If you take this at the quantum level though, and assume the Many Worlds interpretation, there are outcomes where entropy isn't increasing as the universe expands. It seems like you could have a uniform, organized expansion after the Big Bang and thus not have the asymmetry of time. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You can have that without Many Worlds too. I don't see what Many Worlds adds here. Instead of one timeline you have an ensemble of timelines all subject to the same statistics.

The expansion of the universe roughly means that mass or matter density decreases over time, matter dilutes, spreads, thins out spatially, apart from what gravity holds together. With entropy, the density tends to "even out".

Yet, despite the spatial expansion, the quantum energy density remains constant, or the average micro-chaos, in lack of a better term, per spatial unit does not change.

So, matter dilutes, energy of space itself does not. It's like space isn't "stretching", but rather ehh "growing", in lack of better verbiage. — jorndoe

I am out of my depth here, but as far as I understand, dark energy is what accounts for the expansion of space, which in turn creates more dark energy, and so on. What that does to entropy, beyond the effect of non-equilibrium expansion to which I referred earlier, I cannot say.

How can something become more disorganized if there is more space? — TheQuestion

This is why entropy as a measure of disorder isn't always a good metaphor. A textbook example of increasing entropy is a half-evacuated chamber:



When the partition is removed or breached, gas fills the entire chamber. Assuming it does not exchange energy with the environment, the only change here is that the volume occupied by matter increases. Entropy increases because the number of micro-states available to it increases following expansion.

An expanding universe does not require an adjacent empty space to expand into, since space itself expands, but otherwise it presents a similar case. Expansion means more available configurations - means higher maximum entropy at equilibrium - means steeper entropy gradients on the way towards that equilibrium state - means more interesting dissipative structures like stars and living things forming along the way. Yay expansion!

Where I think this gets interesting is in comparisons to Platonism. Plenty of people will accept mathematical Platonism, but reject Platonism in other respects. Numbers exist in their instantiation in the physical world. Memes though, seem to open up the prospect of non-mathematical ideas existing through their instantiation in the physical world as well. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Some physicalists would say they are just abstractions, and they can be eliminated from scientific dialogue. Indeed, even the existence of more apparently existing phenomena, for example qualia, have become candidates for elimination. I just don't know if this is correct. How do you ground the social sciences on the physical without looking at the physical instantiation of ideas, which are necessary components of explaining social systems? — Count Timothy von Icarus

How are memes different from other social, or for that matter physical ideas? Contracts, nation states, cats, electrons - these are all instantiations of ideas, in broadly Platonist terms. Non-Platonists will in turn treat memes, assuming they grant them a place in their ontology, as they would other ideas.

The question to be asked about memes is whether they are a well-defined, useful concept, and that has been disputed. Whether they "exist," assuming we give a positive answer to the first question, depends then on your ontological needs and preferences.

Whether memes are alive depends, of course, no the definition of life, which, as you said, is an actively debated question. Coming up with a good definition can be useful for some endeavors, such as origin of life research and exobiology, but the importance of this question shouldn't be exaggerated. In most contexts it matters not at all, and so can be treated as a more-or-less arbitrary convention.

But who believes that these categories cannot interact? — SophistiCat

The people that proposed them, necessarily.The people that proposed them, necessarily. Or else what does "fundamentally" add to "fundamentally different"? My definition is that it means they cannot interact. — khaled

It is a challenge because it seems clear that incorporeal, immaterial stuff (minds) would have no way to interact with material stuff. It's not a solvable problem, just how long have people been trying to solve it. It's a problem that refutes the position. — khaled

And that's why your construal of the core dualist position cannot be accurate. You've refuted it yourself (your construal). It would be like insisting that the core Christian belief is that Jesus did not rise from the grave, because the alternative is obviously impossible.

Do you have a different definition? — khaled

There are different varieties of dualism and different ways in which its proponents defend it. But the general idea is in singling out the mental as special and central to the conception of the whole world, while preserving a distinction between mental and non-mental. What, if any, position dualists take on the issue of interaction is not what makes them dualists in the first place. Descartes, the poster child of dualism, posited a very real causal interaction between mind and body, but that seemed to be more of an afterthought, when he felt that he had to address the question somehow.

