Couldn't agree more on maths (as well as the quantity and quantitative relations which it references) not being a deity ... nor, for that matter, a pivotal, or else essential, foundation of Being. — javra

By all means use numbers, even marvel at their proficiency, but please stop claiming they are a secret, comic language of the universe. — JerseyFlight

There is a reading incomprehension in all this. Unpleasant and unproductive.

Quantity does not equal mathematics. Humans have produced a symbolic structure to try to make sense of quantity. — JerseyFlight

Can you address a quantity without making use of number? Given an example if you can.

What I said is the mathematics is the language of quantity and its relations. Not that quantity equals mathematics. Read what I say the second time around with more care. Else no second reply from me.

But arguing for this is above my current pay-grade. — javra

Then you should easily be able to provide an example of two things that are exactly the same? — JerseyFlight

Two instantiations of an abstract entity are exactly the same in reference to both being the same abstract entity. Hence, one table and another table are both exactly the same in being a table.

But this latter part is beside the point - and also seems to be another misreading of what I wrote.

I'm contesting the seemingly common notion that such mental creativity can only come from sort of non-deterministic process, the likes of which for instance could not possibly ever be programmed into an AI. — Pfhorrest

Yes, I get that. I was intending to present a viable possibility of creation in fact being such a form of non-deterministic process. Of course, in a fully deterministic worldview, both the novel idea and the manifestation of it in physical realms will be fully deterministic. Creativity, or creation - of an artifact or of the idea(s) that are used to actualize it - however specifies that that which creates X will originate X of its own momentary being. And, again, such causal mechanism (when not rejected on grounds of determinism) can neither be random nor fully deterministic.

As to strong AI, I'm of the opinion that were such to ever be actual, it would necessarily then be endowed with the same causal ability of creation that we humans are sometimes quite apt at.

But if your approaching the issue from a preestablished worldview of determinism, the viable possibility I'm mentioning will be denied a priori due to the confirmation bias of the worldview held. Question then becomes one of whether determinism is the only viable possibility. But I don't want to argue this at present.

To be a mathematical supernaturalist you simply need to hold to the position that numbers are more than human symbols, that they are something we discover weaved into the fabric of the cosmic universe, as oppose to something we create in an attempt to understand and navigate the universe. — JerseyFlight

Mathematics is a formalized language of quantity. Sans quantity, no maths. The latter can be readily disproven by one example of a non-quantifiable mathematics.

Though we can produce symbols via which to convey mathematical concepts, we do not likewise willfully produce the universe’s attribute of being endowed with quantity. Therefore, at least some of the mathematics we know of is “something we discover being weaved into the cosmic universe”—this in correspondence to how quantity and its relations is so weaved. (And there’s a lot of maths which isn’t, especially when entertaining the nearly boundless forms that theoretical mathematics can take.)

That claimed:

What then does mathematical supernaturalism entail? The straight-forward confession that one worships math and that math is a God? I think not. — JerseyFlight

:up: Couldn't agree more on maths (as well as the quantity and quantitative relations which it references) not being a deity ... nor, for that matter, a pivotal, or else essential, foundation of Being. But arguing for this is above my current pay-grade.

Even when granting that infinite possibilities eternally exist (if I'm not misunderstanding your claim), there is yet a limited, and hence finite, set of what can be, or else is, actual—limited both by time and space when addressing physical givens; yet again quite arguably limited existentially when addressing metaphysical givens (such as can be argued for actual, rather than what we epistemically consider to be possible, laws of thought).

We as sentient beings not only discover possibilities but actualize realities (not reality in the singular; rather real events or states of affair in the plural). Our actualization of some such realities is then an act of invention, else stated of creation—for the actualization did not exist prior to our instantiation of it nor would it have existed as it does without our instantiation of it. Artists, for one example, are known for and expected to accomplish such feats. Yes, some of the actualized art was discovered by the conscious artist (e.g., the notion that a statue was already preformed within the marble or wood comes to mind); but, generally speaking, creation, and hence invention, played at least an equal role in the artwork’s manifestation—and hence in the idea(s) the artwork conveys. In this example, the artist caused their artwork to come into being.

So it’s known, I’m in no way disagreeing with the notion that we are bound by a limited, finite, set of both physical and metaphysical actualities (rather than possibilities) which we hold the capacity to discover. In other words, I agree that we are bound by reality (in the singular). Yet given these existential boundaries, there is nothing to evidence that we as individual sentient beings, and as collectives of such, do not also create actualities—and thereby cause them to come into being.

You’re right, though. Creation of X translates into the causal origination of X—even when this creation is influenced by myriad givens. And such causal mechanism, when address without bias toward its being or not being, can logically neither be that of randomness nor of a full determinacy.

Here's what Hobbes said the Leviathan:

...when men make a name of two names, whose significations are contradictory and inconsistent; as this name, an incorporeal body, or (which is all one) an incorporeal substance, and a great number more. For whensoever any affirmation is false, the two names of which it is composed, put together and made one, signify nothing at all (Hobbes 1655, 4.20–1).

The passage by Thomas Hobbes probably isn't going convince non-materialists that materialism is true, yet I think this might be an excellent place to start. Let this be a challenge for the non-materialists to provide a definition of incorporeal substances, which makes it clear that it isn't inconsistent. — Wheatley

The issue of substance has already been addressed. As to “incorporeal body”, this will be a contradiction in terms only when “body” is itself interpreted as strictly referencing material givens. This as the Latin “corpus” does, tmk at least.

However, the English term “body” can also signify, “A coherent group; a unified collection of details, knowledge, or information” as in, for example, a body of evidence.

Now suppose the hypothetical of an incorporeal self—with possible examples including angels and deities—things we can all imagine despite disagreements on the ontological possibility of such. Here, then, you can coherently declare each of these to be an “incorporeal body”—such that the body addressed references a coherent bundle of information, or knowledge, pertaining to some consciousness that is devoid of material attributes. There is yet a self that stands in dualistic relation to that which is not-self, to other, but this self and its properties will (in the conjectures here specified) be fully immaterial and, thereby, incorporeal. The extents of this immaterial self will here be the given self’s immaterial body, standing in contrast to that which is other.

Without intending to argue for one side or the other, and regardless of one’s ontological stance on the possibility of such incorporeal beings, when thus interpreted the term “incorporeal body” is thoroughly consistent, rather than being self-contradictory.

