What if world peace is only achievable without free will? — Bryce

I first want to comment on the notion of world peace:

World peace seems to be here mentioned, however hypothetically, as though it were some absolute finale to be obtained between conscious agents. It can’t be.

Here’s one possible definition of world peace: a world where no human rapes other humans. Can this even be envisioned by us? It would require quite a lot to be accomplished: a different politics and economy for instance, and this at global levels—obviously one founded on the principle of universal checks and balances. It would also require that no human, male or female, would find any self interest in either raping or in condoning the activity to be in any way justifiable (e.g., well, that’s the way the world/reality is/works).

Is it possible that this ideal can be obtained … in the following week, the following century, how about 10,000 years from now?

To say, “no” is to not struggle for it. Yes, today, many will indeed answer “no, this ideal is not possible to ever obtain”. But let’s say that we’re not omniscient on this issue and that not only is this state of the world possible but that it will be obtained, say, 50,000 years from now.

Will it be “world peace” then? Relative to today’s world, hell yes! Relative to ideals yet to be found of increased understanding between people, hell no. Nevertheless, once obtained as here defined, human relations could always descend back into today’s standards of civility—just as today’s standards of civility can, given an atom bomb here and there, descend back into even more barbaric times of human interaction in the generations to come.

World peace can never be an absolute. But we can be closer or further from what we can currently envision to be a world peace by comparison to today’s standards of living. And, to deny that things can be better is to not invest any effort in attempting to make things better.

In relation to world peace and freewill:

It can only be achieved through the freewill of all (or at least most) so intending it to be. Which, mandatorily, negates coercion as means toward such an ends: just as one cannot coerce another into sincerely liking/sympathizing with you by placing a gun to their head, so too can a human populace not be coerced into treating all people as respected members of a global community. Both fascism and Stalinist (as compared with kibbutz-like) communism come to mind in this respect.

What do you think of this and this (Chapter 11: On Misunderstanding Science) reading of Newton by Guy Robinson? — Πετροκότσυφας

I did a quick reading of both, mostly focusing on Ch. 11. I’ve so far not found any significant disagreements with what he’s written.

On the finer side of things, I nevertheless do view the enterprise of the empirical sciences to be progressing toward a better understanding of objective reality, although in no way linearly. But—maybe paradoxically to some—my perspectives regarding this progression are here closely aligned with those addressed by Kuhn and by Robinson. So, for instance, Kuhn’s observations, to me, themselves serve as a progression of the empirical sciences toward greater understandings of objective reality … which, in part, includes the presence of all of us conscious observers trying to figure out what the reality common to all of us actually is.

Using Robinson’s own terms and semantics, though, I do find usefulness in differentiating “reality” from “the objective”, this in so far as “reality” can all too often connote a perfectly stable phenomenal world that always was and always will be. For instance, taking into account only our current cosmological models—diverse as these are—science clearly informs us that phenomenal reality itself changes over time … this when appraised on a cosmic scale of time. A little like a window pane which we all agree to be a solid given the timeframe of our shared current lifetime / generation: given enough time (hundreds of years), the glass would nevertheless be observed to behave like a liquid working in slow motion, becoming thicker at the bottom and thinner at the top. At any rate, not a perfectly stable external reality … even though it mostly is from the reference points of individual human lifetimes.

All the same, again, I’ve so far found no significant disagreements with what he’s written as regards the sciences. Especially in regard to such things as the implications of Newton's statement "(if I may so say)".

How about yourself, do you find yourself in general agreement or disagreement with Robinson’s observations?

How should we reestablish of relations between science and technology to make wider room for philosophy? — Pacem

We’re all here biased toward favoring philosophical thought. Most people today think that philosophy lacks any practical value. Kind’a like a lyric I once heard: “If it don’t make money it don’t make sense”.

That said, to address the OP, it’s noteworthy that - while accordant to empirical evidence - neither Newton’s (or Einstein’s) nor Lamarck’s (or Darwin’s) publications regarding the natural world concerned direct, first-hand scientific investigations conducted through the scientific method. Both of the OP’s stated works, instead, addressed philosophical perspectives that intended to best account for the given empirical evidence regarding the natural world. In the sciences, at least, one does this by combining parsimony of explanations with maximal explanatory power for the empirical data in question.

What’s missing today is the understanding that the empirical sciences (including the scientific method as procedure, which can be minimally traced back to the philosophy of Bacon) are themselves the outcome of philosophical thought.

It could be argued that there’s a structure to the themes of the OP: philosophy in general --> philosophy applied to the natural world --> the empirical sciences as a body of procedures and paradigms emerging from philosophies applied to the natural world --> technology as the application of some of the conclusions resulting from the empirical sciences.

So, while we’re here biased in favor of philosophy, there’s nevertheless a philosophical foundation to both the empirical sciences and to the resulting technology that most people, imo, are not very familiar with.

edit: haven't read much of Newton's work; so I may be wrong about lack of first-hand experiments addressed in it; still, his theories of gravity and of space are philosophical theories - and not outcomes of particular experiments that abide by the scientific method

It dawned on me that there is a distinction between observing the world and performing logic on the world, but the two are always intertwined. I cannot just look at an object without imposing my sense of reason on it. That's what knowledge is. — Hanover

To push the limits a bit, the thought occurred to me that to perceive requires this analytic side (here assumed by me genotypically inherited): either that perceived is innately judged to be a thing, aka entity—e.g. wall, food, predator—or, conversely an activity, aka process—e.g., the wall’s activity is that of inflexibility to one’s being/actions, the prey’s activity is that or running away relative to one’s being/actions, the predator’s activity is in part that of seeking out one’s being/actions. Something along these lines. Taking this perspective would potentially result in the conclusion that to perceive is to analytically judge, at minimum, what is entity and what is processes (i.e., behaviors, activities) of becoming.