The problem with dualism is that these categories are defined as fundamentally different. — khaled

Yes, but how is that fundamental difference cached out? I don't think there is a single criterion, like causal interaction, on which dualists stake their worldview. And for the same reason, if one views monism simply as a denial of dualism(s), which I think is correct, then there isn't a clear-cut definition of what it is - just a general approach to seeing the world.

Except it matters how we make these distinctions. To me, positing that there are two fundamentally different kinds of stuff would also mean they cannot interact. Like in the mind body problem.

Monism isn't against making distinctions, it's against making distinctions that make it so that the categories cannot interact. — khaled

But who believes that these categories cannot interact? The mind-body problem is precisely a problem, it is posed as a challenge for dualism, not something that dualism embraces.

I think you are right in framing monism as an opposition to dualism though - that is how it appears historically. Dualism, in its most general outlines, carves out a special and exceptional place for the mental in its ontology and metaphysics. This is sometimes referred to as mentalism. So the best case for monism that I can see is a straightforward rejection of mentalism and nothing more.

Yes. That it's ONE fundamental stuff not many. — khaled

I still don't see what substantive claim is being made. Sometimes we make distinctions, sometimes we lump things together. When we lump everything together, we end up with one undifferentiated referrent. Wouldn't that be the same as this fundamental stuff of monism? If so, it doesn't seem to commit us to anything.

Not meaningless. But the debate between the different monisms is. Idealists and physicalists are using different words to talk about the same thing. "Mental thing" adds nothing to "thing" when "mental" is a property of everything. Same with "physical". — khaled

So what does "any one kind of thing" add to just "thing"? What is monism's substantial claim in your view? Is it about the existence of some fundamental "stuff" from which everything is formed?

As I've said over and over, it's not science, it's metaphysics. It has no truth value. It's something we choose, usually unconsciously. — T Clark

I would say that anything that you are capable of affirming or denying perforce has a truth value, and not just those things that can be scientifically verified.

My belief, along the lines of Kant's phenomenon and noumenon, is that all understanding we have of complex objects in the world is fictive, whether "unicorns", "tables" or "multiverses". — RussellA

If we can never know whether the multiverse exists or not, even in principle, then we can only know the multiverse as a fictional entity, even if the multiverse does exist as a true fact. — RussellA

You keep going back and forth between calling everything in our experience and imagination fictional (thus rendering the claim vacuous) or specifically those things that we cannot empirically verify (thus merely misusing the word 'fictional'). What's funny is that what you refer to as 'noumenon' is real according to the first criterion (as opposed to the 'phenomenon') and fictive according to the second.

My belief, along the lines of Kant's phenomenon and noumenon, is that all understanding we have of complex objects in the world is fictive, whether "unicorns", "tables" or "multiverses".

However, even if our understanding of complex objects in the world is fictive, this is independent of the question as to whether such complex objects as unicorns, tables and multiverses actually exist as facts in the world. — RussellA

So it's a completely vacuous statement, but also misleading, since originally you singled out multiverses in particular as fictional.

This is not intended to be a discussion about what constitutes justification. — T Clark

I understand that, but my point is that you cannot make any progress in answering the question if you are not clear on the criteria that the answer should satisfy. Without that the question is effectively meaningless (as you like to say).

Take interpretations of quantum mechanics, for example:

In my judgement, interpretations that are empirically indistinguishable are the same thing. Differences between them are meaningless — T Clark

Meaningless for you, because of the particular epistemic criteria that you set out for yourself in this case: if you can't put a proposition to an empirical test, then it is meaningless. (Not so for others, so they must be applying different criteria.)