Why is it something no one would ever say? — Srap Tasmaner

Hoping this hasn't been previously addressed in this long thread:

We would say “It’s raining” when we do not believe it is raining whenever we would intend to lie to another about what the given state of affairs is. But since acknowledging one is lying while actively lying defeats the very intention of lying which one is engaged in, and since we in practice cannot experience intending to lie while simultaneously intending not to lie (this being a contradiction), saying “It’s raining, but I don’t believe it’s raining” is something no one would ever say in earnest.

But, then, in so arguing I find that the statement, “It’s raining, but I don’t believe it is,” is contradictory in terms of the intentions it implies on the part of the speaker who so affirms.

And people make conception of you based on social group you are in, and assume that you gathered bad karma to be born in low class, what can be used as a tool to marginalization, and mainly lower classes suffers from this.

So karma thinking can lead into dangerous ideas. — batsushi7

Yes, but the same can be said, for example, of the Abrahamic notion of Grace (as in "God's chosen"). IMO, most any formalized system of ethics, theistic or atheistic, can be sophistically misapplied by those with authoritarian power to further their own power over others.

My thoughts are that karma ought never to be the source of blame or of resignation. If you say 'it's their karma' or 'it's my karma' to rationalise misfortune or place blame, then it's a pretty repugnant theory. — Wayfarer

Not only repugnant, but also incoherent.

For example, when adopting the perspective of karma, it has always appeared to me that being uncompassionate toward others who experience unjust plights—notably, this on account of what one perceives to be the bad karma they’ve accumulated from previous lifetime(s))—will be, in and of itself, a conscious intention that results in one’s own future bad karma.

Reawakening as a newborn which grows up within a future society that is at best insidiously vein and at worst sociopathically uncompassionate—a future society one has helped to bring about by one’s own actions in this lifetime—to me is one example of what bad karma might be like. And being uncompassionate toward others who unjustly suffer in this lifetime would be what helps precipitate such future society one would be re-birthed into. (Again, all this from the vantage of karma.)

----

Also, more generally, while karma as applied to individual egos might be questionable (either in terms of intra- or cross-lifetimes), how is collective karma—wherein the current generation of egos creates the good or bad circumstances for subsequent generations of egos that have yet to be birthed—something that can be doubted? Here, simplistically expressed, one generation of human awareness gets re-birthed into a future generation of human awareness whose circumstances were produced by the former generation.

Then again, under the worldview of karma, the egos of today will reawaken as the conscious beings of tomorrow—again, in a world that is (at least in part) the consequence of today’s sum of intentions and actions. Thereby seeming to tie in such collective karma to the karma of individual egos.

I'm not following; in what sense does this signify that they might be wrong or not? — Isaac

That we might be genetically hardwired for X (e.g., perception of bent sticks when placed in water), that we have been habituated as kids into upholding X (e.g., for most of us older folks, that Santa Clause is real ... one can substitute an omnipotent deity if one wants), and that some X can be asymptotic to phenomenal data (e.g., one's upholding physicalism rather than idealism or vice versa in relation to some tree or rock), does not of itself then signify that the X addressed is beyond the purview of being correct or wrong. Sticks do not bend in water, Santa Clause is not real, and we do live in a world that can be physicalist, idealist, or other but not all at the same time and in the same respect.

An example: efficient causation as defined by Hume (which is subtly different from Aristotle's in arguably important ways). We were born in a culture that upholds it as fact. People ask questions, such as "how did it all begin". Here, this metaphysical conviction we imprinted via habit into our being does not, of itself, serve to answer the question. Hence, our metaphysical conviction (typically for most) that such efficient causation and only such efficient causation is factual might - or might not - be a fallacy. (We know it is cultural because other former cultures did not live by this belief regarding what is causally real - e.g., teleology was not denied in Aristotle's time)

Changing the metaphysical parameters used then changes the possibilities of addressing this question that most humans have asked themselves at one point or another: as one example that sometimes floats about, what if creation ex nihilo is factual? But this, where it true, would then hold other implications which, for many, are unwarranted (such that, then, logically, anything might be created from nothingness, and by nothingness, at any time and place for no discernable reason whatsoever).

Both the aforementioned perspectives regarding causation are equally metaphysical. Given the principle of noncontradiction, they cannot both be correct at the same time and in the same respect. One or both of these metaphysical positions will, then, be wrong.

(Please do dissociate my own metaphysical beliefs (which are not here the issue) regarding causation from the one example of causation just provided.)

but I can't see a way in which any could be more true without their having some consequence, which puts them (at least theoretically) within the remit of scientific investigation. — Isaac

Are there such things as upheld beliefs that have no psychological impact on the being that upholds them? I can't think of any at the moment. For instance, one's beliefs - be they tacit or explicit - will in part determine how empirical data is interpreted (this without altering the empirical data all can agree on). For example, if one beliefs in ex nihilo creation, one can then believe that a seen rock was created ex nihilo minutes prior to the rock being seen - without negating the presence of the rock as it is seen.

Such psychological impact, being first and foremost present within the mind of the individual, will then be in the purview of the empirical sciences only via empirical data obtained - for one example, via CAT scans*. Which does not give an account of this psychological impact when devoid of preexisting beliefs (and their respective psychological impact) held by sentient observers of the data: e.g., that other sentient observers share some of the core ontological properties of being that one oneself holds will be one such belief (for we are not solipsists - itself a contradiction in terms) - e.g., I'm a conscious being, and so are you.

* For better precision, we may here need to enter into discussions/debates of what the cognitive sciences require. Not yet certain is this is what is intended to be of focus. IMO, it would deviate too much from the topic. All the same, I'm gonna take a breather from debates for the time being.

That we have what you're calling 'metaphysical' assumptions does not mean that we have some task of establishing them which must preceed their use. It may be that they're hard-wired, it may be that they're learnt unreflectively in early childhood, it may be that they are asymptotic with regards to phenomenal experience... — Isaac

Of course, which in turn signifies that they might be wrong. Or not.

I don't follow how a metaphysical belief as you describe them could be in accordance or not with reality. Accordance with reality has to be measurable (otherwise what form would the discordance take?) as such any discordance would be a scientific consideration. Any purely metaphysical position is, by definition, such that it has no affect whatsoever on reality. If it did we could at least theoretically detect that effect and so model it scientifically. — Isaac

Using the standards you've presented, why then all the debates about whether, for one example, physicalism or idealism is true? And if this is to you nonsensical to ask, why then uphold any such or related position as true?

