You are making conclusions based on data that proves you "to know the truth", when in physics we still don't have data to complete a unification theory. — Christoffer

This is a very confused claim. First, physics uses the hypothetico-deductive method, not strict deduction. So, physics never knows with the kind of certainty that strict deduction brings. Second, we are not doing physics, so what physics does or does not know is totally irrelevant.

As I keep repeating, there are only two valid forms of objection to a strict deduction: (1) show that a premise is false, or (2) show that a logical move is invalid.

We know that the universe expanded quickly, referred to the Big Bang, we don't know what came before, we have no data to conclude what the cause was so we don't know what was before. — Christoffer

Again, if you read the proofs, you would know that this entire line of objection is equally irrelevant. As I said last time, these proofs use concurrent, not time-sequenced, causality. So, as I also said last time, the nature of time and the history of the cosmos are irrelevant. If you actually read the proofs you would see that no assumption is made about how the universe began, or even that it did begin.

Since you are still not making proper objections because you have not read the proofs, I will wait until you have read the proofs to continue.

I'm not disputing your point, I'm disputing its relevance. I think that your interpretation of Rovelli was uncharitable. — S

That is possible. What would a charitable reading be?

You would have seen this if you read a few more sentences in the SEP article. Somehow, you missed the part of the article rebutting Rovelli. — Dfpolis

More uncharitable assumptions. Thanks. But you're mistaken. I did read further, and I didn't miss anything. — S

I was being charitable -- assuming you did not read Andrea Falcon's rebuttal of Rovelli's claim.

Other than saying that I am uncharitable, in some unspecified way, in my interpretation of Rovelli, what point do you wish to make?

My intention wasn't to discuss the general ideas of each philosopher, but only those ideas relevant to the topic of teleology. — S

I understand that that was your intention, but your execution was much broader. The Rovelli quotation did not focus on teleology, but on broad and unnamed errors, somehow related to the rejection of Democritus, that slowed, in some unspecified way, the advance of knowledge. And, as it turns out, Democritus was wrong, and Aristotle right.

Within philosophy, the connection between teleology and Aristotle is well known, and its faults are well known also. — S

Alleged faults. I dealt with many in my OP. If you wish to argue some, have at it.

So, it is unclear which, if any, of Aristotle's ideas created "obstacles to the growth of knowledge." — Dfpolis

The misguided emphasis on seeking teleological, or "final cause", explanations. The key word here is "explanation", by the way. — S

An actual, historical example of which would be? I am fairly conversant with the history of medieval and modern science and I can think of no glaring example. Rather, what I see is that with once the non-logical works of Aristotle became available in West in the latter 12th c., there were rapid advances in physics. Grosseteste studied optics and laid down the canons of the scientific method by 1235. Others developed the ideas of inertia and instantaneous velocity, developed the vector decomposition of forces, discovered what we now call Newton's first law and wrote standard texts on mathematical physics.

So, precisely who was delayed by this alleged "obstacle"?

Now imagine a person A who comes across T's. What would be the rational thing to do? To consider two explanations:

1. Coincidence
2. Teleology

You're ignoring option 1 in favor of 2 and that's a mistake. Isn't it? — TheMadFool

I am not ignoring coincidence. I agree that there are coincidences in nature. The question is, what constitutes a coincidence? If we are to apply the term objectively, we need a good, empirically applicable definition.

It is clear, both in your example and in nature that the coincidences we see are not ontologically random, but deterministic. In nature, physics is deterministic with the possible except ion of quantum observations -- and they could not occur before the advent of intelligent observers. In your example, the machine is constrained to act according to the set of rules y. Thus, in neither case are the "coincidences" ontologically random.

Another possible approach to distinguishing coincidences from end-driven events might be to look at success rates. This also fails. In the generate and test strategy of AI, "random" solutions are generated, many of which fail. Still the generation of every solution serves the end of finding one that will satisfy the test criteria.

So, what makes events coincidences? It seems to me that what makes an event a coincidence is quite subjective, namely that we are unable to predict them. Our inability to predict them is not an objective property, and does not mean that they are not part of a larger plan. It is logically possible, for example, that the engineer who wrote the set of rules y did so intending that some pieces would fit and others not.

So, unless you can provide an objective definition of "coincidence" that logically excludes the possibility of more complex ends, it is unclear that being a "coincidence" is logically incompatible with serving an end.

Well so conferring new value via re-purposing is something different than instrinsic purpose/teleology. Are you implying here that the ends of things [e.g. the end of an enzyme - to catalyze reaction, the end of a seed is to become a plant] are human designated? — aporiap

Yes, it is different because insensate nature acts deterministically, while free-will creatures do not. Still, the new purpose also instantiates final causality

No, I am saying that we can take something with an intrinsic purpose, like an eagle, which has its own finality, and make it a symbol serving the end of natural unity; or sexuality, which is naturally ordered to reproduction, and make it an expression of love.

Of course. That is one reason free will is possible. There are multiple paths to human self-realization.

I don't understand this since we are speaking about objects here and not people. — aporiap

I am speaking of natural, empirically accessible, beings. Some have a deterministic finality, others do not.

I also think, if anything, a teleological framework would necessarily be limiting compared to a teleologically blank humanity since it rigidly identifies some set of ends as natural to an object/person. Humans wouldn't have the freedom to not self realize if their nature was to self-realize, for example. — aporiap

It is not that we can't reject our natural end, it is that doing so is ultimately self-destructive. Some people choose self-destructive behavior, which can be implicitly or explicitly suicidal.

As an aside, I see the notion of self-realization as fundamental to a natural law based ethics. What contributes to self-realization is morally good, what runs counter is morally bad. As social animals, self-realization has a strong social component.

I'm unsure what free will has to do with teleology. Secondly this is a human specific thing, free will doesn't have anything to do with physical systems, they cannot choose actions because they lack brains — aporiap

They are intimately related. Purely physical systems acting deterministically means that they are ordered to a single end. Free agents have a choice of ends. Most of the ends we choose are means to further ends, but ultimately we have a fundamental option that our intermediate ends are ordered to. We can opt for our natural (God-given) end of self-realization -- or we can opt against it, choosing an end that is (naturally) disordered -- for example, to acquire the greatest possible wealth.

A brain is a physical organ, subject to the deterministic universal laws of nature unless it is augmented by a subsystem capable of intentional operations such as awareness and commitment. (See my OP in https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4732/intentional-vs-material-reality-and-the-hard-problem.) So, animals that have brains, but lack an intentional subsystem also act deterministically.

Let's think about this in a different way. Teleology has been criticized for supposedly seeing a future state (the telos) as acting backward in time, pulling the present state into its future realization. Of course, that is not how it works. Rather, it works concurrently. My intention to get to the store acts at each moment of progress to guide my action in that moment. In the same way, the telos of a seed is a potential, not an actual state, and so not yet operational. So, it can not act here and now. Rather, the telos is immanent in the laws of nature operating on the present state. So, the laws of nature act like committed intentions.

The parallel structure of laws of nature tending to a determinate end and human intentionality tending to its committed end is the key to understanding problems ranging from the mind-body problem to Divine Providence.

Well my point in that excerpt was to just highlight that ends are not intrinsic to objects alone. A gene, for example, can NOT give rise to a protein all by itself, despite the function [or end] of a gene being to give rise to a protein. It's the gene plus the cellular machinery which gives rise to a protein. — aporiap

Of course. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Aristotle would seen substances (ostensible unities) as having ends, not their potential parts. He would see the potential parts of organisms as being ordered to the good of the whole.

But I think teleology definitely entails determinism or at least 'probabilistic determinism' [given initial conditions + context A --> 80% chance of P]. How else would ends be reproducibly met? — aporiap

As intrinsic, the accomplishment of ends are subject to the vagaries of accidental interactions with other beings working toward their own ends. Aristotle makes this point in his discussion of accidental events, using the example of a lender and debtor meeting, not because they intend to, but as the result of each going to the market for his own ends.

That said, a common objection to teleology is that it is anthropomorphic -- projecting human experience into mindless nature. You seem to be taking a contrary position, seeing ends in nature, but not in free human positions. Am I misreading you?

You are attaching attributes to what's at the end which is assuming you know what it is and how it works, — Christoffer

No, I am deducing attributes from the little that the proof shows us about the end of the line. We know that it is, In Aristotle's proof, the ultimate cause of change, or, in my meta-law argument, the ultimate conserver of the laws of nature. We also know that, to be the end of the line, it must explain itself. These are things the respective proofs allow us to know for a fact. So, no assumptions are involved.

And if there's a possibility that time is circular, if the cosmic collapse has a probability of being true, then there is no first mover or cause. — Christoffer

You seem to have no idea that the proofs involve concurrent, not time-sequenced causality, so that the nature of time and/or the history of the universe are totally irrelevant. If you read the proofs, you may be able to make relevant objections.

A deductive logical argument cannot be false and if it can be false you cannot claim it as truth, evidence or logic. — Christoffer

I have no idea what this sentence means. Deductive arguments can be unsound if (1) they have false premises, or (2) they involve invalid logical moves. If they have true premises and valid logic, their conclusions are invariable true. So, if you think the proofs fail you need to show either (1) they have false premises, or (2) they involve invalid logical moves. As you refuse to read the proofs, you can do neither.

Please get back to me when you've read at least one of the proofs and think you can do (1) or (2).

"Aristotle is adamant that, for a full range of cases, all four causes must be given in order to give an explanation. More explicitly, for a full range of cases, an explanation which fails to invoke all four causes is no explanation at all". Moreover, "Aristotle recognizes the explanatory primacy of the final cause over the efficient and material cause". — S

It is quite true that, when there is a final cause, it is, as the Scholastics insist, the cause of causes. If I chose to build a house, all of the other explanatory factors (form, materials and workers) are contingent on my end.

None of this contradicts the point I made, namely, that Aristotle explicitly states that some events have no final cause. He gives as examples an eclipse, and the meeting of a lender and debtor in the market where each has come for other reasons. You would have seen this if you read a few more sentences in the SEP article:

Aristotle is not committed to the view that everything has all four causes, let alone that everything has a final/formal cause. In the Metaphysics, for example, Aristotle says that an eclipse of the moon does not have a final cause (Metaph.1044 b 12). What happens when there is no final/formal cause like in the case of an eclipse of the moon? ... The interposition of the earth, that is, its coming in between the sun and the moon, is to be regarded as the efficient cause of the eclipse. Interestingly enough, Aristotle offers this efficient cause as the cause of the eclipse and that which has to be given in reply to the question “why?” (Metaph. 1044 b 13–15).

Somehow, you missed the part of the article rebutting Rovelli. Note also that this corrects the misimpression created when Andrea Falcon wrote (without textual reference), that "an explanation which fails to invoke all four causes is no explanation at all." Clearly, this is not to be taken literally, but in the sense that such an explanation is defective.

That's consistent with what Carlo Rovelli was talking about. He was talking about explanations. Both Plato and Aristotle were wrong on this one. — S

You have not made your case. Let's revisit Rovelli's text.

