down the duration of time, toward any supposed point in time, where the change begins, the magnitude of force required to produce the change approaches infinite. Time is inversely proportional to energy, so as the temporal duration assumed for the force becomes close to zero, the quantity of energy becomes close to infinite. Therefore placing a limit to time at the speed of light, inserts the infinite into calculations which relate mass to energy.

This problem was first expressed by Zeno, and though some mathematicians might claim that calculus resolved the problem with the use of limits, it just provided a practical work-around which was suitable for the practises of the time. In modern times engineers employ extremely short periods of time, so the problem naturally reappears despite the efforts of calculus. Another proposal by philosophers and mathematicians, has been to use infinitesimals. Infinitesimals allow that the apparent infinite change occurs within a non-zero duration of time (infinitesimal), but the actual change within that infinitesimal duration cannot be represented. In other words, each infinitesimal quantum of time may contain an unrepresentable change.

The problem though, is pretty much how Zeno represented it. The ideal (theoretical) representation of time and space is as continuous. However, our descriptions of how things move in real practise represent discrete units of space and time. So there is a fundamental incompatibility between how we describe our observations of things in practise, and how we explain or interpret our observations through mathematical theory. There has been some attempts to make the mathematical theory of continuity consistent with the observations of discrete units (quanta), but the proposals employed for mathematizing quanta are completely ideal, not based in any empirical principles of real discrete quanta of space or time. Until we take notice of the reality of how space and time are actually quantized in real discrete units, these attempts, such as limits and infinitesimals, will remain ideals of theory which do not adequately represent the quanta of reality.

For an analogy, consider how the ancient people modeled the orbits of the planets as eternal circular motions (perfect circles which by that perfection are eternal) which are described by Aristotle. This was the ideal which was employed, but it did not adequately represent reality. Within the practise of modeling the orbits, exceptions (retrogrades etc.) were incorporated to account for the fact that the reality was not as the ideal represented it. Until it is fully acknowledged, and recognized, that reality is not as the ideal (as indicated by the need for exceptions), people just do not get motivated to determine the real representation.

He was a Q-physicist who left the profession to play his guitar, as he explained to me. — jgill

So, why not do both? And participate here in his spare time.

Thanks Andrew, I especially like this part:

The assumption that something truly infinite exists in nature underlies every physics course I’ve ever taught at MIT — Infinity Is a Beautiful Concept – And It’s Ruining Physics - Max Tegmark

This is completely opposed to what Aristotle presumed himself to have demonstrated, that it is impossible that anything actual is infinite. The closest he gets to an actual infinite, is "eternal", and he even proposes principles which demonstrate that anything eternal must be actual. This is interesting because it places "eternal" (actual) into a different category from "infinite" (potential). The result is that the conception of "eternal" which is derived from Aristotle's principles means roughly "outside of time", because the eternal thing cannot be infinite, being actual rather than potential. However, a commonly used meaning of "eternal" is "infinite time". This is incoherent by Aristotle's principles.

Do you deny that gravity holding a person down to earth in one situation and accelerating the descent of a person in free fall in another situation exemplifies gravity doing two different things in two different situations? — ucarr

Yes I deny that, and I'm very surprised that you do not understand. It is the person who is doing two different things, walking on the earth in one case, and falling in the other, gravity is doing the same thing in both cases.

ince, when we look at integers 6 and 8 and understand there is no temporal relationship connecting them, as per the definition of ordinality, and that therefore, if we replace 6 and 8 with before and after, and if we maintain our understanding of the context to be ordinal, then claiming before and after have a temporal relationship amounts to conflating two distinct categories (contexts). — ucarr

I'm afraid not ucarr, you are being ridiculous again. Before and after have completely different meaning from six and eight. By analogy, would you say let's switch green and red, in the context of colour, and see that green is the same thing as red. Come on.

Do you deny this? — ucarr

Yes I deny that, for the reasons already given. Causation is one type of ordinality, ordinal numbers is another type. "Ordinal" is not restricted to numbers. It can mean a position in any type of series, or concerning any order. So contrary to what you say, the temporal order of cause and effect is an ordinality.