Your reply is in relation to things I do not disagree with - and I'm tempted to believe is instead a strawman.

The pattern-recognition you reference has nothing to do with whether physicalism, idealism, or some other ontological system is true - or else with what types of causality (efficient, teleological, formal, material as just some examples) are true - or else with the nature of time (e.g., presentist, eternalist, or what not) - or else with what laws of thought (law of identity, of noncontradiction, of excluded middle) are true - or else with the nature of self as that which is conscious of (e.g., it being a machine or not).

May I be corrected if wrong on this count.

For improved clarity of my position: That we have historically established a set of metaphysical beliefs X which have been used to engage in the modern empirical sciences we have; which, in turn, have empirically evidenced themselves to be fruitful in innumerable (but by no means all) ways; does not negate the fact that today's empirical sciences are necessarily founded on metaphysical beliefs X - this in the plural. These metaphysical beliefs have historically included that of physicalism, of efficient causation as defined by Hume at the expense of teleological causation and with a negation of free will as illusion, of block time, often enough of the self being a complex epiphenomenal automaton, i.e. machine, and till recently, a fervent belief in causal determinism.

None of these beliefs can be obtained as brute facts via "pattern-recognition" - and will all require metaphysical interpretation to determine what is and what is not the case - for none are universally apprehended as is the optical illusion you've re-posted. And, as beliefs go, these historically foundational metaphysical beliefs might, or might not, be fully accordant to reality.

Not at all. In fact, we are biased the other way. — Kenosha Kid

Really, we're innately biased (as machines, no less) to be causally deterministic? Then how is it that most people hold onto the bias of being endowed with some form and degree of free will?

The above answers this also. — Kenosha Kid

It doesn't answer why one set of innate biases ought to be accepted on face value while another form of communal bias ought not.

I respond that, on the contrary, metaphysical explanations and justifications for determinism instead rely on the empirical fact that the balls fell to the floor ninety-nine times. — Kenosha Kid

You do understand that these same empirical facts can be used to justify systems of causality that are not causally deterministic. For instance, to justify a causal system of indeterminism-based compatibilitism (as Hume can be argued to have upheld), this in contrast to a determinism-based compatibilism (as compatibilism is generally understood nowadays).

One's presumption of causal determinism - just as with one's presumption of physicalism - will be fully metaphysical, rather than empirical.

Then again, there's more to life and existence than balls dropping. Intentions serve as one example.

How do empirical observations of balls and such determine that our intentions - which always intend, and are driven by, some goal - are in fact not teleological (and this without the use of metaphysical considerations and conclusions)?

Trying to find out if I should reevaluate my opinion of Descartes.

Because the the OP is directly from Descartes, proper critiques of it should follow from Descartes as well. In the two sections following his infamous assertion, he qualifies his intentions thus:

[...]

“....I take the word ‘thought’ to cover everything that we are aware of as happening within us, and it counts as ‘thought’ because we are aware of it...” — Mww

He states this clarification after the fact, but how does it apply to the very argument he provides in his Meditations for the cogito? Last I recall, it was argued by something along the lines of “I can’t doubt that I doubt”. Extending Descartes’s demon, though, it can be conceived that one’s own doubts which one can’t doubt having are, in fact, completely an effect that is fully produced by the demon – thereby failing to demonstrate with the sought after certainty that these doubts one sense to be one's own are in fact one’s own. If it is not “I” but the demon’s thoughts, the proposition of “I think” would then be false. (This, ironically, hinges on the issue of who, or what, causes the thoughts, or doubts, to be.)

BTW, I’ve been spewing this about for a while now, so I’m fully on board with the proposition that one’s own awareness (of anything) evidences that one is while aware. This would then include one’s awareness of any doubts (regardless of any Cartesian skepticism regarding their cause).

On a different note, given this quoted affirmation from Descartes, one’s emotions would be classified as a portion of one’s thoughts. But this so far seems to be a category error. Again, especially when taking his Meditation arguments into account.

In any case in the sciences and technologies causation is assumed in most of our explanations and doings, and working from that assumption complex and highly predictively successful systems of explanation, which are also (mostly) coherent with each other have been developed. What more would you ask of science?

It is inapt to ask for proof of scientific theories; proof is appropriate in logic and mathematics, not, for the most part, in science. What Hume showed is that causation is not logically necessary. — Janus

From the interpreted tonality, I get a feeling you might be expecting me to disagree? I don't. As a subtle reminder, I'm a die-hard fallibilist - which, as an epistemic stance, to me encapsulates logic and mathematics as well. Degrees of certainty ranging between perfect certainty and perfect doubt, with these two extremes not being obtainable by any ego. A different issue though.

My contention was and remains that the empirical sciences are founded upon a non-empirical (said for emphasis only) metaphysics - a metaphysical system of beliefs which are not in themselves, nor can they be, the subject of study for empirical sciences. And I listed causality as a prime example of this.

Personally, at least, I take the empirical sciences to be mute on that branch of ontology which classifies reality into physicalism, idealism, neutral monism, and the like. And, imv, so should it be. The elephant in the room, however, is that most of the scientific community (a guesstimate) also subscribes to some form of physicalism as foundational metaphysics. But then it somehow gets insisted by many that physicalism is not a metaphysical stance - but is instead a worldview which is substantiated by the empirical sciences ... which are, again, grounded in metaphysical understandings such as those of causation.

At any rate, my position, in sum, is that the empirical sciences are inescapably bound to a foundation of metaphysical beliefs. That empirical science devoid of metaphysical understandings is an impossibility. Do you find disagreement in this?

Have to get going for now, but what meaningful import does the OP hold other than affirming something along the lines of, "I think, therefore I have thoughts"?

On these pretenses it has to ring true because only you are experiencing the exact experience as you. — Lif3r

I think I get what you're saying, in which case, again, sure. But is this quote there might be implied something that does not ring true: my experiences of a physical item, though being from my own unique perspective, is shared with all other sentient beings in that all will tacitly or explicitly agree (minimally via behaviors) that the same physical item is. A different way of saying this is that there can be no personal realities (in the plural) were it not for a commonly shared, singular, and impartial reality ... which we presume to know to at least some degree.

