If you are serious, what makes you think that? The source I'm quoting is SCMP: — neomac

Not sure what your wiki reference is supposed to add here. So, it's a Hong Kong newspaper with a dubious reputation. The journo is referencing anonymous sources.

What makes me say that is that diplomats don't talk like that, least of all, Chinese diplomats, who are known for their exemplary circumspection.

The comment, to the EU’s Kaja Kallas, would confirm what many in Brussels believe to be Beijing’s position — neomac

It would, yes, but the contention that China's top diplomat made such a blunt and frank declaration to the EU's top diplomat sounds extremely implausible. It seems a lot more plausible that someone in Brussels put their own opinion into Wang Yi's mouth.

Maybe we need ro know what a law of nature is in itself to find out why those laws exist. One of my philosophy professors didn't understand the question when I asked whether laws ofnature were regularities or their causes. I wondered about that because civil laws affect what we do. For example, you may need to speed up or slow down when you read a speed limit sign. — BillMcEnaney

So, what happens if nature violates its laws? Does it get a ticket?

This obvious parallel with human-instituted laws is unfortunate (and it's probably why some people like @Moliere are allergic to the phrase). Human laws are only prescriptions. They require complex social mechanisms to work, and even then they work imperfectly at best. Laws of nature were always thought of as inviolable (with the possible exception of an occasional miraculous intervention).

The remedy is to not get too hung up on words and their folk etymologies, and remember that words can have multiple meanings. Laws of conduct, laws of science, and laws of nature all mean different things.

I'd prefer to say things are useful, not true or false. This is my thesis. — Tom Storm

I know that, but I note that you keep evading the questions that challenge that thesis.

The next obvious criticism is: if nothing is true, then neither is what you said, Tom.

To that, I would agree. Saying “we never get to truth” expresses skepticism about objective or foundational truth claims, but it is not itself a universal truth, rather, I'd see it more as a useful framework for managing ideas and guiding actions. — Tom Storm

That's not the criticism, at least not from me. The criticism is that you keep saying things about the world and our relationship to it, while maintaining that the world is independent of our concepts and practices. Don't you find this contradictory?

The most reasonable move from this point of view would be to drop this mysterious "world" thing as surplus to requirements. But then, of course, in the process of expanding the world of mentation and sociation to encompass the sensible world that we inhabit, in assimilating our commonsense beliefs and scientific theories, you will end up with a construct that is isomorphic to the world of the realist, with the main difference being a more contrived language (like saying "useful" in place of "true").

Back to laws and patterns. Perceived patterns in the external world emerge through our embodied interaction with the environment. I am wondering if they reflect what human cognition projects onto experience and that they can function provisionally to produce what we call useful outcomes. — Tom Storm

Sounds like you've been listening to @Joshs :) But how does this square with your earlier stated view that there are no patterns in the external world? What is it that we perceive then?

These patterns are neither external to us, nor are they merely internal to us. The order emerges out of our discursive and material interactions with our environment. It is not discovered but produced , enacted as patterns of activity. — Joshs

We do, of course, actively discover order when we look for it, be it in our natural environment or in artificial constructs. But the other kind of pattern emergence has its place too, both in sentient and nonsentient organisms. Our DNA encodes patterns in our environment, for example, and so does our behavior.

I would say that this is how all teleology works, namely that it is a final cause and not an efficient cause. The end-directedness produces no guarantee that the end will be reached. — Leontiskos

I don't think that the question of determinism vs indeterminism is relevant to teleology. Again, if you think of the most ordinary examples, although in theory, nothing is absolutely certain, when it comes to simple, immediate actions like reaching to grasp an object or striking a key, we treat them as certain to succeed. It is still a goal-directed behavior, though. There is both intension (outward-directedness) and intent (future-directedness) in these actions.

I added a few things to that post, but what do you mean when you say that it is "indeterministic at every scale"? Is it just that it is defeasible or fallible? — Leontiskos

Yes, I meant it in the way the OP problematized the issue: "no particular outcome is necessary." A species may experience selective pressures, but its successful adaptation is not guaranteed - it may just die out instead. Some individuals carry favorable variations, others don't, and even those who do will not necessarily leave more and more successful progeny.

A favorite example of mine is astrology. People who take astrology seriously are able to do all the things you just said: Hear and respond and understand one another in a perceived orderly manner.