Now, in the OP you want to turn the question onto that epistemic criterion itself. But that's clearly inapt: an epistemic criterion is not the sort of thing that you can test by the methods of science. You can see if it leads to contradictions or to unpalatable conclusions, but that's not the same thing.

sure, you win the internets

An inadequate argument is a flawed argument. I was a teacher for five years. If you can take a complex concept and break it down so that even a four year old can understand, it is one of the greatest accomplishments you can do. Thank you. — Philosophim

But you didn't explain a complex concept - you gave the sort of use example that would help four-year-olds connect the words "cause" and "effect" with something of which they already have some intuitive grasp. You didn't actually explain anything. Not only is this inadequate to a philosophical discussion of causality, but your repeated appeal to these simplistic examples is patronizing and insulting.

how do you judge whether a proposition is true or false — SophistiCat

Justification — T Clark

Well, that doesn't say much. Justification for whom? Just you, or "us" (as in your response to RussellA), or some kind of objective justification (if that's not an oxymoron)? And what kind of justification?

If it is a matter of what you personally hold to be true or false, decided, undecided or undecidable, then there doesn't seem to be much to puzzle over. Whatever isn't decidedly true or false is perforce neither true nor false. So setting setting that edge case aside, what is it exactly that you are asking?

It is my understanding that all interpretations of QM are equivalent in that they have not been verified and may not be verifiable. — T Clark

Interpretations of QM are equivalent with respect to a particular epistemic standard: that of being empirically distinguishable. But some people prefer one interpretation to another, even while acknowledging that they are empirically indistinguishable. So clearly there can be other epistemic standards at work.

An example would be helpful if you can think of one. — T Clark

Speaking of epistemic standards, or perhaps just clarifying the question: how do you judge whether a proposition is true or false, decidable or undecidable? Does truth or falsity just mean your opinion on the matter, or do you mean objective truth? By decidable do you mean whether you are able to make up your mind or, again, decidability in some objective sense?

Do you consider any method of evaluation or something more specific, e.g. empirical, scientific test? (When you talk about interpretations of quantum mechanics, for example, it sounds like you mean the latter, to the exclusion of any other standard.)

Any of these questions admit multiple answers, depending on what you want to do. The trick in not getting bogged down in pseudo-paradoxes is being upfront and consistent.

I can't decide whether the question as to whether propositions that are undecidable for us can nonetheless be true or false is itself undecidable or not — Janus

This doesn't seem to lead anywhere, because it involves a vicious epistemic circle. Truth or falsity are established in the framework of some epistemic standards. Janus's statement questions one epistemic standard, which is fine, but the resolution will require some other epistemic standards, distinct from the one that is being questioned.

Carrier, seriously?

OK, I gather this has nothing to do with peculiarly Greek usage, but with your own views of what words ought to mean, in defiance to the rest of the language users. You are on your own then.

Its not an argument. I describe facts. I came in Greece in an early age. Here they have an obsession with the legacy of their classical Philosophers so from early age we start learning the basics.
I understand that people and time tend to distort words and common usages but that usage is the original, official and only useful, since for almost any other usage we already have words for them. — Nickolasgaspar

Well metaphysics is ANY claim that makes hypotheses beyond our current knowledge.It isn't limited to any specific philosophical distinction. Those are conversations based on metaphysical hypotheses on the differences in the ontology of those phenomena.
-the big bang cosmology before its verification was metaphysics.
-Germ theory was metaphysics and it was assumed a supernatural one (Agents in addition to nature)
-Continental drift theory was metaphysics until we measured the shifting of tectonic plates.
etc. — Nickolasgaspar

I must say, I have never come across this usage. Perhaps it is specific to Greece? (But don't tell me that Greeks own "metaphysics.")

It's funny though that the examples of usage that you give here exactly fit a word that we already have - a word that you use yourself: hypothesis.

I am using the general understanding of cause and effect with precision given as needed. If people have asked for clarification on what cause and effect means for the OP, I have given it with clear examples and evidence. If they countered these, examples they could give me definitive evidence showing it is flawed. — Philosophim

It is not so much flawed as inadequate. Your persistent examples of billiard balls are the sort one might use to explain what "cause" and "effect" mean to a four-year-old.

