This seems to make the LNC, e.g., contingent on the way the world is. But don't we want something much stricter than that, some way we can talk about necessity and impossibility? Can we arrive at what you're calling "a necessary understanding of the world"?

I'll bring in Nagel any post now! :smile: — J

I know Nagel thinks that the universe is directed in some way to reveal objective truths, or something of this nature. It's sort of a neo-Logos philosophy, perhaps.

There are really sticky and interrelated problems here..

I look at a notepad, and I think "notepad". A notepad is a conventional object. It is a socially created object, for all intents and purposes. But then there is various laws of mechanics that were used in the making of the machines that made the notepad. These are "laws of physics". Whilst the technological use is in a way conventional, the physical laws behind it, which we also derived, as humans reasoning, are supposedly the ones we are discussing, the "objective" ones "in nature". The "true mathematical laws" that we are not conventionalizing, but teasing out with our mathematical models, and cashing out in accurate predictions and technological usefulness. So it is those we are getting at. Yet, imposed on top of that, is the same brain that makes a conventional item like "notepad", into "something" real, something that I presuppose every time I look at a notepad. I don't just see a bunch of atoms grouped together- I see a type of object. Now this is the tricky part where Kant does come in. What is the part that is conventional, and what is the "objective"? How are we to really know? These are two very different types of capacities coming together and converging:

1) The ability to parse the world into discrete objects and arrange them and describe them.
2) The ability to parse out various empirical understandings of the world THROUGH THE PRISM of a kind of brain that does the capacity described in 1.

So Nagel might say something like, The 2 [objective laws/logic] has created the 1 [cognitive laws/logic]. There is something that connects the two.

A true agnostic or nihilist of this scheme would say 1 and 2 are not connected in any meaningful way. Kant, for example, will make the move that 2 is really a sub-species of 1 (or how I interpret Kant).

Yes, and thanks for the summary. Is it clear to you that either Hume or Kant has the better explanation here? Are Jha et al. Kantians? (Note, too, that Kant did not think math was analytic, like logic. He thought it gave us synthetic knowledge about the intuitive concept of "magnitude" -- that is, number per se. This makes me wonder if he would allow math an explanatory role, as in the above discussion.) — J

Yeah, but remember Kant thought math was synthetic a priori. In other words, our minds are still structuring time and space and experience. The math wasn't "in the world", that would be violating his phenomenal/noumenal distinction.

Granted, I think we can move beyond Kant. He didn't seem to have a notion of evolutionary change, and I think this might have changed his theory a bit.

I will say, Schopenhauer was aware of evolutionary ideas (not Darwin yet as that came about around the last years of his life). Schopenhauer thought that any materialist/physicalist answer would always be discounting the way our minds presuppose the world in a sort of "If a tree falls..and no one there to hear" kind of way. But, moving those kind of debates aside, or perhaps returning to them, evolution does provide a certain flavor of answer whereby our brains could not but do otherwise. Evolution works contingently but not unconstrained. There is a bounded freedom that evolution can only allow perhaps, for so much tolerance but what survives perhaps, is a necessary kind of understanding of the world, that conforms with how it "really" works.

And though some posters on here dismissed my claims regarding evolution and logic in other discussions, I think it now comes right back into focus. That is to say, there is a "foundation" to logical reasoning that I might call a "primitive inferencing" that through the contingencies of cultural learning, can understand and refine more accurate versions of the world. The "primitive inferencing" was necessary to survival, but the contingent part was how accurate we were able to shape it through cultural learning.

I just want to add, that I don't see how this discussion can move forward without at least acknowledging the various debates of Hume and Kant. Kant, as we know, made the way humans conceive the world as "transcendental" and thus made it not only the limits, but necessary that we see this world the way it is. Our cognitive mechanisms can only engage the world in such a way, in other words.

On the other side of the spectrum is the notion that the world is amenable to numeracy and mathematical analysis, because indeed, there is a logic there in the world. We can call these "realist" theories, and can even take from ancient philosophies of the sort like Logos, Natural Reason, and the like. Pythagoreanism is another one.

I'm with you in terms of, I'm not much for evolutionary psychological "just so" theories, but if it's not some sort of naturalistic/biological reason we can reason, we still have some capacity that is there by the very fact that we can develop logic, so whatever way it got there, something is happening internally/cognitively that is going on prior to the formalization process of symbolic logic.