Plato and Aristotle were familiar with Democritus's ideas, and fought against them. They did so on behalf of other ideas, some of which were later, for centuries, to create obstacles to the growth of knowledge. — Reality Is Not What It Seems, by Carlo Rovelli

I have no desire to defend Plato, only to show that Rovelli's view of Aristotle is quite mistaken. Democritus was wrong, and wrong, inter alia, for the reasons Aristotle gave. Democritus argues against Zeno that we cannot divide distances in half indefinitely because there are atoma, "uncutable" particles. This confuses a mathematical operation, which Zeno is considering, with a physical operation. Even is there were atoma, they would not prevent us from reflecting on line segments shorter than their diameter. So, Democritus hypothesis fails in its primary function, which was to rebut Zeno.

Having made the atoma hypothesis, Democritus goes on to postulate that atoma are separated by nothing. Aristotle correctly showed that (1) Zeno's problem was mathematical rather than physical, and (2) that if there were atoma separated by nothing, they would be in contact.

Modern physics has vindicated Aristotle and rejected Democritus. The locality postulate of quantum field theory is a restatement of Aristotle's principle that remote action requires mediation because agents only act where they are. There are no indivisible atoma. The atoms of modern chemistry are composed of divisible parts. All of the elementary quanta of high energy physics can be transformed into other kinds of quanta. Space is not nothing. Rather, it is, in Dirac's electron theory, a plenum of negative energy electrons; in quantum field theory, filled with all possible quantum fields; and in general relativity the bearer of observable fields described by the energy-momentum and the metric tensors.

Thus, Democritus was wrong on every essential point, while the continuous media and local action views of Aristotle command the field.

Now for Rovelli's claim that some of Aristotle's ideas "were later, for centuries, to create obstacles to the growth of knowledge." The text you cite gives no examples, so I will address the commonly cited example, which is the idea that bodies fall with a speed proportional to their mass. A fair reading of the text shows that the context for this claim was the behavior of bodies in viscous media -- not in a vacuum. Further, the equilibrium speed of a similarly shaped body in a viscous medium is, according to Stoke's law, proportional to its mass -- just as Aristotle said.

Of course, later physicists over generalized Aristotle's physics just as they later over generalized Newton's.

So, it is unclear which, if any, of Aristotle's ideas created "obstacles to the growth of knowledge."

But if my attribution of motives to others is considered to be objective , then the motives of others must be describable in terms of behavioural regularity, for the personal feelings I have regarding other people's behaviour is subjective. — sime

That is the stance that behaviorists took. It shows the limits imposed on natural science by its Fundamental Abstraction. I discussed the FA in detail in https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4732/intentional-vs-material-reality-and-the-hard-problem.

We know subjectivity in others by analogy with our own experience, not by any sort of direct observation. Observing their behavior leads us to hypothesize their intentional state in analogy with our own. The problem with this is that there may be no analog for mental aberrations in our own subjective experience, and so we may utterly fail to understand irrational behavior.

So I can accept the reason/cause/motive distinction, but only if the subjective-objective distinction is rejected. Otherwise I cannot see how these distinctions can be maintained. — sime

Knowledge is inescapably a subject-object relation. There is invariably a knowing subject and a known object. However, the object is more complex than one might think. In experience we are informed not only of the objective object, of what we are we are looking at, but of the subjective object, of ourselves as looking at the objective object. For example, in seeing an apple. we are not only informed by and about the apple, but by and about ourselves, e.g. that we can see, be aware of what we see, etc. These are facts about the knowing subject, given to us as objective.

This is a point completely missed by Ryle in The Concept of Mind when he criticizes the notion of introspection. He fails to see that there are not two separate acts in knowing the other and in knowing our self knowing the other. Rather there is one act of knowing with a complex object that can be resolved by subsequent reflection.

Or, have I completely missed your point?

Both insisted on rejecting Democritus's naturalistic explanations, in favour of trying to understand the world in finalistic terms - believing, that is, that everything that happens has a purpose; a way of thinking that would reveal itself to be very misleading for understanding the ways of nature - or in terms of good and evil, confusing human issues with matters which do not relate to us. — Reality Is Not What It Seems, by Carlo Rovelli

Obviously, Carlo Rovelli is not very familiar with Aristotle. Aristotle explicitly states that not everything that happens, happens for an end. Rather he sees final causality as one of four distinct modes of explanation, and does not shy away from any of them. Among his many achievements was being the first mathematical physicist. (He correctly formulated the power law, P=Fv, and had a better understanding of motion in viscous media than Newton.)

The conclusion of the uncaused cause could mean anything, it could be a substance of particles that are unbound by spacetime and in that higher dimension produce our dimensional universe. — Christoffer

Not if you are logical. To be the end of the line of explanation, something must be self-explaining. That means that what it is entails that it is. Consequently, its essence cannot limit the unspecified ability to act which its existence. So, the end of the line must be omnipotent, which means it is not limited by space and time, or in any other way. It must be able to perform any possible act.

It could therefore just be a dead "nothing". — Christoffer

This is an irrational hypothesis. To be an explanation, it must act to effect what is explained.

So, for God to do any possible act, He must know all reality -- including us. — Dfpolis

Therefore, by the most logical conclusions of the only arguments that try to point to a God with pure deduction, the ontological argument, it doesn't point to there being any God aware of us. — Christoffer

You are confused. When we speak of lines of explanation, there is an empirical datum to be explained. For example, Aristotle's unmoved mover is the end of the line of explanation for observed change. My meta-law argument explains the observed persistence of physical objects.

Ontological arguments use no data, and therefore can only show how we must think of something to be consistent, and not that what is thought of actually exists.

There is no other evidence for any interaction between God and us or God and the universe. — Christoffer

You may repeat your faith claim as often as you wish, but doing so is irrational unless you are going to argue you case.

You did not look at either Aristotle's argument for an unmoved mover or mine for a self-conserving meta-law. Thus, you objections do not address either the truth of the premises or the validity of the logical moves. These are the only two ways to show that a proof fails. When you address one or the other, I will continue the discussion.

Consider the sentence "Animals eat in order to survive". How is this different from saying "survival tends to follow eating"? — sime

Each formulation projects the same fact set into a different conceptual subspace. As these conceptualizations do not contradict each other, there is no reason to reject one in favor of the other.

Is there a reason to keep both? I think there is. It is not merely that "survival tends to follow eating," there is a dynamic reason that not eating leads to death. "Tends to follow" speaks of correlation, not causality -- ignoring the dynamics of starvation. What it adds is the fact that survival is a correlate of nutrition.

"Animals eat in order to survive" speaks to a dynamic relation between eating and survival, telling us why eating is a "good thing." What it does not make explicit is that survival is an actual correlate of nutrition.

a given situation, to predict a person's motives is to predict their behaviour. — sime

I must disagree. We may have desires whose satisfaction we choose either to defer or not to satisfy at all. So, while motives and behavior my be correlated, there is no determinate relation between them.

Also, I am unsure how one would even start to predict all of a person's motives.

Teleology should therefore be considered true, or at least meaningless. — sime

I do not understand this sentence. Is there a misprint?

How does teleology without God work? — TheMadFool

There is a difference between the epistemological and ontological orders. We need make no assumption that God exists in order to understand that agents act for ends. On the other hand, as Aquinas argues in his Fifth Way, the fact that mindless agents act for ends is evidence for the existence of a guiding mind.

So, epistemologically, it is quite possible to conclude that agents act for ends without assuming God, but ontologically, mindless agents cannot act for ends without the existence of a guiding mind. So, you don't need to assume that God exists, but you can, but may not actually, conclude that God exists.

I also think you're conflating coincidence with teleology. Let me refer to the example of the spider web you gave in the last post. To say that spiders build webs to catch insects would be question begging - you're already assuming telos in that statement. — TheMadFool

No, there is an observable invariant connection, not a variable coincidence. When spiders weave webs, they don't then go away and do something else. The stay near by, usually in contact with the web, and respond to entangled insects by treating them as prey. If they have no webs, the web weaving species will die of starvation. Aristotle points out that one sign of teleological action is the preparation of means in advance of ends. Here the weaving of webs, the means of catching insects, is done in advance.

Of course, we understand the end of webs by analogy with our own experience of human ends. We see how we prepare means in order to accomplish ends, and understand that spiders are doing the same kind of thing. Those who reject teleology will say that this is anthropomorphic thinking, but why should that be objectionable? We and spiders are equally natural, so why should we not act in analogous ways? It would be anthropomorphic in a bad way if we concluded that spiders think in that same way as we do, but that is not our conclusion. To have an analogy is to have a situation that is partly the same and partly different. Here what is the same is acting for ends, and what is different is the mental wherewithal of the agents.

One explanation for spider webs and their ability to catch insects is simple coincidence. — TheMadFool

I think you are confusing how a means-end relation comes to be with the actual existence of the relation. It is not a coincidence that, however it came to pass, right now the building of webs is for the sake of catching insects.

Maybe some early spiders developed a mutation that caused them to secret a sticky substance and some insects were slowed by it long enough to be eaten. That might be seen as a "coincidence," but it is not. It is completely deterministic that the laws of nature, acting on the initial state of the cosmos, caused that mutation and give it survival value.

Dfpolis, thanks for this OP — aporiap

You are welcome.

For the simple reason that it just seems short sighted to ascribe one specific goal [or even a set of goals] to a physical object or biological entity [it's something like functional fixedness]. — aporiap

I don't think that the idea that agents act for ends requires that they only act for one end.

Also, I think part being a free agent is our ability to confer new value by re-purposing objects and capabilities. It is part of what Aquinas calls our participation in Divine Providence by reason. That is why I object to a narrow natural law ethics that does not allow for the legitimate creation of new ends.

Secondly, different objects can perform the same function — aporiap

Of course. That is one reason free will is possible. There are multiple paths to human self-realization.

It's not the object that intrinsically has an end or goal, its the context with the object and their relationships that makes the object repeatedly reach a particular end. — aporiap

This has to do with physical determinism vs. intentional freedom. If no free agent is involved, physical systems have only a single immanent line of action and so act deterministically. If there are agents able to conceive alternative lines of action, then multiple lines of action are immanent in the agents, and so we need not have deterministic time development.

I think I'd be fine with the idea of ends if they're restricted to a given contextual relationship [given the context: the setting of cold weather, the man who is cold, the blanket in the room -- the blanket will reach end of keeping man warm]. — aporiap

Are you thinking that the existence of ends entails determinism? I don't.

What I was referring to is that if I were to play devil's advocate with the idea of a god, it would in that case, most probably, be one who has no idea of our existence. — Christoffer

As the unmoved mover, uncaused cause, ultimate meta-law, etc., philosophically, God is the-end-of-the-line of explanation. To be the-end-of-the-line, God needs to be self-explaining. As things are explanations in virtue of what they are (their essences), what God is must entail that God is. Essences are the specification of what a thing can do, of its possible acts, while existence is the unspecified ability to act. So, God's essence can only entail His existence if the specification of His possible acts (His essence) places no limit on His possible acts. Thus, God, as the-end-of-the-line of explanation, must have an unlimited ability to act. If God were ignorant of some reality He could not execute well-informed acts on that reality. So, for God to do any possible act, He must know all reality -- including us.

