If you weren’t, you couldn’t ask questions. You couldn’t value anything. You couldn’t think, speak, or care.

Life isn’t a value. It’s the condition for value. That’s not opinion. It’s structure. If you deny that life is good, you use life to make the denial. That’s self-defeating. — Moliere

I think the nuances come in when we drill down in what these "values" are composed of. Life can bring value, but it can bring much negative value. If someone was in a prison of suffering most of their life, it would be odd to say to that person, "Well, you couldn't value at all, if you weren't alive! Cheer up chap!". I don't think just any value is self-justifying, as if a universe with value is somehow greater than a world without simply because "value exists". Rather, is good value worth the bad value? Some people think this is purely something subjective in how one answers at a particular time and place. Others provide a framework for which to judge negative value versus good value, and when and how one can be worth enduring when compared against the other.

This actually seems to be occurring now. For some reason Fox News and the right have a sudden obsession with UFOs. I tend to think the claims more bullshit because of this partisan leaning. — Hanover

Well, glad you can substantiate the claim as an example, I guess?

But this is just poor epistemological reasoning. It says not to look at any specific account for proof, but instead just look at the whole without looking too close. It's like if I brought you into a warehouse with thousands of boxes of evidence for alien existence and every piece I examined closely offered no proof, but you said "yeah, but just look at this warehouse of stuff" as if that's proof enough. — Hanover

Until about a year ago, I would have agreed with you. But then why haven’t Elizondo, Grusch, or the dozens of others who have testified before Congress been charged with perjury, or at the very least, been lambasted for wasting time and taxpayer money on a fringe topic? You could argue that anyone can make up anything, and technically you’d be right. However, once someone is “read in” and granted access to classified information, they tend to take the matter more seriously.

That said, who really knows? It’s entirely possible that the UFO narrative has always been a convenient cover for classified terrestrial crash retrieval programs. As I’ve said before, it’s frustrating because the same people pushing for “disclosure” can also profit from it, playing a long game where answers always remain just out of reach. The issue only becomes serious when government actors get involved. Then it’s no longer just conspiracy theorists at conferences trading stories and building “lore.”

Here are the more pressing questions:

Why can’t Congress get access to the so-called gatekeepers in these programs or industries?

Can we establish a framework for falsification? For example, if A, B, and C are investigated and nothing is found, can it then be ruled a hoax? Should there be consequences for misleading Congress and wasting resources?

How do we determine when an investigation is complete? The challenge with classified programs is that the information is, by nature, hidden. Would Congress need to conduct field hearings at places like Lockheed Martin or Wright-Patterson AFB?

That’s a logistical nightmare, and not how government usually works. Even if such visits were authorized, it's not difficult for entities to obscure access or hide materials. And so the mystery keeps perpetuating itself.

(Yes, I get it—many would argue Congress wastes money by default. Fair enough.)

No, an all-at-once revelation would be disastrous. The fear, loss of frame and cosmic uncertainty would likely lead to intra-human civil wars along lines like "That's our God" or "You caused this" and what not..

That said, It seems to fly in the face of the reasons given for the initial preclusion. So, I think its incoherent that this would happen anyway. They wanted to avoid ontological shock... why would that suddenly not be the case? — AmadeusD

Do you have reasons for your assessment? Why would this disclosure automatically lead to civil war? As for why there would be disclosure, perhaps there are enough whistleblowers now, and the powers that be have decided that the original reasons for secrecy no longer apply. For example, the Cold War has ended, the public may be more accepting, and there has already been a slow rollout of disclosure over time.

I appreciate that this is a hypothetical, so it's not entirely right to question the premises that you've asserted as given, but we do need to consider the reality that Donald Trump (as an example) is not a reliable means for dispensing and withholding information based upon his reasonable assessment of what information can be handled by the populace. — Hanover

True, when the truth is buried under layers of confusion and half-claims, even extraordinary revelations start to seem unbelievable. If a major political figure were to announce alien disclosure, how many people would immediately assume it was just a distraction from some unrelated scandal? The timing alone would lead to suspicion.

We’ve reached a point where public shock is so frequent that even the biggest shock of all could be overlooked. What should be a solemn, world-changing moment risks becoming another round of partisan doubt and media noise. Instead of focusing on the weight of the information itself, people would focus on the motives of the messenger, questioning why now, why this way, and what else is being hidden.

And where I use "Donald Trump," I really mean anybody. This suggestion that information is controllable, and even if it were, that those controlling it have any idea what to do with it is a dubious notion. At the microcosm level of an office environment, for example, it seems impossible to control gossip, and those in charge of controlling it are particuarly bad at it. It's for that reason I find it hard to fathom how these alien beings have been able to surgically reveal their identity to the earthling leaders without tipping off any random jogger or pigeon feeder and those leaders then kept the information under wraps. — Hanover

Well, there’s no shortage of people over the past 80 years claiming sightings—some of them from highly credible backgrounds, not to mention all the stories about alleged abductions. If we assume there’s any truth to it, and these beings are advanced enough to reach Earth, then it stands to reason they’d also be capable of hiding easily. Some theories even suggest they’ve established bases in remote or inaccessible areas, like deep beneath the ocean.

And honestly, if they can pull that off, avoiding detection by conventional military tech shouldn’t be too hard for them.

But one thing that’s always seemed a bit strange is the crash angle. How do they make it here across vast interstellar distances with that level of advancement… and then crash once they get here? Seems unlikely—unless something extreme happened. Either an unforeseen atmospheric or energetic anomaly, or maybe even intentional crashes as part of an experiment or contact strategy.

Another possibility is that these aren’t accidents at all but highly controlled incidents, maybe decoys, or maybe a kind of data collection or seeding operation. Because if they’re smart enough to get here, you'd expect they’d be smart enough not to crash into a hillside in New Mexico.