This is the reality I am experiencing, and so I can conclude it exists in so far as I am capable of thought.

I think, therefore I am, and I am, therefore my reality is as well. — Lif3r

For me, the validity of this affirmation rests one what one here understands by “my reality”. In one sense, we each inhabit individual and personal realities which at places perfectly overlap and at other places do not. While philosophically problematic, if one were to actually be accordant to a Wittgenstein-like mentality, it is readily meaningful in colloquial usage to express, “Your reality is different from mine.”

In this sense, I’d say sure.

But when addressing reality as being that which is impartially applicable regardless of beliefs and so forth, the philosophical problem is that false awareness of reality can occur. Yes, sometimes in the form of hallucinations and illusions, but, more pertinently I believe, in the form of false beliefs, i.e. delusions. Sometimes, we can appraise from our own perspective (often itself shared with many others) that some group(s) will hold communal delusions of what is reality; e.g., for most of us, those who subscribe to Earth being flat will easily fit this description. Here, “they” will share a false (appraisal of) reality which they nevertheless inhabit with a type of tunnel vision (apparently being unable to conceive of the possibility that it might in fact not be so).

In this sense of “reality”, the OP’s affirmation no longer holds:

What one here thinks to be reality can very well be a falsehood and, thereby, nonexistent (in all senses other than that of existing in the biases of the given subject(s)). That one’s beliefs are commonly shared in unison with many, even most, others will not, of itself, bestow the same degree of certainty regarding what is real that the cogito does. Again, as can be exemplified by those who share a flat-Earth worldview (only that here this possibility of a communally held false system of beliefs would be self-referentially applied).

The trick, I believe, is to find ontological givens that 1) hold the same degree of certainty that the cogito does and 2) are commonly shared by all others (this in the same manner that the cogito is commonly shared by all sapient beings). To the degree that one can incrementally accumulate these, one could, in principle, then obtain an understanding of reality whose certainty is on par with the cogito.

Then again, one does not need a cogito-like certainty about things in order to contemplate and hold onto perspectives of reality.

Changing the tune a bit—but in line with the thread’s topic, and mainly oriented at @Kenosha Kid posts on this thread (haven't read all of them):

[...]explaining the phenomenon of first person experience from a physically causal perspective[...] — Janus

How is the very nature of causation a topic that is in the purview of the empirical sciences—rather than in that of the philosophical branch termed metaphysics?

To me this is a Hume 101 question. Succinctly explained, a cause is not a percept—and so cannot be empirical (as empiricism is understood in modernity).

This is not to deny that empirical science uses metaphysical understandings of causation in it analyses. It is instead to try to make the point that the empirical sciences are themselves grounded in metaphysical understandings of reality—minimally, via their use of certain notions of causation and their simultaneous denunciation of other notions of causation (for example, the avoidance, if not outright denial, of teleological causation, and hence of purpose, in all aspects of biological evolution and all other scientific fields).

Modern mainstream science—and, maybe more importantly, the worldview that often gets referred to as “scientism” and is just as often taken to be synonymous to both physicalism and realism—would be impossible sans non-empirical metaphysical claims and the metaphysical worldview(s) that accompany these. Because causes are not percepts (are not observable sensory information), the metaphysical claims regarding causation upheld by modern science cannot of themselves be the study of the empirical sciences—but instead serve as foundation of understandings upon which the empirical sciences operate.

Ps. IMO, hence the boogieman of not allowing for things such as teleological causation in our contemplations of reality: the fear that such would undermine science and, by extension, our very understandings of reality.

Your physicalist bias is showing. I didn’t ascribe any value to disorder and order, so why the fuss? As to the metaphysics I’ve previously mentioned in jest, humor here aside, it is far more aligned to Peirce’s pragmatism than the Heat Death you take to be true on grounds of the physicalism you espouse:

An especially intriguing and curious twist in Peirce's evolutionism is that in Peirce's view evolution involves what he calls its “agapeism.” Peirce speaks of evolutionary love. According to Peirce, the most fundamental engine of the evolutionary process is not struggle, strife, greed, or competition. Rather it is nurturing love, in which an entity is prepared to sacrifice its own perfection for the sake of the wellbeing of its neighbor. This doctrine had a social significance for Peirce, who apparently had the intention of arguing against the morally repugnant but extremely popular socio-economic Darwinism of the late nineteenth century. The doctrine also had for Peirce a cosmic significance, which Peirce associated with the doctrine of the Gospel of John and with the mystical ideas of Swedenborg and Henry James. — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce/#anti

Topics to make one gag or snide, right? Spewed by none other than Peirce.

At any rate, have no present interest in debating against physicalist metaphysics. More pertinently, the question concerning the disparity between IT’s model of entropy and the thermodynamic model of entropy has not been answered clearly, if at all.

I’ll let you at it.

So entropy is a modelling construct - and all the better for the fact that is not disguised. The mistake was to talk about energy as if it were something substantial and material - a push or impulse. And now people talk about entropy as a similar quantity of some localised stuff that gets spread about and forces things to happen. — apokrisis

Yes, entropy is a model just as much as, say, our notions of biological evolution are a model. However, I yet hold that there is a terrain which is being modeled in both cases. And, as with biological evolution, due to lack of better phrasing, we yet term the terrain by the name of the model we employ to map it.

Because of this, until I stand corrected, I’ll be addressing entropy as the terrain which we do our best to model.

Also, thought I’d mention this: Maybe I’m cheating, wanting to take a shortcut, by having asked the question - rather than taking time to get into serious study of the differences and commonalities between IT’s entropy and Thermodynamic’s entropy. But to try to make my previous post better understood:

When considering the metaphysical issue of identity: It can be argued that the universe’s identity as a whole is currently not maximally ordered, being instead fragmented into multiple, often competing, identities – residing within the universe, and from which the universe is constituted – whose often enough conflicting interactions results in a relative disorder, or unpredictability, and, hence, uncertainty. By “identity” I intend anything which can be identified in principle which, for simplicity of argument, is corporeal: be these individual photons, rocks, humans, stars, black holes, etc.