I do not believe in god since there is no evidence for there to be — Christoffer

That is a very peculiar claim, given that we can only know that there is no evidence for x is to know that there is no x. Before we understood finger prints and DNA, a crime scene might be rife with evidence identifying the culprit, but investigators were unaware of it. Evidence is only evidence for those able to recognize and use it. So, if you know of no evidence for x, and do not know, independently, that there is no x, the most you can only claim rationally, "I see no reason for believing in x." Thus, using the non-recognition of evidence to categorical deny x is an argumentum in cirulares.

In the present case, the continuing existence of any and all reality is definitive evidence for the existence of God for those able to see its implications. What is here and now cannot actualize its potential existence at another space-time point, because it is here, not there. Thus, on-going existence requires a concurrent, on-going source of actualization for its explanation. This source is either explained by another or is self-explaining -- the end of the line of explanation. If it is explained by another, then, to avoid an infinite regress, we must have a self-explaining end of the line. This has been explicitly known for two and a half millennia -- since Aristotle formulated the unmoved mover argument in his Metaphysics.

But, the optimal function of a system or object can still reach its optimal form within the system it exists within at the moment. That, however, doesn't mean it has reached its final form. — Christoffer

The concept of a telos (end) is that of the reason a process is undertaken. This could be a final state, or it could be for someting that occurs before the final state, with the final state occurring only incidentally. Thus, spiders spin webs to catch prey, not to have the broken by random events.

As we do not have a workable quantum theory of gravity, it is premature to say, definitively, what the final physical state of the cosmos will be; however, if present indications are right, physically, the cosmos will end in a state of heat death. Still, knowing creation's final physical state says nothing of what will become of its intentional aspects. I have shown in another thread that physics has nothing to say about intentionality.

we, as we are now, are not the final form and not intended because we are still evolving. — Christoffer

This makes the assumption that intermediate states are unintended. Do you have an argument for this?

It seems clear to me, from reflecting on the art of story telling, that as much thought and intentionality can be put into the early and intermediate chapters and acts as into the climax. In fact, when I write, I am more interested in the psychology and dynamics that set the characters on a track than I am in where that track leads them. As a result, I have many unfinished stories.

An even more telling example is the work of a machine designer. She may well know that, eventually, her machine will on the scrap heap, but that is not her purpose in designing it. Her purpose revolves around what the machine can do between its production and its decommissioning.

Thus, there is no reason to think the purpose (telos) of the cosmos is its physical heat death.

But, the optimal function of a system or object can still reach its optimal form within the system it exists within at the moment — Christoffer

Yes, this is the point of the Punctuated Equilibrium view of evolution.

I recommend that you try and understand the conclusion drawn from my entire text instead of deconstructing singular sentences, that is not how the text should be read. — Christoffer

I agree, texts should be read as a whole. Still, the reasoning behind a holistic movement of thought is found in individual sentences. So, we need to examine its parts.

If a god has the all-power knowledge to create at an instant, knowing what is the optimal form of anything, that god would have created that form directly and not allow for evolutionary processes both in biology, — Christoffer

I think that this assumes something you are the verge of rejecting -- namely, the existence of an optimal state. The generate and test strategy finds solutions that satisfy multiple criteria programmed into its tests. This is what H. A. Simmons calls "satisficing," and is generally how humans decide given our bounded rationality. We have a number of independent, incommensurate requirements to satisfy in finding a course of action. There is no guarantee that multiple criteria can be traded-offs -- or even that they are commensurate. How much vitamin C is a liter of oxygen worth? This is a meaningless question because vitamin C cannot do what oxygen does. If we are unable to make such trade-offs. we cannot define an optimal solution.

(This is the problem with all forms of utilitarianism -- the assumption that there exists a well-defined utility function that can be optimized.)

So, in order to make sense of this claim, there must exist an single optimum. What, precisely, is being optimized? And, how are the required trade-offs done?

There are no sound arguments for god in the first place. — Christoffer

How did you reach this conclusion?

I conclude that there are sound proofs by working though their data and logic, answering all the objections I read as well as my own.

But people seem to be too biased in their own faith and will only argue within their realm of comfort. — Christoffer

This is an ad hominem. You have presented no rational objection to any specific proof, let alone a methodological argument that would rule out any possible proof. You have only made the faith claim that there is no evidence for the existence of God.

Openness is not the same as being skeptical of the answers given or the observations made. To be skeptical is more scientific than any other way of thinking. Just being "open" means you are never critical and if not, you never try and test your own ideas. — Christoffer

To be skeptical is to require adequate reasons for believing a proposition true. To be open is to require adequate reasons for believing a proposition false. So, to any fair minded person, they are one and the same mental habit -- what is called a scientific mindset. Such a mindset requires us to reject a priori commitments such as your faith claim that there is no God.

In relation to the existence of God, I will never accept the existence of a god if we can't prove it. — Christoffer

It has been proven for two and a half millennia. What rational objection do you have to Aristotle's unmoved mover argument? What objection do you have for the meta-law argument in my evolution paper?

So, the fact that a bulk of a pyramid's substance is not in its capstone is an argument that the capstone is not intentionally placed? — Dfpolis

I see no relation with this example since I was talking about the massive scale of the universe compared to our existence. — Christoffer

The analogy is:
Mass of humans : Mass of supporting cosmos :: Mass of capstone : Mass of the supporting pyramid.

If we were the point of the universe, by a creator, there's a big lack of logic in creating that scale of the universe just to have us in it. — Christoffer

There are two errors here: (1) there is no claim that we are the sole point of creation and (2) there is no reason to think that God needs to skimp on existence to effect His ends.

Many see the elegance of a few simple laws causing a singularity to blossom into the complex beauty of the cosmos.

You compare that scale to the foundation of a pyramid. If you add nearly an infinite scale to that foundation, then it would show just how irrational that shape would be. — Christoffer

You miss the point: mass ratios are not an argument against intentionality.

Historians, anthropologists, psychologists and sociologists all point to how gods, God, religion and so on, formed based upon an inability to explain the world around us at the time we couldn't explain through facts and science. — Christoffer

There is no doubt that this is a reason some people believe in gods. There is no evidence that it is either the sole or the main reason. The prophet Jeremiah believed in fixed laws of nature as well as a God relating to humans. Aristotle based his philosophy on empirical observation, but saw the logical necessity of an unmoved mover or self-thinking thought. Cherry picking explanations, instead of acknowledging the complexity of human thought, is an indication of bias.

It took us to the 20th century to truly be able to explain the world through the methods we came up with. — Christoffer

Really? What is so unique about the 20th century? Was not the recognition of fixed laws by Jeremiah, the foundation of mathematical physics by Aristotle, the discovery of inertia and instantaneous velocity by the medieval physicists, the astronomical work of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, and Laplace, and Darwin's theory real contributions to our understanding of nature? Or are you claiming that we now have a final understanding of physics? How can we when we have no theory of quantum gravity and do not understand ~95% of the mass of the cosmos?

it's easy to see how people still try and argue for the existence of God. But it's irrational, illogical, unsupported by evidence and in psychology, it's easy to see how the concept of no purpose or external meaning to our lives frightens us into holding on to a belief that gives us purpose and meaning. But that doesn't mean it's the truth. — Christoffer

So, you think matters of fact should be decided by examining the motives leading people to study a subject? While you claim that "the existence of God ... [is] irrational, illogical, unsupported by evidence," you have offered no rational argument, logical objection or shred of evidence to support your faith claim.

No data-based arguments show anything that prove God in any way. Sloppy logic in all these arguments that does not work when deconstructed. — Christoffer

I'm still waiting for an actual logical objection. Where and what is yours? I have suggested two simple arguments for you to "deconstruct" -- Aristotle's unmoved mover, and the argument in my evolution paper. Have at it and forget the ad hominem hand waving you seem to find comforting.

In the next bit you falsely accuse me of giving no logical argument for the existence of God. I give one in my evolution paper, and add another in my book. I have also referred you to a number of arguments by other thinkers.

To call my breakdown of the concept of God within the realm of science to be a strawman because it doesn't include your personal perception of the concept of God is seriously flawed as an argument. — Christoffer

You are confused. I called the concept of God you reject a straw man because it is not that of classical theism, but your personal construct -- which I reject as well. A straw man argument occurs when one ignores the actual opposing position and substitutes one more easily attacked. That is what you have done.

The theistic concept of the classical God has changed over and over every time science proved something to be something else than what that religious belief thought at the time. — Christoffer

Really? Have you any documented examples of this? You seem operate in a Trumpian faerie land in which facts don't matter or are manufactured on whim. When I studied natural theology, God had the same attributes Aquinas demonstrated in his Summa Theologiae. How has the understanding of God as given by Aquinas changed over time?

Philosophers before we established scientific methods, worked within the belief of those times and within the history of science, there was a lot of progress shut down by the church if they couldn't apply the science onto the religious concepts at that time. — Christoffer

Here is another example of manufactured facts. The scientific method, including the need for controlled experiments, was fully and explicitly outlined and applied by Robert Grosseteste (1175-1253), Oxford professor, teacher of Roger Bacon, and later bishop of Lincoln, in his works on optics (c 1220-35). He emphasized that we needed to compare theory with experiment. So, Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) did his work long after the scientific method was established.

In his The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution, James Hannam makes clear that that the Church not only tolerated but promoted science -- seeing God as revealing Himself not only in Scripture, but in the Book of Nature. Thus, by better understanding nature, we better understand God.

I can easily reject any concepts of god through a proper philosophical deconstruction of those arguments. Which has been done by many philosophers throughout history. But it's convenient to ignore them in order to support your already established beliefs, right? Isn't that a biased point of view? — Christoffer

My, my. The ad hominems continue. In my evolution paper I cite well over 50 authors, many of whom are atheists -- some quite militant. The bibliography of my book is 24 pages of 10 pt. type and contains works by many who strongly disagree with me. You would be more credible if you verified your facts before attacking my character and methods.

so they programmed the physics of its function and let a computer test them on a form over and over, just like evolution. — Christoffer

This is the well-known generate and test strategy of AI, which I discuss in my paper.

If there was a God, that god would most likely just have "started the universe", the simulation argument. We haven't been specifically created, we would be the result of the evolution of the universe. — Christoffer

The problem is that physics tells us that there are no random processes except possibly quantum measurement. That means that before the advent of intelligent life, the evolution of the cosmos and its biological species was completely deterministic (as is the design program you cite). The generate and test strategy only works because the range of acceptable designs is implicit in the preprogrammed test criteria. So, there is no question of having ends, there is only a question of how those ends are encoded.

As for the simulation argument, it has many logical flaws. One of the most glaring is that whether or not the universe will evolve life depends on the precise values of its physical constants. The chance of a simulation having the right combination is minuscule (cf. the physics behind the fine-tuning argument.)