Unless, of course, we're completely misunderstanding what their craft are or how they function.

Either way, it’s the combination of high-level secrecy, the volume of eyewitness accounts, and the long timeline that makes it harder to dismiss the whole thing outright. Something’s going on. The only question is what-and why hasn’t it been fully acknowledged?

If that could happen, I would have much more trust in my government officials and I would likely be willing to submit to whatever gradual ontological shock process they thought was best because clearly they're playing 4-D chess that I cannot understand.

On the other hand, assuming most people are playing tic-tac-toe, maybe checkers at best, I’d rather they just tell me everything at once. The more they try to control the flow of information, the more they risk leaking things they didn’t intend to, and the result is confusion and distrust. — Hanover

So that leads to more questions:

Is there a kind of power in keeping secrets? What does that power really amount to?

What kind of information should we, as citizens in an open society, have a right to know?

Why is there such a strong assumption that disclosure would trigger some existential crisis?

Would it really be that devastating unless it was revealed that the visitors are hostile?

If anything is being kept, it’s probably technological debris or biological samples-not live aliens. If these beings were as advanced as suggested, would they really just agree to sit quietly in some underground facility? If they’re that capable, couldn’t they have done far more already? Unless, of course, some kind of agreement exists. What the nature of that would be, I don't know.

Certainly, the current president wouldn't seem to be read-in on all of it, one would think. I would imagine it being compartmentalized so that only a handful of people know the whole picture, and only the most loyal are read-in.

Jumping in here: Is there any process by which classified information can be/should be declassified. And just here we're found mired in the quicksand trap of either/or thinking. Understanding "system" as process, of course there is, called judicial oversight, either by courts or by legislative authority. The key word is oversight, and the key understanding is that the overlooking authority has the final word. And of course the problems that arise are those of competing interests, those resolved in the agon of debate or legal contest. — tim wood

I thought this quick Google AI search is relevant:

Nuclear Weapons Information: Information related to nuclear weapons is subject to a separate statutory scheme established by Congress under the Atomic Energy Act. This information cannot be automatically declassified by the President alone and requires extensive consultation with executive branch agencies, including the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense.

I believe any actual UAP materials are classified at levels even higher than those governing nuclear weapons. Given the nature of these phenomena, and assuming they are real, they may fall under the jurisdiction of the Atomic Energy Act. If that is the case, even the President may be technically limited in what can be revealed without going through formal channels.

Full disclosure would likely require several things working together: a deliberate act of Congress, a President who is genuinely committed to transparency, and cooperative gatekeepers within the intelligence and defense communities. If any one of these parts fails- if Congress hesitates, if the President stays quiet, or if the gatekeepers resist- then meaningful disclosure probably will not happen.

Nice thorough post, thanks.

So it's totally reasonable that intelligence regarding NHIs, be it biological, military, political, engineering, or astrophysical information, would stay under-wraps for a good while. I don't think the populace (and this extends to the rest of the world, too) has any intrinsic right to be made aware of information that may compromise not just national, but global security, just because of weighty perceived ontological implications. — Stuart Roberts

First off, it would have to be determined whether this information is actually harmful. I understand there are “unknown unknowns,” especially when it comes to how people might react, but that’s a consequence of living in a relatively open society. In this case, the ontological implications would outweigh the perceived security threats.

Imagine if the Catholic Church had been fully successful in suppressing Galileo and the Scientific Revolution because the truth was deemed too disruptive or inconvenient. Yet the movement continued and, arguably, changed the course of humanity for the better. Even if the technical details need to be withheld, there’s no justifiable reason not to acknowledge the existence of the crafts and beings-if they truly exist in any form.

And while your defense of classification for the sake of the greater good is a possibly valid concern, there are likely self-interested motives at play as well. Private companies could have a stake in keeping things quiet in order to be the first to develop and profit from any advanced technology.

Thinking about actual instances of massive classified (usually FOIA-spurred) doc-dumps, like those ceded to the public by the CIA in the past: in my experience, releasing a ton of information at once actually doesn't overload people in the way it seems it would. It usually kind-of numbs all but the keenest of scourers, who then write articles 'dissecting' and disseminating the info in digestible chunks. I bet the number of people who know what MK-ULTRA was far outweighs the number who have read the redacted documentation in its entirety. It seems to trickle down through channels:

Relevantly Credentialed Academics/Government Spokespeople —> General Academics/Science Communicators, people without specialised knowledge but with a higher capacity for digesting thick boilerplate and making sense out of it —> News Media who pick-up those people to pen articles as 'experts' —> The general population who read/watch that news

(This is an assumption I'm making. I feel it's fairly accurate/intuitive, though, and readily observable in modern legal cases and whatnot)

So, maybe an all-at-once dump isn't the worst idea, since existing frameworks that are inherent to a society where not everyone is educated the same kind of dull the edge of such massive information. — Stuart Roberts

I think disclosure should come directly from a major head of state. At the very least, it should be confirmed first by a top official in the intelligence or defense community, then publicly affirmed by the head of state. After that, there should be a structured rollout: major evidence, a timeline of events, and key developments- focusing not on sensitive technology, but on the broader facts.

"What are the chances we're the only intelligent life in the universe?"

—might shock them. For many people, it might even renew their optimism, though. Just a theory, but if, right now, the U.S. or UK government announced they had reverse-engineered an alien warp-drive or some sort of microwave-propulsion or Alcubierre Drive or something that'd revolutionise and greatly cheapen space travel over the coming decades, making all of our Star-Trek, Star Wars, and otherwise Sci-Fi dreams that much more feasible; allowing for interstellar exploration, taking off global-warming pressure, and generating a paradigm-shift in human technology—people might just be stoked.
Many would be upset, scared, or would go into crisis, but I don't think public reception would be wholly negative. — Stuart Roberts

I agree. I don't think people would panic just because it's confirmed that aliens have visited Earth. The public would want real answers to the big questions: Why are they here? Has there been any communication? If not, what caused the crashes- were they intentional, the result of technical failure, or brought down by military action? There should also be a clear explanation of what has been learned from the recovered craft and any biological evidence.