Do you acknowledge that your above affirmation raises the possibility that humans, in making the effort to understand phenomena causally, might be projecting a rational conceptualization of the mind onto the world?

Do you acknowledge such a possibility suggests the existence of evidence supporting David Hume's attack on rationality_causality? — ucarr

Yes, that's generally how conceptualization works, and why human knowledge is fallible. I respect Hume's attack on causality and recognize the fallibility of human knowledge. As I said, you can define "causation" however you want. But obviously some ways are more useful than others, and if you deny temporality from the definition I think you end up with a useless form of "causality".

Might this be a motivation for projecting artificial temporal antecedence onto observed phenomena? — ucarr

The motivation is usefulness. And, since assigning temporal antecedence to the cause proves to be a very useful principle, and denying temporal antecedence would produce a useless conception, the choice is an obvious one.

In our examination of this bacterial infection, it should be noted no symptoms appear before the bacterial content is high-volume. This time lag, known as the incubation period, holds standard to medical diagnosis and treatment of sickness.

Since they don't appear during the incubation period, can we claim bacterial infection before high-volume is an antecedent cause of symptoms? — ucarr

Sorry, I don't follow the question. I think your example is too complex, too many factors involved which need to be considered, which are not stated in the example.

Do you think there is any thing in the account you quote at length that is at odds with the account of realism I just gave? — Banno

Try this:

Yet it is important to realise that the naïve sense in which we understand ourselves, and the objects of our perception, to exist, is in reality dependent upon the constructive activities of our consciousness many of which are below the threshhold of conscious awareness.

as opposed to this:

It holds first off that there are things in the world, and secondly that these things have at least some properties that are not dependent on us. — Banno

Notice in Wayfarer's passage "dependent upon the constructive activities of our consciousness", and your quote "not dependent on us". That is an ontological difference in how we understand "things".

but this is not idealism in its strictest sense, insofar as external material reality is tacitly granted as a necessary condition. — Mww

Idealism, even in its strict sense grants external reality, or else it would be reducible to solipsism. What a strict idealist (like Berkeley) would deny is that external reality is properly characterized as "material", insisting that it would be better characterized as "formal", or "ideal". This is why Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason proposes an idealism, by assigning to the proposed independent noumena the classification of "intelligible objects" rather than matter.

What happens to the various idealisms, how people get lost within, and cannot find their way because idealisms begin to look incoherent, is that it is necessary to posit something as a medium which separates the ideas of one mind from the ideas of another, or the intelligible objects of my mind from the intelligible objects of the external world. The simple solution is to posit something like matter as the medium of separation. But this results in dualism. It is this complexity of dualism, which idealism necessitates as a result of the separation between my ideas and other ideas, which deters people from idealism. Reality is just too difficult, complex, so they do not go down that road where idealism leads to dualism.

Yes, that's right. Here's the paper for anyone else interested. — Andrew M

There was a member here, active a couple years ago, I can't remember the name, but a self-proclaimed physicist who was big on this time reversal stuff. I think the fact that processes at the quantum level might be understood as reversible is simply a reflection of a fundamental misrepresentation of mass.

Cantor's proof (by contradiction) shows that the set of real numbers is uncountable and thus can't be enumerated. Since the set of real numbers can't be enumerated, the diagonalized number therefore can't be computed. A similar point is made by Carl Mummert (a professor of computing and mathematics) on Mathematics Stack Exchange. — Andrew M

What do you think this means, to assume numbers which cannot be counted nor computed? To me it's a form of unintelligibility, to say that there are numbers which cannot be accessed by us, or used in any way. Supposing that such a conclusion would be a logical consequence of the axioms assumed, then why would we assume axioms which produce the conclusion that there are numbers which cannot be accessed by us? As real numbers, being implied by our mathematical axioms, this would indicate that there are aspects of reality which we cannot access, grasp. apprehend, or understand in any way, which correspond with these numbers which cannot be accessed.

