It's a bit of straw-man isn't it? If an individual told me something absurd I wouldn't confuse it with the subject of knowledge. — Cheshire

No, not a straw man: Why do you appraise it as nonsense—this if it is a believed truth that is justified to the satisfaction of its bearers?

We have an ideal concept of circles, but we don't call the one's we draw operational circles. Because we never draw ideal circles, so the operator is redundant. — Cheshire

Yes, because here we clearly know that no drawn circle is an ideal circle—and so there’s no implicit equivocation involved.

Same with knowledge, from where I stand at least. You do recognize, however, that some hold their knowledge to in fact be infallible? Be this within religions, philosophies, or out in the everyday world. Here, there is equivocation between the operational and the ideal that is confused with unequivocal states of affairs which are in fact obtained ideals.

It would obfuscate if in fact the demon was necessary. In actuality, suppose all the things you know. I'm asserting 1 of them is wrong and you don't know which one. — Cheshire

In which case, why should I believe you in lieu of proper justifications for this? Due to an authoritarian commandment?

It was a false choice. In this experiment we know 11 things and 10 of them are subject to error. — Cheshire

Yes. Well, you’re discussing this with a fallibilist—i.e., a philosophical skeptic in the tradition of Cicero and Hume, among others (not Pyrrhonian and not Cartesian): a very broad, but different, matter. As I’ve indicated in my previous posts on this thread, all our held beliefs of what is true are—I argue—susceptible to error, hence to being wrong. Though this in no way entails that they are. Until they’re falsified in so being, there’s no reason to believe that they are wrong.

Hence, following your specifics, we fallibly know 11 things, all of which are subject to error.

At any rate, that we know 11 and not 10, 9, or 0 givens still does not answer the question of what knowledge is.

I'll try to better clarify my position:

The issue of terms is the very semantic facet that I’m yet trying to better specify. One could just as readily say “X knowledge” and “Y knowledge” instead of the “ontic knowledge” and “subjective knowledge”—but this is far less descriptive.

The point is that one is a fully conceptual ideal—that is thereby non-operational as knowledge. It presents a knowledge that is infallibly justifiable and infallibly true—this not being possible to obtain in at least current practice. The other form is the only type of knowledge that can be had in practice. This, I’m thinking, is again best exemplified by the criterion of truth; there is the fully conceptual ideal of absolute truth which can never be wrong; and then there is the only operational form of truth that can be found: that which we believe to conform to the former type of ideal truth.

So—the thought just came to me, with the help of previous posters—scratch “ontic” and “subjective” and replace with “ideal” and “operational”, respectively. (seems to do a better job at describing what’s intended).

Operational knowledge, then, can only be evaluated via use of ideal knowledge. Without it needing to conform to ideal knowledge, any claim to have a justified believed truth will be knowledge. E.g., I know that it will be sunny today because—i.e., due to the cause of; or, on grounds that—my cat is out in the backyard and there are satellites in the sky. Now, in everyday life, were someone to tell you this, you’d think them to be, well, ignorantly mistaken. To not in fact know that it will be sunny today. But why come to this verdict if it’s a believed truth that has just been justified to the satisfaction of the bearer?

The answer I’m giving is that this believed truth does not conform to ideal knowledge—here, because it is deemed to not be validly justified. And, hence, is then judged to not be knowledge.

>>> At this point I should ask: If someone were to tell you it’ll be sunny today for the reasons just mentioned, and whether or not it’ll be sunny today holds some degree of risk/importance for what you do today, would you then yet hold their belief to be knowledge? And, therefore, act in accordance to this known?

Compare the aforementioned with: I know it will be sunny today because my cat has the odd habit of only going outdoors on days that are perfectly sunny, and he is now outdoors, and because the weather forecaster has picked up from satellites the depiction of weather patterns that nearly always entail that a sunny day is in store.

Here, while yet not being ideal knowledge—which is perfectly justified to be an absolutely true belief—the given justified believed truth nevertheless does conform to ideal knowledge (to our ideal of what perfect knowledge should be). And, because of this, can now be deemed to be operational knowledge. Hence, here, we will deem this person to in fact know what he is talking about—and will hold no reason to question this knowledge unless we hold other data or reasoning that appear to us to conflict with it.

So, I’m arguing, we can only appraise what is and is not operational knowledge by appraising whether or not it conforms to ideal knowledge. If it’s falsified in potentially so being, then we deem it to not be knowledge.

At a particular moment in time let's suppose you know 10 things. And then, my philosophy demon informs you that one of the things you know is wrong, but not which of the things you know is wrong. So, you turn and tell me you in fact know 9 things. I argue that, no you know 10 things because you can't tell me which 9 are actually correct or you know zero things because 1 of the ten is wrong and it could be any of the 10. — Cheshire

It’s an interesting thought experiment, but I think it obfuscates the primary issue. Here, we’re trying to apply (meta-)operational knowledge to what is and is not particular instances of operational knowledge given the circumstances. How do we know if we only know nine or none of the ten formerly thought to be know givens? The question of what knowledge is to begin with still remains.

So, in my own words, would you call this a metacognitive state of mind that Buddhism enforces [teaches], through the practice of mindfulness, compassion, and altruism? One then refers back to this state of mind, when dealing with depression? — Posty McPostface

Yes, of course.

There's the caveat, thought, that Buddhism is Buddhism and, thereby, not materialism. :wink:

This is an ongoing discussion we're having in the On Disidentification thread if you care to join us. In that thread, I attempted to disidentify from the condition and live by thinking that "I have depression, and not I am depressed." My trial ended with me feeling angry or frustrated that I still feel the symptoms of depression even if I didn't think I have the condition.

I suspect endogenous problems like depression, are very deeply embedded in one's persona, so it can be difficult to disidentify from or become detached. — Posty McPostface

Just perused the other thread. Since I’ve already replied on this one, I'll add to what Wayfarer said here:

There’s a different in ordinary cognition between, “I am angry/sad/jealous/etc.,” and “I feel angry/sad/jealous/etc.” The former captures that which you as first-person point of view momentarily is, what you as a conscious awareness is constituted of. The later captures what you as a conscious awareness introspectively apprehends as other than the you which is so apprehending.

If I feel envy within myself, I then have a choice as to whether to shun this emotion/mood till it vanishes from my total being or, else, to actually become envious in relation to that concerned. If, however, I am envious, this is a matter of fact that I have no choice over for as long as I so remain. Here, all choices I that I can make will by default be made by envious me.

As others have mentioned, to go from “I am depressed” to “I feel depressed” in a sustained way will take a good degree of cognitive work. And holding onto the belief that “I am depressed because it is how I am genetically; because I am ontologically predetermined to so be” is utterly antithetical to the process. Buddhism often has quite a lot to say about such forms of mediation in which one makes all experiences that which one in some way apprehends as an awareness—thereby experientially establishing the given awareness as ontologically independent of all which it otherwise will be constituted at any particular moment as a “self”. Note that within Buddhism, this is intended to be transformative in what one construes to be ontological, to be real, in regards to personal being. It is after all part and parcel of the ontological position of Buddhism. This process of meditation, however, is neither quick nor easy. It requires effort and perseverance. Still—in parallel to feeling envious v. being envious—until one experiences the “I feel myself to be depressed” reality one will perpetually experience the “I ontologically am depressed” reality: In the first there is a cognitive choice as to what to do about experiencing oneself to be depressed; in the second there is no such choice to speak of, for the depressed individual is who is doing the choosing by default.

Imagine an either obese or muscle-challenged individual wanting to become fit and muscular, but not having any will or desire to engage in any of the exercises that are required to so become, then asking, “so what else can I do to become muscular?”

If this is harsh, so be it: To what extent do you care about your own predicament of depression?

You want to hold onto the believed truth that “I can’t do anything meaningful to change it, for it is part of what I am” and, in this case, your held belief shall be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Believing otherwise—as with physical exercise to become muscular—also requires the needed effort and perseverance. Be this via dis-identification or some other means. Thought about action is not the action itself.

Well, again, I'm no psychiatrist. I also don't hold onto the ontological notion of (full) biological determinism, believing there's always some "nurture" involved in our behavioral phenotypes. This then makes the issue of heredity more complex: for then there is both some measure of biology at play as well as implicit learning, especially during the formative years.

To the extent that the depression is a biologically determinate property, where its physically caused, then physical remedies in the form of proper pharmaceuticals will be the proper remedy.

Still, my non-expert belief is that what we biologically inherit are predispositions to, and not the actual result. Any plant will grow one way when held in a closet and another when held in sunlight. Some are more predisposed to this or that ailment as a result of interactions with stressful experiences; don't know who wouldn't break (or, at least, bend) given sufficient stressors. But we're each predisposed to this differently. For example, we likely do inherit a risk gene of some sort, but this doesn't predetermine who we will be. Same with clinical depression--again, in my non-expert opinion.

What has helped me is this metacognitive attitude: Depression is nature’s way of telling you there’s something wrong.

Figure out what that is, and then you can directly, enactively, address the problem. This may be an oversimplification, but this by simply choosing between flight from the problem (and the best means of so doing) or fighting the problem (and the best means of so doing).

Otherwise, depression seems to me to be an unconsciously held certainty that there’s an insurmountable obstacle in the way. One that results in a consciously experienced blockage in motivation, often accompanied by great sorrow—again, this for reasons that are not consciously discerned.

With this as context, then, the more the given underlying problem—often in the plural—has been ignored, the deeper within the unconscious mind it becomes buried. And the harder it is to bring up into conscious awareness. At which point, a drastic change in behaviors—either consciously willed or else also assisted by prescription medication—can then serve as a break from the underlying issue. If the underlying issue is not of immediate pertinence to one’s life, then it will start decaying (a neuroscience term for when synaptic connections between neurons are not used and begin wilting and, eventually, because of this, eventually no longer physically exists—being instead replaced by other, new, now functioning synaptic connections).