In that case, our known universe, in which our laws of physics etc. exist, would be its own and the existence of a God is irrelevant to us because we are most likely irrelevant to that god. — Christoffer

This is a faith claim, the truth of which is, at best, unclear.

it's illogical that a God would specifically design something over letting it evolve itself. — Christoffer

On what assumptions? Please note that I see evolution as an excellent and well-founded scientific theory. My question if why it would be illogical for God to choose other means to effect His ends? This seems like the kind of a priori reasoning that is antithetical to empirical science.

If there was a god, it would exist outside of this universe and wouldn't care for the internals of this universe. — Christoffer

Sound arguments demonstrating the existence of God do so on the basis of His concurrent, ongoing operation within the universe --on His immanence rather than on His transcendence.

I'm a constant skeptic so I would never accept the idea that there is a god even outside our universe, — Christoffer

I find this attitude troubling, for it is unscientific. A scientific mindset requires openness to the data of experience -- to what is given -- not being closed to possibilities a priori.

In general, logic still points to there being a physical reaction or change that made the big bang since the mathematical statistics points to dead matter being the majority of our universe and organic matter or thinking creatures/beings to be in so low quantity that it's illogical that its likely there to be an intentional creation and more of a reaction. — Christoffer

So, the fact that a bulk of a pyramid's substance is not in its capstone is an argument that the capstone is not intentionally placed?

This concept is why I reject any notion that God has any link or guidance towards us humans because it's a self-indulgent, narcissistic delusion of grandeur about ourselves and our meaning to the universe. — Christoffer

I do not think that seeing God as relevant to human existence requires a grandiose self image. First, data-based arguments show that God continually maintains our existence. Thus, it is merely acknowledging truth to see ourselves as utterly dependent on God. Second, as human self-realization can only occur under laws of nature maintained by God, any successful human ethics must be based on an adequate understanding of that reality. It is not that God makes up arbitrary laws for us to follow, but that God has authored our entire ontology

Your view would seem to require a God Who cannot but attend to a single species -- so that attending to us would occupy God's entire attention and make us the center of reality. Mine sees God as capable of more than such tunnel vision and concern. In short, you have constructed and rejected a straw man.

If there was a god, he logically and statistically wouldn't know about us, at all and he wouldn't care. — Christoffer

Again, this only applies to your straw man god, not to the infinite and omniscient God of classical theism. You method seems to be to replace the God whose existence has been proven by Aristotle, Ibn Sina, the Buddhist Logicians and Aquinas with one that virtually no one believes in, but which you can easily reject.

Imagine two worlds of fish and water, A and B. World B has a God but world A doesn't. World A corresponds to only mechanism and world B corresponds to teleology. — TheMadFool

You are still confused about the nature of teleology.

First, teleology does not assume the existence of God, though it can be used as evidence for the existence of God. We observe spiders building webs and using them to catch insects, and conclude that spiders build webs to catch insects to eat. We plant grains of wheat and observe that they germinate into wheat plants, not oaks. So, we conclude the the natural end of wheat grains is the propagation of wheat. This reasoning does not assume the existence of God.

Second, if the mechanisms in a world are deterministic (as those in ours are), they will result in determinate ends, Therefore, you cannot separate mechanism and teleology as you are trying to do. Ends require means and means culminate in ends.

Third, on-going existence is an adequate factual basis for the proving the existence of God. So, the assumption of a world without God is logically inconsistent.

In world A, random mutations in genes colliding with the environment would be able to produce streamlined bodies for fish.

In world B, God would purposefully make fish bodies streamlined. — TheMadFool

What do you mean by "random"? If you mean that the mutations are not the result of ontologically random laws, then there would be no determinate laws by which streamlined forms could be selected. Clearly, this was not the kind of "randomness" contemplated by Darwin, who lived in an age of Laplacian determinism and explicitly subscribed to the notion of "designed laws." The other meaning of "random," and the one underlying Darwin's theory, is that genetic mutations are unpredictable. Predictability is related to the limitations of human cognition, so that randomness as unpredictability does not imply a lack of determinism.

So, there is no conflict between the assumption of deterministic mechanisms and that of determinate, even mentally intended, ends. On the other hand, there is a conflict between the assumption of ontological randomness and that of natural selection.

To an observer from outside the two worlds would appear indistinguishable but, in the absence of knowledge about God's existence or non existence, the observer would choose the simpler theory and say mechanism, not teleology. — TheMadFool

First, the principle of parsimony only applies when one must choose between hypotheses, which is not the case here. Teleology and mechanism are related as ends and means. Second, the existence of God is not an assumption of teleology. Third, the existence of God is not a hypothesis, but the conclusion of a strict deduction.

There is no claim that the goal of the cosmos is a single species. — Dfpolis

That means the universe has no teleology. Shouldn’t it be having one if your theory is true? — TheMadFool

The goal of the universe is its to develop holistically as it does. It is not confined to a single species.

So, if every living thing has its own goal then isn't the one single purpose, which I think would vindicate your claim, missing? — TheMadFool

I discuss the evidence for the existence of goals in evolution in my paper. There is no claim that the goal of the cosmos is a single species.

Here you are: https://www.academia.edu/27797943/Mind_or_Randomness_in_Evolution

Very small and irrelevant point. In a vacuum. In media light travels slower. Cherenkov radiation is an example of something traveling faster than light in that medium. Mix the media and under the right circumstances, I travel faster than the speed of light! — tim wood

Yes. To be precise, the principle is that no signal can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. The term "speed of light" means speed of light in a vacuum unless it is qualified in some contrary way.

Then why are you putting mechanism and teleology in the blender - trying to mix it so we can't tell the difference? — TheMadFool

I do not see that I have. No one else seems confused. Is there some specific thing I said that you think confuses the two?

No but teleology = mechanism + purpose — TheMadFool

No, it does not. The concept of teleology is that agents act for ends. It does not presuppose any specific mechanisms (say classical or modern physics). So, it does not entail what is required to give a mechanistic explanation.

If this theory predicts that some set of physical circumstances will produce intentionality in neurons, and we cannot observe intentionality in neurons, doesn't that make the theory unfalsifiable, and so unscientific? In short, I have difficulty in seeing how such a theory can be part of science. — Dfpolis

That's how bad our understanding of Consciousness is. We can't even conceive that there could be a Scientific explanation for it. But I think there probably is a Scientific explanation. We just need some smart Mind to figure it out someday in the future. — SteveKlinko

This is like responding to Goedel's proof that arithmetic cannot be proven consistent by means formalizable in arithmetic, by saying we have not formalized enough means. What the argument shows is that there can be no falsifiable theory for consciousness in neurons. Our ability to conceive possibilities does not enter the argument, and so is totally irrelevant.

Nothing here indicates a poor understanding of consciousness. On the contrary, our understanding is deep enough to rule out whole classes of hypotheses. Being able to do that shows that our understanding is quite good -- just not what people with mechanistic prejudices want.

The appeal to future science is an argument of desperation.

We pretty much know what various kinds of intentions do. So, in what way do we not know what they are? — Dfpolis

We know what they are from our subjective Conscious experience of them. But since we don't know what Consciousness is, in the first place, being Conscious of them is not an explanation. — SteveKlinko

We do know what consciousness is: It is the capacity to actualize present intelligibility. All we do not "know" is the pipe dream of materialists, viz., how to reduce consciousness to a material basis.

You continue to confuse the hope of materialists with some unknown reality. Hopes are an inadequate to establish existence.

I guess you are making a distinction now between Laws of Nature that apply to Intentional Phenomenon and Laws of Nature that apply to Material Phenomenon. So you should not say the Laws of Nature are Intentional but only a subset of the Laws of Nature that apply to Intentionality are Intentional. — SteveKlinko

I am making a distinction between the base, unperturbed laws of nature (Newton's universal laws) and those laws as perturbed by human committed intentions. Perturbations in physics do not change the general character of the base laws, they only cause them to act in a slightly different way in the case under consideration.

That human intentions really can perturb the laws of nature has been confirmed by hundreds of experiments and is know to be the case beyond a statistical doubt. These experiments and their metanalyses consistently show a small effect (~10E-5 to ~10E-4) with a high statistical certainty (z = 4.1, 18.2, 16.1, 7 in various studies).

Apparently you have not read the arguments for the intentionality of the laws of nature in my paper. If you do, you will see that they address the base laws studied by physics, unperturbed by human intentions.

I don't think the Brain is the Consciousness aspect. But rather I think the Brain connects to a Consciousness aspect. — SteveKlinko

Of course it does. The brain processes the information we are aware of. To have an act of consciousness we need two things: an object and a subject, contents (processed by the brain) and awareness of those concepts (provided by the agent intellect).

I think every instance of Consciousness actually does involve some sort of Quale. — SteveKlinko

What is the quale of being conscious of the fact that the irrational numbers are uncountable? Or that arithmetic cannot be proven to be consistent by means formalizable in arithmetic?

We may think of the sound of words in thinking these things, but those sounds are not the quale of what is known, because we can think the same propositions in French, German or Greek. So, there is no fixed relation between the content and the thought sound, as there is a fixed relation between the spectral distribution and the quale of red.

There are all kinds of Qualia besides sensory Qualia. — SteveKlinko

You may broaden the definition of "quale" to make it apply beyond sensory experience, but that is not how most people use the word. When you broaden the meaning in this way, "quale" becomes indistinguishable from "experience."

Teleology = mechanism + purpose (extra weight) — TheMadFool

Teleology does not entail mechanism. Given an end, there are a whole range of means (mechanisms) available. That is one reason free will is possible.

I'm not asking the general question. I'm asking the specific one: why teleological explanations at all? I'm not talking about a universal skeptic, just a teleological one. For there could be the possibility of someone inventing a fifth form of causation. One compatible with the others, yet used specifically because the other forms of causation under-determine it's form of explanation. However, the form of causation is used ad-hoc. The person then can't appeal to "I'm just asking questions! Just the facts, please!" — Marty

I think you do have to be very skeptical indeed to deny that some things are done for the sake of other things. Trump shut down the government for the sake of getting funding for his wall, which he did for the sake of maintaining the support of his base, which he did for the sake of protecting himself ...

So, are you taking the position of an eliminative materialist and denying that there are intentions? if not, I am unsure what point you are making.

Nor do I understand how any form of explanation does, or even can, undermine the others. I worked at Lockheed in the Spring of 1970 when the L-1011 prototype was being constructed. I saw in detail the mechanics and logistics of its construction. Did, or could, that detailed knowledge of means substitute for a knowledge of the end of constructing a prototype -- which I also saw when I worked in Corporate Planning?

So, it is not a matter of asking pointless questions, but of seeking different aspects of reality. Ends require means and means effect ends.