Since axioms are produced by mathematicians who practise pure mathematics, and those people who apply mathematics have a choice as to which axioms are used, it would appear like we ought not use axioms like these, which necessitate that aspects of reality will be unintelligible to us. Instead, we ought to look for axioms which would render all of reality as intelligible.

Do you see a difference between being held to the ground by gravity and accelerating-due-to-gravity to the ground while free-falling through space? — ucarr

With respect to what the gravity is doing in the two scenarios, there is no difference. In other words, the cause is the same in the two, but the effect is different due to the same type of cause acting in different situations.

Okay. So, you think cause and effect -- even when contextualized by ordinality instead of by temporal antecedence -- only has coherence when cause is prior in time to effect? — ucarr

I don't see how you are understanding your categories. Cause/effect is a type of ordinality, but this does not mean that all ordinalities are causal. Cause and effect are contextualized by ordinality, but the ordinality in this case is defined as a temporal ordinality. That eight is a greater quantity than six is a different type of ordinality, which does not imply temporality. But causation is a different type of ordinality from quantity because the terms of that specific form of ordinality are defined by temporality, before and after, rather than by quantity.

Okay. So, you think cause and effect – even when manifesting simultaneously – must always be understood in terms of temporal antecedence in order to have coherence? — ucarr

Yes. if cause and effect manifested simultaneously we would not be able to distinguish which is the cause, and which is the effect because the temporal relationship of cause/effect, by which we would determine one is the cause, and the other the effect would not exist.

So in your example of bacterial infection.. The symptoms are the body's (immune system's) reaction to a high volume of bacteria. The high volume of bacteria is observed to be temporally prior to the reaction (symptoms) therefore affirmed to be the cause. If the two suddenly occurred in a truly simultaneous way, we could not say that one caused the other, the occurrences would be said to be coincidental. And if we try to assign cause and effect to two coincidental occurrences we have no way of knowing which is the cause and which is the effect.

I think of a blue cube in my mind, even if this comes from sense impressions earlier, what does it mean to be "in my mind"? — schopenhauer1

Right, what does it mean for something to be in the mind? It makes sense to say it, and everyone understands when it is said, but no one really seems to know what it means.

I think truth is elusive to humans and generally avoid people who think they possess it. — Tom Storm

You'd better avoid me then, because I, as the antagonist of Socrates, happen to know everything.

Not at all. I know many rich socialists. It's a thing - we even have the expression Bollinger Socialism.

What matters is what people do not the theories they claim to believe. Don't you think? — Tom Storm

That's what I said early, there's a lot of hypocrisy involved when people classify themselves. It's better to judge by a person's actions rather than what they claim to be. So I said, despite no one confessing to be idealist, I've seen a lot of closet idealism in this forum. That is generally attributable to the fact that idealist premises produce the best arguments but idealism is associated with religion, which is frowned upon. So people tend to argue from idealist world views, and idealist premises, all the while insisting that they are not idealist. I think perhaps we can blame Wittgenstein for setting this example.

Can you demonstrate that idealists are less individualist or materialistic? — Tom Storm

That idealism is commonly opposed with materialism would be a good indication that idealists are less materialistic. Don't you think?

You had to reach to Tel Aviv university to find a page closer to your definition? — noAxioms

That's a hell of a lot better than Wikipedia.

This is blatantly wrong. For one, the appearance of the sun revolving around the Earth once a day is not explained by the Earth revolving around the sun once a day any more than we’re revolving around all those other objects (moon, stars, etc) once a day. Secondly, the sun revolving around the Earth (once a year) violates basic Newtonian physics (lacking a reaction for the action of the sun). Newton’s laws were not in place back then so Galileo wouldn’t have known that.
Anyway, his pitch of principle of relativity used a boat’s relation to the water as the example, not celestial mechanics. The idea was that one could not tell from inside the boat whether the boat was moving relative to the water or not. — noAxioms

You clearly have not read any of Galileo's material, and continue to demonstrate that you do not know what you are talking about.

