There is nothing wrong with being an unconscious selfish, I just think that if you became aware of that fact, and accepted your nature, you would be a better person. — Gus Lamarch

OK. So how do you find that everyone’s increased selfishness will lead to improved conditions for selves?

FYI, survival of the most selfishly powerful as being those most fit – this at everyone else’s expense - easily comes to mind. Sadism could fit the bill nicely. Still, I’m open to being surprised by your answer.

There we got to another point that I don't know if this discussion would be the right place, but it is the fact that selfishness had been a virtue that we - humans - have distorted so much to the point of becoming a concept seen as evil. It is a good start to have discussed with me and to let yourself try to understand what I say. Many here do not try to do it. — Gus Lamarch

Please don’t misunderstand. Trying to better understand your point of view does not equate to me agreeing with it.

The person in question that would sacrifice itself could have been "rightful" on his motives to do it - as being certain that he was doing something that was not egoist - but in the end - unconsciously - the only motive for his actions was one of egoism - maybe eternalizing his person forever to the one saved? Maybe to righ something he had done wrong for someone that the person he was saving knew, etc... the possibilities are endless -. — Gus Lamarch

Or one could sacrifice one's ego for the benefit of a whole of which one's ego is but one constituent of. Some soldiers have been known to do this. Sometime for love of one's country. Sometime for the love of some ideal, such as that of democracy. The ego here holds part of its identity as that which inheres into something greater than itself ... and can willfully sacrifice its own life for it.

Understand: - I am not saying that people cannot or should not be altruistic, empathetic, humble, etc ... I am just saying that indirectly, these same actions are the result of the individual's selfish will, even if they do not know that and are acting as if they were virtuous, and seen by society as good people. — Gus Lamarch

The example I just tried to illustrate depicts what is commonly appraised as virtue. Not a mere acting as if one were.

I'm not yet certain, but, from one vantage, I think I can get what you mean. As egos we are at the center of the world we experience. Hence, your use of the term "egocentrism". Even so, altruism, empathy, humility are commonly described as selfless endeavors. This being shorthand for "less selfish than those endeavors that are the opposite" or something to the like.

There's a difference between, for example, being empathetic and pretending to be. The first is deemed to be a virtue in most cases, the second not. The first is commonly deemed a selfless endeavor, the second a selfish endeavor.

If you endorse things such as altruism and empathy, are you confident that you use of selfishness is an accurate description of what you want to present?

To me, and doubtless to many others, your use of selfish to describe things such as altruism and empathy makes no sense. Selfishness describes the opposite of these things.

We could say that through the term "tree" we would both be talking about the same concept - a tree - and the same object - the tree itself, as being in the universe - however that would be pure speculation by comparison. — Gus Lamarch

I feel you've overlooked my argument. For starters, we could not converse were we to not hold many of the same experienced understandings, for instance, regarding what a majority of these terms mean. But so be it.

The development of the feeling of love for a being other than yours, the egoism- here, referring it only to the love for another person - grows and gets stronger and stronger - if it is an exemplary relationship, something utopian, of course -. And it is to be believed that your partner also has his selfishness exacerbated if he feels in the same dose as you. — Gus Lamarch

I get the feeling you're conflating esteem and heightened well-being with selfishness.

How then do you account for altruism (such as in cases where love is to be found)? Does one willfully sacrifice one’s being out of an interest to optimally preserve the very same being one sacrifices?

Your perception remains the same through the movement through time. You - here understand as your ego, conscience, individuality - remains you intact through the change of "form". You do not have lapses of mileseconds of different personalities, ways of being, etc ... because time passes and with it you change, no, what makes you an "I" remains fixed. — Gus Lamarch

Difference and sameness are for me not as simple as you present them to be. Yes, we remain the same over time, granted, but in which way? Most everything about us changes over time, and no two moments we experience are identical in their details.

The point is that there is no scientific, philosophical, theoretical, etc ... evidence that you - your self - can somehow come and take my place in space within the Universe. — Gus Lamarch

In using terms such as “evidence”, by which I take to mean modern understandings of empirical evidence, you are setting up the goal post in a way that necessarily leads to the conclusion you want. The same tree cannot be seen in the same way by you or me due to our different bodily locations in space. But sensory information does not exhaust the spectrum of givens which are termed experiences. The faculty of understanding is one such example. To understand the theory of evolution, for example, is neither to see it, smell it, touch it, taste it, nor hear it. That said, how can you demonstrate that your understanding of tree is not an identical experience to my own? I presume you can’t. And if our experienced understanding of tree were to in fact be completely unique to each of us, we could not then be referencing the same thing by this empirically apprehended term.