This notion of "ontological shock" seems a convenient excuse.

Great movie. Just wanted to comment that this ties in a bit to a thread I made earlier:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15949/ontological-shock/p1

There may only be a small risk that our enemies look to capture the technology, either by capturing their own crafts or having agents infiltrate our facilities for the knowledge to reverse engineer it. The rich and those they employ would also be after it, which could then end up with our enemies. — Down The Rabbit Hole

Presumably, the countries with the budgets and personnel to handle this situation have already been doing so. It’s clearly up to a public that is willing to demand disclosure. In the case of the United States, you would expect the checks and balances among the three branches of government to be brought into play. The Congressional Oversight Committee, along with the UAP Task Force, is currently being stonewalled by various departments within the Executive Branch.

The information is fragmented into isolated “stovepipes,” meaning no one has access to the full picture and each group only works on the specific part they are given. It seems likely that the Congressional Oversight Committees are at odds with the Intelligence Committees, which typically operate with a higher level of classified clearance. Since that group is privy to more sensitive material, they may be more tightly bound to secrecy through NDAs and other legal mechanisms, and may function as an obstacle to disclosure rather than a partner in it.

Now, IF these intelligent aliens insisted on hanging around earth, I would suspect that they were pursuing a plan to exploit our animal behaviors in some way not to our advantage.. Perhaps they need some low value soldiers in a war. They would have recognized soon that we could be coaxed into berserker behavior. We have reached a large population from which enough crazy berserker-types could be recruited. And if the rate of human death in the alien's war were quite high, so what? What good were we to them?

High levels of intelligence and technology do not tell us much about the state of the aliens' hearts (if they even have hearts). They could be bright, shiny, and ever so smart but still be children of the Prince of Darkness (to employ earthenware). — BC

No doubt, if abductions are real, that seems more than a little invasive. I would imagine NHI may not share our notion of personal autonomy. Perhaps they see us as too primitive to warrant concern. You make a good point: advanced technology does not necessarily imply good intent. We might hope they are more "enlightened," but that could mean very different things depending on context. An advanced race desperate for certain resources or forms of knowledge might not value what we assume they would, especially when judged by the moral standards of modernity.

Then there is the ethical issue of parts of the Executive Branch operating with no Congressional oversight. Some programs, including black operations, are completely inaccessible to review. That creates real danger.

Do you have an idea about how to create a system where no piece of information that should be public would ever be classified? I should think errors are inevitable even before corruption enters the picture. — Leontiskos

There are "errors," and then there are glaring errors. In this case, the omission would amount to a systematic denial of a foundational and world-changing ontological understanding of reality. That doesn’t even begin to account for the decades during which the information could have been disclosed but wasn’t. So much knowledge and understanding has been lost.

Beyond that, if we return to purely instrumental concerns, the extreme compartmentalization of information, in which even different floors of the same program are unaware of each other's work on UAP or NHI, prevents real scientific progress. Problems can’t be solved effectively when the broader academic and scientific community is shut out. Without many minds and disciplines working together, breakthroughs are stifled before they even begin.

I don't see that as a bad form of government, especially if we agree that some information should be classified. — Leontiskos

But the tension still exists. What happens when important information is hidden without a justified reason? If checks and balances are truly effective in limiting each branch, then Congress absolutely should be getting to the bottom of it, especially if the Executive Branch is withholding critical information unnecessarily or for self-serving reasons.

but I tend to see that as a corruption of science precisely because the governments do not have the same goals as the Star Trek explorers. Granted, I think it would be great if our governments were more concerned with speculative knowledge. — Leontiskos

Yes, so if the true "Good" in this situation is purely for knowledge's sake, meaning understanding more about the actual ontology of the universe rather than our externally limited view, then it would seem that this reason is instrumental. The question is, what kinds of instrumental values would override the Good of pure understanding? I see that @Down The Rabbit Hole said it’s justified when it's for the sake of national security:

National Security is a solid argument; we don't want the power wielded by our enemies, and the people through their elected representatives want National Security. — Down The Rabbit Hole

But can't disclosure happen without revealing full knowledge of potentially destructive capabilities? Surely, they have overstepped their duty to ensure safety, and perhaps have done so for self-interested or even nefarious reasons, rather than acting in the public's interest.

In a democratic Republic like the United States I think the people decide who gets to make that decision by electing them. In that sense the will of the people does inform the decision.

Is the President-citizen relationship similar to the parent-child relationship insofar as the former is empowered to decide what sort of information the latter is capable of receiving? I think the two relationships are similar in that way. I think the whole idea of classified information depends on that empowerment. — Leontiskos

Notice the tension here. You first say that "the people" get to decide, but then note that in certain republics, like the United States, it is actually the President, or more accurately, the Executive Branch departments, who make those decisions and act as gatekeepers of information. It becomes clear that if technology exists which could benefit private companies or contractors, there may be serious conflicts of interest. The gatekeepers hold immensely powerful information that the people arguably have a right to know. As you mentioned, it is the taxpayers funding these efforts. It is their military, their taxes, and their interests that are supposed to be protected, not the priorities of a select group of insiders within private contractors, the military, or the intelligence community.

Thoughtful response, thanks.