This statement is especially ambiguous. Which of them is moving/immobile relative to what exactly? — noAxioms

One body relative to the other body, is what is being discussed. Obviously, each is moving and neither is immobile. That it is impossible to determine that either one is immobile, yet possible to say that each is moving, implies that neither is immobile. And of course this becomes more obvious when the number of objects considered relative to each other is increased.

Humans tend to imply the ground since that’s their lifelong reference, but the implication is begging in this context. — noAxioms

Why do you incessantly resist and deny the point of the principle of relativity? The basic principle is that nothing is immobile (nothing is at rest). The principle of relativity renders the concept of "at rest" as obsolete. That is what allowed Newton to apply his first law of motion. The traditional concept of "at rest" which implied that a body had to be acted upon to be moved, is replaced with "uniform motion" by Newton, because by the principle of relativity "at rest" is not a valid concept. Then through extension of Newton's first law, a rest frame, or inertial frame, can be derived from any body displaying uniform motion because "uniform motion" is the concept which has take the place of "at rest".

I’m referencing far more reputable sources than are you. — noAxioms

Yeah Wikipedia, great source.

Firstly, what makes you think that there is an objective matter of fact as to whether an effect was intended or accidental? Secondly, if there are such facts, then what do those facts consist of? — sime

It doesn't matter as to whether there is such an objective matter of fact. What matters is that it's a useful distinction which demonstrates your model as faulty. The example demonstrates this. The man walks for the purpose of health. Health is the man's purpose for walking. If the man then proceeds to get an injury and dies from walking, we cannot conclude that getting sick and dying was the purpose of his walking, because this is contrary to his true purpose.

That it is a "subjective fact" that he was walking for his health, rather than an objective fact, is irrelevant to the reality of the situation. And as philosophers, what we are trying to understand is the reality of the situation. We are not attempting to constrain "reality" to objective fact, when reality also consists of subjective facts.

If we narrowly interpret the meaning of an "intention" as referring only to the agent's internal state, , then intentions as such cannot be teleological, for the agent's actions are explainable without final causes. — sime

No the actions are not explainable without final cause. That's the point to the example of accidents. Such an explanation would be wrong, like in a court of law when they demonstrate from the physical evidence that the perpetrator's intentions were X, when in reality the intentions were Y. The explanation is wrong, plain and simple.

So in order for intentions to be considered teleological, one must consider both what is going on inside the agent as well as the environmental effects that the agent's behaviour produces, - effects which play no causal role in the agent's history of decision-making. Yet this understanding of 'intentionality' as a type of relationship between the agent's behaviour and the environmental biproducts of his actions, in turn implies that the agent is fallible with regards to knowing what his intentions are. For who now gets to decide what the agent truly intended? — sime

Again, this is wrong. The environmental effects produced ny the intentional action cannot enter into a true understanding of the agent's intentions, because they mislead, as I just explained. The only things which can enter into such a determination are the precedent conditions. This is the only way to give a true representation of the position which the agent is in at the time. The agent, at the time does not have access to the outcome of the actions being deliberated on, therefore in understanding the agent's mind-set (intentions) at that time we cannot allow the outcome of the agent's actions to influence our judgement, because the outcome might be totally inconsistent with the intention, as explained. This becomes extremely relevant when the agent's intent is to deceive. In this case, the actions are intended to mislead.

Note that the problem of "Inverse Reinforcement Learning" is the problem of inferring an agent's overall goals from a history of the agent's behaviour, including the environmental consequences it's actions. It is a chicken-and-egg paradox; In order for observers to estimate an agent's overall goals given a history of it's behaviour, they must assume that the effects of the agent's actions were in accordance with it's intentions, that is to say, they must assume that the agent is an expert who understands his environment. But how can it be known whether the agent is an expert? Only by assuming what the agent's goals are :)

This implies that teleological concepts are either semantically or epistemically under-determined. — sime

Yes, this is exactly the problem. That teleological concepts are "under-determined" is very obvious to me, because of the subjective nature. Is it not obvious to you?

