Right, you’re not one for universals. I was instead thinking in terms of all of us sharing a common understanding of basic aspects of reality, such as what up and down is, for example—this due to a fundamental universality of our individual experiences, even when unexpressed. And it of course then can become more complex via culture (in the anthropological sense) ... which includes a commonality of memories regarding the same events as referents.

We might need to do the old agreement to disagree on this one.

and "intersubjectivity" doesn't amount to anything more than the fact that we can utter things to each other including agreements. It's nothing like literally sharing subjectivity. — Terrapin Station

Different topic but: we can and do share unspoken understandings. You disagree?

Still, what I was trying to get at is that the past yet holds presence--exists in one way or another.

I wonder if Wait arrived at this via his own intuition? — Rich

I've no way of knowing. But a lot of his lyrics indicate that he's well read.

The past consists of the changes/motion that occurred, but that are no longer occurring (and it no longer exists, of course--it rather existed). Talking about changing the past, then, it talking about changing changes that no longer exist. — Terrapin Station

I keep on coming back in my thoughts to a Tom Waits lyric: “time is just memory mixed with desire”

To argue the past no longer exists in some ontological way is not necessarily contradictory; but one cannot claim that the past holds no presence whatsoever. Yesterday was there for me and it was there for you too. Yesterday, then, is more than an intra-personal memory. It holds presence within all sentience … even if only as an intersubjectively shared memory of what was (not barring personal deviations from this intersubjectively shared memory). In this sense, the past exists independently of us as individual beings.

In other words--thought I think I get what you’re saying--the past is yet there for all of us and it is yet remembered (usually) in a third-person, “t1, t2, t3” manner … such that we are no longer present within the events of the past but, instead, look upon these events from the outside. This “outside” being the duration of the current moment.

The Ship of Theseus problem takes the two distinct forms of identity, logical identity as claimed by Terrapin, and material identity as stated by Aristotle, and creates ambiguity between them. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree with your conclusions regarding logical identity, but disagree that the Ship of Theseus is an issue of material identity.

Suppose Theseus takes his ship (ship A) and uses its material to build himself a cabin. It’s the same material but no longer a ship, so the identity of that addressed has changed. A week following, Theseus changes his mind and uses the same material, now a cabin, to rebuild the same ship he had before (ship B). It becomes Theseus’s ship again. Complexities could ensue as regards identity, but to the extent ship A and ship B are the same ship (as would uphold someone off for the month in which it was rebuilt in to a cabin and back), it would be the same ship for what reason? Neither due to logical nor material identity—the latter, on its own, would make the cabin identical to the ship.

It at least in part would be the same ship due to its functionality as form: e.g. were it to now have two masts instead of one its functionality would be different, even though the total material would be the same and even though it would still be a ship. Functionality, in turn, is entwined with purpose; and purpose, in an Aristotelian view, is a product of telos.

Using functionality as a means of arriving at identity, Theseus’s ship could then have half of its wooden planks replaced with plastic planks (different material) and, as long as its functionality would be unchanged, it would remain the same ship. However, were all its material to change, its is very unlikely that it would retain the same functionality, and would thereby be a different ship.

I’m not affirming that there isn’t more to identity. A crushed aluminum can is the same can it previously was when uncrushed, for example. But I do believe there’s more to identity than that of material form.

But to answer your question. Bergson views the future as virtual action. It is what is intended but has not been. At this time, not having pondered this too much, it seems reasonable. — Rich

thanks. Only read Bohm so far. Might give Bergson a read.

For example, how do I know that I exist and am evolving? It is the memory of myself juxtaposed on a prior memory of myself. The two memories create time. The time of scientists, or click time, is different. — Rich

I’ve expressed this in other places: I’m by comparison anything but erudite when it comes to the in-depth physics of time. Not to say that I’m utterly ignorant either. However, a quick glance at Wikipedia didn’t reveal any information on what click time might be—and I haven't previously come across this term.

The view I’ve been holding onto is that time—both physical and experiential—is a hybrid between cyclical and linear: spiralar (but I’ve so far found no term that sounds good to the ear). From grandfather clocks to atomic clocks, time holds periods demarcated by repetition that nevertheless is always different with each new cycle. Like a more poetic dictum that every sunrise is the same, though no two sunrises in the history of Earth have ever been identical. This can be argued for digital time as well: the same quantities repeat as they accumulate into cycles.

I can in my own way then understand the sense of time being memory—for it is via memory, as you've addressed it, that this linear-cycle of information occurs (maybe better said, holds presence).