On the one hand, when considered from the vantage of some individual identity: each existent given within the cosmos is a) in a state of flux (a flux which can be ascribed to entropy and negative entropy) and b) holds its own imperfect order of identity – imperfect on account of a flux that moves toward maximal entropy. As maximal entropy (cosmic thermodynamic equilibrium) is approached, each existing identity within the universe becomes increasingly disordered – this until all identities within the universe cease to be upon obtainment of maximal entropy. From this vantage, increased entropy leads to increased disorder (namely, relative to the parts of the universe as whole).

On the other hand, when considering the cosmos’s identity as a whole: increased entropy will simultaneously result in an increased order of the cosmos’s being as a whole - this till maximal entropy is obtained, wherein the identity of all parts of the cosmos vanish so as to result in a maximally ordered, maximally harmonious or cohesive, and maximally homogeneous identity of the universe. From this vantage, increased entropy leads to increased order (namely, relative to the universe as whole).

You might not agree with this, but hopefully I’ve better expressed the perspective which I previously mentioned.

I acknowledge that argument/observation. Thanks for the correction.

So back to the LEM not being derived from the LNC. Having mulled it over some, should have said the LEM is derived from the Law of Identity (LID) via notions obtained from the LNC – with the LNC being derived from the LID. For instance: If A is A (ID) then A cannot both be A and not-A at the same time and in the same respect (NC); next, if the LID and the LNC, neither can A be something intermediate between A and not-A which, thereby, would be neither A nor not-A.

Any objections to that formulation? For the record, I don’t know of any non-arbitrary way to obtain the LEM in manners not derived from, else dependent on, the LID via notions of “A and not-A” provided in the LNC. If you happen to, curious to learn of them.

As an aside: Dialetheism to me … well, let’s say doesn’t exist on the very grounds that it does.

What then do you make of this:

The law of excluded middle is logically equivalent to the law of noncontradiction by De Morgan's laws [...] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_excluded_middle

And this:

The [law of excluded middle] should not be confused with the semantical principle of bivalence, which states that every proposition is either true or false. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_excluded_middle

I know, it's Wikipedia. Still...

Thanks for the account. As previously, some minor metaphysical differences between us - you say the end-state of the universe is a physicalist’s Heat Death, I say it’s some cosmic form of Nirvana, kind of thing :razz: - but I respect your metaphysics in its own right. (And have few doubts that many here about don't much respect mine.)

But to rephrase things in as simpleton a fashion as I can currently produce: The entropy of given X within the universe leads to disorder relative to given X (its permanency, or identity, or determinacy steadily ceasing to be), but simultaneously leads to greater order in respect to the universe itself as a whole. Entropy thereby simultaneously increases disorder and order relative to parts and to everything, respectively. Is that about right? If it’s not, please correct this interpretation as needed.

ps. Glad to see you're still around. :grin:

So a more general definition of entropy would be grounded in an information theoretic perspective. What about this world counts as a degree of uncertainty or surprise in relation to my simplest model of it as a system? [...] A truely entropic situation would be if the balls could randomly take on any colour at any time. Even as you grouped them, they could switch colour on you. Or split, merge, be in multiple places at once, etc.

[...]

Then at the other end of the story, you have the Heat Death which - to our best knowledge - will be a state of immense order and uniformity ... measured from a relative point of view. — apokrisis

Wanted to read your thoughts on what I’ve traditionally viewed to be a contradictory semantics between IT notions of entropy and, for lack of better phrasing, empirical notions of entropy. Trying to keep things short:

IT notions of entropy equate entropy to degrees of uncertainty - to which I'll add: such that multiplicities of possibility result that thereby diminish what is, or else can be, ontically certain and, hence, determinate. I naturally further interpret that the more extreme the ontic uncertainty, or indeterminacy, of a given the more chaotic the given becomes.

On the other hand, the empirical notion of entropy holds it that the process of entropy moves individual givens via paths of least environmental resistance toward an end-state of maximal order and uniformity.

In short, increasing IT’s entropy results in increased disorder. Whereas increasing entropy when empirically understood results in increased, global, homogenized order.

To me, this is 180 degree turn in semantics.

I’m partial to what I’ve here labeled the empirical notion of entropy (entropy leading toward a global, homogenized order), and can’t so far find means of making it cohesive with IT’s notions of entropy.

You’ve made use of both notions. How do you make sense of them in manners devoid of equivocation? Hopefully I’m missing out on something here.

Can you say that I am not God? — Punshhh

Because I get the feeling this question might easily be misconstrued by many (here hoping I'm interpreting it properly enough):

A Yogi informs his pupil that his pupil is God. The pupil then sits on a street and attempts to telepathically stop an elephant from further approaching the pupil from afar. The ridden elephant approaches and nearly knocks over the pupil, who quickly runs away at this point - leaving an audience of spectators to laugh at the pupil in an uproar. The pupil informs his Yogi of this, who then laughs at the pupil in turn, saying, “Well, yes, you are God … just as the elephant you tried to stop and all spectators that laughed at you are also God.”

This is paraphrased from a parable told by someone whom I can’t currently recall. Still … it’s a mystic’s take on the existence of God.

By the way, when did you meet my cat? — tim wood

Dude, up until now, didn't know it was yours!

@fishfry nicely addressed the dichotomy between zero and one.

As to "yes" and "no" there is "maybe". Example: "Will you be going to the event?"; here "yes" (I am decided on going), "no" (I am decided on not going), and the intermediate of "maybe" (I have not yet decided whether or not I will go) call all make sense.

As to true and false, there can be propositionally expressed partial truths which are thereby incomplete and, in so being, can at least given the epistemic impression of being partially false. A relatively easy, but trite, example is most any honest answer to the question of "what do you see?" That one is focusing one's visual attention on some item, say a lamp, is true. But it is equally true that one also sees a plethora of other items while focusing one's visual attention on the lamp - for instance, that on which the lamp rests and the immediate background to the lamp. So, at least form one semantic angle, the answer of "I'm seeing a lamp" will be a partial truth - also being partially false in not conveying all the other givens that are likewise seen by me simultaneously. Here, no deception is intended - but one cannot help but give a partial truth to the question. Hence, if you ask me what I see, I reply "a rock", and you then interpret by this that I don't see the mountain behind the rock, I wouldn't have lied to you about what I do and don't see - even though I also saw the mountain in the background.