But I'd be hesitant to draw the conclusion that the astrologists have found order in the world. I think they've ordered their thoughts in a manner that they are able to communicate, and that their names refer to various objects in the world, and all their explanations are entirely false. — Moliere

I wonder why you picked astrology as an example, rather than astronomy? Would you consider them more-or-less on the same footing, and if not, why not?

How does it help if these connections are only in our head and have nothing to do with the environment in which we live? How could we even exist in and of a world that lacks any order? For that matter, how do you come to any conclusions about the world, even such skeptical conclusions as you make? — SophistiCat

I am suggesting a constructivist view. Even the notion of "order" itself is a contingent human artifact. My instinct is that our knowledge, meaning, and order are contingent products of human interpretation, language, and culture. The world exists independently but is indeterminate or (as Hilary Lawson would argue) "open in itself"; order and meaning don’t exist “out there” waiting to be discovered but arise through our way's of engaging with the world. — Tom Storm

I understand that this is your view, and this is what prompted my questions above (and likewise, @Patterner's questions). Do you have any thoughts on that?

So, in this view (which I think has some merit), we never arrive at absolute truth or reality; everything we hold is contingent and constantly changing. We don’t really have knowledge that maps onto some kind of eternal, unchanging foundational truth. — Tom Storm

Well, this is all lovely and banal even, but one does need to be a constructivist in your sense to hold such views.

A model can be useful even if it isn't true. For instance, the miasma theory of disease turned out to be false — Tom Storm

Did it now? How? I mean, if we apply your outlook consistently, then all our beliefs are almost certainly and irredeemably false, being that the world is independent of them, and they are independent of the world. But how then do we prove or disprove anything? What meaning can such words have?

How can we make sense of the indeterminate, beyond knowing it is indeterminate? — Patterner

And how can we even know that it is indeterminate? This, too, would be a construction that has no purchase on anything outside our cultural practices.

I would go further and say that natural selection is itself a teleological explanation. It is a teleological explanation that covers all species instead of just one (i.e. a generic final cause).

The common objection would be, "But natural selection is not consciously seeking anything." The response is, "It doesn't have to. Such a thing is not required for teleology." — Leontiskos

Evolution by natural selection is a good example of a teleological explanation that is indeterministic at every scale. It is teleological because evolution is directed towards a future state of greater fitness. However, success is not guaranteed, and many do fail, at species, population, and individual level.

I think it’s perfectly accurate to describe that the way I did - as the future, reaching back to influence the past. — T Clark

Can you specify a mechanism other than God that could establish a goal or purpose for the universe? — T Clark

Again, a bizarre non sequitur. Even accepting your caricature, what does this have to do with establishing a goal or purpose for the universe?

I’d guess that humans are pattern seeking, meaning making machines. We see connections everywhere and this often helps us manage our environment. — Tom Storm

How does it help if these connections are only in our head and have nothing to do with the environment in which we live? How could we even exist in and of a world that lacks any order? For that matter, how do you come to any conclusions about the world, even such skeptical conclusions as you make?

Are you saying that something in the future reaches back and causes something in the past? — T Clark

That's not what teleology is.

As I see it, the only way to make teleology plausible is to assume there is a God. — T Clark

This is a non sequitur, even to your own caricature of teleology.

What said. Also, consider that the paradigmatic cases of teleological explanations are those where human (or animal) agency is involved, and these are extremely common. For example,

Q: Why did Alice go out?
A: To buy bread.
Q: Why is the overpass being constructed?
A: To relieve traffic congestion.

We make up these explanations, regardless of how certain the outcomes are. Alice may or may not buy bread. The overpass may or may not be completed. That does not in any way change the fact that the actions were goal-oriented in the first place. Of course, in a world in which the future is so wide-open that any fixed outcome is extremely unlikely teleology would not be possible, so you have a point there. But fortunately, our world is not like that. A lot of things are fairly predictable, and so we set goals with a reasonable expectation of achieving them.

Just to make it clear where we stand, we have rules about self-promotion and SPAM:

Advertisers, spammers, self-promoters: No links to personal websites. Instant deletion of post followed by a potential ban.

Now, you didn't include a link, but that doesn't change the fact that you started a thread only to promote your book. That you did it under false pretenses only makes it worse, in my opinion. The only reason this thread has not been deleted is that there already was some discussion there. But keep this up and you will be banned.