Is this what you were talking about? Yes, this is part of cause and effect. Cause and effect are ways to measure the reason why a state changes from one to another over time. — Philosophim

I think you would benefit from doing some reading about causation (and disabusing yourself of the notion that there is only one kind and everyone agrees on what it is), explanation, grounding. When you have all these mixed up as you do, you end up with the kind of muddle that you have in your OP.

A couple of weeks ago Gravitty - before he was banned - made another thought-provoking comment when he said that light does not travel in time. — jgill

This is not a novel idea. It goes something like this: From the "point of view" of a photon, no time passes as it travels. I put the scare quotes around "point of view," because relativity allows no such thing - not because photons have no awareness, but because coordinate transformation equations (Lorentz transform equations) are singular for anything traveling at c, and thus light has no proper (rest) reference frame from which to have a "point of view."

However, not everything becomes singular as the speed approaches c. If you take the relativistic length contraction equation and mindlessly plug in v = c into it:

$L=L_{0}{\sqrt {1-v^{2}/c^{2}}}$

the result is that all distances along light's path are flattened to nothing, and therefore in its nonexistent proper reference frame it is everywhere at once along its path.

Feel free to better explain how I am making this equivocation then. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just not seeing where you are coming from. — Philosophim

I already explained several times, including in the remainder of the post that you quoted. I don't feel like spending more of my time on this.

"Cause" is sometimes used in a loose sense, synonymous with explanation, reason, grounding. In that sense, one can ask about the "cause" of time - meaning a reductive scientific account or a metaphysical ground, for example.

An infinite past of sequential events is illogical — Michael

Let's not multiply conceptual muddles without necessity. This is an old trope, on par with 0.9... =/= 1, but has nothing to do with the OP.

If it turns out that all of causality is infinitely regressive, what caused it to be that way? If you introduce an X, or a prior explanation, then its not really infinitely regressive right? — Philosophim

There you go again making the same basic mistake. You just can't seem to get over the cause/explanation equivocation. Assuming that the world regresses infinitely into the past, if there is an explanation for that, that explanation doesn't in any way negate the premise. Nor does the absence of an explanation.

I think pointing out that there must be something in our universe that does not have a prior explanation for its existence is a pretty big thing to say. If you're not interested, fair. But if you're not saying I'm wrong, I and others find that interesting. Since you seem to think there was a simpler way to prove this, feel free to show it. — Philosophim

This is such an old and commonly discussed topic that I am at a loss as to what to recommend. See Agrippan (Munchhausen) trilemma, principle of sufficient reason, metaphysical grounding.

That's likely just a semantic distinction then. If you want to call a first cause a "brute fact", that's fine. My question of course is why does that brute fact exist? In which case we can say, "It doesn't have anything prior that caused it to be, it just is." So I don't think we're in disagreement here. — Philosophim

I wouldn't want to call a brute fact a "first cause," because it would be misleading. Take your trichotomy of possible brute facts, for example: infinite regress, causal loop or first cause. One of these, of course, is called "first cause," but as a fact about the causal structure of the world, it is not located anywhere in time, nor is it a cause in the usual sense (only in a loose sense that is synonymous with "explanation" or "reason").

As I said in my response to your OP, the entire argument, to the extent that I could make sense of it, hinges on an equivocation about the word "cause". Whatever meaning you prefer to use, if you use it consistently throughout, then it doesn't appear that you have managed to say much with your argument. My most generous interpretation of it is as an argument for the existence of brute causal fact(s), as opposed to the unrestricted principle of sufficient reason. But that is not novel, and could have been (and has been) stated much more clearly.

I would reword it to this: "The argument essentially says that since neither an infinite regress nor a causal loop have a prior cause for existing, we can only conclude these are themselves first causes.

In other words, there is no prior state that necessitates there exist the state of an infinite regress, or a finite regress. If you try to, you simply introduce a prior cause, and we're in the same position again. As such, the only logical conclusion is that the universe must have a first cause. — Philosophim

I can't make sense of this. You presented three alternative hypotheses - infinite regress, causal loop, first cause - each of which encompasses all states of the world at all times. It is trivial to conclude that none of these alternatives admits of a prior state, since that would require an additional, unaccounted state. Nothing interesting follows from this, nor is the first cause hypothesis any different from the other two in this regard.