Therefore, in the event that Alice decides not to press the button, i.e. that event NOT A occurs, shouldn't Alice be open to the possibility that her decision not to press A was the effect of Bob deciding on NOT B 'before' Alice made her decision? — sime

No, if Alice believes that pushing A will cause Bob to push B, as your premise states, then there is no stated premise which denies Bob from pushing B even without Alice pushing A. You'd need to state that B occurs if and only if A. But then B is completely dependent (causally) on A, and there is no indication that not B could cause not A, as this would require a reversal of the dependence, and there is no statement of A if and only if B. Therefore Alice is continually free to push A at any moment of time, and the fact that Bob has not yet pushed B has no relevance because Alice's choice is dependent on something else.

the notion of anyone disagreeing with you is obviously absurd, — Isaac

Sure seems absurd to me, obviously.

Okay. The gravitational field doesn't predate the ocean. So, at all times, the ocean currents are under influence of both earth and moon gravitational fields.

Does the strengthening gravitational field predate the rising tide?

The ocean tide rises with the progressively closing approach of moon to earth. As strengthening field intensifies, ocean tide heightens simultaneously. There is no time lag in the action-at-a-distance of the gravitational field. Were that the case, when a suicide jumps from the bridge, they would hover in the air for a positive interval of time before accelerating towards the ground. — ucarr

All this makes no sense to me. The suicide jumper is acted on by gravity before jumping. And, the "action-at-a-distance" of gravity is understood to not be instantaneous. The force of gravity, like light, takes time to traverse space. And I'd advise you not to get your images of physical actions from cartoons. Ever see the one where they cut a circle in the floor around a person, then the person just hangs there for a few frames before falling?

Have you seen this hover-in-the-air hesitation first-hand in your own experience? — ucarr

Come on ucarr, you're being ridiculous. Obviously gravity is acting on the person prior to falling over the edge. Why would you think that gravity would only avt after the person steps ove the edge?

Can you cite a definition of cause and effect that explicitly incorporates temporal antecedence?
4 hours ago — ucarr

Please don't waste my time, ucarr. If you do not believe me that causation is a temporal concept then do your own research, and find out how the term is used. Then get back to me with what you find. You know, asking me for a definition is pointless, because I can go through the web and pick and choose what I want to reproduce for you. I do not deny that one might define causality such that it is not necessary for the cause to be prior in time to the effect. What I've said is that this would render causation as incoherent and unintelligible.

Here's what Wikipedia says about causality in physics:

"Causality means that an effect can not occur from a cause which is not in the back (past) light cone of that event. Similarly, a cause can not have an effect outside it's front (future) light cone."

Further:

"Such a process can be regarded as a cause. Causality is not inherently implied in equations of motion, but postulated as an additional constraint that needs to be satisfied (i.e. a cause always precedes its effect)."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality_(physics)

Here's some further reading material for you. If you read some of this stuff you'll see that most traditional definitions of causality list temporal precedence as a necessary condition . However, some might allow for simultaneity, but as I said this renders causation as unintelligible because then there is no true principle to distinguish cause from effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_Hill_criteria#:~:text=Temporality%3A%20The%20effect%20has%20to,greater%20incidence%20of%20the%20effect.

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1007/1007.2449.pdf

So, we can interpret that the vote comes from him. :eyes: — javi2541997

Right, judge for yourself. Am I an honest voter, or a troll?

I've often heard the view I subscribe to called model-dependant realism, but I don't know if that's the right term. — Isaac

Why didn't you vote idealist then? Model-dependent realism, as a manifestation of Platonist mathematics in conjunction with idealist physics, is the epitome of idealism.

I think this site Is full of closet idealist. Even Banno displays idealist tendencies when discussing mathematics and bivalent logic. There's a special form of hypocrisy which Wittgenstein demonstrates well, and it seems to have caught on with many philosophers, and that is to use idealist premises to produce idealist arguments while all the time asserting that idealism is unacceptable. Hmmm.

The gravitational field of earth's moon causes the rising and falling of ocean tides. Do you say that the moon's gravitational field predates the oceans covering the earth? — ucarr

No, if the gravitational field is the cause of the tides, it predate the tides, not necessarily the oceans.