BTW, I so far find that the Law of Excluded Middle always applies to cases where the alternatives are at least interpreted to be clearly dichotomized. The cat is either inside the room or outside the room - with no middle ground possible in this clear dichotomy between "inside" and "outside". But change the contextual semantics one interprets and one can change the possibilities addressed, thereby changing the parameters of what is intended by some given statement. For example, to answer that "the cat is both inside and outside the room" can make sense without negating either the Law of Excluded Middle or the Law of Noncontradiction, from which the former is derived - this by interpreting the cat to be sitting on the threshold of the given room's door. Here, the state of affairs of the cat is to be both inside and outside the room or, else, neither inside nor outside the room, in perfectly noncontradictory manners.

Hence, imo, all apparent contradictions are either contradictory and thereby nonsense or, else, can be interpreted to be partial truths. The statement, "they're the same but different" serves as an example: it either intends "same" and "not the same" at the same time and in the same respect as a middle between the two - in which case its nonsense - or that they're the same in one way and not the same in a different way at the same time - in which case it's use is intended to convey a noncontradictory state of affairs without in any way negating the Law of the Excluded Middle. Just that it does this without explicitly stating what the addressed, complete state of affairs is, and so can be interpreted as an expressed partial truth.

Same then applies to statements such as "neither is there a self nor is there not a self": these are either nonsense due to being contradictory and thereby breaking with the Law of the Excluded Middle or, else, convey more complex and noncontradictory states of affair by expressing partial truths. Hence, as with the cat being neither inside nor outside the room, but in-between on the door's threshold, were these statements to be nonconctradictory, they then would not break with the Law of the Excluded Middle.

So:

I would like to ask if, in terms of truth, do we only have true or false, zero or one, yes or no, or does exist something else in the middle describing something between the two. — mads

In my opinion, givens can occur in the middle of these conceptual dichotomies, but, when they do so occur, they will yet manifest in manners accordant to the Law of Noncontradicition and the Law of the Excluded Middle.

But maybe I'm deviating too much from the thread's content with the aforementioned.

But, the poems are pretty and have their own kind value, yes like a sunset, but also in their own highly novel way. — csalisbury

Sometimes aesthetic the way sunsets are sometimes aesthetic - and since no two sunsets are ever exactly the same ... aesthetic in their own novel ways. Yes. :up: No qualms there.

I wouldn't necessarily agree with the intent to convey meaning, but that may just be a matter of semantics. The reason is something close to what I belive James Baldwin to be talking about here (in an interview with Paris Review:

"When you are standing in the pulpit, you must sound as though you know what you’re talking about. When you’re writing, you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know. The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out. But something forces you to anyway."

I think the best art is an articulation which, in being articulated, reveals both to the reader and the writer its meaning - its not a message intended ahead of time. — csalisbury

Very nice quote. Yes, approaching this from my own experiences, I agree with what you address being an important aspect to the process of art creation. To use my own words and understandings here, artistic manifestation is as much a conscious as it is an unconscious goal oriented (hence, intended) processes. In my own experience at making (sometimes crappy) art, the conscious self chooses - if only emotively - between what the unconscious self throws up at it while at first having, maybe, a generalized intention of producing X; and, at the end of the process, what one ends up with is outcome Y - which resembles X only in the most basic structural ways, but is in many ways utterly different, and unforeseen at the very commencement. And this the final product, when it receives the last stamp of approval by its creator, so to speak, reveals meaning to the conscious creator as well as communicating some basic aspect of what the conscious creator intended. Revealed meaning that on occasion can leave the conscious creator in awe in terms of what is gained and learned from what was created (rather than from the egoistic sense of what “I” made). But, notwithstanding, for me the conscious self’s goal-oriented decisions between the alternatives which the unconscious self presents nevertheless play a role throughout. And in this, I'd like to think that the conscious self chooses the meaning which the final product conveys - even if the meaning is only that of a particular aesthetic devoid of conceptual content. .

Its nice to have such complex aspects of art creation brought up and discussed.

It's sort of off topic, but those mechanisms of behavioural modification are already in place. [...] it'd be able to link personal experience to words and generalise from it, just not "its own" experience. — fdrake

Most of what you say here goes without saying, but it misses the point I was making: not its own experience on account of it not being sentient, or conscious, or aware, or cognizant. That is, not until Strong AI comes about, if it ever will.

As in cordoning off poetry from machine functionality? Nah; that's super prevalent in the thread for mostly unargued reasons. — fdrake

Hmm, I’ve given an opening argument for why art, poetry included, necessitates some sentient being’s intention to convey meaning here - thereby precluding Weak AI from being creators of (authentic) poetry, for they lack sentience and thereby sentient intentions to convey meaning. These un-emotional arguments have so far not been addressed, and so have not been debunked.

For the record, I’m more than open to learning how artistic manifestations can be denoted as occurring in the absence of sentient intentions to convey meaning, this without wreaking havoc on commonsense understandings of what constitutes art.

Ego defense mechanism metaphysics everywhere. — fdrake

Seems like this is true for all sides of this issue, at least in relation to some.

Anxious about what? — Brett

There being so much data to feed gigantic models that they're getting extremely close to being functionally indistinguishable from human conduct in limited domains. The all too rapid and usually hidden encroachment of machine learning techniques (faciliated by panvasive surveillance and automated tabulation of all human experience) into the folk thought ineluctable freedoms of our souls. — fdrake

Speaking for myself, you’re projecting metaphysical issues way too much into this. When and if a technological singularity will occur, whatever sentient beings have that distinguishes them from rocks will be had by Strong AI as well in equal measure. Be this the “ineluctable freedoms of souls” or something else. Thereby making whatever metaphysical issue one has qualms about mute in this respect. And besides, anxiety is not it. Anxiety is reserved for more pertinent things.

Again speaking for myself, the issue I was mentioning earlier is that of non-autonomous, non-sentient, decoys which mimic the autonomous and sentient behavior of humans. It’s fathomable that these can be built by humans with big loads of cash and programed so as to manipulate the other humans into beliefs that serve the short sighted interests of those who spend the money on building these decoys. Don’t know about you, but I don’t like the notion of living in (or, more likely, of today’s children growing up to live in) a world of vastly greater misinformation, misinformation that is propagated by AI decoys to boot. As one example, put enough chat bots on the internet which argue for Earth being flat and you’ll have an increased number of voters who vote on the conviction that Earth is in fact flat. This being a very innocuous example.