Or course, far more complex and stimuli-specific genotypically inherited analytic-judgments can be offered. And, the more adaptively intelligent the lifeform the more of its behaviors will be gained by synthetic means, i.e. by learning (e.g., requiring parenting in due measure) … but these synthetic means too will require some basic analytic (top-down) judgments as to categories of what is perceived. Again, such as what is thing and what is activity.

So, in pushing the limits, thing is, one can readily argue that amoeba engage in such analytic discriminations between walls, foods, and predators as things—as well as between the respective activities of each. Curt evidence for this is that they would perish if they didn't so discriminate. Amoeba have also be experimentally shown to learn *, so, to some extent, they use their inheritable top-down judgments to made bottom-up judgments, the latter being not specific to the species but to individual selves.

Then, back to more philosophical issues, how should we denote such genetically-inherited analytic-judgments of an ameba in terms of (primitive) forms of knowledge? This since there is a behavioral gradation—of both complexity and abstraction—in these analytic judgments from at least ameba all the way to humans.

It’s certainly not JTB, nor knowledge by acquaintance … and terming it tacit knowledge, though I think it proper, doesn’t address what is denoted by us through the term “knowledge”.

I’m thinking of this as a different route to get to the root of what we intend to signify by knowledge—from which, then, can be interpreted to emerge all the more specialized forms of knowledge we humans are familiar with, including that of JTB and of acquaintance. (Currently don’t want to myself start a new thread on this topic, saying this in case this post is too far off topic.)

* as a quickly found on line reference, the first two sentences from an abstract to an article found at: http://diventra.physics.ucsd.edu/Learning.pdf [overall article is about mathematical modeling of simple intelligent behavior]

Recently, behavioural intelligence of the plasmodia of the true slime mold has been demonstrated1. It was shown that a large amoeba-like cell Physarum polycephalum subject to a pattern of periodic environmental changes learns and changes its behaviour in anticipation of the next stimulus to come.

To talk about unbounded awareness is incoherent. There is only awareness-of. Or the lack of that particularity, and so a lack of a definiteness of concepts and impressions at some moment. — apokrisis

We justify our metaphysics differently. To keep things as simple as I can (skipping the justifications for the following conclusions):

As I’ve previously tried to mention, the “what it is like” of this endstate can only be incomprehensible to any self-endowed being. It, in fact, is the only endstate to awareness that is, as endstate, intuitively incomprehensible—all others being intuitively comprehensible to us. Compare it, for example, to the nonbeing endstate to awareness; who doesn’t hold an intuitive comprehension of what this would be? The other two, by the way, are a stability-of-self endstate and a control-over-other endstate. The hypothesis being that, regardless the specifics, we always intend toward one of these four endstates or, more commonly, a conflux of two or more of these endstates … and interact with others that do likewise.

To be clear, the endstate of “unbounded awareness” isn’t justified by its comprehensibility to us (for emphasis) self-endowed beings. It is, I believe, thoroughly justified—but not proven—in the sense that “all roads lead to Rome”; in likewise manner is it conceivable / imaginable as endstate: for example, what would the metaphysical grand conclusion be to an ever closer proximity to harmony/love/unity/order of awareness? What else but a perfectly selfless awareness/being? Yes, there is intrinsic choice between which of the four imaginable endstates of awareness is in fact the ontically real endstate; this because none can be itself definitively proven to be ontically certain; all that can be asserted with unfalsified certainty is that one of the five endstate alternatives (here the four endstate scenarios + the scenario of there being no endstate to awareness whatsoever) will in fact be ontically real—hence, will in fact be the metaphysically objective endstate scenario of being (thus being real regardless of subjective appraisals or intentions as to whether or not it is).

You may notice that this places the metaphysical above the physical … since the physical, in this model, results from a plurality of Akashas (to use the terminology I’ve previously used) in perpetually changing relations to these various endstates for Akasha (all endstates being illusory save for one). And yes, the physical (which we all know darn well to be rather complex) then in turn limits, or bounds, what Akashas can do via physical causations, including that of brain-mind relations, genotypes, etc. … which (when cutting corners) can be stated to result in individual selves that hold awareness-of.

Again, though we can both thoroughly relate to Pierces conclusions of objective idealism, this metaphysics I uphold is nevertheless not one of physicalism.

At the end of the day, it is only one more philosophical view to add to the rest of them. But it nevertheless is the philosophical view that I uphold.

I'd go further and suggest that all objects of perception contain indistiguishable elements of the synthetic and analytic. — Hanover

With my curiosity straying away from the metaphysical for a second:

This reminds me of experiments I once learned about where geese (?) chicks were presented with two overhead forms (cardboard cutouts or something like this): one where the bird shape had a short neck and long tail feathers (typical or raptors) and another with long neck and short tail feathers (typical of non-raptors). The chicks ran looking for shelter when the first form was glided overhead but did nothing significant when the second form was glided overhead. I concede this is only hearsay without a proper link given (won’t now try to find it)—but supposing something like this to be at times the case:

Would you be conformable with saying that this synthetic (bottom-up obtained) and analytic (in cog.sci . terms: top-down attained, i.e. (genotypically) predetermined toward learned) conflux of meaning can be inherited in all things that can perceive?