I'm also looking for a reason why future mechanical explanations could not replace teleological predictions. — Marty

Mechanically, there are at least two sound reasons: the impossibility of adequate data acquisition and the intractability of the required calculations. If we assume that the brain is fully determined by physics (which I do not), then you might think that you could predict its outputs from a detailed knowledge of brain state. To do this you would need to know the initial state of every neuron. I show in my book (pp. 11ff) that to acquire the raw data in reasonable time would fry the brain, and to calculate the actual state from the raw data would take many times the age of the universe.

Ones you have the brain state, you need to make a predictive calculation. We know that the brain is has nonlinear dynamics and so neural models are subject to chaos theory. This means that small errors in input data can lead to wildly divergent outputs. Further, digitization errors, which are inescapable with digital computers, can have the same effect.

Non-mechanistically, it is statistically certain that human intentions can exert a small, but measurable, control effect on physical processes. So the deterministic premise of the preceding two paragraphs has been falsified. the brain evolved as a control system, and the nature of control systems is to generate large-scale responses from small-scale inputs.

Why does under-determination stand as an argument at all? — Marty

An argument for what? It is not under-determination that is central, but determination to an end. Take the spider example. Over a wide range of initial states the spider will respond in the same way to a fly in its web. So, the explanatory invariant is not the mechanical initial state, but the end of eating the fly.

Yes, but then one could just tailor teleological causation to things agents have and not the entire world. — Marty

But isn't the entire would subject to the laws of nature and/or the committed intentions of intelligent beings?

The further question is whether or not we should apply this to the natural world. — Marty

Yes. This is the main disputed question. But we do see goals in nature. Seeds generate plants of their species and not another. Squid eject ink to escape. Spiders construct webs to catch flies. Animals secrete pheromones to facilitate mating and reproduction. One can deny these facts, but unless one has some dogmatic agenda, there is no rational basis for doing so.

The counter strategy is not to rebut the existence of goals, but to invent (largely hypothetical) origin stories. Rationally, this is no more than a distraction -- for there is noting in the nature of goals that says they cant have an origin story. If they have such a story, they exist -- and that is the central question with regard to teleology: do there exist means-ends relations in nature. If there are, then teleological reasoning is adequately based.

How do we form a criterion to know which one is teleological and the other one not to be? — Marty

A good question. Aristotle suggests three signs:
1. The existence of Means-ends relationships (Physics ii, 8, 199a8ff).
2. The existence of target states (Physics ii, 8, 199b15-18).
3. The preparation of means in advance of need (Physics ii, 8, 199a10ff).

I'm not sure why I would have to accept this. Some deflationist view could just say "to exist" is used in a variety of ways depending on what you mean. For example, numbers "exist" in some sense, idea exist in some ways, middle earth in the LOTR "exists" — Marty

We are speaking of existence in a metaphysical, not an intentional or fictional context. Yes, "existence" can be applied analogically in non-metaphysical contexts to numbers (which have intentional existence) and to Middle Earth (which has fictional existence), but say that these analogical usages mean the same as metaphysical or ontological "existence" is to equivocate.

Factually, it may very well be that every existent is actually acting, but logically, nothing can act unless it exists, so, it suffices to say that (metaphysical) existence is convertible with the capacity to act.

However, Kant had already demonstrated causation to be ideal at the point he addressed the idea of existence not being a real predicate. — Marty

Claiming to have demonstrated a thesis, is not the same as actually demonstrating a thesis.

If indeed existence wasn't a real predicate, then the application of concepts like, "the ability to act" could have applied t — Marty

It is not "the ability to act" in a being that's existence, it's merely existence itself separate from any predication for Kant. — Marty

It is absolutely uninformative to say that existence is "merely existence itself."

I am not defining "existence," because to define is to limit, and existence is unlimited in se. I am saying what it is convertible with rather than what it is. I am explicating existence by pointing out that it is dynamic, rather than passive. Nor am I saying the capacity to act is a "property" of existence. Properties are not convertible with what

how can their be a reality at all to experience, unless we have transcendental tools to experience it in the first place? — Marty

they are properties of.

That is why in order to form knoweldge, we cannot have concepts alone but also use our sensibility in receptivity. — Marty

Concepts are not knowledge because they make no assertions that can be true or false. To know something is to realize that what you are aware of is adequate to reality. Of course, this is exactly what Kant denies (that our awareness is adequate to noumenal reality). So, for Kantians there is no real knowledge.

So, we can have knowledge as acquaintance (e.g., "Yes, I know that house") because we realize that the subject sensing the object is the object being sensed by the subject. We can predicate properties of substances because we know that the same percept that elicits our concept of the subject elicits our concept of the predicate.

The question is worked backwards for Kant: how can their be a reality at all to experience, unless we have transcendental tools to experience it in the first place? — Marty

Simple. We are beings able first, to sense, and second, to be aware of what we sense. There is no need for an unparsimonious transcendental superstructure. Reality acts on us, and we are a of a part of its action -- and so informed of how it can and does act.

You would have to somehow create a theory in which we readily just receive the world without any cognitive tools. — Marty

We have cognitive tools (sensation and awareness), but they add nothing to what is perceived.

However, Kant has already told us that intuition without concepts are empty, as concepts without intuitions are blind. Such content could never get us any form of justification without the other, and never enter into the logical space of reasons. — Marty

If by intuition, you mean awareness, then yes, every act of cognition has an object which provides the intelligible contents we are aware of and a subject who is aware of that intelligibility. There is no need for the addition of any forms of understanding -- only an intelligible object (the noumenon) and a subject able to actualize that intelligibility.

The categories of space-time are constitutive of all experiences, as all experiences will include them. In terms of the pure concepts of understanding: quality, quantity, modality and relation are also contained as forms of existence. — Marty

1. Space and time are not fundamental -- extension (parts outside of parts) and change are fundamental. Space is an abstraction based on the fact that reality has parts outside of parts, and time is the measure of change according to before and after.

Now if noumena had no parts outside of parts we could never have a partial encounter with a noumenon, for all our encounters would be of unextended wholes. There would thus be no ontological basis for our experience of extension. The same is true for time. If there were no real changes, there would be nothing to measure according to before and after -- and no ontological basis for the concept of time.

Think of it this way. We exist, and so have a noumenal aspect. We can only be the basis (as Kant believes) for the concepts of space and time if we have parts outside of parts and are subject to change. Thus, some noumena have parts outside of parts and are subject to change. In other words, it is untrue that the forms of space and time never have a noumenal basis. But, if they sometimes have a noumenal basis, then there is no need to posit that they are more forms of understanding.

Thus, Kant's theory is self contradictory.

2. categories are not constitutive of experience. Categories are conceptual while experience is preconceptual. It is only by reflecting on experience and focusing on this or that note of intelligibility, that we forms concepts which can be used to categorize experience. So, the claim that "The categories of space-time are constitutive of all experiences" involves a category error.

3. Not all human experience involves space and time. Introvertive mystical experience is devoid of sensory contents that could form the basis for the concepts of space and time -- thus showing the claim to be based on a false premise.

It's not only that we have no concept of existence, it is that existence isn't a concept! — Marty

This depends on how you define "concept." If you require definable contents, the <existence> is not a concept. If you only require awareness of reality, then we do have a concept of existence.

For even you yourself changed the prediction of "existence" to mean "the ability to act" — something, in which for Kant, would have been independently applied to existence. — Marty

Showing that Kant does not understand existence. If the capacity to act were a property that can be added to existence, then hypothetically, we could have an instance of existence which cannot act. Such a thing could do nothing, including making itself known to us, and so it would be indistinguishable from nothing. But, what is indistinguishable from nothing is nothing. Thus, the hypothesis that it exists is false, and so there is no existent which cannot act in some way.

It means what I have now written above. — Marty

You have not written above why we cannot reason to existence.

If we do have such humility, it would already seem to point out some utter limitations. Thus creating the Noumea. — Marty

Noumena have nothing to do with humility. Obviously, human knowledge is limited and I willingly affirm that there are things humans may never know -- may be incable of knowing. For example, if there are other universes in a multiverse that are dynamically disjoint with our universe, then we have know way of knowing them.

This is not the case with noumena as the source of phenomena. Any noumenon that acts to make itself appear to us (as a phenomenon) must have the capacity so to act, and we know that it has this capacity. No matter how much hypothetical spaghetti Kant inserts between the knower and the noumenon, we still know that the noumenon can act to effect the phenomena we perceive. Thus, his reasoning, with all of its hypothetical convolutions, is doomed to fail.

As I take it the only reasonable interpretation of Kant is the dual-aspect interpretation. — Marty

Such an interpretation leaves Kant utterly irrational. Why posit something (noumena) that has no role in forming our thought in a theory whose aim is to explain human thought? It would be as if I went on for pages about Winkies and then said we cannot know them or even the possibility of them, but we must still consider them in discussing human experience.

Teleology is more complex than necessary. — TheMadFool

Really? How?

The pure concepts of understanding don't "exist". They are transcendental. — Marty

Taking my lead from Plato in the Sophist, I understand "to exist" as convertible with "to be able to act.". If "pure concepts of understanding" do not exist, they can do nothing. So, we can safely ignore them in all contexts. On the other hand, if you insist that they do something, it is a corruption of language to say that they do not exist.

By the way, existence is transcendental, applying to all reality.

They merely create the conditions of possibility for us to understand/experience nature. — Marty

Nothing can "create" anything unless it is operational -- and nothing can be operational unless it actually exists. Thus, it is incoherent to say they do not exist. How can anyone say anything relevant to reality about what does not exist?

We realize the form of the concepts in the possibility of any experience whatsoever being constitutive of them. — Marty

I can't relate this sentence to anything in my experience. Perhaps you could illustrate it with an example?

They are natural insofar as nature is just merely the phenomenal character of these concepts applied. — Marty

Which is to say that nature is derivative on concepts, and so immaterial. But, if it is immaterial, we are faced with Parmenides' argument that change is impossible -- for the possibility of change is dependent on matter as a principle of continuity.

The argument to prove this is just transcendental: X is a necessary condition for the possibility of Y—where then, given that Y is the case, it logically follows that X must be the case too. — Marty

This is called petitio principii or begging the question. No one doubting the existence of "pure concepts of understanding" would grant that they are the necessary condition for anything. You need an argument based on premises accepted by people not sharing your faith in Kant.

From a logical perspective, since you deny that "pure concepts of understanding" exist, it is hard to see what you want to convince us of. I already agree that they do not exist, but I am at a loss to what it means to say that a non-existent conditions anything, or that such conditioning "is the case" (given that "is" does not apply).

They have no Being. They are ideal. — Marty

This is a contradiction in terms. To be ideal is to have intentional existence.

Being isn't a real predicate in Kantian metaphysics. — Marty

It is not a predicate in Aristotelian metaphysics either. That does not mean that we have no concept of existence. The concept of existence reflects an indeterminate capacity to act. The specification of a being's capacity to act is given by its essence.

We reason from existence, and not to it. That is, we don't apply it. — Marty

I have no idea what this means. We reason to the existence of God. And, we can reason hypothetically, prescinding from the question of actual existence. I will grant that we cannot reason to existence except from existence.