You can open a discussion where you outline your ideas at some length. You can even refer to your book there, but you can't just say "I have ideas, go buy my book," which is essentially what you did here.

I invite anyone to obtain my book - and then I challenge you to find the fatal flaw in my reasoning.

By my understanding, until such time as a fatal flaw has been confirmed in my reasoning, my theory stands. — Pieter R van Wyk

You know, there was not so long ago another cr..., er, thinker on this forum who challenged all comers to refute his theories. He made his (also self-published) paper freely available on the internet and offered a four- or five-figure sum as a reward to anyone who would meet the challenge to his satisfaction.

Just something to think about as you eagerly check on your Amazon sales stats...

"The only results I see from philosophy are a world in which we are: unable to have peace, unable to eradicate poverty and hunger, and a world in which a well-balanced coexistence with our environment and among ourselves is but a pipedream!" — Pieter R van Wyk

Perhaps you didn't mean it that way, but the way this quote reads is that "a world in which we are: unable to have peace, unable to eradicate poverty and hunger," etc., came as a result of philosophy -which is absurd. Philosophy is not responsible for all the misery in the world. If that's not what you meant, then you really need an editor ;)

If philosophy cannot end the diversity of viewpoints, what exactly is the purpose and utility in studying philosophy? — Pieter R van Wyk

If anything, the purpose of philosophy is to increase diversity of viewpoints.

I have never had discussions over PM. I don't feel obliged to respond to, or even read crap posts from crap posters, so, filtering is not much of an issue. The only problem with an open discussion is that it can get derailed or split into multiple conversations. This is where a more focused discussion with a reduced audience could be preferable. But it is unfortunate if it gets to the point where people want to retreat into private messages. This forum was meant to be a community, not a hookup spot like Tinder.

Generative AIs are trained on huge volumes of text from print and electronic media, and designed to generate similar texts. Since their training material is, for the most part, written by people and reflects the way they talk and think, it is to be expected that AIs would often assume - confabulate - a human-like personality and point of view. However, the resemblance between AI's confabulations and human interaction is not deep. The "personalities" that they affect are not organically grown over many years, like human personalities are. They are thrown together chaotically, on the fly. As you have noticed, different sessions can produce substantively different results.

Sometimes, the narratives that an AI fabricates from its enormous bank of text bits can sound quite reasonable, but they can also be frivolous and even nasty - because all of those elements can be found in their training material, which includes not only accurate information and reasonable discourse, but fiction (of all sorts), conspiracy theories, and mis- and disinformation. Impressionable readers should be wary.

I won't IMPLORE, but I do suggest you read or listen to this story in New York Times about people, whose interactions with AI were deeply disturbing, on one occasion driving a man to the edge of suicide: They Asked an A.I. Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling.

You're trying to finish the race before starting it. Most people on this forum, once they realize the direction of inquiry, start to dance around the issue. Does a newborn baby have a direction of inquiry when trying to understand and make sense of what its senses are telling it? Don't worry about the direction of inquiry right now and just answer the questions as posed. If there is a problem with the question or you need some definitions for the words in the question, just say so. — Harry Hindu

If this is going somewhere, please dispense with Socratic questions and get to the point. On the other hand, if you have no clue, as you seem to imply, then go and have a good think, and get back to us when you have something to even start a conversation. I am not interested in watching you stumble in the dark.

Can you perform logic without causation or without determinism being the case? — Harry Hindu

There are many things without which you cannot perform logic - breathable atmosphere, for example. What's the point of this and the rest of your questions?

Again, there doesn't seem to be a clear direction of inquiry here - just random things being thrown out.

Your precis on causality is well taken, but I don't think it is very relevant to the present discussion. Causation was not thought to be a law of logic, even in Hume's time. Aristotle, whose doctrines on both these subjects were predominant in Western philosophy, certainly didn't present it in that way. While Hume's analysis sharpened and clarified the distinction, he wasn't breaking any new ground with this observation. It was rather his austere empiricist take on causality that distinguished his view, but that is about more than simply noting that there is no logical contradiction in denying any particular instance of causation.

Logic is about language, not about the world itself. — ChatteringMonkey


Since you disagreed with the person who disagreed with this thesis, I am assuming that you affirm the thesis. Please correct me if you do not affirm the thesis. — Leontiskos

I was only disputing the idea that logic is about the world, which is to say, that there is some kind of inherent correspondence between logical statements and "things out there."