For my part, I’m accustomed to using other terms to express such behavioral inheritance of meaning. But I’m curious to know how one would address this same form of inheritance of meaning(s) in lesser animals via formal epistemological philosophy—this such as via the synthetic / analytic distinction.

If I'm rambling, I'll understand. But I am curious all the same.

Not missing, but explicitly rejecting. — apokrisis

Boggles the mind why you then bring up notions such as that of the Ein Sof to support your metaphysics. Could easily confuse others as regards what your positions are, don't you know.

Although I'm certainly also sympathetic to the idea that all differences disappear as we work our way back to vagueness.

So we are both arguing from opposite sides of the fence. In the end I am speaking in a physicalist register, you (I assume) an idealist register. But I agree also that "in the end", experience is what is epistemically primary (for us). — apokrisis

Right, but your sympathies as regards the metaphysics are clearly misplaced—regardless of our potential agreements on the physical and on the here and now. And these conversations have clearly not been about the physical relations between brain and mind.

This telos of “unbounded, selfless awareness” I’ve made mention of is in no way about “going back to vagueness” … just as a human’s awareness is not more vague respective to that of an ant’s but, rather, a greater magnitude of harmonized awareness that is far less bounded by the logos which surrounds and which, as individual lifeform, is far more capable of producing and restructuring the surrounding logos toward the ends which it seeks. The metaphysical telos of unbounded awareness is one of infinite, perfectly harmonized awareness—one of absolute love, some may say—unrestrained by logos. It is only this aspect which makes it an ultimate unknown to any of us body-endowed beings of awareness (as well as to—if one chooses to entertain such things—angels, deities, etc.) At any rate, not one of vagueness.

I’ll only address this part:

If there is awareness, then there must be equally also its "other" - however that is then correctly conceived. — apokrisis

Here, you confuse awareness with awareness-of. In most, if not all, aspects of life—heck, even in all aspects of out of body experiences, where one to entertain the possibility of such occurrence—our awareness always consists of some awareness-of. It is awareness-of that in-forms us as selves, gives us as conscious agents form. We as selves are different due to the differences in awareness-of which, in part, includes: our perceived contexts of physical environment (our own bodies are, in part, perceived as self via physiological senses such as that of proprioception), our memories experienced at any given time, our moods, our thoughts, our percepts of that which is internal to our own minds (like in the imagined taste of freshly cut lemon), and so on. And yes, from here on out, of course, there’s self and other/world as a requisite dichotomy. Nevertheless, what you seem to be missing from the terminology of Ein Sof (and related terms from other cultures) is the very plausible (at the very least, quite fitting to all works in which it is mentioned) metaphysical interpretation of the intended referent being that of awareness sans awareness-of. This awareness sans awareness-of, however, is stated to be obtainable by many in many cultures via things such as meditation; though not maintainable, other than a maintained awareness of this being the foundation of all that can and does stand. Naturally, there can conversely be no awareness-of sans awareness.

But, I figure, we’re getting too spiritualizational-like (my sense of humor) in using terms such as Ein Sof, this being the Kabalistic term for the ground of all being, out of which the Kabalistic tree of life emanates.

Still, wanted to clarify this different metaphysical perspective—relative to that which you hold—which is likewise rather ancient, and very wide spread to different cultures. Of course this metaphysical slant cannot be evidenced via physics, awareness of which already entails there being some awareness-of; only via metaphysical means. And yes, I already know, we disagree on whether awareness could hold presence in the absence of awareness-of.

Probably the wand that gives it a humorous flair. :)

There are any number of oddities though.

When is this extra stuff installed?
What difference does it make?
What the heck is this extra stuff anyway? — jorndoe

Lots of questions, to which I don’t currently have an answer to. But why address this as “extra-stuff”. It is no more extra than is the mind-stuff causally tied into the brain-stuff. Question then is, can the normal stuff of mind yet be when separated from the normal stuff of body to which it is normally causally tied into. To reply with the obvious, in dualism and non-physicalist monism this does become a metaphysical possibility – still, this metaphysical possibility is not the same as a metaphysical requirement/actuality that can be proven to be in any particular way. As to the “hows”, I refer back to my initial sentence (still, what self is as an identity is bound to play some part in this issue, imo).

In what I currently presume to be a parallel stance to your own:

There are non-linguistic ways that lesser animals can – and we humans do – associate qualitative experiences such as the colors green and red with differentiable meaning. Rather than limiting meaning to the semantics embodies within languages, we could, for example, presume language as a refinement of the following: e.g., all mammal’s blood is red; red can then be associated with any number of givens appraised to be ontically associated with blood: the presence of life (signifying fresh food for most, if not all, carnivores); the presence of a wound whereby the other is in some way in need of assistance (arguably common enough among social mammals which will lick each other’s wounds with emotive intent of helping the other out). The qualitative value of green, however, will not hold the same symbolic referents tied into what which is ontic - most likely, most often, meaning something symbolically associated with grass and tree leaves. So, for example, to the carnivore (given that it can visually differentiate between red and green), red will hold a body of meaning apart from the body of symbolic meaning it emotively relates to the color green. In this example, no formal language is required for red to hold specific meaning(s) differentiable from those held via awareness of color green.

Yep. Anaximander confused the heck out of folk as the only recorded scrap of his actual words talked about cosmic justice vs injustice. Heraclitus likewise talked about this unity of opposites - flux and logos. — apokrisis

Personally glad you added Heraclitus into the mix here. If you’ve ever read his fragments, his notion of “Zeus” is to my notion of what I’ve so far termed the telos of “unbounded awareness” as Anaximander’s notion of Apeiron is to your notion of vagueness. This being another, although maybe trite, way of illustrating the differences (rather than agreements) in our current structures of metaphysics.