...mostly shows how poorly folk hereabouts deal with logic. — Banno

I get it, but I think this point still stands and is important:

ules without interpretation (possibly the natural logic?) used to make the content work (become sound/make sensible). And thus something else is going on that isn't just the formal logic (natural logic that is)...

Also, being a bit of a devil's advocate from my past positions (contra evolutionary psychology), there is no way our species evolved "to use formal logic", rather we have rationalization capacities that happened to be able to form formal logic. It is this rationalization capacity that I am interested in- empirically understood through various methods of anthropologists, evolutionary biologists, cognitive scientists, and the like (possibly).. I'll take even armchair theories as stand-ins for now, but that is the foundation I mean. — schopenhauer1

Check out Søren Brier's academic homepage (and I was alerted to him by Apokrisis) - titles like 'Information and consciousness: A critique of the mechanistic concept of information', 'Bateson and Peirce on the pattern that connects and the sacred'. I also found a paper by Marcello Barbieri on the history of biosemiosis and it's very wide-ranging. — Wayfarer

I'll take a look..

On the whole, I think physicalism is on the wane. It's real heyday was actually the late 19th century, I think the scientific justification for it was demolished by the introduction of quantum physics in 1927. — Wayfarer

:up:

As Baden was indicating, if you provide physicalism with the baggage of every phenonemon, it loses its explanatory power as to what "physical" even means.. However, a lot of the metaphysical questions belie the framework needed for physicalism. What does "perspective" even mean for a physicalist? The view from a place (somewhere/nowhere/everywhere) doesn't matter to physicalism, but it is important to us, the conscious human who knows there are perspectives. And then what does an a-perspectival philosophy entail? If it is math, forces, and energy/matter, what are we talking about without perspective really? Then we are back to things like panpsychism, object-oriented philosophy, process philosophy, and information theory.. all things that would stretch the concept of "physical" beyond what we often mean by a naive physicalism.

If you like. "Natural logic" will collapse into "formal logic" as soon as you take it seriously. The "rationalisations we make" are the very subject of formal logic. — Banno

Interestingly though, your joke post in the Lounge kind of proves a point where formal logics can lead to errors by simply abiding by the rules without interpretation (possibly the natural logic?) used to make the content work (become sound/make sensible). And thus something else is going on that isn't just the formal logic (natural logic that is)...

Also, being a bit of a devil's advocate from my past positions (contra evolutionary psychology), there is no way our species evolved "to use formal logic", rather we have rationalization capacities that happened to be able to form formal logic. It is this rationalization capacity that I am interested in- empirically understood through various methods of anthropologists, evolutionary biologists, cognitive scientists, and the like (possibly).. I'll take even armchair theories as stand-ins for now, but that is the foundation I mean.

I would contend that we have still not left intellection behind. Why? Because an inferential move or rule involves intellection. The manner in which we move from premises to conclusions is not endlessly discursive, or not entirely related to ratiocination. We must understand that the inference is valid in order to undertake it, and this understanding is part of intellection. Logic of course tends to calcify or standardize rules of inference, thus forgetting the importance of understanding them. Basically, the closer we move to that "binding" between the formal logical system and reality, the more immersed we are in intellection, and this includes an understanding of inference. — Leontiskos

Yes so I guess to equate with your terminology, "Whence intellection"?

That's kinda the point of logical pluralism. — Banno

Sure, but wouldn't that be if we believed that logic was completely conventional? Here we can split up something like "natural logic" (the rationalizing we can do as a certain species regarding the world), and "formal logic" (the kind of axiomatic (or non-axiomatic) based logics that we formalize with symbols and rules?

I was proposing that the foundation for formal logic can perhaps be found in a natural logic, or something like this.. a foundation outside the formalized logics themselves.

Yes, and if you "define down" sensing so that it becomes something a thermostat can do, then you're still minus a theory of consciousness, which now has to be defined as something else. — J

Yes. Also may I add, "sensing" is doing the work of two meanings that shouldn't be confused here.

1) Sensing- akin to "responding in a behavioral kind of way"
2) Sensing- akin to "feeling something".

Clearly we want to know how 1 and 2 are the same, or how 1 leads to 2, etc. That is the hard problem, more-or-less simplified.