If the depression is, for example, caused by a personal guilt—since this doesn’t apply to most here: say, that a woman began partying with booze when finding out that she became pregnant because she didn’t want to face the facts at the time, and then maybe had a miscarriage in the third trimester—then the depression could be resolved via meaningful self-forgiveness (such as by learning from the mistake and, maybe, helping others not to repeat it). If, on the other hand, the depression is, for example, caused by contextual factors such as our global warming, then making this explicit and consciously deciding to either do something about it (however small) or else deciding to live with the foreseeable consequences will get one to overcome the unconscious impediment.

And somewhere in-between all this you could hold onto Nietzsche’s’ statement that what does not kill you will only make you stronger. (There’s also the Neon Flux version of “what does not kill you maims”—but this one’s likely to not help out in this situation, unless one’s into dark humor and can have a good laugh about it. :joke: )

But I’m no psychiatrist. Still, hopefully some of this might help out.

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apropos, a joke about how things can always be worse: Guy gets a call form the doctor. Doctor says, "You're analysis is in. I've some bad news and some worse news for you. Which do you want to hear first?" The guy says, "Tell me the bad news." Doc says, "The results indicate that you only have 24 hours left to live." The guy is shocked, angered, and asks, "How can things possibly be worse?". The doctor replies, "Well, I forgot to tell you about it yesterday."

:smile:

Fire causes discomfort when touched. That doesn't require language to learn. Is it not the ground for believing that touching fire caused pain? — creativesoul

There are causal beliefs. For example, my belief that snakes are dangerous was caused by the bite of the snake. But I would take issue with the idea that the cause is a ground or justification, as in an epistemological ground. Why would you think that causal effects are a grounding. Moreover, to answer the question why I believe something, it may take into account both causality and reasons/evidence, but there is a big difference in terms of epistemology. If a cause is the same as a justification, then we can justify all kinds of weird things. When I talk about justification or a grounding, I'm talking about reasons/evidence, and I think most philosophers are talking about reasons/evidence. — Sam26

A reason, by definition, is a cause, motive, or explanation. It then naturally renders reasoning as the process of providing causes, motives, or explanations for. To justify a belief as true, I then argue, is to provide valid reasoning (a set of valid, i.e. consistent, causes, motives, and/or explanations) for a belief being true.

The argument can be made that most of our justifications are non-linguistic at any given time. We could linguistically express them, but we generally don’t. It is only when we want to convey these to others or else deliberate upon some issue internally that we make use of language. For example: When playing a sport, one knows to move left instead of right at a certain juncture—for example—without need for linguistic expression of beliefs, truths, or justifications; this while one yet holds a justifiable true belief that so moving is optimally advantageous at the given moment.

A lesser animal pet can thus be argued to know what its name is—for example—for it holds a pre-linguistic believed truth which is to it justifiable via its experiences of causes and motives (with explanations here being deemed to always be linguistic for the sake of simplicity. Although, when defined as “to make something understandable”, explanations then will not necessarily contain human language: e.g., an animal’s body language (which sometimes can be intentionally deceptive in more intelligent lesser animals) explains its states of mind to other like—and often unlike—animals; or, an animal’s memories of motives and causes will serve to explain to the animal the meaning of some given).

An animal can then be upheld to know that fire burns—especially when it is an acquired belief of what is true that is itself in keeping with the animal’s set of learned causal relations and motives for actions (i.e., with the animal’s non-linguistic reasoning regarding what is). Here especially thinking of the more intelligent lesser animals: canids, corvids, dolphins, elephants, great apes, etc.

But here things can get complex very quickly: an ant innately knows its cast and what to do for the colony (just as we innately know how to suckle when birthed, among other forms of our innate knowledge). And in such instances, the issue of JTB becomes murky—although, imo, not necessarily invalid (especially when the property of justification is not conceived as entailing human language: e.g., a human baby is justified in holding a pre-linguistic belief that suckling will satisfy its pangs of thirst/hunger, thereby knowing it must suckle in order to live).

While I’m at it: Knowledge by acquaintance, broadly defined, can be deemed in similar enough fashions to be believed truth justified by first-person experience. Example: I am justified in holding the believed truth that I am psychologically certain by my experienced feeling that I am—which is itself the valid reason (cause, motive, or explanation) for my belief being true. Thus, one can validly affirm, “I know I’m certain (or happy/sad; etc.).

as a sub-quote taken from the one above:

If a [presumed] cause is the same as a justification, then we can justify all kinds of weird things. — Sam26

Yet this is how we get to certain people knowing that the Young Earth model of the universe is true. Or that eliminative materialism is true. What stands in the way is that their specified causes, motives, and explanations for so believing will not be fully coherent and, thereby, will contain contradictions. This, at least, in principle wherever the justified believed truth is in fact false.

How would Aristotle respond to idealism? (I understand that there are many types of idealism but I'm thinking in general terms - the concept that all reality consists of mind and its ideas?) What would Aristotle say about this concept? — DS1517

The question is framed through our modern-day Cartesian spectacles. Is it mind, matter, or is it both distinct and incommensurable substances acting in parallel? Mirroring what Wayfarer said, to my best knowledge, this contextualization—this means of compartmentalizing and viewing—that which is never held a significant foothold prior to Descartes. (Noteworthy: Among pre-Socratics there were however occasional suppositions of everything being one of the five elements—Earth, Water, Fire, Air, or some varient of what is now sometimes addressed by the Sanskrit Akasha (e.g. the Apeiron)—but I strongly believe these basic elements meant things far different than what we now most often interpret them to be via our Cartesian glasses. For example: water, fire, air, and void (the latter being one commonly known take on the fifth element; again, others can be found) could not have been meant to have been physical—at least not by the more learned crowds—but metaphysical. For were these elements to have been physical (e.g. Heraclitus addressing physical fire rather than a metaphysical property or process of transformation which is only tangibly represented by physical fire), then they all would have pertained to the one basic substance of Earth (matter/mother, Gaia, Scythian notions of Pon, non-satyr interpretations of Pan, the matrix (womb) … to list just a few ancient concepts for the physical, most of which strongly differ from our own in significant ways.)

But as to Aristotle’s more down to earth approach relative to Plato, one of the more pivotal elements of his philosophy was that of teleological causation—very much including there being a first teleological cause to all that otherwise is. To a Cartesian-contextualized mindset we currently live in, this primordial final cause (the unmoved given that teleological moves everything which is remotely other) cannot be neatly compartmentalized into either materialism or substance dualism.

A small side-note for technical purposes: to Aristotle this primordial final cause is some given that holds real presence and not what we would affirm as nothingness. (A wink to Apokrisis)

So my inference: Given the common modern mindset that only these three possibilities exist—again, that of materialism, idealism, and substance dualism—Aristotle, for the reasons just provided, would then by default fall within the one category that remains: idealism.

However, whether or not Aristotle would have himself taken issue with this label where he to have been alive today … I’ve no way of knowing. And, again, I very much agree that this forced choice between Cartesian substances of mind v. matter would have been utterly foreign to Aristotle.

But I’ve mainly added my thoughts within this thread because I’m honestly curious (this after my best attempts at reading the writing on the walls):

To use a post-Cartesian notion provided by Charles S. Peirce: if everything physical were to be nothing else but effete mind, what difference would it make for all practical purposes as regards anything physical?

(There’s at minimum this one connection between Peirce’s Objective Idealism and Aristotelianism: both maintain a globally applicable, primordial final cause—which is neither of a materialism nor a dual substance mindset (if it needs stating, this without denying all the un-pleasantries that occasionally are to be found within reality.))

I suppose the way to proceed is abandoning the notion there's a set of criteria which knowledge contains and disqualifies all else or change JTB, or change the philosophical definition of knowledge. It's a bit Gettierish, but saying all knowledge is JTB or Not would technically silence my objections. — Cheshire

Maybe this will help. The way I view things: There are two types of knowledge, the ideal, purely conceptual standard by which all practicable knowledge is appraised—I’ll call this “ontic knowledge”—and that which is within our capacity to hold and engage in—I’ll call this “subjective knowledge”. The former is that by which the latter is measured against as means of appraising the latter’s validity.

A leading issue with knowledge is with the notion of truth. To believe that something is is to believe ones notion/idea/conceptualization/etc. to be true (other types of belief are however possible). However, so doing, of itself, does not signify that any given belief of what is true is in fact true/accurate. In these statements there are two implicit concepts: in parallel, an ideal and conceptual understanding of truth—call it “ontic truth”, or the factual state of being wherein that believed accurately conforms to that which is real—and, secondly, our awareness-based appraisals of what is and is not true—call this “subjective truth”, or the subjectively, and sometimes tacitly, made appraisal that that which is maintained accurately conforms to that which is real. It might be subtle, but the two concepts are distinct.

Most implicitly interpret in JTB is the notion of ontic truth—which, by its very idealized property of being ontic, or factual, cannot ever be mistaken in any way. And it is this notion of ontic (factual) truth which brings about our ideal notion of ontic knowledge. Yet this can only be a conceptual model of that which is aspired for; that which “knowledge intends” as you’ve mentioned. Yet the knowledge in this latter statement is not the conceptual standard of ontic knowledge—which is ontically true belief that can thereby be justified upon request—but is, instead, the only form of knowledge that can be had in practice: subjective knowledge.

Subjective knowledge, then, can be defined as: a notion that is believed to be true and which can be justified at will in so being true. If that which is believed is in fact ontically true, then it will in deed accurately conform to that which is real. Yet this is where ontology plays a crucial role: Where that which is real is itself factually interconnected in coherent manners (for example: physics, chemistry, biology, and awareness are all coherently related in some manner—this despite our lack of full understanding regarding these coherent interconnection), then there will always be means of justifying that which is in fact real. Where contradictions are found in one’s justifications, for one example, this will then illustrate that one cannot account for what one believes to be true, for one cannot provide how it accurately conforms to what in fact is real.