I'm not really convinced that we have a natural right to any piece of knowledge based merely on its existential or ontological import. I think we might have a positive right to such knowledge, and within a pure democracy that positive right would derive from the will of the people. — Leontiskos

Sure, but how would the "will of the people" be discerned if they never even knew about it? It's a bit of a conundrum. And I tend to agree with the conception of positive rights here. For example, we can talk about the "right to an education." Why should someone not be deprived of a basic public education? Is it just so they have a chance to function within society and gain resources (though that’s a good reason)? Or is there something about knowledge itself that is simply valuable- something that is just good to know?

But if you want to dial up the notion of "ontological shock" in the context of natural rights to knowledge, then I wonder if the parent-child relationship is more apt. For example, what is the morality involved in telling your child that Santa Claus does not exist? Or that they were adopted? Or that humans do not come from storks? Or that NHIs are real in the way that the OP describes? — Leontiskos

Indeed, good questions. Notice that your questions involve parent-child relationships. The idea of a "white lie" comes to mind here. But should adults be deprived of important knowledge in the same way children are? Who gets to make that decision? As stated, it can't be the "will of the people" in this case.

The parent has a responsibility to the entire welfare of their child, including its developmental stages. Therefore they have a responsibility to balance the goods of knowledge against the dangers of inappropriate appropriations of that knowledge. In the Orthodox tradition Satan orchestrated the Fall precisely by giving Adam and Eve the knowledge of Good and Evil too early and too quickly. That knowledge was always their inheritance, but to receive one's inheritance in an untimely way can be fatal. — Leontiskos

True. So, do you think this would justify holding back disclosure, given the potential consequences of ontological shock?

I would ask how the fiduciary duties of democratically elected officials impinge on these epistemic questions. In some cases there would be an obligation to inform one's constituents. I'm not quite sure what those cases would be. — Leontiskos

I guess we would have to define what would be considered immoral to omit versus what could be justified for the "greater good." For example, I think we can all agree it is moral to keep nuclear secrets from the majority of the population. But something as world-changing as the existence of NHI would seem immoral to keep from the public. Of course, the scenario I describe is a classic case of self-interest versus the greater good. The companies and governments working on recovered craft might want the information securely hidden, while keeping such an extraordinary discovery from the public would deprive people of rightful knowledge about the actual nature of the universe and the science behind it.

Getting away from the hypothetical, hasn't Trump leaked or nodded towards some of that classified information? My sense is that there would be a lot of obscurity at each level of the epistemic question of NHI's, such that there would be a significant risk of creating more confusion and disarray if the evidence isn't watertight. This is especially true in the era of deepfakes. It would basically blow the top off the discussions we have been having on faith and belief on the grounds of another's testimony. :lol: — Leontiskos

There is a UAP Task Force in the US House right now addressing this issue. These are real Congressional panels. A hearing under oath was supposed to take place today but was postponed. There are meetings in a SCIF with departments from the DoD (AARO) and the FBI, who are investigating alleged wrongdoing by contractors said to be working on this. These contractors are also alleged to have committed criminal acts on behalf of themselves and the Intelligence community in order to keep it a secret.

Here's some source material so you know I am not bullshitting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyZP9wdkfG8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVdux73iJEk

https://www.askapoluaps.com/podcast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAxI-LDrDqA&t=1s

Nice, thanks. Do you have an answer to the initial OP or follow-up posts regarding the ethics of disclosure?

Have you seen Villeneuve's film Arrival? — Leontiskos

I think clips of it, but haven't seen the whole movie, no. Is that similar? Also, I've heard the Three-Body Problem is another interesting one.

It sounds like there's a great deal of amity and cooperation among and between both the NHI groups and the Earth nations (USA, China, Russia, all getting along well on this topic). Is that part of what you want us to imagine? I can't help feeling that needs its own explanation, and it would definitely have a bearing on how a roll-out of disclosure might go. — J

Let's say for this, some governments only have craft and some have both NHI and craft. The ones with NHI and craft have a few representatives who were willing to stay behind to help explain some of the technology, but they aren't necessarily friendly or fully forthcoming, though they have provided some help for reasons that remain unknown. Let's say a certain faction of aliens is also prone to experimenting on humans or using them for hybridization projects. Maybe they need something humans have, or perhaps they are simply studying and comparing various biological phenomena.

Most of the abduction claims, then, would be related to these NHI conducting experiments, mostly the Greys. The governments are especially afraid that people will find out they made a deal with the NHI to gain technology and to prevent disclosure before they are ready to inform the public. Generally, as stated earlier, the NHI are fine with this arrangement because they don't think humans are ready. They also need to conduct more experiments and do not want to interfere too much, so they require a degree of secrecy without disclosure. This is why they interfere with the hippocampus of abductees, in order to suppress their memories of what happened.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/987916

Does this help?

I'd like some coherent story of what these NHI people are doing here. Are they getting us ready to join the interstellar community? — checking that the quarantine is holding? —eco-bio research? ... — unenlightened

Good questions. Let's say it's something along the lines of what you're suggesting. Earth is still a developing planet. They monitor our technology and cultural evolution to determine when it will be time to integrate us into the larger Galactic Alliance. That is why many of them send probes and craft to nuclear facilities and military bases. They have strategic bases underwater, as well as others elsewhere in the solar system, where information is relayed back. Some of them also travel in ways that could be described as interdimensional, but that opens up a whole other topic.

I'm afraid I'm not quite playing the yes/no game, but that's because I'm not sure who is in charge of these revelations, the governments or the aliens? — unenlightened

Let's say some of the NHI are pushing for disclosure to happen sooner, which creates significant disagreement among the factions and also with Earth’s governments. Most of the ones in charge continue to follow the directive to allow Earth to develop more on its own, believing that humanity is not ready. Governments like those of the USA, China, and Russia definitely want it hidden, since they are engaged in a technological race for superiority in travel, fuel, and weapons.

I'll start it off...