We know it as a form of limitation of our understanding — as something that we're not. — Marty

This sentence is incoherent. To know something specific (a tode ti -- a "this something"), we must have some means of ostentation, of identification, of pointing "it" out. If we cannot do that, and Kant says we can't with noumena, then we can't know "it" vs. something else. We can know, by analogy with our continuing experience of novelty, that there are things we do not know, but absent some means of identification, we cannot say it is a this rather than that that we do not know.

The same sentence assumes facts not in evidence. We do not know that there are any intrinsic limitations to our understanding, nor is it clear that we ever could know that there were such limits. To know that there were such limits we would have to know that there were facts we could not know -- a contradiction in terms.

I sometimes think of it in the way Aquinas conceived of what God is by what he's not. The difference is that Kant just bars the idea of any positive description. — Marty

Yes, Aquinas says we can only know what God is not, because finite minds are not proportioned to infinite being. So, we can know, for example that God is not limited, and so has unlimited being, knowledge, good and so on. This is not analogous to what Kant is doing because we have a reasoned identification of God as the Source of necessity, actualization, order and so on. In Kant's case there is no reasoned identification. There is only a de fide division of phenomena and noumena and the unparsimonious positing of "pure concepts of understanding" that do not exist, and therefore can effect nothing.

I wasn't talking about divine psychology. I'm merely stipulating that subjects do not have the power to know in the same way that a God would — that includes intellectual intuition. Which if we don't, we run back towards the noumenon for Kant — Marty

Perhaps, but not to the separation of noumena and phenomena that Kant posits. I know of no sound argument that would lead us to reject the notion that phenomena are how noumena reveal their reality to us. Do you have even one?

I accept that you are not a Kantian, but I do not see that I am misunderstanding Kant.

I'm not saying mechanistic and teleological explanations are at odds. I'm asking why even have teleological explanations at all? — Marty

The more general question is why have any explanations at all? Aristotle is on the right track in beginning his Metaphysics by observing that "All humans by nature desire to know." To be human is to be knowledge-seeking. That is the reason that many young children tire parents out with incessant "Whys?" Aristotle, after years of studying his predecessors, found that there are four basic types of explanation: material, formal, efficient and final. What stands before us, the given (datum), is because it is made of this stuff, in this form, by this agent, for this end.

Of course, not everyone notices, or cares, about the same projections of reality. If you go to a good movie with articulate friends, the conversation after can turn to plotting, character development, set design, costuming, cinematography, scoring or a myriad of other aspects which integrate to give the movie its impact. Not everyone will notice or care about many of these aspects, but they are still part of what is given in the movie. What anyone notices or cares about will depend on their nature and experiential background. It is the same with modes of explanation.

You said earlier because the complexity of certain phenomenon would be too complex to explain mechanistically, but that seems to appeal to the under-determination of the relevant facts. That isn't enough to then say that we ought to have teleological explanations. — Marty

I did not say that some phenomena yield more readily to a teleological approach to prediction than to a mechanistic one to justify teleology generally, but to rebut the often-heard objection that it has no predictive value. Of course it does. Most predictions of human behavior are based on understanding individual goals.

While increasing predictability gives theories (modes of understanding) utility and evolutionary survival value, there is more to the human desire to know. We not only seek utility, but intellectual satisfaction. That is why humans study fields such as theoretical physics, mathematics, metaphysics and theology without hope of application.

That isn't enough to then say that we ought to have teleological explanations. — Marty

As I just said, it was not intended to be. "Ought" is based on the relation of means to ends. If we are ordered to some natural completion, to some end, then we ought to effect adequate means. (This is, itself, a teleological argument.) As we have a natural desire to know, then we ought to employ the means of satisfying that need. Aristotle's study of his predecessors can be seen as an empirical study of the modes of explanation that satisfy human curiosity. Among them is the teleological mode.

How do we know the heart was selected for too circulate blood throughout the body, as oppose to it being a by-product of another form: the heart going "bump-bump-bump". How do we devise a hypothesis that can test for which was selected instead of merely being a by-product? — Marty

Not all knowledge is the result of the hypothetico-deductive method. Much results from abstraction. The difference is this: hypothetical reasoning adds an unknown thesis to the data. Abstraction removes irrelevant notes of comprehension from the data. For example, in abstracting natural numbers, we come to see that what is counted is irrelevant to counting.

If you accept the theory of evolution, the only reason the heart evolved as it did, why greater pumping capacity was selected over lesser pumping capacity, was that the pumping capacity contributed to the success of the organism as a whole -- and it did so by circulating blood, and with it an energy supply. So, if the heart did not circulate blood, it would not have evolved as it did.

Thus, the evolution of the heart is essentially, not accidentally, related to the circulation of blood. To say that it was a mere by-product of some unpredictable mutation is to ignore this essential relation.

In my article, I point out the analogy between the artificial intelligence strategy of generated and test and the evolutionary mechanism of mutate and select. If you know that there will be so many mutations that you are certain of getting the one you are seeking, then determining the selection process determines the outcome. Here the selection of pumping capacity is determined by the laws of survival.

Since the laws of nature are essentially intentional, the results of their operation, the result of natural selection, bears the same intentional character.

The question was how do we differentiate between non-teleological ends such as the one I mentioned, and teleological ones? — Marty

If we have an end (telos), how can we not have teleology? The idea of teleology is that the end is latent in a prior state because the on-going operation of some intentionality (e.g. a human commitment, or the laws of nature) will bring it to fruition. How can we even speak of an end if this is not so?

How do we know whether something has a result of x, rather than x is the intended consequence of certain processes? — Marty

I assume you meant to write "the unintended consequence of certain processes."

Because determination to a definite state is, by its very nature, intentional. I make this argument in detail in my paper. The short version is that intentionality is characterized by aboutness. Thus, my intention to go to the store is about arriving at the store. In the same way, determination to a definite state is about attaining that state. So, any determinate process is essentially intentional.

Perhaps the question you have in mind is: does teleology imply an intending mind? I offer what I think is a sound (deductive, not hypothetical) argument that it does in my evolution paper.

1. Why would the complexity of mechanical explanation be a reason to then opt out for teleological explanations? Wouldn't that be a form of appealing to consequence because our mechanical explanations as of now under-determined the relevant facts? Many mechanists claim that there have been advances in biology/evolutionary theory that replace teleological explanations before. Could it not just occur later? — Marty

This question seems to assume what I deny, i,e, that mechanical explanations are opposed to teleological explanations. So, in employing teleological reasoning, there is no denial of the necessity of mechanisms to attain ends in the natural world. Choosing one form of explanation has nothing to do with denying the relevance of the other. When we do choose, we typically whatever is the simplest or most efficient mode of explanation. If you want to know how a spider will respond to a fly caught in its web, it is much more efficient to ask what is the end of a web than to model the neural state of the spider and its response to visual inputs and vibrations of its web.

I am unsure what you are asking about evolution, but as I show in my paper (https://www.academia.edu/27797943/Mind_or_Randomness_in_Evolution), one can fully accept the mechanisms of evolution while concluding that it has targets (ends). Nor is evolution based, as is often claimed, on pure randomness. So, it is not an example of order emerging from mindless randomness.

2. How do you generally answer people who offer the argument that we couldn't differentiate between something in evolution as being a by-product of selection (spandrels), or an actual form of adaptive selection? That is, what is adapted for, or what can be a suppose end of adaption, is not falsifiable? — Marty

Falsifiability applies to hypotheses. The relevant hypothesis is that evolution is random, not deterministic. This is incompatible with the mechanistic position that evolution is fully compatible with physics. In physics, the only random process is quantum measurement -- which cannot have occurred before the emergence of intelligent observers. So, if one holds that evolution is compatible with physics, then it is not random, but fully deterministic. In other words, at least up to the advent of intelligent life, the species that have evolved are fully latent in the initial state of the cosmos and the laws of nature.

How are these determinate ends achieved? By applying the laws of nature, microscopically and macroscopically, to initial states. The microscopic application is relevant to the mechanisms of genetic mutation, while the macroscopic application is relevant to the mechanisms of natural selection.

So, there is no need to choose between the existence of determinate ends and the operation of fixed laws. They are different ways of conceptualizing the same reality.

3. Similar to (2), how do we differentiate between seemingly teleological events, and teleological events? Such as a snowfall rolling down a hill isn't going down the hill because it's end is the bottom. But it seems like, say, metabolism is directed towards converting food for-the-sake-of energy. — Marty

Not every event is teleological in the sense of being "for the sake of" something else. Every event is teleological in the sense of being determined either by the laws of nature in general or by some rational agent. As Aristotle points out, some events are accidental in the sense of resulting from the coincidence of lines of action directed to other ends. You and I might meet at the store because I need eggs and you need peas, and then become friends, but our becoming friends was not the end of either of us in going to the store. So, snowballs might roll down hill because gravity is necessary for life to evolve (as shown by the physics behind the fine-tuning argument.)

Let me add that the existence of ends, even for the sake of something else, does not imply that we understand, or even can understand, the ordering of the proximate to the final ends.

4. How do you generally response to the statement that, "Given that things are set up in a certain way, x just happens." I know you could theoretically offer a compatible teleological explanation, but why would one want to even begin to do so? — Marty

The fact that things are determined to x means that x is the end of the system. So, the problem is not whether there is an end, for that is a given. The problem is why should we think of x as an end? Often there is no reason to think of x as an end, as there is often no reason to think of an end as effected by detailed mechanisms. We humans have limited powers of representation, and so we abstract those features of a situation we consider to be most relevant. If we do not consider the attainment of x as important, we will generally not consider it as an end. If we see its attainment as important, we are more likely to see it as at least a proximate end.

5. What books do you particularly feel are the best for getting a handle on teleology? — Marty

I have developed my views of teleology by comparing Aristotle's views (scattered through the corpus. usually in connection with the four causes) with modern discussions. The question I had in mind in reading critiques is: Does this really rebut the idea of ends, or does it merely offer a different way of conceptualizing the same reality?

The pure concepts of understanding are synthesized with the sensible intuitions. They are not projected onto nature, but have a structure such that there's continuity between the subject and object. — Marty

If there were "pure concepts of understanding," then synthesizing them with what is sensed before we are aware of it would leave us confused as to what belongs to the "pure concept" and what belongs to nature as we are sensing it. Thus, they would be projected upon our understanding of nature.

As there is no evidence whatsoever for any "pure concepts of understanding," there is no reason tor believe that the object of awareness is other than nature. Of course to say that it is nature is not to say it is nature exhaustively, but only that it is nature as interacting with us as subjects.

We can consider them neither as subjective, nor objective, as they are rightfully called transcendental — the conditions of possibility for either as such. — Marty

To consider them to be anything, we must first have evidence of their being. Kant's authority is not evidence.

It then follows that we do have knoweldge of the world, simply through certain conceptual and intutional categories (always in pairs), just not things-in-themselves. — Marty

There is a difference between a valid conclusion of questionable premises and what follows from a sound argument.

If by 'noumenon' we mean a thing so far as it is not an object of our sensible intuition, and so abstract from our mode of intuiting it, this is a noumenon in the negative sense of the term.