The main difference here then is you want to add some further twist - another metaphysical dimension to your analysis. And that is based on the opposition of good and bad, or some such deontic distinction.

So my position would be deontically neutral. Neither competition nor co-operation would be inherently either good or bad. — apokrisis

You’ll notice I made no judgement call as to whether conflict or harmony is good, or as to which would be bad. Think in terms of Nietzsche’s meme of “beyond good and evil”. Slay Nietzsche’s dragon as Nietzsche’s lion by slaying each of its scales of “thou shalt” and “thou shalt not”. When you’re done, you’ll understand that this is about meta-ethical values, and not about any authoritative other telling you the “truth” to what is “Good” and what is “evil” – or alternatively, to what is right and what is wrong. We’re currently conflicting—I do hope you’ll laugh at the specious conclusion that, therefore, we are both evil. Gee, what would a debate forum be without all the evil-folk so defined as evil due to conflicts of opinion? Rather, in my system, primary focus is always placed upon end-states to being-as-awareness that is always in a state-of-becoming.

This is the portion missing from your system which brings about that extra layer which we sometimes term “ethics” but which I gather is nowadays better addressed as the philosophy of value-theory. Not an unimportant aspect of metaphysics, considering. And, to my mind, you cannot coherently obtain it if you insist on the only ontically real end-state being that of a Heat Death. This in the metaphysics I endorse is one variant of what I’ve so far termed “the nonbeing endstate of awareness (which is not identical to the identity of self)”, and I do look upon it as an ontically illusory endstate. Of course, you are far more interested in explaining the nuts and bolts of the physical – while I’m far more interested in explaining what the different types of reality that can be are, including that of physical objectivity and of metaphysical objectivity – and your system of metaphysics works best in terms of the physical aspects which you seek to explain.

To my mind, it would be nice to try to converge the two systems, but the current problem is, we justify our two systems in drastically different ways … although we both start with a kind of epistemological vagueness, to use your terms.

To me – and no doubt the arguments will persist on this – you seem to reify epistemological vagueness into a sub-stantial Apeirion and then proceed to make conclusions with use of this Apeiron as a premise. The way I go about things is by building up from foundations of optimal firmness (crispness) and then using these resultant conclusions of optimal firmness as foundations for further enquiry. Your system explains awareness thermodynamically; my system starts off with awareness as ontic, brute, fact. To illustrate, I can find no justifiable (via awareness, reasoning, or both) counterfactual to the proposition “the first-person point of view holds presence when in any way aware”. This lack of currently known counterfactuals does not then make this experience-based proposition an “unmitigated certainty”, for one cannot prove that at no future point in time will there ever be discovered such counterfactuals – and, thereby, demonstrate the proposition to be perfectly devoid of all possible error. But, because no counterfactuals can currently be found for it, it does make it a second-best type of certainty, an “unfalsified certainty” I’ve termed it (an inductive/abductive epistemological process of reasoning that nicely conforms to the scientific method’s principle of falsifiability, apropos). I’ve mentioned this not because I seek argument on the matter but so as to not appear so obtuse in what I’ve previous expressed.

At the end of the day we both for the most part agree with C S Pierce’s ontology. For my part, I wouldn’t mind debating these differences between us once I’m finished with reediting the entirety of my notes, this so that we may better exchange notes. But, due to the constraints of life, it’s bound to be some years before I finish doing so.

So, if it’s OK with you, maybe we can defer our basic metaphysical disagreements to some other future time. Plenty of other things to debate/talk about as far as I’m concerned. If not, I’m all ears.

With a smiling attitude, you're replies, to me and to others, personally remind me of that popular Metalica tune: something about, "you label me, I label you" something or rather.

Wanted to pop in to say this, unforgiven as it might be.

I'll get back to the "logic" of it all tomorrow. Hell, maybe.

And my argument - the one I say many ancient wisdoms share, even if in groping, informal fashion - is that the vague~crisp defines that epistemic limit best.

However if you can argue against that, go for it. — apokrisis

Your answer of "vague~crisp" does not answer the question that you replied to … unless it is to explicitly say that the metaphysical beginning is unknowable. This being the very position I hold which you first chose to argue against. (This in manners that were less than cordial seeming. I won’t splurge on the details but, hell, we’ve all got our moods. And no, no apologies on my part.)

As to your notion of dichotomies with relations in-between being everything in terms of existence:

You have a rather important dichotomy to existence: that of conflict v. harmony. Some of us emotive people can interpret the same as hate v. love. Some of other folks can interpret it as states of chaos v. states of order. It doesn’t much matter how the processes are interpreted here; nor at what levels of existence they're addressed; the two processes of becoming remain the same.

I say that, while conflict (between gives) is impossible devoid of harmony (minimally, within the givens that conflict) the opposite does not hold metaphysically. Harmony can occur in the absence of all conflict. This is not a “crispness” that requires both dyads to be. In the latter form, the given of harmony / love / order can exist just fine in the complete absence its opposite – to not even address any relation in -between. This, again, metaphysically. (Granted not given some presumption of a known initial firstenss but given existence as is in current forms.)

For now, I’ve little doubt that you will disagree. But this would lead us into, maybe, more fertile grounds of debate.

I for now have to take some time off for myself. I’ll check back on this tomorrow.