No: To come out with the news all at once would be a bad idea. People rely on the certainty of the known and generally steer away from what is uncomfortable or uncanny. That is why it works in horror or sci-fi, because it's an escape in the form of entertainment. However, if one's own reality is changed to such a degree, it becomes existentially overpowering and leads to extreme forms of dread and anxiety, because one's old notion of self, society, and the universe has been ripped asunder so suddenly.

Yes: People have a right to know the truth regarding something as existentially relevant as other intelligent life in the universe, full stop. If governments have known this and were hiding it, it is a kind of immoral act, whereby people's ontological perspective was not properly informed. People have a right to knowledge of their place in the universe, and the hiding of truth for any purpose would be an incredible act of deception.

Alternatives to "all-at-once" disclosure: Put themes that are true in movies, books, entertainment, and media so that these concepts are already in the cultural milieu. This would be a very soft disclosure. The only problem with this approach is that if the information does get disclosed eventually, people will think, at the beginning of the process, that the ones disclosing it cannot be serious because it sounds like the plot of a sci-fi story, rather than the other way around (the sci-fi was based on fact, and the tale was wagging the dog). After that, provide evidence of anomalous objects. Then, provide evidence of recovered craft or reverse-engineered technology. Finally, disclose the NHI themselves.

So long as it remains notional, it is impotent. It requires an engagement beyond the word-processing department, so to speak. — Wayfarer

You'd have to elaborate. Are you talking meditation and such?

It seems to work like this:
T1: We are all one, manifested in different forms...
T2: That bastard cut me off!

The end of unity.

But this is where naturalism hems us in, so to speak. Insofar as we are simply another species, thrown up by the blind watchmaker, then the best we can do is one or another form of stoicism, soldiering on, coping, perhaps in the manner of Camus' Sisyphus ('It's hell, but lets keep smiling.') Or do whatever we can to ameliorate suffering and prolong life by whatever scientific means possible. — Wayfarer

I've stated this a while ago, but I see a the big fundamental division between a cozy unified "oneness", and a cold eternal "separateness". The "naturalism", represents an artificial (at best) unification whereby maybe we can say, in theory, we are all a form of "matter/energy", or in the case of living organisms, all "organic matter", or some such. But this is cold comfort for those seeking something more substantial. So you have the notion of a spiritual/mystical/soul/mind that is "behind the physical", that is really a unified metaphysical thing. And this thing manifests itself in all the entities- and thus the entities are all examples of the Maya of the principium individuationis.

Why the Maya then? Why not just the unification itself?

To answer that, you can propose several things. One is that the world is actually not limited, but boundlessly infinite, and that every manifestation of world exists. This is one existence- one with various amounts of suffering and individual entities.

This really doesn't do much, but just adds an infinite Baroque quality to existence.

Why if it is tailor-made for this way of things, rather than just one contingent universe of an infinite set, is it tailor made for this or that? Then we have notions that any Logos-principle is itself a limiting factor. If it is not limiting, then it was simply one of a number or infinite variety. Why this Logos?

Why not all unification? Why not no suffering?

The answers become ways to justify this or that notion to make people feel better for a bit, or so it seems.

I don't like to think in hard yes/no categories. I prefer gradual, relative thinking. So, a little pain is OK. That's not brutal. That's enough to get warned about caries or fire. It's not neccassary to exaggarate it. When there is a white spot on the photo, it's clearly recognisable; it makes no sense to overexpose the photo; it won't make the white spot whiter. I think this hotel manager has no interest in well-exposed photography; he's just a myopic sadist. — Quk

Leads to a conclusion of radical contingency over elegant design. Thus leading to a sort of multi-universe theory whereby this universe is but one we happen to inhabit with all its experiences. It could have went differently, but since we are living it out, it seems inevitable.

Yes, exactly. Its something I've always had trouble with, why would a perfect, infinite and self-sufficient being bother with such a thing? Seems completely arbitrary. — goremand

Anyway, why should God be concerned with what a bunch of ignorant, fallen beings consider to be good or evil? — goremand

You bring up a good point I have also proposed in past posts. That is to say, a self-sufficient being doesn't need to design a game of "struggle of lower beings to recognize X, Y, Z", and "learning their lessons through cycles of suffering". This just seems all too human.. that there is some sort of moral/aesthetic lessons to be learned that suffering must be instructive towards.

Having faith is wanting to believe something without evidence, and thus similar to hope, but a stronger sense of personal certainty, usually with less empirical evidence.

Thus faith pretty much = (hope - empirical evidence) + conviction.

The mechanism is the stipulation. — Banno

If by stipulation you simply mean convention, then I think we are kind of saying the same thing. The convention is itself part of the causal-historical events. The dubbing is how it started, the convention is how it is used and ongoing part of the the name being carried on.

I'm not seeing this as a problem for Quine, or for Kripke. It could as well be settled by saying "Ok, We'll call this one "Fred", and that one "Harry". Nothing to do with modality. — Banno

It's not a problem for Quine if you think we are just labeling stuff and it's just convention. For Kripke, I would think there needs to be a mechanism for which the same word is necessarily that referent in all possible worlds. That mechanism is the causal-historical events that goes back to its dubbing (or in this case its possible "redubbing"). Even if we say Harry was Bob was Sam, we can have a world in which Harry and Bob and Sam refer to the same thing, but they didn't know the previous iterations. At some point in the history the name was dubbed, and the name was used by stipulation, and in this case, that name was changed, and then used by stipulation. And then again. In fact, what if the original name was lost to time, but then someone remembered that this was the original name of that person? Well, the causal theory allows it to be a rigid designator that will always rigidly designate that person. Sam was the initial dubbing, Bob and Harry were subsequent dubbing, and by convention others have used it, and all these convoluted namings of that same person would hold as that person and not another because of its stipulation in causal-historical events.