Sure, if you like. Whether the binding between reality and logic is metalogical is largely dependent on how you conceive of logic. — Leontiskos

Glad we are on a philosophy forum and can adjust to the big picture and zoom in where necessary (and not stay in the weeds unnecessarily because- logic) then! :wink:.

On my view something with no relation to reality (and therefore knowledge) is not logic. Ergo: something without that binding is not logic. It is just the symbol manipulation that Banno mistakes for logic. More precisely, it is metamathematics. — Leontiskos

Nice idea. So for your understanding here you are saying that different mathematics are basically "arbitrary" forms of logic (that sometimes map to reality)? And then of course, my main question is "what is/how is it mapping to reality?"

When you want to call the binding metalogical that makes me think that you take logic to be something that is not necessarily bound to reality in any way at all. What I would grant is that it is a somehow different part of logic, but I do not think that these parts are as easily distinguishable as the modern mind supposes. — Leontiskos

I'm unclear what you are saying here...

Suppose you know nothing about consciousness, but you examine a human organism and find that there are sensors and nerves. Do you then ask yourself what this is good for? The answer will be that it must have a function. Perhaps you then think that it is there so that these beings can sense what they are doing. So that they are not eaten in the next moment. Sensing is nothing other than consciousness. In our case, this has now become more differentiated, so that we experience entire dramas. This does not change the principle. — Wolfgang

At heart, is how it is that "sensing" comes from physiological processes. The homunculus fallacy rears its head when you assume the process and sensing without making the connection (the hard problem!).

And then a "strong monism," would presuppose a "one true formal system?" But that doesn't seem particularly plausible either. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As I was saying to Leon, the "foundation" to logic would be a meta-logical theory, not the axioms/logical systems themselves.

I've learned a lot about biosemiotics from Apokrisis (including that it exists!) and benefitted a lot from it, although I don't agree with his metaphysics. Biosemiotics on the whole is not materialist in orientation so I don’t see biosemiotics as ‘scientistic’ in the sense that Dawkins/Dennett neo-darwinist materialism is. (Notice, though, that even though C S Peirce is categorised as an idealist philosopher in most directories, Apokrisis will generally downplay his idealist side.) — Wayfarer

Yes, I did notice that downplaying of idealism. The reason I bring up his philosophy is here we have an example of a scientifically-oriented philosophy that is not simply "scientism". Science is sifted through a sort of totalizing "information theory", which transcends and encapsulates it (and everything apparently). It does not appeal to supernatural, consciousness, or transcendental aspects of being (at least purposefully, but as you said, it is a kind of idealism at its root, based on a meta-logic, not a a traditional physicalist approach, though perhaps the "apeiron" with "symmetry-breaking" or whatnot might fall under a kind of very specific physicalism that follows a semiotic formula of Peirce, etc. etc.). But notice, like more traditional physicalist theories, there was no accounting for the terrain. It's all map. Whether you emphasize the arrangements of the physical or the physical substrates themselves (the form or the matter), none of that gets you closer to metaphysical questions regarding hard stuff, like consciousness. Clearly "being" a conscious entity and "describing" a conscious entity brings on a whole terrain of metaphysical questions about the nature of reality- what it means to "be".

Added more

Eh. If you take it to mean axiomatic, then it has nothing to do with a good place to start. If you take it to mean a good place to start, then it is not axiomatic. Axioms are not good places to start except in a purely formal or economical sense. This chimera is understandable, given that my use of "foundational" was nothing like "axiomatic." Quite the opposite.

Again, the PNC is a more universal foundation or first principle than modus ponens. It is a foundation in the same sense that the first few feet of the trunk of a Redwood is a foundation. It is stable in a way that the upper branches are not, and folks never directly contravene the PNC. They only do so indirectly when they have climbed out onto limbs and lost track of where they are. — Leontiskos

I get what you are saying, but I still think you are using foundation as "axiomatic", in the definitions I described- that is to say, "This seems like a good place to start". But really you must sus out the actual "foundation" from which this axiom derives. That takes a meta-theory beyond the axiom itself (of the PNC let's say). If we sus out what your particular theory is, it seems like something akin to either an evolutionary intuition or a Platonic necessity. Either way, the foundation is deeper than the principle itself.