Same applies to what we term feelings. The more complex ones, such as sweet sorrow, are shared by fewer. But the more basic feelings, such as that of pleasure, are universally shared by all. Pleasure in response to what stimuli will differ among individuals, as will its nuances, but all individuals will feel the same thing in terms of what we term pleasure as a state of conscious being.

If one were to solely focus on the differences to each instantiation of pleasure, the concept of pleasure would lose all meaning.

I thank you for taking the time to debate with me respectfully. — Gus Lamarch

You’ve so far been neither rude nor insulting. Simply replying in kind … and starting off by presuming a better case scenario rather than a worse one.

Yes. Love is too, an act of egoism. — Gus Lamarch

Thank you for the honest reply. So, the more one loves, the more egoistic one becomes?

I can be a different person with each passing second, however, the death of my cells and the creation of new ones does not negate the fact that my "I" is the only one to witness these changes. — Gus Lamarch

You are a different person, a different "I", with each miliisecond as well. But this does not address why or how you nevertheless remain the same person, the same "I", throughout. Not such if you're understanding what I'm here addressing, so I'll drop it for the time being.

No other being in existence can feel, and experience my existence in transition through time. — Gus Lamarch

Not when it comes to many of the details regarding these experiences, but these details can well be argued accidental and not essential to that which is you (as an "I") through time. When it, for example, comes to things such as belief that cats are termed cats in English, or to the very experiencing of being as a being, we both feel/experience the exact same thing. In the latter two cases, my experiences are identical to yours, and yours to mine. No uniqueness whatsoever. Uniqueness only presents itself in the differences, which then divide, or ration, or give boundary to, some given from some other.

Experiences can be shared. And some experiences are universal to all beings by sheer virtue of such being beings. How would you disagree with this, if you do disagree?

Loving is the act of using - and being used - as an object by another selfish individual other than yours; — Gus Lamarch

This is diametrically opposite to that which I'm referring to. Language can be a funny thing. Cats can be termed dogs and dogs cats if there is common consensus. But we two so far have no common consensus on what the term love references. So, you are denying the reality of that which I described in my previous post, yes?

[...] that the other is not and cannot be part of what makes you unique and be able to deal with that fact. — Gus Lamarch

"Unique" can be a vacuous term when it comes to identity. No two sunrises have ever been exactly the same - some stand out, others don't; some are tumultuous, others are tranquil; etc. - and so each sunrise in the history of sentience on this planet has been unique. Notwithstanding, all sunrises are exactly the same in being just that, sunrises. Same can be said of romantic love affairs, or of parental love, and so forth.

What makes you you? The you of four minutes past was a unique constituency (be it of givens such as intentions and percepts or of brain and bodily states, take your pick if needed) that is not the same you of the present moment. Yet you are the same, quote-unquote, unique you. How so?

Also, all these virtuous acts - unconsciously, or consciously - are done selfishly - you help others not because you love them, but because seeing them well accomplishes you individually -. — Gus Lamarch

You here deny the reality of love. I think I can see why. Love as a pure ideal is an unadulterated selflessness of being, is being sans ego; and, in practice, the degree of love one holds for other(s) will in due measure make one less selfish and more selfless in respect to those loved. I’m not here talking about having the hots for another, nor about love of inanimate objects like money or ice cream. I’m talking about compassion, valuing of another not as an instrument toward one’s own selfish interests but for their own sake as fellow beings, and the like. When we willingly risk and sometimes sacrifice the welfare of our own self for some other solely out of a desire that they are not harmed, this is the effect of love in dire times. And with love comes first an openness and then a craving to see the world through someone else’s eyes. When mutually shared, love binds egos into a greater self. Such that when one’s loved child, parent, lover, or friend dies so too dies a part of one’s own self.

In short, you’re denying the reality of love because love is the destroyer of ego in beings that yet are. And this runs counter to the thesis you’re presenting.

Do correct me if I’m wrong regarding your stance on love.

Ps. I say this without denying that first-person points of view are just that. But when we close our eyes and stop focusing on specific percepts of the external world, we can find ourselves being of the same (or nearly the same) first person point of view as others in terms of the values and beliefs which define what might well be our core identity.