Robots aren't conscious; and they produce interesting poems. Can we start from there, please? No one is demeaning actual poets, including me; but almost all comments seem to be defending poetry as real against the robots. Yeah, I agree, but I never for a second felt threatened by them - why do so many people here? — csalisbury

Yes, there is a bit of discomfort that I feel in seeing noteworthy aesthetics originated by a non-sentient entity with a significant degree of regularity. An aesthetics which I grant being present in the technical know-how that the AI acquired.

As to the OP’s presentation, I’m grateful for it. Thanks. Good to know such things. As to philosophical comments on what the OP presents, I think one underlying issue is the nature of what art is:

A sunrise can, on some occasions, be beautiful. Does this of itself make the sunrise art? I’ll argue that if and only if one assumes that the sunrise was the intentional creation of one or more sentient originators, one can then hold that the sunrise is art. If no such assumption is made, the aesthetics of the sunrise then does not get interpreted as an instantiation of art. Same will then apply, for example, to some dog accidentally kicking over a number of paint buckets with the result of an aesthetic arrangement of colors. Since no aesthetics was intended, the dog did not create a work of art.

On the other hand, I can mason a brick wall without any intention of conveying anything by it. I would be a sentient originator of the brick wall but, because there was nothing I intended to communicate by it, it would not be to me an instantiation of art. However, after the brick wall is finished, I then place a loose random brick on top of it with the explicit intention of conveying “the precarious nature of abstraction is always supported by a solid substratum of concreteness”. (Why not, right?) This brick I subsequently place on top the brick wall I built is now to me an artistic manifestation, thought the brick wall is not. And it will to me be art irrespective of how good an art piece it is. (In this case, not that great.)

In these scenarios, the difference between that which is and is not art is the occurrence of a sentient being’s intention to convey meaning via that which they originate. To this effect, even ordinary conversations can be deemed to be an art form. And, as goes without saying, poetry is a form of art.

Because the AI program is not sentient, it lacks this intention of conveying meaning. Yet what it produces mimics the outcomes of just such an intention.

There is discomfort in this, for me at least. A bit off topic relative to the OP, but pertinent to the issue of discomfort: AI chat bots are known to exist. They’re not perfect, but are improving by the day. The Orwellian implications of, for example, the degree of propaganda that can occur on social media platforms as a result … are for me unpleasant to think about. And present day AI’s ability to mimic human poetry to me points in such directions.

At any rate, with this I’m just trying to convey where my discomfort is coming from.

As to it being real poetry, verses mimicked poetry - and as per my previous examples - can it be real if it was not originated via a sentient being’s intention to express something of meaning?

:blush: Blushing on account of your reply, but thanks. Yea, I agree with your embellishments in terms of love poems. Definitely.

There are many reasons to engage in art, poetry included. Two of these that I’ve so far found most central are a) a need to express something this is otherwise inexpressible via commonplace language and b) a need to imbibe this expression with the closest proximity one can get to a perfect, and thereby powerful, aesthetic. To me everything else is technical know-how that can be learned via (a) and (b), but which when devoid of (a) and (b) will seem somewhat hollow.

I’ve for example worked with a visual artist that excelled at technical know-how, but was always going about asking others what he should draw or paint next—not having an internal impetus to express something of personal significance for as long as I’ve known him. To me, at least, there was always something missing form his otherwise exceptionally portrayed artwork.

The AI poetry reminds me of this high level of technical know-how sans the burning desire to express something that one holds to be important—to me, for the obvious reason that the AI is not strong AI endowed with consciousness. For example:

Between mouthfuls of apple pie,
they discuss the panda's defection,
the new twelfth-man problem, the low
cardinality of Jesus, and whether
Saint John broke the bread at the Lord's Supper
instead of the guest Aava.
Their talk is either philosophical
on the one hand, or distressing personal
on the other.
Eve, it is whispered, died of exposure. — csalisbury

At the risk of sounding stupid or snobbish—which I probably will—what is it that this stanza (or poem?) communicates? There’s a lot of technical know-how to it, but what is its content—moreover, a content whose aesthetic reaches into my being, captivating me, in manners that refuse to let go (so that I will remember it's affect upon me a long time after)? One can project abstractions into it—just as one can into a blank canvas—in this particular case, maybe something about the ennui of certain conversations. Still, why would this quoted poem not be one more case of the emperor’s new clothes phenomena?

As an apropos, for decades now, one litmus test for good quality poetry I’ve pointed out to is the poet's ability to express the positive aspects of intense romantic love via metaphorical concepts in manners that don’t result in kitsch, i.e. in something one deems to be silly if not worse. This to me is one of the most difficult things to accomplish via poetry.

I don’t foresee being elated and enlightened about romantic love by AI produced poems within my life. Still, if enough good quality love poems are poured into some AI program, and if monkeys at typewriters could type out a good quality play if given sufficient time, what AI could accomplish in the future in this respect is to me an interesting question.

So if we take the OP seriously, and think this an interesting question, and we think that I could have been other than bert1, then we must think that "I", even when spoken by bert1 does not entirely mean "bert1". — bert1

I’m having a hard time following. IMV, and in disagreement with causal determinism, of course you could have been other than who you are, but you would still be you.

You present an issue of signified and signifier, or of designated and designator, in reference to identity. “bert1” designates you as a particular conscious being – which, as such, is a composite of particular past and present experiences and cognitive actions (here overlooking complexities of body and what determined it to be it … although I’d like not to fall into a dualistic mindset in so doing).

You as a conscious being are designated by “bert1” due to your own choice, cognitive act, of which avatar name to hold. Had you chosen “bert2” instead, the designator would have been different due to your different cognitive actions. So you as designated conscious being would have held a different history of cognitive actions and would thereby now be a different you.

There is the truism that a rose by a different name is still a rose. But, firstly, this would be a different designation provided from without that which is being designated – thereby not altering the internal history, so to speak, of that which is designated. Secondly, and maybe here more pertinently, without going into the details of what you as a particular conscious being specifies, every change in your experiences and cognitive actions is a change in what you as a conscious being are. However, if we’re searching for the you that remains relatively continuous over expansive periods of time – this so as to ask why are you you and not some other – this is a fuzzy or else elusive topic. An age old question that can be simplified into the dictum, know thyself.

It seems to me that prior to premising what you as a conscious being are, questions of why you are the conscious being you are rather than being some other will be devoid of grounding.