I think the idea that you are reaching for is not first cause but brute fact. Each of the alternatives is a brute fact in this presentation, since there is no reason/explanation/justification for whichever one of them actually obtains (at least not in this context).

I welcome all criticism! — Philosophim

Here you are. Rather than addressing general issues of causation, as others have done, I will go over the argument as it is presented.

Initially causation is treated as a temporally asymmetric relationship between facts or states of affairs (at least that's my fair reading of it). I will refer to this as "state causality" for short. Then an oddly titled premise 4 throws in a range of much less specific epistemological notions: reason, explanation, justification:

4. Alpha logic: An alpha cannot have any prior reasoning that explains why it came into existence. An Alpha's reason for its existence can never be defined by the Z's that follow it. If an Alpha exists, its own justification for existence, is itself. We could say, "The reversal of Z's causality logically lead up to this Alpha," But we cannot say "Z is the cause of why Alpha could, or could not exist." Plainly put, the rules concluded within a universe of causality cannot explain why an Alpha exists. — Philosophim

What should have been a simple tautology - a state of affairs defined as having no prior cause can have no prior cause - is suddenly expanded into a much more general epistemological thesis, and even a controversial metaphysical thesis of causa sui is thrown in.

Setting aside this oddity and summarizing the setup of the argument, three mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive possibilities for the causal history of the world are presented:

A. An infinite causal regress of facts or states of affairs.

B. A causal loop.

C. A first uncaused cause.

The main argument is contained in this paragraph:

6. If there exists an X which explains the reason why any infinite causality exists, then its not truly infinite causality, as it is something outside of the infinite causality chain. That X then becomes another Y with the same 3 plausibilities of prior causality. Therefore, the existence of a prior causality is actually an Alpha, or first cause. — Philosophim

This attempts to rule out (A) and (B), leaving (C) as the only remaining possibility. But the argument equivocates between general notions of reasons and explanations and the more specific notion of state causality that was used in setting up the argument.

If we try to interpret "reason" in line with state causality, then the conclusion doesn't follow. The argument essentially says that since neither an infinite regress nor a causal loop admit a first cause, therefore a first cause must be the case.

If instead we interpret "reason" as justification, then the argument appears to say that neither of the propositions (A) nor (B) are self-justifying. But in fairness, the same is true of proposition (C). Presented with either of the three possibilities - infinite regress, circular causality or first cause - one can ask for reasons for why that is the case. @Philosophim attempts to smuggle some semblance of self-justification into premise (4), but that can't be left to stand without an argument. And besides, if it could be shown that (C) contains within itself a justification for itself, then no other argument would be needed.

Newton's theory of gravity is a fantastic example. Newton's gravity works for almost all of our daily experiences on Earth with bodies to our scale. It begins to break down when bodies become incredibly large, like solar systems, or incredibly small, like the sub atomic level. — Philosophim

This is precisely wrong for reasons that I just explained. Newton's theory doesn't break down at large or small scales. Nothing special happens at those scales - it continues to give precise predictions. It becomes less accurate at high energy scales (a fact that we were only able to discover thanks to its great precision!) The theory breaks down at singularities, which it does not rule out in its minimal formulation - but that is true of Relativity as well.

The distinction between precision and accuracy is an important one, because both are important, but in a sense they are pulling in opposite directions. A theory can be made more accurate at the expense of precision, and conversely the more precise a theory is, the riskier its predictions are (to use Popper's language) in terms of accuracy. Vague astrological predictions can be quite accurate, but quite useless at the same time.

Precision =/= Accuracy. As applied to a theory, precision is how specific the predictions of the theory are. Newtonian mechanics is about as precise as can be: its practical precision is limited only by the precision of calculations, which, ideally, can be extended indefinitely. Special and General theories of relativity are just as precise as Newtonian mechanics. But the latter yield more accurate predictions in some cases. Contrast that to, say, Aristotelian physics, which, apart from being less accurate, was also less precise in that it didn't yield such specific predictions about the motions of bodies as did Newtonian and relativistic physics.