The just stated would take a lot to unpack—particularly in regard to the nature of reality (an aspect of ontology) and to the nature of valid, ontology-contingent justification in general (an aspect of epistemology). Doubtless there would be much contested in any such account, but I yet find the overall relation to reality and to reality-contingent justification to be rather intuitively valid for most, if not all, people.

So there’s JTB, our conceptualized ideal form of knowledge (which cannot be had in practice unless one were to evidence one’s belief of what is true to be infallible); and there’s validly justifiable believed truth—I’ll term this JBT—the only form of subjective knowledge possible to hold in practice when lacking truths that have been demonstrated to be perfectly secure from all possible error (i.e., when lacking truths that have been infallibly demonstrated to so be).

Now, for all practical purposes, our knowledge that the sky is blue, as one example, is absolute (also that 1 + 1 = 2; etc.). But these instances of knowledge are not (perfectly) infallible in technical philosophical jargon; their truth is not proven to be perfectly secure form all possible error via means that are themselves perfectly secure from all possible error.

More concretely, though, the way I view things is that those people that once asserted knowledge of the sun circling the Earth can, presently, be confidently stated to not have held knowledge of this. This is so because their JBT did not conform to JTB; their subjective knowledge did not conform to ontic knowledge.

When we say, “I thought I knew,” we affirm that we once held our JBT to be an instance of JTB—but that we were wrong in so thinking. (It’s telling to me that we don’t say “I believed I knew”—though we can say “I believe I know”. I’m thinking we don’t say the former because it’s redundant without rhetorical purpose and because upon discovering our mistake we acknowledge it to be due to faulty justifications then held (our beliefs of what is true, of themselves, not being at fault; for they are not knowledge in themselves). We can say the latter because, until we consciously discern we hold justifications for what we believe to be true, we do not hold a conscious awareness of the given belief being knowledge—though we can intuitively sense that it is. Hence, we can believe we know.)

To sum things up: Any validly justifiable belief of what is true (JBT) can well be an instance of a belief that is ontically true and thereby justifiable (JTB). If inconsistencies are lacking, then there’s no justification by which to assume that an instance of JBT is not an instance of JTB. Nevertheless, until we can infallibly prove ontic truths (something which fallibilists will uphold cannot be done by us), we could, hypothetically, be mistaken in our upholding any instance of JBT to be JTB. But: until evidence presents itself to the contrary, because all our JBTs could all (or at least mostly) well be instances of JTB, we then are justified in proclaiming that we hold knowledge (JTB).

I’m still working though some of the connotative facets of this myself—making a concept simple and unambiguous from multiple vantages if sometimes harder than it should be. However, I again find that this outlook does justify why the guy who “knew” that the Earth is flat didn’t in fact hold knowledge of this: we currently have ample means by which to evidence that his JBT did not conform to JTB.

So JTB stays, imo, at least in the ways just outlined.

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I'm appending this in attempts to be clearer: I understand and agree with all our held knowledge being fallible, and that we thereby (to incorporate the semantics I previously used) can only hold onto JBT that has so far not been falsified in being JTB—and which, thereby, can very well be JTB (as here interpreted: ontically true belief that is thereby justifiable).

Like this? — Andrew M

Certainly describes my attitude toward work some days. — Marchesk

I picked this lyric up from my stay in boot camp (was in the army reserves for a while a whiles back, to be precise): “If it don’t make money, it don’t make sense.” OK, to be fair and put it in context, the song was about it not making any sense to kill, harm others, or otherwise engage in criminal activity just for the hoot of it (because without these activities making you any money … ) Ethics from another corner of the world. What can one say.

Still, it reminds me that there’s something to be said about work.

Placing this on a philosophy forum I sort’a feel that there might be a shark frenzy of argumentation soon to unfold. Hopeful the humor intended is just understood.

But yea, work. Man, one of the funnier t-shirts I came across as of late simply read in all places till there was no more space, “work, work, work, work, work, work, work”. I instantly got it. But, yes, work does “make money”.

(Late night humor of a SNL “Deep thoughts by Jack Handy” variety. That said, unless there'll be a need for me to reply to my previous posts, I'll be away for a while)

Hume, who was a global skeptic, believed in causation just as we all do (it’s why he was a stringent causal compatibilist, for example; he only illustrated how our knowledge of causation is inductive. This wasn’t an problem for him in terms of acknowledging causation, but it did make sense of things such as purported miracles not being outside the spectrum of ordinary causation. I distinctly remember his example of ice being given to someone who'd never seen it before in some desert; to them it would be a miracle, but it would still be bound bycausal processes--as the British (and we) know it to be. Same thing, he argued, with any so called miracle that occurred in the West). Kant, on the other hand, was not a global skeptic—not that I’ve so far heard of at any rate.

Part of the problem with skepticism is it’s commonly used current connotations: that of being dubious about. When addressing global skeptics such as Hume or many of the ancients, they weren’t dubious about things; at least not any more or any less than any self-proclaimed non-skeptic is. Tracing the word to its origins, in Ancient Greek where it was first used it literally meant to be thoughtfully inquisitive. It had absolutely nothing to do with being doubtful about things. For example, even Pyrrho—who’s reputed to have been quite extreme in his suspension of all beliefs—was not a dubious person. For instance, he held a firm, though obviously to him fallible (not infallible), conviction in how to best attain happiness; he had no doubts about it.

To cut to the chase, Hume was tied into many an ancient Academic in his skepticism, a mindset which does not in any way rely upon the presence of doubt. This may be hard to be believe for some, but historical records attests to this form of skepticism being a different thing than that of a dubious disposition. Kantian skepticism (don’t know of the extent to which Kant might have used this term himself) is however tied into Cartesian notions of skepticism, for which doubt is quintessential. Though, again, Kant to my knowledge was not a global skeptic. His skepticism was particular to a set of gives; in this case, what things in themselves actually are.

Maybe this is novel to some. :grin: Know all too well it's not to others. :cool: Anyways, was just shooting the breeze. Didn't intend to make a thing out of it unless there's a need or an interest.

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At any rate, thanks for bringing up possible discrepancies. Its among the best things that a philosophy forum has to offer: others' perspectives.

Well, there is the ancient skeptical approach. To paraphrase, the awareness of leaky compartments leads to ataraxia, in which one suspends work on leakproof compartments. After which, the leaks are no longer bothersome. — Marchesk

Darn. That’s quite an accurate paraphrase. Giving credit where it’s due.

Btw, been working on better addressing the subject of skepticism, this since it’s such a big deal to so many. I think I’ve got global skepticism nailed down to three distinct and conflicting categories that I believe are comprehensive as a set. Here also paraphrased:

• negating infallibilism*: when you doubt everything that isn’t proven to be infallible in order to at last arrive at infallible truths and knowledge--because you faithfully believe infallible truths and knowledge can be proven to be via your methodic doubts. This mindset makes you an infallibilist, hence the name of the category. Exemplified by Descartes’ use of Cartesian Doubt.
• negating fallibilism: when you denounce all beliefs upon discovering they’re all fallible because you don’t ever want to run the risk of being wrong. Exemplified by Pyrrhonian skeptics.
• positing fallibilism: when you discern that everything epistemic is fallible (including the affirmation that nothing is infallible), take a deep breath of relief in so discovering, proceed to posit conclusions drawn from experience and reasoning with this discernment in mind, and confidently hold onto these conclusions till something comes along that evidences you wrong via experience or reasoning—because, until that time, as far as you know you could be perfectly correct. Exemplified by people such as Cicero, David Hume, likely the Socrates/Plato duo (the two never called themselves skeptics so I guess whether or not they were is up in the air), and, maybe, Charles S. Pierce, the guy who came up with the term “fallibilism” (I’m thinking he might have been a closet skeptic of this third ilk, because his take on epistemology nicely speaks to this (though I have yet to finish reading my collection of his works)).

* the fourth category that’d naturally fit into this set would be positing infallibilism—where you posit instances of infallible truths and knowledge—such as that of “The Truth”—that you neither substantiate to be infallible nor even try to so substantiate, but insist are infallible all the same (likely on grounds that this is self-evident to you and because you don't give a shoot about all the evidence against it being infallible). However, this category wouldn’t be a distinct type of global skepticism.

Yea, thought I’d share. Maybe it’ll help to make better sense of this taboo topic of skepticism. If not I’m sure I’ll hear of it. I think it also better speaks to the issue of fallibilist accounts of the Truth v. infallibilist accounts.

Some of the most inspiring individuals were those who didn't care if they died in the process. Why do we admire these heroes? Because they were not afraid of death. Imagine this kind of radical detachment towards your own existence - does not everyone wish they could simply let go? — darthbarracuda

The person who said “It’s a good day to die” right before charging into a very perilous battle didn’t commit suicide on the spot due to his conviction. He struggled, endured, and fought. But those who live by not being afraid of death—be they aikido practitioners, samurai, of Native American tribes, firemen that run into burning buildings to save a life, or your run of the mill altruist (to list a few)—can all be said to give their life if needed for some less egotistic, greater good that they believe themselves a part of. Sometimes it’s spiritual; sometimes it isn’t, e.g. for the sake of humankind, the species, or some such.

The person who believes that death is in an instant get-out-of-suffering card can well construct their valid logical reasoning for pursuing death. But the premise is just as silly as that of it being “an instant beam me up to a suffering devoid heaven” premise. Death is both experientially and rationally the ultimate unknown. But we don’t like the unknown, do we; we feel antsy with unresolvable mystery; so we then impose a known truth upon it. By analogy: Dark energy and matter that composes most of the universe and most of us; phooey; we all know damn well that we’re made up of atomic billiard balls darn it (with nothing spooky or mysterious about it, to boot); and we certainly don’t have time for the unknown constituting most of what is physically real. Just so with the nature of death: an unknown what happens after a life takes its last breadth in this world? Horse manure. Right?

I’ll take the bull by the horns and acknowledge the unknown as being unknown. But to each their own, I guess.