I don't see a problem here. "Sam" refers to Sam, "Washington" to Washington, that's just what we do with those words. If there is a problem as to which Sam or which Washington is being named, that may be sorted to our mutual satisfaction by having a chat. — Banno

If I said "Sam is X", and you say "No no, Bob is X". How do we sort this out? Well, someone misremembered or mislabeled something here. Maybe I thought Sam was Bob this whole time. What resolves this is the causal set of events that leads Sam to have been referred to Sam and not something else like Bob. I think we are kind of saying the same thing, but I am giving the mechanism for the stipulation. If I said, "No no, I know Sam is Bob, but I am not calling Sam Sam but Bob from now on", well, that would just be another causal-historical event that connects Bob with Sam.

Sorry, lets' try to be clear here - the rigid designation comes about as a result of the stipulation. That the name refers to the object might well be the result of a baptism and causal chain, btu that plays no part in the name being treated as a rigid designator.

So you can say Sam := X; then ask "In some possible world, what if Sam were not X?" And still be referring to Sam. — Banno

I guess what I mean then is how is it that the stipulation is constrained to "Sam" and not something else? Which seems to be the question there. Causal-historical chain of events seems to be Kripke's answer.

Rigid designators are not discovered, they are stipulated. When one asks what the world might be like if Thatcher had lost her first election, one is stipulating a world in which, if anything, Thatcher exists in order to lose the election. The stipulation is what makes it a rigid designation. — Banno

Definition of Stipulation:
a condition or requirement that is specified or demanded as part of an agreement.

This is choosing amongst a set of grammars - semantics - that we might make use of. — Banno

So it looks like your theory here is that we agree (i.e. follow a convention), that such-and-such is picked out across all possible worlds. However, the convention doesn't convey where the rigid designation comes about. If I say X = Sam, Sam is referring to X because of the causal chain that dubbed it so somewhere in the history. This gives it the rigid designation in the first place. Otherwise, X = Sam is just a hollow analytic statement.

Once it's "picked out", it is designated rigidly. I'm not sure if this is what you are saying, of if it disagrees with what you are saying. So Theseus' ship may change completely, and yet it continues to make sense to refer to it as the Ship of Theseus, using that name as a rigid designator. — Banno

It is the "once picked out, it is designated rigidly" that I am trying to go back to. "What" is causing this rigidity of the designator? And thus I brought up what I think is integral to Kripke- the causal theory of reference. Thus the foundation seems to me, to be causality that is the root of this rigidity.

They need not be. Anything that can be given a proper name can be rigidly designated. Kinds, such as gold or H₂O, can also be rigidly designated. But again, while causality may be the answer to how it is that a name refers to an individual, once that link is established, the causal chain becomes unnecessary. So Hesperus = Phosphorus even though the casual chains to their baptism differ. — Banno

Ok, so if the causal chain becomes unnecessary, what makes it still a rigid designator? Because if you use anything other than causality, I would be at a loss to how it is so. If a proper name refers to the same thing in all possible worlds, there needs to be a reason for why it does. The reason is the causal chain. One may not be able to actually trace it, but that's what creates the referent to be rigidly designated. Ship of Theseus has a causal link that goes back to X dubbing. Now, it gets tricky as to when THE Ship of Theseus as a philosophical concept is actually designated versus some ship of Theseus, but that's just the application of the concept.

Well, you could follow Quine and try to get rid of proper names and say that: "there is some X that gandalfizes." Spade's article, which is quite good, points out some of the ways in which Quine's approach is more similar to Platonism. The variable, being a sort of bare particular (substratum, bearer of haecceity) sort of takes on the role of matter (the chora), with properties fulfilling the role of forms. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But then the problem of contingency as far as what properties makes a Gandalf.

Sheer "dubbing" runs into the absurdities of the "very same Socrates" who is alternatively Socrates, a fish, a coffee mug, Plato, a patch on my tire, or Donald Trump, in which case we might be perplexed as to how these can ever be "the very same" individual. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not so much if it the "dubbing" entails a chain of causal events that lead back to the dubbing. Of course you can ask all sorts of things like, "Can the dubbing be mistaken?" Can there be a faux dubbing that never really happened and all are mistaken in a contingent world?

The problem with the broadly "Platonic" strategy is that it does indeed have difficulty explaining how particulars exist and if the substratum lying beneath them to which properties attach is either one or many. This is complicated even more by certain empiricist commitments that would seem to make proposing an unobservable, propertyless substratum untenable. Without this substratum though, you often end up with an ontology that supposes a sort of "soup" prior to cognition, with the existence of all "things" being the contingent, accidental creation of the mind (e.g. The Problem of the Many, the problems of ordinary objects, etc.). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yep, how does an object not simply decay into only its properties. However, we can say the patterns present themselves in forms, and these forms are delineated and made into technologies and testable experiments. That seems to indicate that the world is presenting something beyond mere convention or habit of thought. But this can of course go into Kantian Idealism, and how the mind by necessity structures the world vs. various realisms, etc. Either way, both would be contra mere conventionalism, I would think.

Hence, the Aristotelian idea of particulars as more than bundles of properties, as possessing an internal principle of intelligibility, self-determination, and unity (although they are not wholly self-subsistent). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Indeed, but what is this internal coherence? It's asserted but not explained other than its needed to say this object is this and not that.

The problems of broadly Platonist approaches are perhaps less acute in philosophies with a notion of "vertical reality" (described quite well in Robert M. Wallace's books on Plato and Hegel). They seem particularly acute in physicalist ontologies that want to be "flat." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yeah, are there principles behind the physical aspects at work, etc. Some people propose a mathematical one, etc.