Do you instead acknowledge that before creation of the material universe, cause and effect were temporally sequential whereas, in the wake of said material creation, cause and effect are not always sequential? — ucarr

No, that is illogical, cause and effect are always sequential by definition, that's the essence of causation.

I've already agreed that ordinal relations are not necessarily temporal. Causation is a temporal relation though. This points to my first premise. When we observe, and conclude through inductive reasoning, that material things are caused, what "cause" means is something prior in time. So we cannot change the meaning of "cause" here unless we get empirical evidence of a cause which is not temporal. Removing the temporal essence of "cause" would destroy the soundness of the argument.

Upon consideration of the above essentials, your thesis gives highest priority to time. It is the principle essential, ranking above even God. This must be so since God cannot exist or take action without the sanctioning empowerment of time, a principle essential that predates God. — ucarr

Yes, this is because God is defined as being "actual", and time is prerequisite for acting.

Is idealism here the love that dare not speak its name? Are the idealists in their cupboard, hiding their true feelings behind excuses and lack of commitment? Or do these forums disproportionately attract contrarians? — Banno

There. Happy now?

But "Final causes" are representable in terms of bog standard causation without invoking teleological purposes, as demonstrated by reinforcement-learning algorithms that train a robot to implement "goal seeking" behaviour via iterative exploration and feedback . In this case, one might say that the "final cause" of the trained agent's behaviour is the trained evaluation function in the agent's brain that maps representations of possible world states to their estimated desirability. In other words, the final cause refers not to the actual goal-state in the real world that observers might colloquially say the learning agent "strives towards", but to the agent's behavioural policy and reward function that drive the agents behaviour in a mechanistic forward-chain of causation from an initial cause in a manner that is teleologically blind. — sime

As I explained already, this does not give a true representation of "final cause" because it provides no real basis for a distinction between consequences which are intended, and consequences which are accidental. In other words, if final cause was truly determinable from an agent's behaviour, all accidental acts by the agent would necessarily be intentional acts.

If you accept the distinction between purposes and causes, then there is no case for the concept of causation to answer to regarding the distinction between intentions and accidents. For that's purely a matter of teleology and not causation. — sime

Exactly, and that's why the model fails. Final cause is teleological purpose, by definition. You give me a model without purpose and teleology therefore your model models something other than final cause.

A is at the beginning :) Either a "final cause" is used to refer to a bog-standard initial cause that implies none of the teleological controversy commonly associated with aristotolean "final causes", else "final cause" refers to a teleological concept such as a purpose that is defined in relation to a goal state that is external to an agent's brain and that plays no causal role in the agent's behaviour, despite the fact the agent's behaviour converges towards the goal state. — sime

Why do you think that "purpose" ought to be defined in "a goal state that is external to an agent's brain"? Obviously, the goal which motivates (causes) one to act is within the agent's mind, and nowhere else. Furthermore, the truth and reality of acting toward goals is that such actions are not always successful. So the external state which is brought into being (caused) by the agent's actions is not necessarily consistent with the goal which motivated the action. Therefore the only true representation of the motivating factors (causes), must be to represent what is in the agent's mind.

I suspect you are deviating from the commonly accepted notion of "final cause". The whole point of the "finality" in "final cause" is to imply that teleological concepts are necessary for explaining the effects of causation, which isn't the case in the dominoes example; teleology is explainable in terms of purposeless causation, as AI programmers demonstrate. But causation isn't explainable in terms of teleology. To mix up the concepts leads to confusion. — sime

You "suspect" something, but according to what I've stated above, you are obviously quite wrong in your suspicious mind. "Final cause" was proposed as a means toward understanding the purpose behind intentional actions, as the cause of these acts. It's obviously not intended as a means toward understanding the effects, because the effects are plainly observable and do not require teleology.