But if we understand by it an object of a non-sensible intuition, we thereby presuppose a special mode of intuition, namely, the intellectual, which is not that which we possess, and of which we cannot comprehend even the possibility. This would be 'noumenon' in the positive sense of the term.

If noumena cannot be known by sensory experience, if they are "not an object of our sensible intuition," then the only way of knowing them is by some direct, mystical intuition ("the intellectual"). But, Kant tells us that "we cannot comprehend even the possibility" of this. (This is a most peculiar claim, for if he cannot comprehend the possibility, he cannot sensibly write about the possibility.)

What cannot be known by the only two ways we have of knowing (sensory and mystical experience) cannot be known in any way. So, Kant's noumena are epistemologically indistinguishable from nonbeing. How is it rational to take as a principle of one's theory, of one's understanding, the existence of something you claim to be absolutely unknowable?

When Kant says we can't know the noumenon he means we do not have the capacity of an intellectual intuition. Which is a type of non-conceptual, non-sensory intuition of the world as it is that God would supposedly have. — Marty

Clearly, we do not know as God knows. God knows by knowing His own act of sustaining creation in existence (creatio continuo). We know by interacting, in a limited way. with a portion of creation. It does not follow from this that we do not know some of the same objects, the same noumena, that God knows. Indeed, if we are to know at all, we must know the being God knows Hew holds in existence.

So, I can grant that "we do not have the capacity of an intellectual intuition," taken as "a type of non-conceptual, non-sensory intuition of the world as it is that God" has, without denying that we know, in a limited way, what God knows exhaustively.

I meant texts written by Kant.

I don't think that's correct. Newton's theory of gravity isn't incompatible with Einstein's relativity. — TheMadFool

Of course it is. That is why we have general relativity. Newton's theory assumes instantaneous action at a distance, because it has two masses attracted to the each others present location, not their location in the past (as delayed by the speed of light). This violates the principle that no signal can travel faster then the speed of light.

Newton's theory is approximately correct, but does not predict the precession of the perihelion of Mercury properly, which Eistein's does.

The choice between the two in favor of Einstein was, in part, based on the simplicity of Einstein's which explained away the force of gravity as a curvature of space due to mass. — TheMadFool

If you studied both theories, you would find that Einstein's is much more complex -- so much so that Einstein himself needed the aid of a mathematician in formulating it. Its equations are nonlinear and require a thorough understanding of tensor analysis. As late as 1920 Eddington bragged (falsely) that he was one of only two people in the world who understood it. So, accuracy of prediction, rather then simplicity is the reason for accepting Einstein's theory over Newton's.

I am sorry that you think we must choose between views that are logically compatible.

My understanding:

You're claiming that as an explanation, teleology is as good as the mechanistic.

Am I correct? — TheMadFool

In the sense that both are equally true, they are as "good." But, being equally true does not mean that they provide us with the same information. So, depending on what you want to understand, one is better than the other. If you want to harvest wheat, then you need to understand that the end of a wheat grain is a mature wheat plant. If you want to predict an eclipse, then you need to understand the laws of celestial motion.

If yes, then it must be a choice between the two explanations. Ockham's razor directs us to choose the simpler model. — TheMadFool

Nonsense! As I said Okham's razor (the Principle of Parsimony) only applies when we must choose between alternate hypotheses. That is not the case here. For you to justify the application of parsimony, you need to show that mechanism is logically incompatible with teleology. Of course, it is not, as they are related as means and ends. How can we employ means without effecting ends? How can we attain ends without employing means?

So, we reject teleology because it's more complicated than the alternative mechanistic explanation. — TheMadFool

This is equally nonsensical. Consider how complicated it would be to calculate mechanically the growth of a grain of wheat into a mature plant, or the response of a spider to a fly caught in its web. These calculations are so complicated and require so much data, that no one even attempts them. Given the fact that these processes can be nonlinear and so chaotic, it is not even clear that the calculation is possible. On the other hand, the outcomes are obvious when we consider the ends of seeds and of webs.

Thus, you case falls apart on two grounds:
1. The teleological and mechanistic approaches are not incompatible, but related as ends and means.
2. It is often the case that teleologically based predictions are simpler and more reliable than mechanical calculations. (I say more reliable because in chaos theory any small error in the initial conditions can lead to huge erros int he final state.)

Well, both mechanistic and teleogical explanations seem derivable from known facts. — TheMadFool

Yes.

Ockham's razor is in order.

Which theory is simpler? — TheMadFool

The application of Ockham's razor would only apply if mechanism and teleology were alternate, incompatible views. One of my main points is that they are not. We need means (mechanisms) to effect ends. Also, any determinate mechanisms will yield determinate states (ends). So, rather than being incompatible, mechanism and teleology are mutually implying.

Given that there is no intrinsic conflict, and that both are derivable from known facts, the only conflict here is mental -- having one's mind closed to projections of reality other than the one a person is fixed upon.

Thank you for your suggested corrections. Do you have any texts to support them?

I'm missing your point here because I said that Science will need to have the Explanation for the How and Why, and not merely the fact that it is. — SteveKlinko

OK. I misunderstood what you were saying. To me there is data, and the data might show that there is intentionality in the neurons, and there is theory, which would explain the data in terms of how and why. But, you agree that there is no experimental test for finding intentionality in neurons, so, there can be no data to explain. That leaves us with the question: What kind of evidentiary support can there be for a theory that supposedly explains something that cannot be observed? If this theory predicts that some set of physical circumstances will produce intentionality in neurons, and we cannot observe intentionality in neurons, doesn't that make the theory unfalsifiable, and so unscientific? In short, I have difficulty in seeing how such a theory can be part of science.

I disagree that we know anything about what Intentionality is. We know we have it, but what really is it? This is similar to how we Experience the Redness of Red. We certainly know that we have the Experience but we have no idea what it is. — SteveKlinko

If you mean that we cannot reduce these things to a physical basis, that is the very point I am making. But that is not the same as not knowing what a thing is. If we can define intentionality well enough for other people to recognize it when they encounter it, we know what it is.

I think you need to ask yourself what you mean by knowing "what a thing is?" What things are is fully defined by what they can do. If we know what things can do -- how they scatter light, interact with other objects, and so on -- we know all there is to know about what they are. We pretty much know what various kinds of intentions do. So, in what way do we not know what they are?

If you have an intention to do something then that intention must ultimately be turned into a Volitional command to the Brain that will lead to the firing of Neurons that will activate the muscles of the Physical Body to do something. I believe you called that a Committed Intention. — SteveKlinko

Agreed. And that means that committed intentions must modify the laws that control how our neurophysiology works. How else could they do what they do?

When you say the Laws of Nature are Intentional, it sounds like you are talking about some kind of Intelligent Design. I'm not sure how this is even relevant to the discussion. — SteveKlinko

I am not an advocate of Intelligent Design. I think it gravely misunderstands the laws of nature. ID assumes that God is not intelligent enough to create a cosmos that effects His ends without recurrent diddling. That is insulting to God.

The arguments I give in my paper for the laws of nature being intentional are based solely on our empirical knowledge, and do not assume the existence of an intending God. The relevance here of the laws being intentional is that they are in the same theater of operations as human commitments. Since they are in the same theater of operation, our commitments can affect the general laws, perturbing them to effect our ends. Material operations, on the other hand, are not in the same theater of operation and so cannot affect the laws of nature.

When you hang your argument for eliminating the Hard Problem on an abstract Intentions concept being Material you are setting up a straw man. — SteveKlinko

This seems confused. First, I an not saying intentions are material. Second, the Hard Problem is about the production of consciousness (of intellect) and not, in the first instance about volition (will).

We have no intentions without consciousness, which is awareness of present intelligibility. It makes what was merely intelligible actually known. The brain can process data in amazing ways, but processing data does not raise data from being merely intelligible to being actually known. To make what is intelligible actually known requires a power that is not merely potential, but operational. So, nothing that is merely intelligible, that is only potentially an intention, can produce an intention. Thus, data encoded in the brain cannot make itself actually known -- it cannot produce consciousness.

What is already operational in the intentional theater is awareness -- what Aristotle called the agent intellect. It is when we turn our awareness to present intelligibility that the neurally encoded contents become known. So, while the brain can produce the contents of awareness, it cannot produce awareness of those contents.

Even if your Intention argument is true, this Redness Experience Explanatory Gap must be solved. This is what the Hard Problem is really all about. — SteveKlinko

If that were so, then every instance of consciousness, even the most abstract, would involve some quale. It does not. So, quale are not an essential aspect of consciousness. On the other hand, there is no instance of consciousness without awareness and some intelligible object. So, the essential features of consciousness are awareness/subjectivity and the the contents of awareness/objectivity.

Of course there are qualia, but we do know what they are. All qualia are the contingent forms of sensory awareness. We know, for example, that redness is the form of our awareness of certain spectral distributions of light. There is nothing else to know about redness. If you think there is, what would it be?

I think you are saying that there is only an Explanatory Gap if the Intentional Reality is found to be in the Neurons — SteveKlinko

I am not sure what, operationally, it would mean to find intentional reality "in the neurons." If intentions are to be effective, if I am actually able to go to the store because I intend to go to store, then clearly my intentions need to modify the behavior of neurons and are in them in the sense of being operative in them. Yet, for the hard problem to make sense requires more than this, for it assumes that the operation of our neurophysiology is the cause of intentionality. What kind of observation could possibly confirm this?

But if it is found to be in the Neurons then that means that Science has an Explanation for How and Why it is in the Neurons — SteveKlinko

Knowing what is, is not the same as knowing how or why it is. We know that electrons have a charge of -1 in natural units. We have no idea of how and why this is so.

If Intentional Reality is not found in the Neurons then there would exist a Huge Explanatory Gap as to what it could be. — SteveKlinko

Not at all. We already know what intentionality is. We can define it, describe it, and give uncounted examples of it. What we do not know is what we cannot know, i.e. how something that cannot be its cause is its cause. That is no more a gap than not knowing how to trisect an arbitrary angle with a compass and straightedge is a gap in our knowledge of Euclidean geometry. There is no gap if there is no reality to understand.

. How does this non-Material Intention ultimately interact with the Neurons, as it must, to produce Intentional or Volitional effects? — SteveKlinko

I think the problem here is how you are conceiving the issue. You seem to be thinking of intentional reality as a a quasi-material reality that "interacts" with material reality. It is not a different thing, it is a way of thinking about one thing -- about humans and how humans act. It makes no sense to ask how one kind of human activity "interacts" with being human, for it is simply part of being human.

I have argued elsewhere on this forum and in my paper (https://www.academia.edu/27797943/Mind_or_Randomness_in_Evolution), that the laws of nature are intentional. The laws of nature are not a thing separate from the material states they act to transform. Rather, both are aspects of nature that we are able to distinguish mentally and so discuss in abstraction from each other. That we discuss them independently does not mean that they exist, or can exist, separately.