Just one thing, though. Those who risk their own life without fear of personal death are not to be mistaken for those who are suicidal. Everyone from warriors to pacifists, they didn’t—and still don’t—go into some state of mind where the intention is to engage in self-murder.

I can't see how you got "Drop a particular relation between sentience and reality" from "Drop truth, as a relation between one or more points of view". — Banno

I’m surprised beyond belief that this needs to be stated. The conjunction used was “or”, as in “between X or Y […and...]”; not “and”, as in “between X and Y […and...]”. Not taking half a sentence to be a full sentence, but instead interpreting what you’ve quoted within the context of the full sentence I originally wrote is, well, just common sense grammar skills. The issue of charitability—or of the lack thereof—doesn’t even enter the picture.

With that level of misunderstanding, why continue? — Banno

Well said.

Drop this. The problem dissolves. — Banno

Don’t follow you so far. Drop the part about a particular relation between sentience and reality and what alternative meaning remains for the word “truth”? Somehow came to believe that truth was an important thing for you as well (here thinking in relation to Trump and friends).

As for your question of what I’m going to do about the paradox I addressed, I’ll face the facts and pursue less trodden paths till I find something worthwhile. Since your question almost sounded sincere, here’s a crudely expressed working idea: truth (that which is true) is conformity to that which is ontic (such that to be true is to conform to that aspect of the ontic specified). This laconic phrase nicely accounts for all examples addressed by correspondence theory but doesn’t get limited by the latter—e.g. if the target as an aim is ontic, the arrow can then be stated to be true due to its path’s conformity to the ontic end it was intended for. Other examples can be given, like true to one's spouse (to the implicit yet ontic understanding held with one's spouse), and so on. At any rate, my given hunch doesn’t pre-judge any particular ontology as being true prior to accounting from what “true” is; it merely affirms that something ontic is—and the latter can only be rationally doubted via contradiction (e.g. there ontically is nothing ontic; hence, both A and not-A at the same time and in the same way). But it does require there being some sentience for truth to be.

If you have quibbles, would like to hear them.



Darth, am I hearing you right? All life that intends to live is cowardly? Including that which perseveres against what can nearly be insurmountable odds? There something in the way to this. At any rate, it’s not how I ascribe meaning to the desire to live, nor to what courage is all about. But maybe this isn’t at all what was intended in your last post after all.

As for philosophy, I hear even David Hume had to play billiards as a diversion every now and then. I’m imagining with a little bit of beer and a good amount of laughter. Maybe it’s not the best example, point being The Truth can and does a/wait with or without us philosophy interested people; life not so much. If we take a breather from philosophical topics they’ll still be there after we recharge our allegorical batteries, if we find we’re still interested in philosophical topics afterward.

That would make sense in an intuitive way. I’m interpreting it as “the map is not road”. Still, don’t all philosophical narratives intend to expound of that which is real or reality? This taking it for granted that they’re not instances of intentional deception. So, allegorically speaking, if the map is true because it accurately depicts the road, then wouldn’t the map be an expression of Truth?

I’m not big on Truth myself, by the way. It to me reeks of infallibilist mindsets—and the authoritarianism that too often accompanies them. All the same, I confidently uphold that there is a set of factual givens that occur in manners indifferent to subjective appraisals—a reality that we can ever-better approximate in our collective body of knowledge.

So "Snow is white" is a statement, and not a state of affairs, but that snow is white is a state of affairs, but not a statement?

This line of thinking is quite confused.

Can we get by without it? I think we can. — Banno

The confusion might be worse than it first seems:

Awareness of what is ontic (i.e., of what factually is in manners indifferent to subjective appraisals) precedes our understanding for the epistemological criterion of truth.

This is so because truth, as it’s commonly understood, is a relation between one or more points of view (the existence of which is itself an ontological position; i.e., is itself a judgement concerning a state of affairs) and that which these apprehend to be ontic, i.e. to factually be (aka, to be reality or real, but here not necessarily limited to semantics associated with materialistic realism).

The philosophical paradox emerges in that we thereby need to first philosophically know of an ontology, of some state of affairs in general, in order to then discern what particular truths are and, consequently, what is knowledge (this when knowledge is in any way contingent on the property of truth—don’t know what knowledge would be otherwise).

So ontology predates epistemology, but we need epistemic criteria by which to appraise and establish some ontology.

Is this chicken and egg conundrum between ontology and epistemology itself an inherent aspect of Truth? Don’t know. But it certainly isn’t a consciously intended falsehood.



The heck is capital-T Truth supposed to be anyway—other than a nifty synonym for that which factually is in manners indifferent to subjective appraisals? In which case why not just call it reality, or that which is real? And don’t we all then have a working model of what reality is, one which we sometimes attempt to enlighten others about in places such as these? Maybe it’s the lack of acknowledged fallibilism involved with many such affirmations.

Just passing through. Interesting stuff so far. Thought I might be able to stir up the waters a bit.

Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life seems the obvious candidate, but a more contemporary read seems good too. — darthbarracuda

In terms of basic principles that are universal to all life—this rather than the mechanisms via which these principles apply—everything contemporary will be an interpretation of the original you’ve listed. “Origin of Species” is well argued, well structured, with plenty of examples, and will appeal to the philosophically minded with interest in the topic. It is the 101 of any biological evolution reasoning which makes concrete the foundations to which mechanisms can then be applied and, even today, yet proposed.

If you read it and like it, also try his The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals—though short on mechanisms, it too is very philosophically robust, well-supported with evidence, insightful, with special attention given to the cognitive evolution of life.

Ditto to this:

Forget The Selfish Gene, it's outdated science and badly misleading outdated science at that. — StreetlightX

In terms of accessible new stuff that isn’t pop-sci, The Genial Gene is a well-supported alternative perspective to that which the culturally beloved Dawkins provides. Though a bit of the underdog since it emphasizes the cooperation required for life to be.

"Ontic reality of life"; why not just "life"? Or is there an ontic reality of life, that isn't life - I don't even know what that means! — tim wood

Wikipedia: In philosophy, ontic (from the Greek ὄν, genitive ὄντος: "of that which is") is physical, real, or factual existence.

Example: Unicorns are not ontic—and, hence, not ontically real—despite being real as human concepts of the imagination, i.e. despite being real concepts of what could be ontic in some fictional, alternative world.

You can either like or dislike my use of the adjective “ontic” to emphasize the difference between 1) that which is in ways independent of thought and theory (that which is ontic) and 2) that which is strictly a product of the human mind's theorizing.

Yet something is to me extremely amiss with the overall replies you’ve provided to my questions.

Whatever it might be—an ongoing lack of attention to what I write, an ongoing lack of charitability, I don’t know—I’ve encountered it too often on this thread between us. We have been and continue talking past each other … And, for better or worse, I no longer hold any interest in this discussion. Goodbye for now.

I burned my hand this morning under some hot water. My hand moved involuntarily. Later, when my toast was done, I had a choice between raspberry and blueberry jam; I chose both. The hand movement I call immediate, unmediated. The behaviour of choosing which jam, mediated.

Perhaps another way. The immediate action just happens, it couldn't be any other way. The mediate action represents a decision, and the action could have been this or that. — tim wood

Yet this does not address my question of which causal mechanisms are at work. But be this as it may.

So now we’re at the apparent impasse of what life is in general. I presented this summation:

Life is a gestalt process. Any portion of the physical substrata which serves as a constituent of the gestalt process of life will be dead or dying when isolated from its interactions with all other material subcomponents from which life emerges as a gestalt process. — javra

And instead of having this proposition regarding the existential reality at hand—that of life—replied to, you provide examples regarding human thoughts so as to evidence that gestalts are strictly products of human cognition and imagination.

I’m not, for example, addressing the concept of a table as something which is other than the sum of its conceptual parts. I’m addressing the ontic reality of life as being something that is other than the sum of its ontic parts. This too is in keeping with the definition of gestalts, which are forms (the second definition on Wiktionary) And no, to me this is not axiomatic; it is, as you say, a conclusion obtained from discernments of what is.

(BTW, other terms and positions could be used to address this same conclusion, such as holons and the position of holism; but by now I presume so doing would only needlessly complicate matters.)

You maintain that a human’s life (this being a very applicable example of a life) is not an ontically gestalt process—is not a process which is other than the sum of its parts. These following four questions might help me to better understand your worldview:

1) Is a human’s life then nothing but a product of human cognition and imagination, holding no ontic reality of its own (other than as an abstract human thought)?

2) If no, is a human’s life in your opinion then present strictly within parts of the human body—such as, for example, strictly in the body’s individual cells?

3) If no, is there an ontic distinction between a humans’ life and the same human’s total but dead corpse—this even when many of the given body’s individual cells are yet living?

4) If yes, what is the ontic distinction in your opinion between a human’s life and the same human’s life-devoid body—if not that of the human’s life being a gestalt process which vanishes when the processes of its physical substratum no longer interact in a certain way (decomposition too is a process of the physical organic substratum)?

I don’t know how these questions will come across, but our worldviews now appear too far apart for me to presume what your answers to any of these questions might be. I’d usually take it that we could agree that a human’s life cannot be dissected with a scalpel nor placed into a jar—but I’m no longer certain of even this.

I have a problem with "self-regulating" because it implies a self. Will you accept "internally regulated"? — tim wood

Internal entails a threshold between that which is within some given and outside of this same given. Where this very given whose internal aspects are solely address is an autopoietic system resulting from the simultaneous interaction of all subcomponents, the autopoietic processes of this system is the self that is being addressed. For clarity, because autopoiesis is negentropic, metabolizing, and homeostatic, it is that which we consider to be life. In the case of a tree, the living tree as opposed to a dead structure of wood protruding out of the ground.

What do you have in mind by the term “self” that serves as metaphysical impediment to its use in the context just outlined?

So its known, the term “self” is common to biology in addressing that which pertains to a living organism (to the “self” in relation to the "non-self"); see for example Wiktionary definition of “self” #4, including its example.