Would she even try such a stunt? — Rich

In my own opinion, no she wouldn't. My stance's justifications are inductive ... meaning to say, not of deductive logic. The nature of experience having a lot to do with this.

Now you are really showing your true colors. — Rich

Funny, I had Helen Keller in mind. So that would answer that. Trying to address the metaphysical here, though.

I don't know, my last question to you seems pretty coherent given the topics we're discussing. Can you answer it?

But hey, if we've suddenly departed from common semantics, so be it. Till some next time, then.

Is vagueness an uncaused presence of "lack of crispness"?

There's something your missing out on in you system of justification. The miraculous coincidence between the conclusion of mystics you quote to support your Pierciean perspectives and the "scientific rationalism" you endorse. You believe in miracles now?

Whose talking about phenomenal representations of what is non-phenomenal. Think of the four Aristotalian causes, together with all other possibilities of causation that have accumulated in our history (such as that of co-arising, etc.) and logically justify the causal principle by which the firstness came to be. It could be an uncaused given (another possibility of causation). Whatever you choose, how do you justify it was ontically so.

And yet these mystics you gleefully put down in their place, with nothing more than their states of (non-measurable) awareness, came to the same conclusions you did via "scientific rationalism". How?

OK then, the impetus is on you to illustrate via logical argument that existence had a metaphysical beginning. Is the Apeiron you uphold an uncaused given; is it nothingness from out of which something originates; it is itself caused by nothingness into being; etc. And, logically, why must your conclusion so be? This, by the way, addresses metaphysical (and not physical) beginnings.

This is not so new. Anaximander did it at the dawn of metaphysics with his much misunderstood tale of existence's emergence by symmetry-breaking from the Apeiron.

Indeed, something similar is the basis of most ancient wisdoms. You have the Judaic Ein Sof, the Taoist Dao, the Buddhist dependent co-arising, etc. — apokrisis

First off Ein Sof is a Kabbalistic-specific expression which is far closer to Zen Buddhist notions of emptiness (interpretable as absolute selflessness, and not nothingness) than that of the processes of becoming you've mentioned.

Secondly, you hold a long history of degrading them mystics / spiritualists while you then go ahead and use their own notions to support your views. Can you clarify why?

The first essay I mentioned, by Guardiano, discusses the influence of Ralph Waldo Emerson on Peirce as depicted in a series of essays in a publication called The Monist. Emerson was something of a fountainhead of wisdom in the American literary tradition, and was also deeply interested in Vedic religion, one of the factors that lead him to break from the Church. I think the influence is that Peirce's 'primordial firstness' which precedes everything that exists, is influenced by Emerson's conception of Brahman. But there is huge scope to Peirce's writings on such matters, far more than can be summed up here. — Wayfarer

I can understand this possible relation between Pierce’s “primordial firstness” and the Vedic Brahman. Thanks for the info.

To be frank, via my own philosophical skepticism based understandings (yea, kind of like those of Plato’s Academy, but different), I can hold my own till the cows come home that there is no way of justifying any belief regarding whether or not existence has a metaphysical beginning – never mind what kind of metaphysical beginning it might have had if it indeed had one. Lots of words to say: to my best current reasoning, nobody can know if existence ever had a beginning.

In Vedic tradition, Brahman is the end aspired for, a state of being that has always been, awaiting, without which there would be nothing which can stand. There’s a bit of a cognitive jump to then thinking that this Alpha and Omega of Vedic tradition, so to speak, once existed of itself in manners devoid of anything standing. To me, it, in a way, would parallel the fallacy of thinking that, once, there was only Nirvana … from out of which then emerged (via some variant of efficient causation, no doubt) all our cycles of death and rebirth via dependent originations. No Buddhist in his/her right mind could ever entertain such as thing without laughing … which, I believe, can be viewed as one reason for the Buddhist schism from Hinduism. Of course, this together with disagreement on the homunculus notion of self which Hindu tradition - at times - makes itself, arguably all to easily for Buddhists, prone to.

Musings that could all be disputed (save for the lack of justification in upholding a metaphysical beginning, I strongly contend) - given despite my limited knowledge of the cultural topics at hand. But again, thanks for the shared info. I haven’t read anything by Emerson yet. Nice when you find new readings to look forward to. I’ve placed The Monist on my list.

[Just saw Rich’s post; the one I’ve written is in the same overall vein … still, different enough to make me think it’s still worth posting.]

In effect, the philosopher thinks of time as transcendent. — Agustino

Contingent on interpretations of “transcendent”, I can envision alternatives to this: e.g., that of time being a metaphysical corollary of freewill-endowed awareness in the plural, of multiple first-person points of view that will things … and here, too, time can well be hypothesized to be relative, i.e., not absolute, and immanent.

For instance, akin to all the BIV, etc., mindsets of abstract hypotheticals, hypothesize two freewill-endowed first-person points-of-view that are incorporeal and dwell within incorporeal realms. That they in any way interact entails that there will be, at minimum, an incorporeal body of information common to both; this, in itself, speaks more to non-physical space, or distance, between the two as gaged between a) what is private to both and b) what is common to both. Again, grant that both hold some causal sway over this common non-physical space of information (which, if one would like to be more abstract, can be fully non-phenomenal … this in as much as an intention is of itself non-phenomenal: has no taste, smell, sound, visual appearance, or tactile feel, etc., though one could phenomenally re-present it at will). When one causes this common space to change, it will causally influence the awareness of the other, and vice versa. There is then a cause-and-consequence to all willed actions on the part of either; furthermore, the cause (the willing of the activity) will always be before the resulting consequence. Hence, there will always here be a before-and-after relative not to phenomena but to one’s willed action as awareness. And, so, the ontic reality of this before and after will be, in this scenario, relative to the two points of awareness, as well as dependent on their so being.