That's not to say that there isn't a connection between logic and the world at some level. But what sort of connection? That question gets back to the issue that I have with this whole discussion thread: it's not clear what "aboutness" anyone is talking about. Are we talking about metaphysics? Language? Evolutionary origins of cognitive faculties? Developmental psychology? It all kind of gets mixed together.

I use "about" in its intended sense - the semantics of logical sentences.

P.S. Meh, I should read all responses before adding mine.

But I'll add one thing: What question the OP is asking? It is never entirely clear. Is it about anthropology? Developmental psychology? Metaphysics (whatever that might mean for them)? Before we jump to formulating answers, we should get clarity about the question.

Human logic is clearly not physical causality. However, logic isn't "about" anything but language? So:

[1] Socrates is a man.
All men are mortal.
Therefore Socrates is a mortal.

Is about the words "man" and "Socrates" and not ever about men and Socrates? Wouldn't this lead to a thoroughgoing anti-realism and an inability of language to signify anything but language, such that books on botany are about words and interpretations and never about plants (only "plants") — Count Timothy von Icarus

[2] Socrates is a fork.
All forks vacillate.
Therefore, Socrates vacillates.

[3] X ⊂ Y
∀Y P(Y)
∴ P(X)

[2] and [3] have the same logical structure as [1]. They are the same logical statements. But, clearly, they are not about the same thing, are they?

Logic is only about something insofar as we make it to be. It can be something perfectly sensible, like [1], or frivolous, like [2], or even nothing in particular, like [3].

Actually, I'm not sure that it is even possible to a materialist to abandon the idea of intelligibility. — boundless

Well, what would any of us be talking about absent intelligibility? If there is an object of discussion, it is perforce intelligible. As for what accounts for the intelligibility of the world, I am not convinced that there are substantive disagreements between, say, realists and nominalists - disagreements that are more than just different ways of speaking / ways of seeing.

We were talking about intuitive appeal. The physics changed from becoming something a child could essentially grasp to something nobody, 100 years after QM, can understand or even agree on. — RogueAI

Yes, I get your point. Although the intuitiveness of Newtonian physics shouldn't be overestimated either. It only seems commonsense because the basics have been drilled into us from an early age. But it is well known among educators and psychologists that our naive intuitions about motion (aka "folk physics") are not in line with Galileo and Newton. No wonder it took so long for these modern concepts to become widely accepted.

I am making the grossly imprecise observation that if materialism was correct, if someone followed this intuition, “my brother” could not refer to anything other than atoms, and similarly, any references to “history” and “personality” would be references to my own mental abuses of words, unspeakable and incommunicable, until translated back into atoms perhaps. — Fire Ologist

So, do you think that this implication has never occurred to any materialists, or that there have never been any materialists to begin with? Because I refuse to believe that anyone could actually hold such a view.

"Physicalism" is a very common contemporary view that is usually recognized to be a form of materialism. — Leontiskos

Right, and even that term is fraught and uncertain, as the article that you referenced shows. I have a hunch, though I cannot back it up with a literature review, that among philosophers, discussions of such general topics as "materialism" or "physicalism" are less common today than they were, say, in Russell's time (other than an occasional windy essay with a title like "Why I am not a Materialist.") Part of this is, no doubt, an increased specialization and fragmentation of philosophical discourse. But perhaps another explanation is precisely in the difficulty of identifying, not an ideological camp, but a genuine "type of thinking." There may well be a type here, but it may be more a type of temperament and a way of seeing than a position that can be clearly articulated.

All right, thank you for the clarification.

So apparently you find his characterization unattractive. Do you have some reason why you think it is unattractive? — Leontiskos

Does anyone? Would any materialists nowadays own up to such a characterization?

So, it's just about physics being different? I don't think it makes sense to identify philosophical materialism with physics at a particular place and time - otherwise, it would just be physics, and we already know what it is and have a word for it.

"Ionian materialists"? I thought you were addressing present-day materialism? For my part, I wouldn't venture to speculate about the psychological motivations of the few ancient materialists, of whom we know so little.

Russell's hyperbolic rhetoric doesn't help much. "How science says the world is" is a little better, but still leaves much to be desired.