In any case I still hold to the mediate/immediate distinction. — tim wood

I would like for you to better spell out this distinction via causal processes. What I currently understand by it is that, from your belief system, “immediate” entails effects fully caused by efficient causation—something like billiard balls hitting each other at molecular and sub-molecular levels of reality. If my current interpretation is accurate, I as of yet do not understand what alternative causal process your belief system ascribes to “mediated” actions and reaction. Are they also fully composed of efficient causation, only that there just happens to be a medium in-between the stimuli and the outcome (with this something in-between also being a product of efficient causation)? If not, what causal mechanism other than that of efficient causation is at play in mediated reactions?

I'll also say that intra-tree communication occurs only via channels within the tree, presumably by a cell-to-cell transmission of an electro-chemical signal. — tim wood

So its known, electro-chemical signals solely define neurons and, hence, the processes of nervous systems. To the best of my knowledge they are not applicable to any known plant cell(s), which is one of the reasons that plants are such alien lifeforms to us nervous system endowed lifeforms.

I think the only argument - disagreement - I have lies in what I take to be a reification of motive, purpose, telos, and now gestalt. — tim wood

????

From Wiktionary: gestalt:

A collection of physical, biological, psychological or symbolic elements that creates a whole, unified concept or pattern which is other than the sum of its parts, due to the relationships between the parts (of a character, personality, entity, or being)

Where on earth do you find even a smidgen of reification in what I’ve said (here keeping things simple by only addressing gestalts)? Here; again summed up just for this purpose:

Life is a gestalt process. Any portion of the physical substrata which serves as a constituent of the gestalt process of life will be dead or dying when isolated from its interactions with all other material subcomponents from which life emerges as a gestalt process.

But in my view they are not things. They can't be dissected with a scalpel or stored in a jar. — tim wood

Yes, this is one of the attributes which gestalts hold (see definition above).

Since the issue of final causes, i.e. teleology, won’t go anywhere prior to resolving the basic issue of what is doing the responding to stimuli, I won’t currently address these portions of your last post.

An interesting tidbit I just haphazardly came across - this due to the wonders of directed advertising. Among all the other things that trees do, turns out trees also sleep at night … in an non-anthropocentric way.

Why the scientific finding that trees “sleep” at night is beautiful

You’re wanting to further engage on the issue. There’s a lot in your last post that I disagree with. I’ll take one issue at a time. We so far seem to agree that a tree can respond to stimuli. So I’ll start with this.

1) We have stimuli (which stimulate actions) on the one hand and something which is responding to it (via actions and reactions) on the other. The two—the stimulus and that which responds to it—cannot logically be identical.

Do we agree?

2) You presume that what is responding are specific parts of the tree’s DNA (which cause immediate actions on their own, to use your terminology) rather than the tree as the total metabolizing process of a multicellular organisms—a total self-regulating process that results from the set of its individual molecular subcomponents (including nucleic acids) found within its many individual cells.

Is this correct?

If (1) and (2) are deemed correct by you, please explain how DNA can respond to anything when addressed as a physical molecule operating in isolation—explaining this in manners either accordant to the empirical sciences of biology or to metaphysical logic.

Why I disagree with this just mentioned hypothesis: A living cell is negentropic, metabolizing, and homeostatic. These attributes apply to a total gestalt process that results from all molecular subcomponents interacting with each other. In rough parallel to a brain that is removed from the rest of a body being dead, a cell’s nucleus removed from the rest of the cell is non-negentropic, non-metabolizing, and non-homeostatic; i.e. non-living, and hence dead. This same attribute of nonliving is even more applicable to portions of DNA isolated from the nucleus. A tree is a multicellular organism, meaning that what is negentropic, metabolizing, and homeostatic is the gestalt process resulting from the collection of all individual tree cells simultaneously interacting with each other. Therefore, when a tree responds to stimuli, it cannot be due to some portions of its physical DNA holding immediate mechanical effects upon both the tree’s behavior and physiology. Rather it is due to the negentropic, metabolizing, homeostatic process of the tree in total—itself a gestalt, or at least collective, manifestation of the negentropic, metabolizing, homeostatic process of its individual cells (of which nucleic acids serve as only one molecular constituent of). This, in turn, entails that that which responds to stimuli is not individual portions of DNA but the negentropic, metabolizing, homeostatic process of the tree as a living multicellular organism.

If you find errors to this argument I’ve provided, either due to a disparity with the data obtained from the empirical sciences of biology or due to erroneous metaphysical logic, please inform me of what these errors are. But please ensure that these disagreements you might hold are based on facts or on logic, and not on imaginative hypotheticals.

What, here, do I have to justify? I think you want to expand this list into areas where, if you make a claim, it's you who have to justify it. — tim wood

In the list you’ve provided, the need for justification would apply to (4). You state as fact that telos is “simply abstract fiction” when applied to trees. If this proposition is true, what is its justification? Can you justify it by any other means than the supposition of a causally deterministic physicalism fully composed of infinite chains of efficient causation?

One should keep in mind that awareness of other and its processes is not located within something physical, like in a pineal gland when it comes to vertebrates. Awareness is a gestalt form that is—I’ll say “fully correlated” to keep the causal process as ambiguous as possible—fully correlated with its substrata of physical information. This applies to living humans—at least when not addressing eliminativism. On what rational grounds would it not also apply to living dogs, insects, nematodes, sponges, fungi, plants, and prokaryotes?

I’ve done my best to try to introduce arguments for telos to you—this in a longwinded post that someone hereabouts bothered to write and to post to you. Its introductory arguments have been wholly ignored as though never posted, and I don’t like repeating arguments that then go unaddressed.

I’ve also warned against anthropocentric mindsets when it comes to awareness and goal-seeking. But your arguments keep coming back around to anthropocentric concepts of each, and this without bothering to enquire into what non-anthropocentric aspects of these would be. Awareness of other is not necessarily something visual, nor something contingent on the presence of a skull, nor something one must be capable of thinking about. Goal-searching does not need to be about consciously formulating a plan and then setting out to achieve it; it is often enacted instinctively even in us self-aware humans. We ourselves are aware of gravity via our vestibular ducts that facilitate balance—and most often are not conscious of it. And this only one example. We ourselves do things essential to the purpose/goal of sustaining life—from our breathing and blinking to our drive to eliminate wastes when present—without a prevailing conscious apprehension of purpose in so doing. Nevertheless, we are aware of gravity and we do breath so as to facilitate the cellular respiration required for the metabolism of our bodies’ individual cells.

I’m not looking for bickering. From the sum of our previous posts, however, it appears to me that we’ve been talking past each other. It happens sometimes, but there's not much point to further debate when it does. I’m more than OK with currently letting things be as they are.

What I read in your post is a statement of your beliefs sans justification for them. It bares notice that the same argument for “chemical interactions via efficient causation devoid of something experiencing” can just as easily be applied to all life, humans included. It’s the basic stance of many physicalists, including Dennett, replete with an illusion of human consciousness. This is where the heavy-duty metaphysical arguments are needed, or so I’ve always thought. But that’s not what this thread is about.

Still, if it is as you believe, then there is nothing regarding life that is not thoroughly within the realm of a strictly efficient-causation-grounded reasoning.

OK. It turns out that your beliefs conform to a causally deterministic physicalism. My own do not—and, as with the physicalist, I find a dualistic metaphysical divide between the processes of human life and those of lesser lifeforms untenable. Yet since this is a difference of metaphysical views concerning causal mechanisms—one which you don’t appear interested in arguing for via justifications—I personally don’t find anything to further debate in this thread.

I'm an atheist but some things I cannot allow myself to believe, determinism being one of those things. Even if it comes to be that all of accepted human knowledge concludes that is in fact correct. Am I wrong? Why? — AlmostOutlier

If its of help: In my younger days held the belief that we are causally predetermined to innately live as thought the illusion of freewill was not illusory. In brief, this due to our causally determined ignorance as it pertains to every single cause further causing us to need to act as though we make our own choices, and hold responsibility for these. For instance, one could become unmotivated due to the thought of “its all predetermined” or motivated due to whatever reason; regardless, its all predetermined and perfectly fixed metaphysically; but because we cannot hold a cognizance that knows everything, we have no way of knowing what our predetermined future will be. Because our future is always determined by the actions we take and the thoughts we hold that motivate these actions, our causally predetermined conditions predetermined us to always act and choose as though we do have freewill. Hope that makes sense … even though nowadays I’m a metaphysical compatibilist and no longer subscribe to causal determinism. (I now disagree with this argument, but maybe you can find a way to make it work.)

There’s a lot unspoken about atheism, including that it necessitates a causal determinism (often coupled with the belief that good old science could no longer be valid were causal determinism to not be). I challenge you to come up with a conclusive argument of why this is true, and I bet you won’t be able to come up with one. Atheism can exist just fine devoid of a substratum of causal determinism. If a concrete example is needed, some types of Buddhists are atheists … despite believes in an afterlife and in karma. No god/s, and the afterlife for them is not god-given but just part of the course (never for better since their point is to no longer be reborn and die ad infinitum)—this just as much as the most profane aspects of life are part of the course. OK, many other types of Buddhism, such as the Tibetan brand, is theistic. Still, I would think other established examples can also be found.

My main problem with believing X and not-X to be true at the same time is that it’s, technically, what George Orwell termed “doublethink”. And, personally, I find it to be a disorder of mind which generally makes our social existence worse. Like obesity: it’s perfectly OK for some, but not societally as the norm. Holding some degree of open mind about whether X or not-X is true is something altogether different, though.

My take is: steadfastly justify that your believed truths are in fact true up until you find out you’re wrong—and this time might never happen, especially where your beliefs are in fact true. Or, else, maintain an “I’m not fully sure attitude” till further information develops for you. But, at the end of the day, don’t ever start worshiping your beliefs as though they were absolute truths. I believe this latter part is what most, if not all, of the non-Cartesian skeptics ultimately want to get at.