OK, a simpleton attempt at providing an example of how the philosopher’s time can be relative and not absolute, also metaphysically entailed while not being transcendent. The intended point to this hypothetical primarily being that, metaphysically, were there to be a plurality of freewill-endowed first-person points of view as a foundation to all that otherwise stands, there will then, I now think via logical entailment, then also be present some form of time.

True, within the offered hypothetical, there would be no way of measuring “how much time” had passed (kind of like when one is in an extremely good state of mind in interacting with another). To slightly paraphrase what you’ve mentioned, the repetition of the same identity common to all would be required for time to become measurable (including from such a metaphysical interpretation as that previously mentioned): that the sun goes up and down in the same way over and over again allows for quantification of how many days have gone by. This in turn, requires a physical space –a common space between all first-person points of view – that remains relatively stable in its constituency. Even in an imaginary digital clock that never cycles there would yet be repetition of “the same identity” in abstract form: 1a, 2 (1a + 1b), 3 (1a + 1b +1c), etc.

But yes, there is also the notion of absolute time among philosophers. Nevertheless, (as with Rich) I don’t believe that the immanence of time is strictly limited to the materialist’s notions of time.

An exquisite post in my view.

The question this leads to is, would C S Peirce have described his philosophy as naturalistic or physicalist in the current sense? — Wayfarer

The other point that should be considered is that Peirce says that 'nature forms habits'. The unavoidable implication is that nature has or is mind. — Wayfarer

In attempts to compliment you post, I think it should be remembered that C S Pierce was never privy to Georges Lemaitre’s hypothesis that everything could be mathematically traced back to a single point (the beginning of the Big Bang cosmological model from which the model obtained its pejorative term of “Big Bang”), nor was he aware of all the epistemological criteria that since then followed, which is used to nowadays substantiate this model as depicting an ontic fact. (We often forget, it is only a model of what might have been.) In essence, using Pierce's model of objective idealism, the effete mind of his time did not yet organize into forms that contained this, then non-existent, information.

Focusing in on the quasi-meta-physical* implication of this Big Bang model, that something emerged from (what for all technical purposes is) nothing, would Pierce then have viewed this awareness-evidence supported, mathematical model of the Big Bang as nullifying his metaphysics of objective idealism? Or, conversely, would he interpret this Big Bang model and all the empirical evidence since then acquired for it as only one, itself yet evolving, aspect of the ever evolving effete mind he explains via his objective idealism?

To my understanding, this difference in answer gets to the root of whether he’d today become a triadic-relations physicalist / naturalist or, as I very much believe he would, remain a non-physicalist, remain an objective idealist.

It would result in the same thing from all practical purposes of everyday life; it would however make a big difference as regards the ontic nature of being.

* Though itself an issue of possible contention, I say “quasi-meta-physical” because one cannot address the ontic reality of the metaphysical by basing one’s epistemology regarding what is in what one intuitively knows to be the realities of the physical (regardless of how concrete or abstract these might be). From the metaphysics of Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, to list only three of the long since gone guys, so doing would certainly be understood to be a self-contradicting enterprise. The ontic reality of the metaphysical is in a top-down relation to the ontic reality of the physical, not the other way around; else there would be no “beyond-physical”. This, then, includes the metaphysical issue of whether or not something can emerge from nothing, again alluding to what the Big Bang model of cosmology implies.

Did you really ever follow what I said then. You keep coming up with questions I've already covered. — apokrisis

You've covered them by placing the cart before the horse: better spelled out, maths before awareness ... then by explaining awareness via maths, you feel justified in using observations to model your system in what logically amounts to ad hoc explanations of why things must be.

An observation; yes, made by one who is nevertheless fallible and proudly knows himself to so be. Not an insult, and certainly not an apology.

Another problem with free will (or not) is that the agent about whom we are talking is also the agent providing the evidence for free will, or not -- a clear conflict of interest. — Bitter Crank

:D I take this to be irony, and find it indeed humorous. As to the complexities, what's new, the mind's complex. This complexity all boils down to that solutions / problems dichotomy.

OK, yes, but in your view bio-semiosis must emerge from pan-semiosis (e.g., not the other way around at some grand scheme of things; this where “bio” signifies “life”, which I acknowledge to loosely interpret as being “the presence of a first person point of view, aka awareness”). Other than things being such that our awareness-based knowledge does indeed illustrate—to the best of our knowledge—that life followed non-life, why must biosemiosis emerge from pansemiosis when rationally analyzed?

This is the part that I initially hoped you held a cogent grasp of when I started this tread.

Start by answering honestly why a modelling relation with the world wouldn't feel like something. On what basis can you simply presume that? — apokrisis

Isn’t your triadic system one of pan-modeling-relation-with-context/the world? If I’m not extremely mistaken in so appraising, then why would a lepton, for example, not hold feelings - given that it is this triadic relation that in your system explains the "what it is like" of human feeling? Why would information, as information, not hold feelings? This must be wrong, though. It leads into nonsensical conclusions.

I can, um … vibe ;) … with just about everything you’ve stated. Yea, there are other allegories that can be used, like one where consciousness is like a horseman and its total sub/unconscious mind is the horse that is being ridden. Imperfect in that, to me, it lack’s acknowledgement of how consciousness is a forever changing product emerging from the unconscious mind. Bear with me a moment.