One solution is essentially hyper voluntarist theology with man swapped in for God. So, instead of "a deer is whatever God says it is," we get "a deer is whatever man says it is." — Count Timothy von Icarus

One might retort that realism is shown through outcomes that are out of our control but lead to technologies and repeatable testable results. Interesting enough, I wonder if this kind of response can even work for Gandalf or Bilbo. Bilbo is a hobbit, hobbits are this but not that. One cannot make a hobbit to X if he cannot do X, thus if a TV series takes the stories and breaks them, they are panned as inauthentic.

You might capture this in terms of accessibility, yes. The question then is if we might want some notion of physical necessity (i.e., related to changing, mobile being) as an explanatory notion. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Can Gandalf also have a necessity of Gandalf like Water is H20? If so, what is the thing that makes both point to the referent and rigidly designate to it? It isn't physicality. Is it causality? The initial "dubbing" of referent to the name? Why must physical things be the only things to be rigidly designated?

And then of course, if causality is the key, can this be questioned? What if in all possible worlds, causality does not hold or some such?

But if Venus were not the brightest star in the western evening, it would still be Venus.

"The brightest star in the western evening sky" is not a rigid designator, but "The Evening Star" is. — Banno

This can be tied into the Ship of Theseus as a way to explain how rigid designators get their designation. That is to say, why is "Venus" or "The Evening Star" a rigid designation to begin with? What makes it rigidly designated? In every possible world Venus is X. But what is X? That "essentialness" of Venus? It is the causal conditions for which the term "Venus" is picked out amongst other things in the world. Thus causality seems to play the foundational role in all of this designation. There is a chain of events leading back to the baptism of the object that leads it to be rigidly designated to that object. Ok, well that works for proper names. How about scientific kinds like H20? I guess it can be the same causal foundation that links the name by necessity.

The tie in with the Ship of Theseus is, that if Venus was to miss X component or Y component or Z component is it still Venus? Well, according to Kripke, that would be a contingent circumstance, and thus not what makes designator pick out that object. So what is it? Again, it seems to be causality in a chain of events starting from its initial baptism or naming.

I think there is an ambiguity regarding human action. Some of our ways are in accord with but others contrary to the Way. Naming is something humans do. To be human is to be part of rather than apart from the Way. The authors of the Tao Te Ching uses names. But — Fooloso4

If we need to read poems and philosophy to “get back to Nature” or “the Way”, perhaps we can never truly be “in it”, contrary to the “ways of life” of other animals.

This is the problem that I personally call "The Hard Problem of Identity". Think of it like the "Hard problem of consciousness", but in metaphysics instead of philosophy of mind. One possible candidate for identity, is spatiotemporal continuity of form under a sortal. That solution, however, crashes into the problem of Material Constitution, particularly with the case of the Ship of Theseus (I think that the Ship of Theseus paradox should be classified as a problem of indeterminate identity, not as a problem of material constitution, but that's beside the point). — Arcane Sandwich

I'd agree that indeterminate identity does become a problem when delimiting where "objects" begin and end. I don't think this is as much a problem with other forms of metaphysics like process philosophy. But I get the reasons for wanting an object-oriented metaphysics, giving objects-proper ultimate priority, and irreducible to simples.

The word "scientism" originally had a negative connotation, and then some people (like Mario Bunge) started using it in a positive sense. For example, take a look at the title of one of his articles: In Defense of Realism and Scientism — Arcane Sandwich

Cool, I'll check it out. As a lark, @Wayfarer should take a look.

So, I would say that nothing "becomes" an object in the strict sense for OOO, I would say that objects instead emerge according to OOO. — Arcane Sandwich

This just seems to open up more problems, no? For example, is Gandalf not Gandalf at time 1, but is at time 2? What is the proto-object that "emerges" in the transition stage between non-object and object? Is that proto-object an object? This suggests to negate essentialism as a continuum, more a non-discrete field or spectrum.

Again, your argument is not with me then, but with Harman himself. My theory of fictional characters is mostly inspired by Bunge, not Harman. There are other parts of my personal philosophy that are more inspired by Harman than Bunge, but this is not one of them. — Arcane Sandwich

I am not arguing with your theory but Harman, and am seeing if you also agree with my objections, nothing more. The problem with essentialist theories is where the delimiters are for certain objects. You can get away with it perhaps if you are a materialist because then you can delimit where the boundaries are by some sort of material composition. However, if you give all potential things status of objects, it can be stretched out to a continuum, and thus not an object so much as a continuous monism of indefinite beginning or end, as is the problem with something like Gandalf.

My sentiments on Harman's philosophy (and he knows this himself, since we've been exchanging emails for almost 10 years now) are mixed, precisely because I'm a materialist and he is not, and because I endorse scientism and he does not. He values science, but he places no stock in scientism. I, on the other hand, place stock in both. Despite these differences, Harman and I are realists. So there is important common ground there. And there are many more similarities and differences, but those that I just mentioned would be the core differences between us. — Arcane Sandwich

Interesting. I rarely see people "embrace" the label "scientism". What is that definition for you? There was a thread about this not too long ago:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15525/the-empty-suitcase-physicalism-vs-methodological-naturalism/p1

But as far as what I brought up, do you know of his answers, or would you have a defense? Specifically I am talking about how and when something becomes an object. It seems like a Deus ex machina to say Gandalf is thus an object. Is Gandalf an object at the first thought of a Gandalf-like character? The name Gandalf? The writing of pen to paper about Gandalf? The neural connections? It just seems oddly misplaced to call it an object even with the appellate "sensual". It also has to me, obvious connections to the essentialism of Kripke in Naming and Necessity, and Putnam with ideas of scientific kinds. Does Gandalf obtain in all possible worlds? Etc.

So what's your point here? It went over my head, if there was indeed a point to be made here. To me it sounds like you're just describing a state of affairs, and you're doing so in a neutral way. — Arcane Sandwich

Yep.