This contradiction you rightly find between causal determinism and responsibility, till resolved to your satisfaction, should—to my mind—fall into the “I’m not yet fully sure” group (this now that the contradictory reasoning is present within consciousness). Else it would smell too much of a doublethink with belief worship to me.

(Already wrote this darn thing. So I'll post it despite Apo having already answered.)

Hey, for my part, the philosophical problem with homeostasis you address is the same problem we hold for the continuity of an ever changing self. There is some organic structure which remains relatively stable over time—be it organism, somatic cell, or something else—by means of self-regulating an internal equilibrium of things (such as temperature in the case of mammals—but the list can be very long) despite in some ways always changing both internally and as an overall organic structure—and this in relation to an ever changing environment it is situated within and to which it acclimates. This philosophical topic of homeostasis can get into the metaphysics of identity given a world of change, can be addressed by top-down and bottom-up causal processes, and—considering the self-regulation involved—is an unique attribute of living things (to me, an inherent part of the thread's theme regarding reason and life).

If by sentient you mean "can sense," then yes. Some definitions of sentience go beyond that. Beyond sensing, I'm agnostic. More accurately, skeptic. I doubt, but I hold judgment in reserve. The problem is that the areas beyond sensing are not here well-defined for our purposes, and not anywhere well-defined, that I can find. It seems to imply human-like consciousness. If there's such a thing as plant consciousness, I'd like to know about it. — tim wood

Unfortunately, I’m not clear on what the “yes” answers when taken in context of the paragraph. “Yes” that trees cannot sense gravity and sunlight? From the paragraph in total it might be a “yes” that trees can sense these things.

Two things I can think of that are minimal life functions are using fuel to create energy, and reproducing. — tim wood

Despite teleology being deemed erroneous by the prevailing materialist metaphysics of the day, you’ll notice that in our mode of thinking teleology will be intrinsic to both aspects you address: something being done for the purpose of some given X; e.g. “using fuel” for the purpose of (i.e., because of the need of) “creating energy”, or “reproducing” for the purpose of (as one example) “preserving one’s own identity”. In both examples, the latter is the telos to the former activity.

This cannot be said of entropic givens governed by efficient causation; e.g. the billiard ball moved left when hit on the right by the cue for the purpose of [?] … It doesn’t work. Well, with the one single exception of “for the purpose of following paths of least resistance toward absolute entropy”—but this purpose would be universal to all entropic givens, and so can be easily ignored in favor of the efficient causation which is specific to givens (e.g., the billiard ball moved the way it did because it was hit by the cue).

Start with your understanding of sentience. It's neither argument nor instructive if you beg the question with a fortuitous definition. — tim wood

By sentience I merely mean “the capacity to sense things” or, as is stated in the first part of Wiktionary’s first definition, “experiencing sensations”. There is no other word for this property—and, although the word can be anthropocentrically addressed, we already hold the word “sapience” for humans … as it is indirectly used in “Homo Sapiens”.

Sensations, or the experience of things sensed, will hold a valence that is either positive, negative, or else is an ambivalence (as here used, neither positive nor negative but somewhere in-between; e.g., indifference or uncertainty). It is valence that propels actions and reactions in relation to stimuli. Roots, for example, hold a positive valence toward gravity—gravity being something that the tree senses (that stimulates it and is therefore a stimuli for the tree).

How much of this do we agree upon? While there can be more to say, if there is little agreement so far the rest will likely not be meaningful.

Yes, well, you haven’t addressed a single one of my three questions to you.

The question then becomes, is there any way to hear - discern in some way - what arborism might be saying, expressing it in tree terms? — tim wood

What it is definitely saying is that trees have a metaphorical ‘point of view’ which is a literal awareness of other, and that there therefore is something it is like to be a tree. But your hypothesis is maybe putting the cart before the horse. We’re yet working on establishing that trees can sense things.

From your reference: "The term was introduced in 1972 by Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela to define the self-maintaining chemistry of living cells." What has this to do with mind? — tim wood

The connection can be found here and here within the article I’ve linked to. One doesn’t need to read Thompson’s book to get its basic meaning—it's entitled Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind. Although it’s a very interesting book to read, if one holds an interest for the topic(s).

I’ll do my best to address the rest after you answer these three questions I previously asked which address the very issues you’ve specified:

Since it’s the capacity to sense—regardless of what and of means—which defines a sentient being as such, are you arguing that trees cannot sense either gravity or sunlight?

[…]

Addressed differently, what set of processes differentiates trees from rocks if not awareness conjoined with goal-striving being found in the former but not the latter? And if trees are to be indistinguishable from rocks in being solely governed by entropy, then on what grounds does one argue that trees are lifeforms rather than inanimate matter? — javra

Notice I’m not speculating on what it’s like to be a tree (e.g., we obviously hold no conceptualization of what it could be to flourish only when other creatures eat our body parts so as to spread our zygotes about in order that they might grow—animals eat fruit to spread the tree’s seeds about when addressing the function/purpose of fruit). Rather, I’m attempting to rationally argue that trees are sentient beings by virtue of being living things. Or at least attempting to figure out how it could rationally be supported that trees are not sentient.

Due to time, I’ll be forthright in my views and not beat around the bush. My bad in advance if I’m currently too cranky.

There can be anthropomorphism at play in any of our judgments concerning awareness and will. Our judgments of these can just as readily be clouded, if not utterly flawed, by an ego-driven anthropocentrism which states that “if it is not that precise form which only humans can experience, then it cannot exist in any other form in any non-human lifeform”. This mindset can often be found in ethology (the empirical, scientific study of animal behavior): animals cannot hold emotions such as anger or fear because emotions as we know them are only found in us human, therefore no animal can hold emotions of any form, period! (who gives a sheit about their limbic system being pretty much the same as our own, especially when regarding primates). Same can be said with arguments for awareness, will, and reasoning: if it is not that specific form which only humans can do, then it cannot in any way exist in any other form anywhere else. The reasoning as to why this is never given, only the assertion.

the tree has no eyes. — tim wood

An empirically demonstrable conclusion we all know of, but I don’t understand its significance when addressing a tree’s awareness in sensing, and consequent propensity toward, gravity and sunlight. Since it’s the capacity to sense—regardless of what and of means—which defines a sentient being as such, are you arguing that trees cannot sense either gravity or sunlight?

It has no mind. — tim wood

This is contingent upon how mind is defined; Varela et al. (who uphold the concept of autopoiesis) would disagree. But granting that here a mind is implicitly defined as that which necessarily correlates to a central nervous system, no, trees cannot have a mind thus defined because they are not planarians, arthropods, or chordates (with vertebrates as a subset of the latter).

It has no space or time. — tim wood

This is an unsupported assertion. I’ve often heard it said even of mammals. As though dogs have no memory of where they’ve been and who they’ve interacted with in the past and no anticipation of what is to come in the future. But they don’t think of beginnings and ends to the universe like we do, so our anthropocentrism then quickly concludes that they only live in a non-temporal present. (this is contrary to evidence, if it needs to be said) Of course trees have no theory of time and space. But to say that their behaviors are not governed by before and afters (time) or by distances and proximities (space) is … at best utterly unsubstantiated.

In terse overview of what I’m here upholding, trees are not humans, nor are they vertebrates—and so do not have attributes only applicable to humans and vertebrates. This, however, does not argue against trees holding awareness conjoined goal-strivings—to be clear, of a non-human, non-vertebrate kind.

Addressed differently, what set of processes differentiates trees from rocks if not awareness conjoined with goal-striving being found in the former but not the latter? And if trees are to be indistinguishable from rocks in being solely governed by entropy, then on what grounds does one argue that trees are lifeforms rather than inanimate matter?

I argue that telos is a human template, an overlay of plausible explanation under a set of presuppositions. - All good and orderly in its place, but not the goal here! — tim wood

If I’ve understood you properly given the context of your previous posts, you argue that there is no goal-striving to anything in nature, including to trees’ behaviors. Or are you saying that goals are not the goal of this thread as was outlined in the OP? In which case, I thought it obvious that I was obliging your questions to me with my answers. (to be clear, this in my longwinded last post to you)

If the former, however, OK—but on what rational grounds does this argument stand?

That's not remote from the original meaning. See Aristotle - The Importance of Telos — Wayfarer

Yes, true. Still, I’m sometimes at odds about either referring to Aristotelian theory or not so doing when describing what I endorse. Not only is my knowledge of Aristotle mostly second hand—although I did read portion of his De Anima—but his concept of virtue as the human telos, while I ultimately agree with it, to me is too constrictive of human nature to be of much help on its own. We can choose other teloi in our attempts to best obtain satisfaction, happiness, flourishing and the like. As one example, the mass murderer that wills to get away with the perfect crime is not motivated by virtue in seeking his optimal happiness/flourishing, and sometimes perfect crimes have been committed in one way or another—the less grave the more common, such as in cheating someone or some community. Though the ugly part of human existence, these sometimes successful ambitions need to be taken into account as well—something that I so far don’t satisfactorily find in Aristotle. Taking this to a more metaphysical level, some humans would do anything either virtuous or vicious—here focusing on the latter—to get as close as they can to being unquestioned tyrants of everything that surrounds … in a sense, to becoming a singular, untouchable, omnipotent deity everyone else bows down to. Stalin comes to mind here as example. Anyway, telos as it is associated with Aristotle to my knowledge doesn’t address such choices between what could be depicted as metaphysically possible aims. And virtue often times can result in much sorrow and strife, as well as failure—again, not something which Aristotle tmk satisfactorily addresses.

I so far find this in the article you’ve liked to as well.

Though I neglected to say it this time around, I usually say “an Aristotelian-like telos”—since I agree with his notion of a first teleological cause to existence in total … for clarity, this, again, more along the lines of Neoplatonist notions of “the One” as a non-deity awareness/being of omni-benevolence, aka perfect love, to which we hold various proximities, and which in imperfect ways resides both within and without all of us, as some say. But—seeing how one thing leads to another—I’ll cut this short

Telos. Either the living thing has it (in some sense) and we describe it, or it's all our description. DNA is a compelling argument for telos. The telos of the kitten is to become a cat. Yet in just that sense,telos becomes just a generic name for the kitten's becoming a cat, becomes a word meaningless in itself. No part of kitten or cat is telos.