Still, like the conductor or the horseman/woman, the thing is we as a conscious agent either a) do our thing without any need for choosing anything consciously (much like the typing of a sentence where we don’t consciously choose which particular key to hit; or speaking, were we don’t consciously choose via deliberation which word follows the other) or b) choose by means of some deliberation between alternatives. Now, whether or not this choice is metaphysically free is a metaphysical question that can’t be answered via analysis of the physical—else it would have been long ago. In scenario (b) the alternatives are themselves the products of the mind’s agencies other than that of the conscious I. So the conscious I chooses one alternative at the expense of all other alternatives, and, thereby, in due measure, alters the plastic operations of its own brain’s neural networks … which then proceed on the path chosen by the conscious I (like an orchestra following a conductor’s flow, or a horse following the horseman’s pull on the reigns; the conductor doesn’t decide how each musician plays his/her specific instrument; the horseman doesn’t decide how the horse chooses to gallop on the specifics of the terrain).

OK, this would hold if i) metaphysical freewill is ontically real and ii) if we stop with the (to me greatly) incoherent notions of efficient causations between brain as one thing and mind as another; i.e., my brain doesn’t cause me to do something, nor do I cause my brain/body to do something; rather, this form of causation between conscious agent - total mind - brain and spinal column (i.e., the CNS, where neuron nucleuses are found) - and non-CNS-body is all, for the most part, simultaneously bi-directional (in simplified form, bi-directional between conscious agent and body) … this akin to how temperature and pressure are simultaneously bi-directional causal factors relative to each other.

And, yes, if we’re to indulge this model, there are many more complexities: e.g. tongue-tied speech, or slips of the tongue, or stuttering – to keep these examples all aligned with speech – would all be examples where the conscious I wills a certain X but the unconscious agencies of its mind are not unified on the same exact will being fulfilled by the conscious I as it intends (this for whatever reasons).

Oh, as to sleeping and wakefulness, notice that we as conscious agents can, to limited extents, willfully choose to stay up despite our total mind’s will of going to sleep. But again, whether or not this is itself due to metaphysical freewill on the part of the conscious agent is a separate issue.

All the same, if it needs to be stated, my own belief is that it is metaphysically free will in the form of the conscious agent bringing about effects from out of itself (its momentary identity of self) as cause - such as to the effect of which alternative it ends up pursuing … this even if the conscious agent is greatly influenced from without in what it ought to choose … but man, does this get into complexities. OH, just to be clear in advance, yes, I’ll likely be cowardly about things and chicken out of debating these complexities; if they get overly complex, that is … Just putting some possible perspectives out there.

Is it possible for the sub-consciousness, for example, exist without the conscious mind? — BlueBanana

First off, my apologies for not reading this thread earlier (I gave a half-behinded reply to this topic on the thread about contraception being murder).

To contribute, one can simplify things by framing the issue in terms of dichotomizing the following two, rough-sketched alternatives of mind: either a) mind is itself inanimate or, else, b) mind is itself animate. If the first, mind devoid of conscious awareness is itself devoid of agencies; if the latter, then mind devoid of conscious awareness is endowed with agencies (or can be in healthy circumstances).

To not seem like a BS-otoligist (sorry, maybe poor humor), been toying with this near-Hume like hypothesis. Rather than affirming as Hume did that there is no first person I/self to the commonwealth of mind, wouldn’t it be better to affirm that his bundle theory of self is a stratified hierarchy of agencies (all causally tied into the plastic operations of neural webs within the brain at the lowest levels of agency) which, then, builds upon itself till the pinnacle of the conscious I is obtained? If so, for example, when we go to sleep what would occur is that the conscious I, in a sense, dissolves into the lower levels of this stratification in the mind’s agencies; when we awaken, the conscious I becomes once again brought about by the agencies of mind as – to use a partly fitting allegory – a conductor to the orchestra of the mind’s agencies. When dreaming, this conscious I is only partly composed out of the mind’s stratified agencies and, furthermore, interacts with other aspects of its own total mind’s agencies … I think for most, in very symbolic means.

More complex examples, such as states of comma, or vegetative states wherein only the so termed ‘lower brain’ operates, can then also make sense in such a model of mind. Though, here, the threshold between integral, living person and non-person can, at times, become fuzzy.

Mentioned this alternative so as to not be so half-assed given my previously made reply to you … As to spiritual musings, I think such an approximate perspective could make sense of the soul in the sense of anima … also of mind in the sense of the animus … this without requiring there being a homunculus (such as the soul being present and functioning even when we’re asleep and not dreaming).

Nice try, but we do not have the ability to clone every single cell of every single person so the argument has a bit of a gap there, as we can afford disposing of some extra cells and still clone as many people as we have the capability of. — BlueBanana

Right, but the premise I was replying to is that of potentiality. So, every single cell of every single person has the potential to become a person ... just as do all those gametes stuck in the rain coat. No different.

Edit: one can work with this argument even further, though: every time a man ejaculates sperm into a woman's uterus, most sperm die and only one of these merges with the woman's gamete. Hence, carrying on the same logic, to try to reproduce is to "murder" well over hundreds of thousands with there only being a likelihood of one potential person being conceived--which isn't to say they'll actually be birthed ("natural" things sometimes happen along the way). Then, ought one murder hundreds of thousands of (potential) persons so as to, maybe, bring forth one (potential) person into closer proximity to, maybe, someday being a person? Going by the offered reasoning, doing so would be rather unethical, right?

Man, not to hound you, but, maybe: it's due to peer pressure? Cool is cool, and who wants to be a nerd, kind of thing.