My conscious mind is saying "do something knew", but the unconscious is what dictates what I actually do. So maybe that's determinism? Idk. — Noble Dust

Odd. My experiences are different. I'm more apt at painting (not claiming to be good at either). I start with a general idea or intent of what I want to convey and how I want it conveyed. Then reality bites in terms of implementation. Here there are creative dry spells and creative eureka moments. And there are alternatives I'm presented with. Based on what is most true to me - true in a more artistic sense of truth being aesthetics and the aesthetic being true - I then make my choices of how to compose my piece. The final product is then always a conflux of me as conscious choice maker and my subconscious as provider of often contradictory ideas between which I choose.

I wouldn't address this as determinism, though. Then again, I'm one to uphold the common sense version of freewill.

But doesn't the conscious self serve an active creative role in manifesting the final product, this via the choices taken? — javra

I don't know what you mean. — Noble Dust

Does the just mentioned better clarify what I was getting at?

The subconscious is made up of all sorts of things; the (sort of?) conscious part of the brain makes signs and symbols out of this subconscious stuff. What this stuff is or means is anyone's game; rather, it's the game of art interpretation...or expression? Yeah, who decides, really? — Noble Dust

When one composes music, one's subconscious gives one possibilities of what note to play next and the like. In the creative process, isn't the conscious self that which decides on which of these alternative possibilities to make actual at expense of all others?

Agreed that creativity is neither random nor deterministic. But doesn't the conscious self serve an active creative role in manifesting the final product, this via the choices taken?

Ideas as I speak of them are images of possible, yes; — Pfhorrest

Can’t say that your notion of idea matches with mine. What makes a mental image an idea but a mental sound (else an imagined smell, taste, or tactile feel) not an idea? There are also mental representations of the actual, rather than the possible, and these seem to me to be ideas as well. Furthermore, many ideas are thoroughly abstract, and as such lack tangible sensory information, including those of mental images. The idea of arbitrariness serves as one example.

the claim that reality matches one of those images is something beyond a mere idea, it is something one can do with an idea. — Pfhorrest

To claim that an idea is accordant to reality is indeed to engage in a doing, yes, but the state of affairs that the idea is accordant to reality is not something which we do, i.e. is not something which we produce or else in any way originate. Moreover, how can one obtain a correspondence to reality in the absence of some idea which so corresponds? (But this question might be colored by our different understanding of "idea".)

Still, this is why I hold that we discover truths sans our creation of them. More tersely expressed, truths are uncreated aspects of the world … that, again, can solely be discovered.

So truths and lies are different ways ideas are employed, but not themselves ideas. — Pfhorrest

You however conclude that truths are not ideas but what we do with ideas. Maybe there’s something lost in my translation of this statement. For instance, the idea that “planet Earth has trees on it” can be either a truth or a falsity given what employment(s) of it?

I wouldn’t say that that means ideas are discovered-only though, because the act of finding the content of an idea is also an act of creating an instance of it, which is why I don’t think the two can really be distinguished. — Pfhorrest

In trying to better grasp the notion you're presenting:

Common sense has it that the truths we discern are discovered, but are not in any way givens we create or originate. Likewise, common sense has it that the lies we tell are inventions, i.e. that they are alternate realities we come up with, are ideas that we create or originate, which we furthermore intentionally peddle to others as full scale truths (unlike fables and allegories, which are acknowledged to be of human creation but intend to tell often deeper, but always uncreated, truths via our fabrications as vehicle for the telling of these truths).

While I disagree with the following, I can somewhat understand the metaphysical position that would uphold all lies to be discovered within an ocean of boundless potentiality, or un-bounded possibility. This as though each possibility were itself an actuality awaiting to be discovered?

However, this yet leaves truths unaddressed. If the obtainment or all ideas occurs via a hybridization between discovery and creation, and if truths are ideas that correspond to reality (here taking explicitly held beliefs to be ideas), are truths then also partly of our creation?

But then - if both truths and untruths are ideas which we in part create and in part discover - how would one go about distinguishing the obtainment of truths from the obtainment of untruths?

Especially pertinent when considering that the untruths we would be discovering (rather than strictly creating) would themselves correspond to aspects of a reality consisting of boundless potentiality. Hence, they would themselves then correspond to reality.

Maybe I phrased some or most of this improperly. Still, there to me seems to be an important dichotomy between, for example, the discovery of truths and the invention of truths.

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.