Edit: Notice, I am not saying the axiomatic foundation is arbitrary. There is good reason it is selected. It seems to be the case everything revolves around it in logical workings, let's say. But I am saying what is this then grounded in? That is the foundation.

So my problem again here is the use of "foundational". This is a slippery word. The way you are all using it is basically "axiomatic". I take "axiomatic" to mean "don't ask me anything further, this is as far as I'm going", or simply "duh!". It really doesn't mean much except that we need to start "somewhere" and "this seems like a good place to start". Without getting into the obvious rejoinder of the problem of circularity or "brute fact", I see the problem as more complicated.

Axioms themselves are grounded in something. One might call them "intuitions". One might call them "Platonic truths" living in some divine realm (above the divided line!). Either way, it is that I believe to be foundational. Axioms then become a digital/crisper version of the intuition/natural reasoning. From THERE, you can then work out a whole bunch of complicated formal language rules. But only after the initial FOUNDATIONAL translation from NATURAL reasoning to the "crisp" axiomatic ones of formal logic.

The closer you get to the foundation, the surer it becomes. For example, modus ponens is arguably the most basic inference or law of propositional logic, and I don't see that it fails. — Leontiskos

What's the "foundation" mean here?

Presumably, natural human reasoning, something akin to inferencing, let's say, is of an imprecise nature. It just needed to be "good enough". However, the kind of reasoning we developed- generally intertwined with linguistic capacity, and certain kinds of episodic memory, can get formalized culturally into more precise logical thinking. This is especially helped by the ability to write out the symbols.

From here, these more precise "crisp" arguments, might be said to have a foundation, perhaps Platonically (pace Frege and Plato). And thus, you might mean some kind of transcendental foundation (Platonic). Or, perhaps, like Kant, you think that it is internally a priori, and simply part of the human cognitive faculties. I challenge this, as evolutionary vagueness seems to be at play. Math is contingent on cultural preciseness, not internal preciseness. However, even math's preciseness and internal logic in its own system, doesn't necessarily have a foundation outside itself. Newton's Calculus system is not as accurate as Riemann's system, for example. And thus "foundation" can thus mean:

1) Human cognition- I challenge this usually works in vague approximations, not crisp exactitude.
2) Platonic transcendentalism- I am not sure what this would mean other than logical truths are somehow existent in some real way.
3) Naturally occurring patterns- this might be physical laws, for example. But this isn't really the logic itself. Logical systems, like mathematics, are applied to observable phenomenon, and "cashes out" in experiments and technological use.

laws of logic — Leontiskos

I thought we agreed, formal logic is conventionalized ways of thinking :p. It can only be an approximation of our thinking, but not our thinking itself.

Well, at the very least it is a useful aid for error-checking, even if it is not infallible. It represents a form of calcified analysis that is useful but limited. And it is useful for conceptualizing extended arguments that are difficult to capture succinctly. There are probably other uses as well. — Leontiskos

Sure, but as this exercise shows, the logic can stifle the analysis as well, if not used correctly, or even if used correctly.

There are probably other uses as well. I have fought lots of battles against the folks in these parts who have a tendency to make formal logic an unimpeachable god, so I agree with the sort of objection you are considering. — Leontiskos

:up:

I think we should be very careful when we throw around the word "logic", just like the word "rational". I try not to use "rational" too much, because it's often just a coded word for "I'm the one with the correct thinking and you are not, you're just not 'rational'". Similarly, logic can stand in for one's rationale, it can mean a formal logical system like Frege developed, a Hegelian-like totalizing feature of metaphysics, and a whole bunch of things.

The OP is a fun way of exploiting this bug, among other things. I don't think it is meant to be more than that. — Leontiskos

I get it, but was trying to see if there is a takeaway. My question still stands, what’s the use of symbolic logic if the analysis comes before the logic? I know the classic reason is clarity of presentation. But it would be misleading if it it’s seen as the actual catalyst behind the actual reasoning, like a computer language.

I would give Banno the credit of levity here, not snark. It is a philosophical joke, aptly placed in the lounge. The justified decision to not pray turns out to prove God's existence, given a logical translation that is initially plausible. Hanover is reading all sorts of strange things into the OP. — Leontiskos

I ask you the same:
At what realm do you suppose symbolic logic makes sense besides mathematic proofs? Just philosophy journals as a way to gain street cred, that one knows the game?