Or if I completely misconstrued, are you by "I" referring to awareness in general? But then are we not individual instantiations of this general property, individualized by our experiences and actions?

Haven't read the whole thread, so hopefully I'm not repeating topics.

------

BTW, I have the suspicion that the OP was aiming at trying to prove solipsism. :grin: If so, I’m glad you took things in the direction that you did! A whole bunch of “solipsists” conversing and debating over why I’m me and not some other … makes for a nice rebuttal. :up:

Without the underlying logic of the soul choosing, and it being a matter of chosen opinion what is in the soul, or if the soul is real, then the concept of the soul is arbitrary meaninglessness. — Syamsu

I do find the notion of soul to be somewhat arbitrary when comparing different cultures, but not altogether meaningless. I’m guessing there might be something that, however imperfectly, is being referenced in all cultures by the notion of soul. As a very simplistic metaphor, that to which the conscious self is tethered across the timespan of an entire life as though by a rubber-band – such that one’s character can be more this or that but will always come back to some general, core attributes of character – could be likened to a person’s soul. Can’t currently think of an interpretation of soul where this wouldn’t be the case. Would be interested to find out about such.

As to the soul being that which makes choices, it might make choices, but even in common Christian theology it is held that the soul can be sold (and bought) by the choices of conscious selves. So, even here there is maintained a distinction between soul and the conscious self which chooses – although not necessarily one of otherness.

I think you could potentially square this with the buddhist 'no-soul' (I'm not sure, I know only the very basics of Buddhism) by seeing the soul less as a fixed thing (as the parameters of thought often our in our 'minds' if we've grown sclerotic) than a kind of ephemeral unfolding its own right - ephemeral, but with continuity — csalisbury

I like this interpretation. Likely because I happen to agree with it. :wink:

The ego is a kind of psychic structure that emerges (?) from the world soul. It expresses the world's potential to cling protectively to a single vantage point. — frank

I (too?) have an affinity to the world soul. On a more analytical note, this concept seems to me to then necessitate some form or other of panpsychism. But, while I like the concept of a world soul emotively, I can’t yet make heads or tails in relation to panpsychism intellectually – this once details are gotten into.

Continuing with the terminology you've used:

I placed this thread in General philosophy rather than Metaphysics due to an initial intention to not engage in debate pro or contra the significance of specific Aristotelian causes. All the same, I find a lot more significance to formal and final causes than what you’ve outlined.

As an example of formal causation: I don’t subscribe to a temporal causation between brain and consciousness. I do subscribe to a somewhat complex formal causation between the two which, as such, occurs in simultaneity between causes and effects. Complex because it encompasses both bottom-up processes and top-down processes. Yet both these process types occur in simultaneity. We might disagree in this, but maybe you can via this example understand why formal causation is to me of great significance.

As to the metaphysical significance of teleological causation, this would depend on the metaphysical significance one ascribes to conscious and mind in general – and, thereby, to cognitive actions. While there as sub- and unconscious cognitive acts of whose intentions we consciously have little if any awareness of, I maintain that mind is in significant part teleological, end-product driven. Because no efficient causations could be apprehended in the absence of minds, I then find teleological causation to be of great significance in its own right.

I’m happy to further this, but. more in line with my reason for starting this thread, do you have any qualms in terming Aristotle’s four modes of explanation four types of causes? Or would you rather that the term “causes” is reserved for only those causes/determinants that are temporally prior to their effects?

So there are determinations which are not causes. Though mathematicians will say things like "it causes the only element left to be three". — fdrake

Thank you for the example.

If meaning is use, and if the determinant can be stated via common language use to be a cause but can likewise be stated via same to not be a cause, the issue of whether it is proper for the determinant that is being referenced to be termed “a cause” still remains muddled, at least to me.

To try to better explain the equivocations I find in the term “cause”:

In Aristotelian terms, the scenario you’ve presented could be explained via formal causation: The singular form of {3} is being fixed, else established, via the property offered of “not equal to 1 or 2 in the set: {1,2,3}” – such that while the property offered is contemporaneous with the determined 3 (the two are not temporally separated) there would not be this determination in absence of the offered property. This is fully in line with counterfactual definitions of causation: X causes Y iff, where X to not be or occur, Y would not be or occur. This, then, makes this exemplified determinacy causal when going by the counterfactual definition of causation – at least, again, when causation is interpreted in Aristotelian terms. But then, as I believe you implicitly express, this is not an efficient causation wherein causes temporally precede their effects and, therefore, is not what we today commonly deed to be a causal process.

The same counterfactual definition can be applied to material causation: e.g., a wooden sphere would not have the particular buoyancy it does (its buoyancy being the given effect Y) if it were not made of the given wood (this being the material cause X to the particular buoyancy as effect Y); hence, X causes Y because were X to not be or occur Y would not be or occur; yet, as with formal causation, here X and Y are contemporaneous – and so cannot be deemed causal in the sense of efficient causation where X temporally precedes Y. Notwithstanding, it can be easily said that the sphere’s buoyancy is caused by the wood form which it is composed: the wood causes the buoyancy.

Likewise for teleological causation. An intention X causes choice Y in so far as Y would not have been or occurred as a choice in the absence of intention X. Yet the intention, the goal – which is the striven for future which occurs in the present – occurs contemporaneously with the choice that is being taken. The process is not an efficient causation. Nevertheless, although a bit more awkward to our ear, we can express that, “His desire to be win first place in the upcoming race caused him to choose practicing over the party he was invited to.”

If one defines causation as a process wherein the cause temporally precedes the effect, then formal, material, and teleological causes cannot be properly termed “causes” – for in the latter three cases that which determines is contemporaneous with that which is thereby determined. Yet – especially for someone like myself who finds value in Aristotle’s four determinants, or causes (or, at today more commonly translated, explanations) – whether or not this prescription is adequate becomes murky on account of common language use sometimes expressing these same three determinacies as causal processes.

That said, because I can only construe all causes to be determinants (of effects) – may I be corrected if counterexamples exist! – and because some determinants are often concluded to not be causes – as is illustrated in your post – I so far remain inclined to think it best to specify causes as one subtype of determinants. Namely, that subtype of determinacy wherein that which determines is temporally prior to that which is being determined.

So the short version of all this: I so far agree.