I am not asking for a concise definition, but at least some sense of what you are talking about. Otherwise, the whole project seems unserious, more of a vague rant than analysis.

I brought this up too. Old school materialism has intuitive appeal, I guess. Post QM materialism is utterly bizarre and counterintuitive. — RogueAI

What do you think is olds-school materialism, and what is post-QM materialism? Again, examples of exponents of these views would help.

It is based on the assumption that there is an intelligible structure in material reality which is to be discovered. — boundless

Are you saying that materialists deny this? Can you point to anyone, at any time in history, who held this position?

Can you expand on what you mean by materialism, beyond these caricatures:

the idea that 'everything is collocations of atoms, ensembles of balls of stuff,' or that 'things are what they are made of' — Count Timothy von Icarus

If materialism is, as you assert, a popular and intuitively attractive view, then I don't find your characterizations of it plausible.

You missed the point of the whole text. — Jack2848

To be fair, it is often difficult to understand what you are saying. Perhaps a language issue. For example, I am not sure that I understand what you are trying to say in the following paragraph:

I meant to show how people use the same words with different meanings. If you'd say that knowledge is justified true belief. Then that's objectively not a descriptive correct statement in that case you're equally choosing a definition per your preference. As others would. — Jack2848

Do you mean to say that JTB does not correctly describe all common usages of the word "knowledge"? That would be a fair criticism, but then I don't see how your own proposal would address it.

To be descriptive and claim to be more accurate. You'd have to look at instances of when people say they have knowledge. Now and across time. And you'll see that it's belief assumed to be justified and assumed to be true. — Jack2848

But here you seem to be saying the opposite: that JTB is how people generally use the word "knowledge."

So, which is it? Does JTB capture the meaning(s) of "knowledge" or does it not?

And if JTB does reflect the current use, then what is that point of your definition? Do you wish to reform language? Clarify an ambiguity? But defining "knowledge" as, essentially, fact, true proposition, is not only redundant, but confusing as well. According to the usual meaning, knowledge requires a knower, naturally enough. But with your proposal, most of what qualifies as "knowledge" is not known to anyone!

Knowledge (beliefs assumed to be justified and assumed to be true) have often be wrong. — Jack2848

Knowledge claims are sometimes disputed, disclaimed, or proven wrong, as the case may be. The JTB proponent would deal with this issue by emphasizing the distinction between knowledge claims and knowledge as such. Justified Belief is sufficient for a knowledge claim. The Truth requirement is what is supposed to certify that the claim is merited.

it's only as much a performative contradiction as someone who is anti violence using violence to protect themselves from other violence, it seems to me. — flannel jesus

That would indeed be a performative contradiction, without additional qualifications of what "anti-violence" entails in this context.

If a democracy votes to disband itself, then the last act of that democracy is the act of disbanding. The act of disbanding is a democratic act. There is no performative contradiction here; there is just a majority of people who decide to order their political arrangement differently. — Leontiskos

The performative contradiction is in performing a democratic act by someone who perforce rejects democracy.

F=ma is a definition, not a description. There were no forces sitting around, waiting for Newton to describe them. Rather he defined force as the product of mass and acceleration, as the change in an objects motion. — Banno

Not so fast...

Let us ask, “What is the meaning of the physical laws of Newton, which we write as F=ma? What is the meaning of force, mass, and acceleration?” Well, we can intuitively sense the meaning of mass, and we can define acceleration if we know the meaning of position and time. We shall not discuss those meanings, but shall concentrate on the new concept of force. The answer is equally simple: “If a body is accelerating, then there is a force on it.” That is what Newton’s laws say, so the most precise and beautiful definition of force imaginable might simply be to say that force is the mass of an object times the acceleration. — R. Feynman, Characteristics of Force (from The Feynman Lectures on Physics)

Read on...

There is a sense in which the motion of a body depends on other bodies in both senses: If there was only one body in the world, then the very idea of motion would be senseless, since there would be nothing against which motion could be detected. So, for there to be any motion, there has to be more than one thing. But as long as that basic condition is satisfied, you don't necessarily need anything else, any other, to bring about and sustain motion. A planetary system, for example, can spin all on its own, without anyone pushing planets around. And the same is true for just about any dynamical system, be it mechanical motion, temperature changes, chemical reactions, or anything else.