Take Aristotle's example. Why is the man walking? To be healthy. The action is walking, the cause is the man's desire to be healthy. Whether or not the man actually is healthy or becomes healthy from walking doesn't even enter the scenario. We see him walking, we ask for the cause of him walking, and it is his idea (goal), to be healthy, which is the cause. We cannot judge teleology from the effects because often the person's ideas and beliefs are incorrect. Therefore the effects do not properly reflect the cause in a logical way. The man might become ill from walking, and we would never know that the cause of him walking was to be healthy, unless he told someone this.

Which demonstrates the point i was trying to make, that what we call the "temporal order" has to be distinguished from the "causal order". That A causes B but not vice versa, doesn't necessitate that A occurs before B in every frame of reference. Also recall the time-symmetry of microphysical laws, models of backward causation etc. — sime

Since temporal order is what defines causation, separating the two only renders causation as unintelligible.

So God causing the physical-material universe out of time does not cohere with the axiom: causation cannot occur outside time? Theological God is thus incoherent with causation? — ucarr

Let me try again.

As I explained earlier in the thread, the conventional conception of time bases the passing of time in physical (material) activity. By this conception of "time", God is outside of time. And so the theological conception of God, as outside of "time" is coherent on this conception of "time".

Where the problem lies is that God is understood to be actual, and the acting cause of material existence. "Acting", and "cause" are conceptions which imply the passing of time. So there is an inconsistency. God cannot be both outside time, and also an acting cause.

Since the logic which dictates the necessity of God, as an acting cause prior to material (physical) existence is sound, then we ought to conclude that God is not outside of time. So we can see that it is the conventional conception of "time", which forces the conclusion that God is outside of time, and this conception is therefore faulty. It is only in relation to the faulty conception of "time" that God is said to be outside of time. God is outside of time by that definition of time, but since this creates inconsistency or incoherency, the definition of time is incorrect, and God is not outside a true definition of time.

can we assume someone can speak or write a logical statement that necessarily leads to:

the conclusion that there must be a cause prior in time to all material (physical) things. (?) — ucarr

Yes, I went through this logic already. We know through observation and induction that each and every material thing has a cause. The cause of a material thing is prior in time to the existence of that material thing. Therefore there is a cause prior in time to all material things.

Okay. Regarding the ordering of reality, if something is logically prior to time, then its priority over time is by a standard of measure not temporal? — ucarr

I really don't know, but obviously not temporal. Someone would have to show me the logical order before I could make the judgement as to what is demonstrated by it. I just stated that as a possibility.

In the above quote priority is temporal? — ucarr

Yes, because we were talking about "cause", and "cause" implies a temporal order.

So time is the product of physical activity is a false premise? — ucarr

Correct.

So God exists and acts within time is your main premise? — ucarr

For that part of the argument. However that God exists and acts within time are conclusions drawn from the preceding part, which we already discussed.

God’s existence in time is non-physical whereas human existence in time is physical? — ucarr

Yes, humans are physical (material) beings. God as the cause of material (physical) existence cannot be a material (physical) being, otherwise God would be the cause of Himself, which is incoherent.

Edit: I had to delete my reply to the following questions because I misunderstood:

So God causing the physical-material universe out of time does not cohere with the axiom: causation cannot occur outside time? Theological God is thus incoherent with causation? — ucarr

I had to delete many of his low quality comments every day. The staff discussed his case several times and we were generally in agreement.

We went out of our way to keep him here, but he just couldn’t do what we asked him to. — Jamal

I sometimes (but more often not) enjoyed interaction with Agent Smith. I completely agree that flagrantly causing extra work for the moderators is intolerable, and that's a principle with no exceptions regardless of the rationale.

...and that causation is still undergoing formalization... — sime

If this is true, it's proof that there is no formalized definition of "cause".

And, since there are two distinct principal types of causation, efficient and final, there will never be an acceptable formalization of causation until the relationship between the two is represented properly. Formalization of one principal type of causation while excluding the other principal type of causation does not give a true formalization.