Hey, a truly humorous depiction of an entire philosophical stance. Nice!

Can this sort of thing be justified? — jorndoe

Going by the illustration, I'd say it would first require the justification of ontically real homunculi. For instance, in Buddhist worldviews, where there are various sorts of afterlives, no such illustration would hold. ... Then again, Buddhists tend not to be substance dualists.

Corollary To P2: All (Potential Person Destroying) is (Actual Person Destroying) — Victoribus Spolia

I’m acquainted with the argument from “potential for being an integral human being”. As far as reasoning is concerned, the argument is logically flawed. My easiest way to illustrate this is by upholding this reasoning to encompass all human activity (and not only that of masturbation (the shame!!! :D ) and of contraception). We, today, hold the ability to clone a human being from any nucleus-endowed human cell (the details to this do not matter). Because each of my somatic cells holds the potential for becoming an “integral human being” (the details to what this legally is do not matter) I then, to use your terminology, commit mass-murder (why not even genocides) every time I use the restroom to defecate.

If "murder" is to be upheld as term, then we mandatory murder potential persons in order to live harmonious, peaceful lives -- such via the act of defecating, or that of exercise wherein muscles are built through the damaging of current muscle cells, etc. This though nullifies the very significance of the term "murder".

The goal post can be then shifted to what “is natural” or “God-given”. The conclusions will remain the same, however.

To be transparent, I acknowledge that I am exceedingly pro-life-quality – which, then, entails that I’m also pro-choice. Yes, there is some responsibility on the part of both parents for the aborted fetus – but this pales in comparison to the responsibility of both parents in giving birth to an unwanted human being who then lives a life of misery with the sentience of a human being (and not that of a gamete). Hence, to me, the pro-life movement is, at core, unethical, regardless of how good its intentions might at times be. Again, I acknowledge my bias in this regard.

How do you know? Your body does not, true, and your vital functions remain stable, but what about your mind? Do you have experiences of it existing while you're unconscious? There is no self awareness to eliminate if you're not sentient at that moment. — BlueBanana

If we (to me, as bundles of unconscious awareness when in states of dreamless sleep) would not be present when we slept, even in dreamless sleep, then the alarm clock would never wake us up. We as conscious agents have this experience of awakening to external stimuli which, in conjunction with experience-founded inferences, justifies that we as total beings of body and mind are alive and well while sleeping. (There then is also the empirical evidence regarding others and the workings of the body-brain-mind that harmoniously supports the same conclusion.)

Meta-physics simply being "physics not yet within our understanding?" — XanderTheGrey

That would be the favored interpretation of “meta-physics” by anyone who sponsors materialism / physicalism. But, then, in this view, nothing is in factual reality meta-physical; the closest one here can approach the meta-physical is via abstractions of the physical which are themselves physical in their nature.

You sponsor that there is no such thing as will (other than, maybe, a mechanistically emergent illusion); I conclude this through inference that is non-contradictory to what you phrase as mechanism.

However, were there to be some mistake in your currently held reasoning and, in addition, were there to be such a factual reality of will, will itself – regardless of how causally tied into the, here, not-perfectly deterministic causal processes of the physical – would itself be beyond-the-physical (meta-physical in this sense). As would then also logically be its final states of being - were such final states to also be ontically real – alongside other issues such as those of the principles of thought (e.g., the notion of identity and of non-contradiction).

So sponsoring the non-physical meta-physical, then, can lead one toward sub-stance dualism (such as Descartes’) or to some form of monism (such as Schopenhauer’s).

You just did the usual thing of treating awareness as a substantial state — apokrisis

sub-stance: that which allows things that stand to so be (yea, there's some allegory to etymology sometimes)

What can I say, you can in the same breath deny the presence of substance while affirming the triadic relation as the substance.

And yes, that is the metaphysical issue. Is awareness or something physical (triadic relations included) the sub-stance that allows other things to stand. [BTW, awareness devoid of telos is not something coherent (as I see it); so, by awareness, I do find a) other information-bound awareness (i.e., selves), b) a real telos, and c) interactions in-between entailed.]

But, hey, we're turning round, and round, and round, and, for now, going nowhere. I'll agree to disagree for the moment.

That kind of awareness would have to be sociocultural — apokrisis

How do you justify its presence?

Do you need a reasoning based on personal awareness? Or can you justify it without any personal awareness?

[Edit: this isn't to disagree with the notions of habit which you endorse]

The reason why Peircean semiotics impresses me as the most developed model of systems causality is because it turns things around. Epistemology also turns out to be ontology. — apokrisis

You’re trying to corner me by assuming me to hold perspectives that are easy for you to argue against.

Remember the old forum? That whole evolog business? Discussions about the episteme of the time coinciding with fossil finds, and the like. Point is, this too is a world view wherein epistemology is not metaphysically fully divided from ontology. But it gets complex, right? Especially when strangers to this perspective tend to perpetually succumb to the aberrant irrationality of solipsism. To end this story, I do happen to hold this view, as always - that of epistemology being a kind of opposite side of the same coin to ontology - but I’ve become rather shy about expressing it as openly as you’ve just done.

You’re still sidetracking the metaphysical issue, though. To use your words, “epistemology also turns out to be ontology”. OK, we’re both well informed enough to not ask the ridiculous question of “whose epistemology”. My question to you nevertheless remains: can there be epistemology sans awareness (quite importantly, entailing the awareness we all know to be via the experience of being first-person points of view)?

If not, the ontic presence / reality of awareness is the primary justification to all that can be rationalized.