Edit: I ask because clearly the reasoning and analysis matters more than turning the argument into symbolic logic. If anything, exercises like this show this.

I'd say the main point of the OP was snark, hitting back at those ancient proofs for the existence of God that can't seem to go away. It points out that attempts to bootstrap something from from logic alone lead to — Hanover

:up:

At what realm do you suppose symbolic logic makes sense besides mathematic proofs? Just philosophy journals as a way to gain street cred, that one knows the game?

Edit: I ask because clearly the reasoning and analysis matters more than turning the argument into symbolic logic. If anything, exercises like this show this.

@Leontiskos @Hanover

I guess the silence speaks for itself :meh:

If you treat the premises as contingent statements that have a truth value of their own based upon empirical information or whatever you use to decide if a statement about the world is valid, then you end up with non-sequitur issues, but those non-sequiter issues are not deductive logic fallacies, but are inductive ones. — Hanover

Yep, makes sense. So I guess what's the bigger picture? We can do funny things with symbolic logic seems a bit arbitrary. We need more than symbolic logic to say anything meaningful seems a truism. So what then?

Does this whole exercise imply something about logic's usefulness with natural language? :chin:.

If there is a step before logical notation that is needed to translate, what is THIS?

Well, I suppose that’s what my first post above does. The (valid) formal logic is an improper translation of the English language sentence. — Michael

:up:

Same question https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/939929

The argument in Banno’s post is a link to a logic tree diagram that shows you why it’s valid. — Michael

Can you have a non-sequitur critique of a structurally valid statement? Does content matter?

~P
∴(P→A) — Leontiskos

No.

I don't see how the conclusion can be derived conditionally from the premises- it is tacked on.

Why isn't the conclusion just a non-sequitur?

Methodological naturalism says behave as if it were and get on with it. Physicalism seems like a vacuous piece of extra metaphysical naturalist baggage in that context. — Baden

I'd tend to agree, but I think what's going on here is that physicalism is a set of beliefs that one commits to when answering questions regarding the nature of things. Presumably, you can have the same critique of any number of metaphysical takes on reality, not just physicalism. These metaphysical takes can be grounded in non-supernatural beliefs, even but be very disparate. For example, the metaphysics of someone, let's say like Richard Dawkins (who I would presume comes close to what @Wayfarer means by a "scientism") and the metaphysics of someone like apokrisis (who whatever else you think of his ideas, is scientifically oriented in regards to his metaphysics), would be very different.

Presumably, BOTH consider metaphysical questions, but maybe not. Perhaps it is the case that someone like Richard Dawkins, may not really grapple with metaphysical questions, yet unknowingly takes a metaphysical stance anyways (i.e. physicalism). My question then is:

Which is worse?
1) Being scientifically-oriented (using methodological physicalism), considering the metaphysical questions and making a (critical yet speculative) stance on it.

OR

2) Being scientifically oriented (using methodological physicalism), but not consciously considering metaphysical questions at all, YET inadvertently making metaphysical conclusions about reality from it?

If 1 is worse, then you have something against any metaphysical speculation. If 2 is worse, you simply don't like non-critically examined metaphysical theories.

Where methodological naturalism needs to be made explicit is when it appears in the guise of a metaphysic - which happens most often in the attempt to subject philosophical problems to scientific scrutiny. To scientism, in other words. That's when it becomes metaphysical, as distinct from methodological, naturalism. — Wayfarer

What is the difference between "scientism" and let's say something like a "pansemiosis"? Would scientism not add any more than what is gleaned from the scientific theories/conclusions? Pansemiosis (like the totalizing ones that someone like apokrisis advocates for), add a non-scientific addition- a mechanism that connects all the disparate things in a connective tissue. It isn't "physical" but some sort of logical structure that transcends the physical but totalizes it. These kind of theories aren't based on "physicalism", but neither do they seem to rely on/point to anything related to "mental" let alone "supernatural". Where do those theories fall then? I wouldn't say it's "scientism". That is to say, it would seem like "scientism" itself would never even come to the level of philosophy. It would simply be repeating the conclusions of science. Philosophy would have to take that and structure it into something more than these conclusions. The instant you try to do such a thing, you have to answer metaphysical questions (e.g.'What is the nature of X") the instant this is answered, you have a metaphysics beyond the scientific conclusions. Presumably, this would no longer be "scientism". Or perhaps, scientism is more about fooling oneself. One doesn't realize that one's metaphysical beliefs are in fact metaphysical.