Would it make any sense to ask how the laws of nature (which are intentional), "interact" with material states? No, that would be a category error, for the laws of nature are simply how material states act and it makes no sense to ask how a state acts "interacts" with the state acting. In the same way it makes no sense to ask how an effective intention, how my commitment to go to the store, interacts with my going to the store -- it is simply a mentally distinguishable aspect of my going to the store.

I know this does not sound very satisfactory. So, think of it this way. If I have not decided to go to the store, my neurophysiology obeys certain laws of nature. Once I commit to going, it can no longer be obeying laws that will not get me to the store, so it must be obeying slightly different laws -- laws that are modified by my intentions. So, my committed intentions must modify the laws controlling my neurophysiology. That is how they act to get me to the store.

Am I correct in saying that Volition is the same as Intention in your analysis? — SteveKlinko

Volition produces what I am calling "committed intentions." There are many other kinds of intentions like knowing, hoping, believing, etc.

So I'm expecting that you are going to show how the Hard Problem goes away. — SteveKlinko

No, my claim is that the Hard Problem is a chimera based on the fallacious assumption that intentional reality can be reduced to a material phenomenon. It's solution is to realize that there is no solution, because it is not a real problem.

I think you are missing an important aspect of Consciousness by dismissing the experience of Qualia as you do. What is that Redness that you experience when you look at a Red object or when you Dream about a Red Object? — SteveKlinko

I am not dismissing qualia. They are quite real. I am saying that they are not essential to being conscious as they only occur in some cases. For example, we know abstract intelligibility without being aware of qualia. For example, what quale is associated with knowing that the rational numbers are countably infinite or that the real numbers are uncountably infinite? So, I see qualia as real, but not essential to being conscious.

Sounds like you are saying that there are two separate subsystems of the Material Mind (the Neurons). — SteveKlinko

No, I am saying that there is a material data processing subsystem composed of neurons, glia, and neurotransmitters, but that it cannot account for the intentional aspects of mind, so we also need an additional, immaterial, subsystem to account for intentional operations.

This sounds like you are saying that you are going to show that Intentional Reality cannot be found in the Neurons. — SteveKlinko

As intentional realities are immaterial, it is a category error to think of them as having a location, as being "in" something. You can think of immaterial realities being where they act, but that does not confine them to a single location.

Sound like Ontological Dualism to me. — SteveKlinko

Saying that the material operations of mind are not the intentional operations of mind is no more dualistic than saying that the sphericity of a ball is not its material. There is one substance (ostensible unity) -- the ball or the person -- but we can mentally distinguish different aspects of that substance. As it is foolish to think that we can reduce the sphericity of the ball to its being rubber, so it it is foolish to think we can reduce the intentional operations of a person to being material. They are simply different ways of thinking of one and the same thing.

You are just assuming that Neural Activity must imply Conscious Activity in all cases. — SteveKlinko

No, I am not. I am saying that if A explains B, then every case of A implies a case of B. If we find a counterexample, then by the modus tollens, A does not A explain B. This leaves open the possibility that A plus something else might explain B. Still, it takes more than A to explain B. I am suggesting that the "something else" is an intentional subsystem.

Yes but this seems to imply that the Conscious Activity of Intention can not be found in the Neurons by Science yet. — SteveKlinko

No. It implies that that as long as it begins with the Fundamental Abstraction, natural science is unequipped to deal with intentional operations.

I did not see any solution to the Hard Problem in all this. If Intentional Realities are not reducible to the Material Neurons then what are Intentional Realities? Where are Intentional Realities? How can this be Explained? There is a big Explanatory Gap here. This Explanatory Gap is the Chalmers Hard Problem. — SteveKlinko

There is only a gap if you assume that intentional operations can be reduced to physical operations. If you do not make this assumption, there is no gap to bridge.

We know, from experience that humans can perform both physical and intentional operations. That is a datum, a given, in the same way that protons can engage in strong, electromagnetic, weak and gravitational interactions is a given. Knowing these things does not mean that we can or should be seeking ways of reducing one to the other. It does mean that we should seek to understand how these kinds of interactions relate to each other. To do that requires that we employ the best methods to investigate them separately and in combination.

I've read you post several times and am at a loss. As I intend "ultimately a posteriori," it means that the principles in question are learned from experience, and are not known innately. I did not see you objecting to this, so I still don't know what you think we are disagreeing about.

This in effect re-grounds the knowledge of the thing into the process of the discovery of the thing, while demolishing the status of the knowledge as knowledge. — tim wood

I do not see how grounding knowledge in experience can involve anything retrograde -- anything that can be called "re-grounding." Nor do I see how anything that has origins can be "demolished" by giving an account of its origins. I can only conclude that some turn of phrase has connotations for you that it does not have for me.

Once done, and the thing known/defined/named, never again need it be discovered: we know it. — tim wood

Have I implied otherwise? How?

Does that imply that all knowledge is a priori? I answer yes, with respect to the criteria that establishes the knowledge as knowledge. — tim wood

No, it does not, because some knowledge is purely contingent, and has no a priori component. That Charles Dickens was born February 7, 1812 will never be an a priori fact however well known it is. If we know something in light of general principles, not contingent on the case at hand -- as we know that if I have two apples and am given two more apples, I will have four apples -- then we may be said to know it "a priori" even though we learn arithmetic from experience. But, if the very reason that we know something, as Dickens' birth date, is contingent, then there is nothing a priori about it, however long we may have known it.

Still, if this is not how you wish to use the terms "a priori" and "a posteriori," that is your choice and not a matter that can be settled by argument.

So far your argument is a claim. But I do not find that you have argued it in substantive terms. — tim wood

It seems to me that no such argument is called for. We see how children learn, say, arithmetic. We give them different hings to count until they have the flash of insight (which is an abstraction) by which they see that the counting process does not depend on what is counted. We see the same kinds of abstractions occurring in other areas -- for example if something is happening, something is acting to make it happen -- and so, in a higher-order abstraction, we see that the principles of abstract sciences are grasped by abstraction. In light of this, it seems to me that the burden is on the camp of innate knowledge to show that such abstraction is impossible.

Is referencing <being> a flight to being, or an explication of experience/phenomena? — tim wood

I an not sure what "a flight to being" would mean. We are immersed in being, we can't fly from it or to it.

I would see it more as a penetration of experience -- drilling down to its transcendental core. One might think of seeing the forest instead of the trees.

You have <being> as "something that can act." (I note too you have <being> that we experience, and "a concept of <being>... there to help us.") How does it act? Would it both simplify and demystify to rebrand this <being> as just a capacity of the human mind? — tim wood

I got the explication of being as anything that can act or be acted upon from Plato in the Sophist. I believe it is F. M. Cornford who remarked that Plato sees this as sign/mark of being rather than a definition of being. In any event, we can drop the passive part because if we are acting on a putative being, and it does not re-act in some way, then no matter how much we are exerting our self, we are not acting on it at all.

I would see the power to act not as a definition, or as a mark, of being, but as convertible with being. It prevents us from mistaking being with passive persistence, but it does not define being because there is no more definition of "to act" than there is of "to be." It does help us clarify the distinction of essence as a specification of possible acts and existence as the indeterminate capacity to act.

If we reduce being to a capacity of the human mind, then we have made the ultimate anthropomorphic error and are on the slippery slope to solipsism. Also, we have fundamentally misunderstood mind, which is at one pole of the subject-object relation of knowing.

Nor is being is well-understood as the other (objective) pole. Being is only known to the extent that it has revealed itself to us by deigning to interact with us -- to include us in its game, as it were.

The problem is that consciousness is not at all emergent in the sense in which viscosity and surface tension are. — Dfpolis

No, but if viscosity and surface tension prove emergence itself is possible, and with the admitted lack of complete understanding of neurophysiology, neuroplasticity, must the possibility of consciousness emerging from mere neural complexity, in principle, be granted? — Mww

As I tried to explain in my last response, the kind of "emergence" viscosity and surface tension and surface tension illustrate is not the kind of "emergence" one finds in the neural complexity claim. In the first case, specific mechanisms are used to derive macro-properties from micro-properties. What emerges is not the macro-properties, which are co-occurrant, but our understanding of the relation of the properties. In the second case, no such understanding is proposed and none emerges.

Indeed, it is hard to parse out any precise meaning for "emergent" in the second case. Instead, it seems to voice an ill-defined attachment to materialism or physicalism. It is not a causal claim. We know what causal claims look like, and there is none of the usual reasoning offered in support of causal claims. It is not a claim of analytic reduction, for we see no argument that "consciousness" names or hides some species of complexity. It is not even a claim that a certain class of phenomena will invariable lead to a second class of phenomena, for subjectivity is not a phenomenon, but the awareness of phenomena.

Like many unscientific claims, it is also unfalsifiable -- and on many counts. Not only is there so much wiggle room in the idea of "complexity" that any falsifying observation can be thrown out on the basis of being "insufficiently" complex, or the "wrong kind" of complexity (for the right kind is undefined), but we also have to deal with the fact that since consciousness is not intersubjectively observable we have no idea what kind of phenomena to examine to confirm or falsify the claim.

Since this kind of "emergence" is ill-defined, so is the possibility of its being instantiated.

Interesting. Why would you qualify some truths as so-called “a priori”? Are you thinking the term is mis-used? It’s value mis-applied? The whole schema doubtful? — Mww

As I have explained, some truths are "a priori" in the sense of being transcendentally true, and so not dependent on contingent conditions. That does not mean that we come to know them independently of having experienced being.

What do you mean by transcendental principle, and what is an example of one? — Mww

I use "transcendental" in the sense of applying to all reality. The principles of being (Identity, Contradiction and Excluded Middle) are transcendental in scope. There is also a transcendental relation between essence and existence, so that whatever is, is intrinsically well-specified.

What is meant by “our experience of being”, and what additional/supplemental information could be packed into my own personal experience of being, that isn’t already there? — Mww

I appreciate trying to give a different perspective.

Whenever we experience anything, we are necessarily experiencing being. That does not mean that we appreciate the metaphysical implications of what we experience. Mostly, we don't abstract away information of more immediate interest, so we rarely consider being as being, instead of, say, as a well-prepared meal. Sill, being is always there, waiting to be reflected upon.

So, there is nothing that is not "already there," but there is a lot that is not seen. As the being we experience has no intrinsic necessity, how is it that it assumes necessity as it becomes part of the past? What is the source of this necessity? Or, looking forward, how can being that is merely potential now become actual? Since it is not yet operational, it cannot actualize its own potential.

Thank you for your comments.

My background, while fairly broad, is quite limited with respect to contemporary European philosophy. I do think that each projection of reality has the potential for illuminating aspects missed by other projections. Please feel free to illuminate any corners you think may have been missed.

Abstraction from experience is adequate for a priori knowledge, but doesn’t address whether any other methodology is possible — Mww

Of course other methods are available and useful. I was only taking about how we come to know so-called "a priori" truths.

Whether that matters or not depends on what we intend to do about how far astray we find ourselves in thinking about the world of things. — Mww

We agree.