It is a term that had a legitimate meaning until governments put a 'this guy's a crazy' spin on it. — I like sushi

There you go - a conspiracy theory about "conspiracy theories"!

He has rejoined several times since then. I must say, when he joined as Gravelty he was clearly making an effort to hold back at first. Wasn't starting several threads per day and posting frequency was much lower than before, though still higher than most. If he'd been posting like that the whole time since he first came here, he might not have been banned in the first place.

We did not discard the notion of water when we discarded classical elements, and there is a good reason we did not do so. That we discarded phlogiston on replacing it with a better theory, does not negate this good reason not to discard water when dropping classical element theory. — InPitzotl

There is an infidelity in my phlogiston analogy in that "phlogiston" and "self" are not on the same level in terms of their pedigree and epistemic centrality. They are, however, on the same level in that both are theoretical entities that have played a role as explanans, and it is that which eliminativists attack. They do not deny that which gives rise to our habitual concept of "self"; rather they question the validity of the conceptualization.

Here I should disclose that I have been playing something of a devil's advocate, because I am not on board with the kind of eliminativism that blithely rejects concepts like "self" as merely illusory. Personal identity may be nothing over and above a psycho-social construct, a legal fiction, as @noAxioms might say, but it does exist at least qua construct, and as such it has very real consequences. And that is existence enough, as far as I am concerned. Where I am on board with eliminativism is in not granting habitual mental categories roles in science or metaphysics without first subjecting them to critical evaluation.

I am pretty sure you're at least one step behind, not ahead, of the post you just replied to. — InPitzotl

I am not sure how to take this. Is this just a generic putdown, or did you mean something more specific? What am I missing?

This is clumsily phrased. Phlogiston theory is a theory about combustion. It was replaced by oxidation theory, a better theory about combustion. We dropped the notion of phlogiston, but not the notion of combustion. — InPitzotl

Well, referring to the phlogiston theory as a theory of heat heat transfer was perhaps clumsy, but you have ignored the substance of my response in favor of capitalizing on this nitpick.

Slightly more analytical, the guy has a bad theory of water. When asked to describe what water is, the guy would give you an intensional definition of water that is based on the bad theory. It's proper to correct the guy and to say that there is no such thing as he described in this case; however, the guy is also ostensively using the term... the stuff in the well is an example of what he means by water. His bad theory doesn't make the stuff in the well not exist. So the guy is in a sense wrong about what water is, but is not wrong to have the concept of water. The stuff the guy goes out to fetch from the well really is there. — InPitzotl

An eliminativist about personal identity could hold the phlogiston as a counterexample. To be sure, the phlogiston, identity, water element have been posited not as idle fantasies, but in order to explain some manifest reality. But the preferred solution, at least in the case of the phlogiston, was not to come up with a better theory of the phlogiston, but to drop the stuff altogether as part of a better theory that accounts for the manifest reality of heat transfer.

According to the sort of account you indicate, it may be possible to produce an artificial consciousness, e.g. in the form of a computer program. But that artificial consciousness would be a genuine consciousness produced by artificial means, not a mere simulation of consciousness. — Cabbage Farmer

When you oppose consciousness and mere simulation, genuine consciousness and artificial consciousness, you are already denying the functionalist thesis. According to the functionalist, anything that satisfies certain functional criteria of being conscious just is conscious.

If you examine two copies of "Moby-Dick" in a book store, would it be right to say of each of them: "This is the novel 'Moby-Dick; or, The Whale' by Herman Melville," or should you rather say: "Here is one copy of 'Moby-Dick,' and here is another?" Well, there isn't the right way to talk about books, is there? It depends on what you want to say and how you want to say it. Is there the right way of talking about consciousness?

Simulated consciousness would be the (a) genuine article assuming a functionalist account of consciousness (not identity). It's a controversial stance (as is every other), but not obviously wrong.