Causal models merely express the concept that doing something leads to observations that otherwise wouldn't occur. — sime

This is exactly why a formalization is impossible, and causation will always be philosophical rather than scientific. This provides no basis toward understanding the cause of "doing something". So, a person does something and this causes something which otherwise wouldn't occur. If we want to know whether the thing which otherwise wouldn't have occurred is intentional, or accidental, we need a much better principle than this. And if you claim that this is irrelevant to "causation", all that matters is whether the thing otherwise wouldn't occur, you fail to properly represent "final cause" in your formalization, and you provide no principles for excluding accidents from our actions. However, it's quite obvious that the effort to exclude accidents is very important.

Causal models essentially define causes as being 'initial' with respect to the causal orders they define or describe, making "final causes" an oxymoron in the sense of the causal order. — sime

The use of "final" in "final cause" seems to be misleading you. "Final" is used in the sense of "the end", and "end" is used in the sense of "the goal" or "objective". The terms "end", and "final" are used when referring to the goal or objective because the intentional cause is what puts an end to a chain of efficient causes when looking backward in time. So if D caused E, and C caused D, B caused C, and A caused B, we can put an end to that causal chain by determining the intentional act which caused A. It is called "the end", or "final" cause because it puts an end to the causal chain, finality.

Take a chain of dominoes for example. We look at the last fallen domino and see that the one falling prior to it caused it to fall. Then the one prior to that one caused it to fall. When we continue to follow this chain of causation, we find the intentional act which started the process, and say that this is "the final cause", because it puts an end to that causal chain. The terminology is derived from our habit of ordering things from the present, and looking backward in time, so that the causes nearest to us at present appear first, and the furthest are last.

Nevertheless, causal models have nothing to say regarding the order and linearity of time itself unless their variables are given additional temporal parameterization. All that they demand is that causes are considered to be controllable preconditions of their effects, not that causes are necessarily temporally prior to their effects in some absolute sense, which might well be considered a matter of perspective. — sime

This I do not understand at all. The fact that accidents are still considered to be caused, demonstrates that causes are not necessarily "considered to be controllable preconditions". Furthermore, I've never heard of a causal model which allows for a cause to be after its effect. You simply create ambiguity here by saying "in some absolute sense" because the principle of relativity of simultaneity allows that from the perspective of different frames of reference, the temporal order of two events may be reversed.

The fact that you say the cause is a "precondition" of the effect, implies a temporal order in itself. So to say that causes are not necessarily temporally prior to their effects is blatant contradiction whether or not you qualify this with "in some absolute sense".

I understand Aristotle's definition of a 'final cause', but it makes no sense to me to muddle such "final causes" with the "causes" meant by the modern scientific definition of "causes" that refer to experimental inventions that go on to produce measurable effects. — sime

You don't seem to understand causation sime. There is no scientific definition of cause. Cause is a philosophical concept.

Since, by your declaration, logical priority ≠ temporal causality, it seems to follow that a realm of ideal forms exemplifies your statement that:

...we have an inductive principle that there is a cause prior to every material thing.
— Metaphysician Undercover

Furthermore, it seems to follow that this realm of ideal forms, being outside time because it timelessly causes material objects to exist, holds possession of a metaphysical identity in the sense that it is beyond both the temporal and the physical. — ucarr

No, not at all. A cause, as I painstakingly explained, cannot be outside of time.

Furthermore, you seem to be implying time is physical. — ucarr

No, not at all. As I explained, the idea that time is physical is what leads to the conclusion that God is outside time, God being the immaterial cause of the physical. This renders "God" as unintelligible, incoherent, as a cause, or act which is outside of time. Since logic indicates that the material (or physical) world must have a cause, we must conclude that time is not material (or physical).

Since you appear to be having difficulty let me restate the principles which I've been trying to explain.. Tell me what you don't understand.
1. Logic produces the conclusion that there must be a cause prior in time to all material (physical) things. This cause cannot be material (physical) because it is prior in time to material (physical) things. Theologians call this "God".
2. If time is the product of physical activity then God must be outside of time.
3. As an actual cause, it is impossible that God is outside of time.
4. Therefore time as well as God must be prior to material (physical) things, and is not material (physical).