I have published a paper where I say that for Harman, all ideas are sensual objects, but not all sensual objects are ideas. He doesn't say that himself, but in one of the emails that he sent me, he seemed to agree with what I said about him on that specific point. — Arcane Sandwich

:up:

You'd be wrong. A real object can have sensual qualities, just as a sensual object can have real qualities. There's an article that Harman himself published in response to one of my own articles. In my article, I press him on the topic of hobbitsvis a vis the topic of matter, and he explicitly says, in print, that hobbits are sensual objects that have real qualities, and that the same is true of matter, in his view. — Arcane Sandwich

Fair enough, but then:

Then you're argument is with Harman himself, not with my interpretation of his philosophy. — Arcane Sandwich

And that would be true, but are you defending Harman with these objections or do you see them as well?

Not really. Good ol' fashioned relationism poses a greater philosophical problem for speculative realism. — Arcane Sandwich

It doesn't seem to be as much a problem except for Harman who focuses on objects contra process/qualities-only.

Besides, Meillassoux and Harman criticize correlationism for different reasons. They don't agree as to what it is that correlationism gets wrong. Meillassoux sees flaws where Harman sees virtues, and Harman sees flaws where Meillassoux sees virtues. — Arcane Sandwich

Meillassoux focused more on correlationism, and found that it kept people in an epistemic circle and thus "speculative realism" is an attempt to break it, philosophically. Harman agrees partly that correlationism has some truth to it as far as how humans relate to objects, but he democratizes it such that all objects have the ability, via vicarious causation to perceive to sense the object (i.e. sensual object), via the object's translated, sensual qualities (i.e. the qualities of an object as sensed by another object). A tree and wind have an interaction that is different than a tree and a human, for example. For Harman, relations are what matters. However, it is not all relations. It may even transform its appearance, but retains its essence (like the burned log). Each object, has an essence that is withdrawn or hidden, and thus retains its independence from complete reduction to its qualities, causal factors, or behaviors.

Not sure if this is correct, but if that's your theory, OK. — Arcane Sandwich

I am interpreting Harman, so not my own theory per se.

Qualities. For Harman, qualities are not objects, though he suggests that under certain conditions, a quality can become an object. But that's beside the point here, — Arcane Sandwich

It's actually quite the point. If Gandalf is purely from human imagination, that would seem to undermine his attempt at saying objects have independence. Also, what is the mechanism that makes the object an object at that point? Why is it not then something else- an idea, an abstraction, etc. This then becomes a slippery slope whereby objects are so ill-defined as to not matter in any useful sense.

Sensual Qualities - Real Qualities
Sensual Objects - Real Objects

These can be combined in many different ways. For example, a fictional character is a sensual object that has a real quality. Éowyn and Aragorn exists as sensual objects, not as real objects. However, they have real qualities, since, for example, they are copyrighted characters, you cannot use them in your own novel. That is in fact why the Tolkien foundation sued TSR (the old Dungeons & Dragons company) way back in the day. IIRC, a judge ruled that the word "hobbit" was copyrighted. So, instead of using the word "hobbit", TSR used "halfling". — Arcane Sandwich

I think you are misapplying Harman's notion of sensual object/qualities here. Sensual qualities, as far as I see, are only tied with sensual objects. Sensual objects are "tree-for-x" (human let's say). The sensual qualities would be the appearance of the tree-for-x (rough, brown, tall, etc.). The real object is the tree's essence which is withdrawn, independent of relations with other objects, and not fully comprehensible. The real qualities, might be things selected out as what composes the real object (but apparently never exhaustive), like the molecular structure let's say. Whatever form that particular tree takes in its relations with others, the essence always holds, though not fully knowable, though some real qualities can be picked out.

Thus Gandalf and Eowyn and Aragorn are always sensual objects with sensual qualities, as they are objects only ever relational to humans.

Coupling Heidegger's tool analysis with the phenomenological insights of Edmund Husserl, Harman introduces two types of objects: real objects and sensual objects. Real objects are objects that withdraw from all experience, whereas sensual objects are those that exist only in experience.[30] Additionally, Harman suggests two kinds of qualities: sensual qualities, or those found in experience, and real qualities, which are accessed through intellectual probing.[30] Pairing sensual and real objects and qualities yields the following four "tensions":

Real Object/Real Qualities (RO-RQ): This pairing grounds the capacity of real objects to differ from one another, without collapsing into indefinite substrata.[31] This tension thus refers to "a real or indescribable object" encrusted with "real properties" that cannot be experientially understood.[32] Harman refers to this as "essence".[33]
Real Object/Sensual Qualities (RO-SQ): As in the tool-analysis, a withdrawn object is translated into sensual apprehension via a "surface" accessed by thought and/or action.[31] This tension thus refers to "the multiple facets [an object] displays to the outer world, and whatever [real, withdrawn] organizing principle is able to hold together [those] features."[34] Harman identifies this as "space".[35]
Sensual Object/Real Qualities (SO-RQ): The structure of conscious phenomena are forged from eidetic, or experientially interpretive, qualities intuited intellectually.[31] This tension thus refers to "a perfectly accessible [object] whose features are withdrawn from [total] scrutiny",[34] Harman dubs "eidos"[36]
Sensual Object/Sensual Qualities (SO-SQ): Sensual objects are present, but enmeshed within a "mist of accidental features and profiles".[37] This tension thus refers to "an enduring sensual object and its shifting parade of qualities from one moment to the next", which Harman identifies as "time".[38]
To explain how withdrawn objects make contact with and relate to one another, Harman submits the theory of vicarious causation, whereby two hypothetical entities meet in the interior of a third entity, existing side-by-side until something occurs to prompt interaction.[39] Harman compares this idea to the classical notion of formal causation, in which forms do not directly touch, but influence one another in a common space "from which all are partly absent". Causation, says Harman, is always vicarious, asymmetrical, and buffered:
— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_ontology