But when language enters the picture, we get a series of explanations that all involve the sun doing things like rising and falling. While this is accurate pattern recognition, it happens to be untrue. So . . . what is it that allows language to move beyond mere phenomena, and strive for a truth that is observer-independent? — J

I think I did set out a historical framework for how this developed though:

He is moving from primitive inferencing- something that is universal and even tribal cultures utilize, to Logic (capital "L") as conventionalized by Greek/Western contingent historical circumstances. Inferencing + cultural contingencies of the Greek city-states + further contingencies of history led to our current conventions of logic. So it is a mix of taking an already universal trait and then exposing it to the contingencies of civilizations that mined it thoroughly and saw use for it.

However, that's not all. ONCE these contingently ratchted inferencing techniques were applied to natural phenomena, we found not only that the conventions worked internally in its own language-game, but that it did something more than mere usefulness to human survival/language-game-following. It actually mapped out predictions and concepts in the world that worked. New techniques now harnessed natural forces and patterns to technological use, far beyond what came before. Math-based empirical knowledge "found" something "about the world" that was cashed out in technology and accurate predictive models. This is then something else- not just conventionalized language games. This particular language-game did something different than other language games.

That is to say, you cannot discount how the capacities of language led to both "formalized logic" and "empirical pattern-recognition" through contingencies of historical development that took place (for example, the culture of ancient Greece, the conditions of Renaissance Italy, etc.). I think WITHOUT historical contingencies, indeed, we MIGHT NOT be talking about the formal logic/math/scientific systems we are doing now. In other words, our current concepts and uses of logic/science WAS NOT a necessary/foregone conclusion. The capacity was nascent in the human by necessity of evolutionary demand, but it was an EXAPTATION that we hit upon these more formal versions of what we could do primitively as hunter-gatherers.

However, I do allude to the fact that the pattern-recognition itself, which we can call "nascent/primitive/en potential" in the early human, might have some connection to the fact that it could not go any other way. The universe has perhaps a certain set of patterns that cannot be be helped to have lifeforms that in turn recognize them. Imagine a spiral with a line running from the end of the spiral throughout the whole spiral system (humans are created from the patterns but can recognize the patterns, but this wouldn't be disconnected).

ground — Ludwig V

Doesn’t ground mean some sort of cognitive capacity? Learning to use this capacity, and having this capacity in the first place are two different things. There seems to be a debate as to how modular our cognitive systems are. Is the brain a general processor or does it have domains? If it has domains does “rational thinking” count as a domain- a specialized brain/cognitive capacity? A dog solving a puzzle and a human inferencing- is that the same capacity/region or two similar but different capacities?

Don’t want to go there. I was just trying to think of some ‘edge cases’ where there might be actual metaphysical considerations. — Wayfarer

I thought it interesting. I’m not sure id characterize it as metaphysical, certainly a case of “mental affects/effects reality”. Beliefs shouldn’t create such distortions/delusions in reality, but they do. X action shouldn’t lead to Y deluded distortion, but it does. Generally we think of chemicals doing this, like drugs, not beliefs. The physical causes the mental change. Of course, this can just be more proof that mental beliefs are physical events whereby the x delusions are simply unhealthily potentatiated neural pathways with physiological centers that simulate the same feeling as if it was a physical cause.

psychosomatic — Wayfarer

What do you suppose this can be characterized as? For example, superstitions that manifest in physical realities for that person as if they are real- but to that person, they are real?

His version is idiosyncratic though. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Funny, because that's the exact word I was going to use :lol:

Semiotics, through Aquinas, John Poinsot, C.S. Perice, and John Deeley is one particularly developed area that has a lot of overlap with this question (Sausser-inspired and post-modern semiotics largely considers the question unanswerable/meaningless and so ignores it though). — Count Timothy von Icarus

You seem to summon the philosophy of apokrisis. The all-encompassing "information" of the language-species AND the universe versus the context-dependent post-modernists.

Edit: I see we've engaged with this briefly before: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/825333

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14334/adventures-in-metaphysics-2-information-vs-stories/p1