Maybe telos lies in purpose - purposiveness apart from DNA. That would seem to require volition. But the will is free: is telos freedom? The idea is to get telos apart from mechanical functioning, yet still be a something part of the living thing, yet, in the case of plants, not be a product of mind. Something with the capacity, at least, to choose, but that the choice in some sense is not a choice. Can you give direction here or add some light? If you're content with telos as mechanism, then we're back to the machine. — tim wood

Difficult questions. But I’ll try to support my views as best I can (turns out not in very few words).

Firstly, telos, to me, roughly means a given existing as a potentiality whose presence as such will both predate and cause the manifestation of effects which bring that addressed into closer proximity to its fruition. So contemplated, and once accepted as a metaphysical possibility, it could then in simplistic terms be either applied to givens devoid of awareness or to givens endowed with awareness.

For example, inanimate matter acts entropically—and can thereby be appraised as holding absolute entropy as its telos. Entropy is an entire subject onto itself, at least for me; while I’m not ready to start a thread on it, to me absolute entropy does not entail disorder but, rather, an undifferentiated and non-quantitative order of physical being wherein the identities of individual physical entities dissipate into … well, something like energy devoid of mass, time, or space. This being a little background to this premise: entropic givens pursue paths of least resistance within their environment toward absolute entropy—such that their behaviors are all choice-devoid paths toward the telos of absolute entropy. BTW, this hypothesized telos of absolute entropy to me mirrors a hypothesized possible end-state of awareness as a non-quantitative unity devoid of otherness which severs as the zenith of awareness's potential—something that I find myself easily projecting upon concepts such as Nirvana and Moksha in the East and “the One” in Neoplatonic traditions within the west.

The dyadic opposite to entropy is negentropy, i.e. life. Rather than dwell on very ambiguous concepts such as those of “mind” or “consciousness”—which can be difficult to argue apply to all life—I’ll instead address the attribute of awareness (something upon which our self-awareness is built). The simplest known life are prokaryotic organisms (archaea and bacteria)—although gametes to me are not too far away from this when contemplating simplest forms of awareness. These simplest lifeforms hold empirically evident awareness via which their capacity to respond to environments unfolds—needless to say, this in absence of a nervous system. And there, simplistically addressed, the teloi primarily considered are no longer universal to all that is but localized within and respective to individual lifeforms.

A big downside to my perspectives is the absence of a metaphysical understanding of how entropic givens have given way to negentropic givens. What can I say, this same problem faces everyone that accepts what empirical sciences agree upon, materialists holding no exception. There must be a behavioral quantum leap from entropic givens, such as rocks, to living systems, such as bacteria. This is where I find Apo’s metaphysics alluring. Still, to me, it’s about progressive evolutions—slow, difficult, and strife-filled—toward ever greater degrees of awareness, which is where I disagree with Apo on metaphysical levels concerning final ends. Either way, nucleic acids seem to be an in-between to that which is entropy governed and that which is negentropic—as can also be said of proteins (e.g. prions).

Staying on topic as regards life and, as example, trees, it in all its instantiations is purposeful. The sperm’s motions are easy to address, but the same also applies to the egg: both hold a telos of biological conception of a zygote. When both are healthy, both will respond to obstructions standing in the way of this telos being actualized. Viewed in light of biological evolution and the need to consume prey (organic sustenance so as to maintain homeostasis) and to escape predation, prokaryotic organisms too will react to environments in response to the telos of … for simplicity, survival (granting this concept is poorly understood: e.g. survival of genes irrespective to phenotypes, survival of phenotypes via genes, some other conceptualization?). In simple terms, those prokaryotic organisms who do not act and react in accordance with this telos then become extinct and are no more.

Obviously a bacterium’s teloi will be extremely less developed than a human’s. Still, to the extent that the bacterium acts and reacts via teloi, the same bacterium will then be endowed, I believe, with a rudimentary form of volition, i.e. will, that is aimed toward some end.

Doubtless the ends which determine actions and reactions—hence teloi—of a bacterium are a genetically governed aspect of the bacterium’s behavioral phenotype. I.e., the bacterium won’t be able to choose its aims as we humans often do (this only to an extent when metaphysically appraised). These same teloi will serve as a bacterium’s proto-forethought. Say the bacterium is faced with something to eat. Its telos here is to eat. Its actions and reactions shall adjust according to—in manners caused by—this preexisting telos (in conjunction with is awareness of its environment to which it reacts). It doesn’t think what to do to best manifest its goal. But, I argue, it does chose between mutually exclusive—hence contradicting—alternatives. More precisely: With its telos being determinate and its environment of a prey ever changing, its behaviors toward this telos must then be neither perfectly deterministic nor perfectly random. The alternative to both these extremes is that of a very primitive form of freewill as to what to do in order to satisfy its determined telos.

I get that this is uncharted territory, but this is where I’m currently at.

The bacterium, then, in a very primitive way, reasons without what we term thought. Roughly speaking, it in a very limited way takes into account causes and motives—motives here being nothing more than teloi—for what the prey is most likely to do next so as to satisfy/actualize its telos of eating its prey.

Again, the taking into account of causes and motives in one's responses to context is, technically, an intrinsic aspect of what reasoning is.

OK, not all prokaryotic organisms are predatory—so this same argument cannot apply to all species of prokaryotic organisms. But I hope it suffices to illustrate that awareness, individual specific teloi, and free choice (free will) can be argued present in very primitive degrees within the most primitive forms of life. None are then applicable to entropic givens. (Although, I’m fiddling about with notions of some form of pre-awareness process from which awareness can develop as it would pertain to some type of pan-semiotic or panpsychism system—this hoping to better bridge the gap between entropic givens and negentropic givens. No fun and no luck, at least so far.)

Trees then are more developed than bacterium. Same overall process can be argued to still apply. For example, a) roots growing with a gene-determinate telos within their behavioral phenotype of finding organic-matter-resultant things to consume within earth by aligning themselves with gravity and b) being neither fully deterministic nor fully random in their reactions to obstacles in the way of actualizing this telos—i.e. endowed with some prototypic free will as to how to react so as to best satisfy its individualized teloi.

I figure making the aforementioned any more concise would be to at best make it utterly unintelligible. So I’m leaving it as is.

But the kiss! I remember that! And I'm old enough now to recognize that as the miracle of chemistry in action. But there were choices. Chemistry was push; I had some choice of direction. Is there a telos here? — tim wood

:smile: Yup, I can remember it too. Haven't found my permanent mate yet, so I’m still looking forward to it myself. As to a telos, I’m arguing that if there was motivation to the kiss (consciously apprehended or not) then there was a telos (and if not, it would have been metaphysically mechanical). I’ve never heard it being applied to psyche, but motivation to me is a form of retrocausation: the motive is the effect as existent potential that temporally precedes the all the specific causes for it becoming manifest—with these causes for one’s objective becoming physically objective being the very telos/motive-governed choices one makes. But again, we humans often get to choose which aims/motives/teloi we subsequently willfully pursue.

The point is that telos is something in itself, or is just a word for things already described and named. Which way do you argue? — tim wood

Hope this longwinded post satisfactorily addressed this question.

Is reason more accessible? For present purpose and as preliminary, let's set two criteria for reason, the presence of either being sufficient as evidence for the presence of reason - this subject to change. First, if a living thing can respond to a threat and protect itself and warn other to protect themselves (which trees apparently can do), then that thing reasons. Second, if a living thing appears to manifest self-awareness, then that thing reasons.

Trees reason (lots of things reason). But I do not think trees are self-aware. After some thought, I'm forced toward thinking this approach is a dead end. Not a dead end as a product of thinking toward some end or for some purpose, but a dead end in terms of grasp of the essential.

I don't think trees think. More likely they're biological machines. But not even machines with a telos, unless by telos is meant an accident. — tim wood

To present a different interpretation:

I’m thinking that only in self-awareness does one become aware of one’s own goals and, hence, or one’s own teloi. Most of the time, however, for better or worse we humans act and live in manners devoid of this self-awareness, devoid of a self-consciousness concerning what makes us us. We do this when we’re in the zone, consumed with praxis fitting in all ways as it ideally should—not needing to ponder which way is best but, instead, simply being. Otherwise expressed, it is when we know without language or analysis (without any meta-narrative) who we are at the given juncture and what we should do so as to satisfy our will’s impetus. We certainly are readily endowed with a self-awareness capacity—in which we indulge most always whenever there is any form of uncertainty as to what is or should be (by which I don’t mean that we necessarily doubt anything during such times). But it is typically when life is fluidly lived, rather than being though about, that we feel most exalted in living. If a concrete example is needed: engaging in that lusted for first kiss while lost in the immeasurable timespan of the moment, this rather than contemplating how to best go about things to actualize it and make it successful (including while kissing). I get that a philosophy forum is not the best place to make this observation; theorists are us, and its part of our cherished praxis; all the same, I’m arguing that self-awareness is an optimal means toward the end of fruitfully living in manners ideally devoid of its presence, this where only raw awareness is and where it’s presence as life becomes sharpened and intensified without uncertainty or obstructions.

Then, in these times of awareness that is devoid of self-awareness, we still reason—but not via thoughts. In a sense it becomes an autonomically intrinsic aspect of who we are as a responsive agency. It yet has an aim, or telos. When our will is obstructed at such times we in due measure become displeased, volitionally suffer, because that which we are innately striving for becomes in due measure harder to obtain. And this is where self-awareness obviously is indispensable for us.

In rough parallel, all plants generally speaking hold (non-self-) awareness of gravity and sunlight, as well as of the threshold between self and non-self. They all respond to obstacle standing in the way as parts of the non-self. And they all are driven by an un-thought of telos to reach that which they are unthinkingly striving for. I personally believe the same awareness of givens and striving toward something that is to be obtained is applicable to all life. Hence, that all life is telos driven. To say the obvious just in case, just as human awareness far surpasses that of the great apes (biological slang for all apes other than the gibbon), a plant’s awareness can only be far less developed by overwhelming magnitudes relative to a humans. If its of benefit to the clarity of this stance, I sometimes liken it to that Freemason pyramid found on the US dolor bill: The top of the pyramid that is a quantum leap from the rest represents sapience; beneath it there is the remaining pyramid of sentience/agency that extends down to the lowest degrees of awareness which are also the most numerous; the entire pyramid mirroring an ecological pyramid of life.

Not that any of this resolves what life is via reasoning. But it portrays a different rationale for lifeforms such as trees: Here, trees are themselves telos-driven awareness, albeit of far lesser magnitudes by comparison to humans—a type of awareness that is obviously not endowed with the behavioral plasticity which self-awareness facilitates—this instead of being telos-devoid machines.

The same rabbit-hole you address still remains. Though I’m stanchly preferential to us coming to understand what things are—rather than making things up as we go along. In the case of life, to me, what telos-driven awareness is.

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looks like my timing isn't half bad :razz:

But I want to differentiate between what surpasses reason, and what falls short of it. Hope that makes sense. — Wayfarer

It does. Thanks

I think a distinction can be made between 'transrational', 'non-rational', and 'irrational'. Reason doesn't have to be omniscient in order to be effective - in other words, it can be effective without being all-knowing. — Wayfarer

Hm. I’ve so far thought that we can arationally discern things (else: noninferentially discern). For example, whenever we know that we are perceiving some given X, we know this arationally—i.e., without an immediate dependence on consciously known causes, motives, or explanations for this so being. We of course use reasoning to explain why we perceive things, to justify that our perceptions of givens are true, and so forth. But our knowing that we are perceiving what we perceive—i.e. that we seem to be experiencing that which we experience—is an arational apprehension/cognizance. Same with our intuiting an intuition, our thinking a thought, our sensing a sensation, and so on. All these, again, occur independently of our conscious apprehension of causes, motives, and explanations for that which is being noninferentially discerned; hence, independently of consciously occurring reasoning. And, I would argue, it is one of the most important forms of knowledge we hold, for these arationally attained knowns serve as a foundation to most, if not all, of our inferences concerning what is--the latter being contingent upon reasoning.

With me approaching the issue from this state of contemplation, can you better clarity the differences between “transrational” and “non-rational”?

I share this speculation, and I enjoyed the way you expressed it. — syntax

Rarely do I get compliments, so I'm relishing it. Thank you and cheers.

But it would be a narrow definition of reasoning to identify it with just something people pursue as a method of inquiry. — apokrisis

What I held in mind is that conscious reasoning—the process of consciously finding and structuring causes, motives, and explanations for givens—is more than a pursuit of some people. Lesser animals quite arguably engage in it; e.g. predators to catch their prey and those preyed upon to escape their predators. My point here being that, most especially in humans, conscious reasoning is an innate aspect of our being—one that matures with age from infancy when we first try to achieve our ends, and that easily becomes meta-cognitive (cognition about cognition and the like) for adult humans.

The primary datum of experience is that nature itself appears intelligible, or rationally structured. — apokrisis

I agree with this.

And the principle of sufficient reason/principle of locality might speak to atomistic patterns of causal action. But physics also needs its matching holistic principles - of least action and cosmological homogeneity - for a complete description of nature's causal structure. It must see form and purpose as part of the total picture that would be a generalised Logos. — apokrisis

Yet form and purpose are integral aspects of reasoning—for they each are causes, motives, or explanations for givens.

What I was intending is that “why being itself holds presence” is something that cannot be satisfactorily accounted for by causes, motives, or explanations.

As to the metaphysical issues you bring up in your reply, as is no surprise from former discussions, overall we agree upon a lot when it comes to metaphysics. Our pivotal disagreement, if I remember right, is however one of ultimate metaphysical ends—this being entwined with the top-down causal mechanism(s) that holds everything together on a global level. We’ve been though this argument previously without any proper resolution between us. So I’ll cordially refrain from going down the same traveled path.

Page 132. "Life will not answer to reason. And meaning is too young a thing to have much power over it." — tim wood

Interesting topic for me. I find a partial truth to this quoted text. But I’m digging toward something deeper than life as we know it; I’m thinking of being per se. The presence of being is itself arational (as here contrasted to irrational, or “error-endowed reasoning”)—the presence of being eludes the very principle of sufficient reason, and so is beyond the very purview of reason.

Reasoning: the provision of causes, motives, and explanations for what is, i.e. for being per se whether in whole or in part.

Is the arational a product of reasoning so concluding it to be or, conversely, is reasoning both map and, yet further, an ultimately transient terrain for the underlying arational, for the mystery of being of which life directly and intimately partakes?

Given my affinities, I’m again reminded of the pre-Socratic notion of logos, the reasoning pertaining both to the physical cosmos and to individuals which are aspects of it.

When considering both the cosmos and its individual beings, reasoning can at least in part be said to ratio paths to take from those not to take. Yet, for us individuals, reasoning only serves as a means of discerning what is true from what is not. It is not in and of itself the truth which is being pursued by application of reasoning (including truths as they pertain to the cosmic logos/reasoning/causation of which physicality is constituted).

With these musings in mind—which I don’t deny are themselves one individual's reasoning—I can’t help but speculate that at the deepest of metaphysical levels truth is the arational itself, the being of being, and not the reasoning we use to best hold onto that which is both immediately and metaphysically true.

So, paraphrased in a way that makes more sense to me: “Being will not answer to reason. And meaning is too young of a thing to [hold an ability to comprehend] it.”

My stand is that we have little control over our personalities and our own actions. — tiffany

You’re conceding to something by saying “little control” rather than “no control”.

I can agree that we have partial but not full control over everything which we are at any given time: there’s genetics, there’s environment interacting with the former, and there are all the previous choices whose outcomes have accumulated into one’s present mind and character. At any present moment, we hold no control over any of these (here considering time travel to be fiction) This, however, is not to then conclude that one is devoid of responsibility for who one has become, hence is, and for who one will further become.

Regarding responsibility and metaphysical compatiblism:

To be clear, I’m interpreting responsibility at its most general to be, in short, the metaphysical ability to respond to givens—irrespective of whether these are physical or metaphysical (like responding to laws of thought by concluding a contradiction to be an error of reasoning, rather than a true contradiction; etc.).

No form of responsibility can logically occur in the complete absence of freewill. Hence, no form of agency. Hence, no form of “I” or “thou”; no praise; no blame; no authorship to actions, choices, and the resulting effects; etc.—therefore, no such thing as ownership of one’s own mind or personality. In the complete absence of any type of metaphysical freewill, it would logically all merely be just one more link in an infinite causal chain or web of causal chains—this where causal determinism is endorsed. No starting source for this causal chain can be and, hence, no responsibility for anything whatsoever can be logically ascribed.

This metaphysical topic of responsibility is a thorn in the side of both causal determinism and causal indeterminism as both are most commonly understood today—for neither accommodate such a thing as metaphysical freewill and, thereby, any viable causal mechanism for responsibility.

It may be easy for some to brush this logical necessity of causation under the rug by brandishing all awareness of responsibility as illusory. Yet so doing, when rationally appraised on its own terms, leads to a rational unintelligibly of everything that is, just as much as Zeno’s paradoxes of motion do. In part, this is because everything that is is known via the lens, so to speak, of agency and its response-ability. As one example, the very claim that “I/you/we/they know/presume/opine/etc.” is one of agency endowed with response-ability to some given. In this example, the response is that of knowledge, or presumption, or opinion held for which the given agency is understood to hold a metaphysical authorship.

It’s important to here distinguish agency, and hence responsibility, from any indeterminism wherein effects are understood to be random. Though the metaphysically free choice is not deterministic and can thereby be understood as indeterministic—i.e., not deterministic—no responsibility can logically hold when actions and choices are metaphysically random.

Notwithstanding, the very same presence of responsibility, or agency, likewise logically requires the presence of specific effects determined by specific causes—i.e. the presence of some type of non-ubiquitous causal determinism. For an agency to act or decide anything, the activity needs to have determinate outcomes of one form of another if responsibility is to in any way remain valid. Hence, if X is responsible for Z, then X a) must have itself held a causal role in the outcome of effect Z—with the causal role somehow stemming from X and not merely being one aspect of an infinite causal chain—and b) this causal relation between X and Z must itself be in some way determinate, hence fixed, thereby leading back to X as the source of responsibility for Z. Otherwise, again, no responsibility for effect Z can be logically ascribed to agency X as the reason for Z’s being. This to keep things simple and not address a requirement for a relatively stable causal determinism in the environment one makes choices within.

This is a summative paraphrasing of David Hume’s argument for metaphysical compatibilism. An argument whose validity I acknowledge.

We don’t assign responsibility to a wind-blow rock’s resulting into an avalanche because the rock is not a causal source of the outcome, no more than is the wind which blew it, or the global atmosphere which caused the wind to so move, etc. We assign responsibility to everything from Fido digging holes in the backyard to our political leaders’ effects on our collective wellbeing due to the presence of a non-ubiquitous causal determinism interacting with a non-deterministic causal mechanism which we term “free will”. (Unfortunately, there’s a far greater probability that Fido recognizes he did something he shouldn’t have done when chastised for digging holes in the backyard than that our political leaders ever recognize that they are capable of, and thereby culpable for, errors.)

In short—and here overlooking the causal mechanism of the physical world we inhabit—if we’re to in any way be validly responsible for anything, including our own being, then some form of metaphysical freewill must hold presence … and, along with it, some form of causal determinism—one that is at the very least applicable to freewill caused choices and their resulting actions as effects.