Not to contradict, but out of good natured curiosity: I associate forethought (prediction of what is to come) to the future, much in the same manner I’ve (maybe all too poorly) described the past as memory. I’m wondering if you currently hold an interpretation of memory as time that also incorporates this experiential property of forethought?

I believe I understand what you’re expressing. And, at least as pertains to my current understanding, I'm in agreement with you.

Yet there is the issue of other(s)’ memories-embedded-with-the-present as well. Here, a simple argument of taking two people as example will be overly simplistic. Each cell within one’s body—to the extent it too is in some way sentient—will hold its own memories within the present. (This, I grant, will be contentious with many). Still, sentience is not limited to one individual. Every person I’ve ever interacted with will hold some memories of each and every interaction. Memories of what was said, seen, etc. These memories of (at least) sapient beings will, furthermore, themselves need to be noncontradictory in order to be intelligible: one can’t remember there having been a house at place and time X and there not being the same house at the same time and in the same way.

If we are to use a holomovement view, then there’s a complex interplay of memory between all individuals that in any way have ever interacted (for clarity, individuals which nevertheless presently coexist) which would then create a stable global memory of what was.

Hopefully I’m not being too abstract about all this. My basic point being that the past would be a complex web of causal interactions between a multiplicity of beings which, as such, would stabilize into what would for all intended purposes result in a changeless past.

For example, were I (knock on wood) to gain Alzheimer’s in later life, my past would still remain stable in space and time—this despite me no longer having a personal memory of when I was birthed, for example.

So, I’m still inclined to argue that—nitty-gritty metaphysical analysis of a non-B-series time aside—the past would still be a permanently fixed set of events that have already passed by … this from the vantage of all coexistent sentience (by which I myself include microscopic life as well, even that of somatic cells).

It appears to me that the past is constantly changing. In fact, it is the only thing that is changing as it evolves into a new past. — Rich

Please expand on this if I’ve misconstrued you.

My position is that within nitty-gritty metaphysical analysis (or, alternatively, in contemplating some interpretations of QM) maybe some aspects of the past can change. But things such as our birthdays when we first came into this world yet remain static in the past. It’s just that the past keeps on expanding with every present moment that goes by.

I’m so far inclined to think that we agree on this.

The [...] purpose of both logic and intuition is to satisfy the emotions. — MonfortS26

The quote is reminiscent of David Hume’s view.

Imo, emotions is an umbrella term for many, in some ways different, aspects of psyche. There are emotions you can be affected by without enactively being unified with (e.g. love/hate; like, having a romantic attraction to someone you as a conscious being would rather not have), there are emotions that are enactively present to us as conscious beings which prod us or pull us (desires) and are integral to intentions or motivation (these sometimes can consist of the former drives, e.g. love/hate), and then there are emotions that are enactively affective responses to stimuli (pain/pleasure and suffering/happiness … where the two are distinguished).

I’ve for a long time held the belief that all emotions hold their own imbedded reasoning—though, obviously, more sub/unconscious than not—as can also be stated of intuitions. Envy, for example, has its reasoning of “I should have what I don’t have but the other does”; other emotions are harder to pinpoint. One’s conscience—e.g., to counterbalance feelings of envy—can in this sense itself be appraised as another emotion.

Still, I agree. One cannot reason without some underlying emotion (in the broad sense previously outlined); however, one can hold emotions without actively reasoning.

In similar enough manners to Hume's arguments, reasoning can then in part be appraised as an emotive means by which we endorse some emotions and veto others.

For instance, what philosophy—however formal—can be pursued without emotions such as those of interest or curiosity?

The problem with that on my view is that "changeless time" is a contradiction. — Terrapin Station

Hey, I’m all about Heraclitus’ flux. So I don’t subscribe to B-series time either. Nevertheless, when we address past, we all use the notion of changelessness as it pertains to events gone by. It’s why I improvised the term, “observer-devoid time”: not exactly B-series time but it’s yet applicable to our cognizance of the past … a temporal duration where things no longer change (at the very least in terms of how we conceptualize the past).

To me it seems like the simple dichotomy between A-series and B-series is overly simplified.

All the same, how would you demarcate the past if not for it being a "changeless time(span)"?

No, they are the same chair at two different times. It's just the natural effect of passing time (what you call change), that the very same thing will not be logically identical at two different times. How could they be logically identical if the passing of time is change? But this doesn't mean that it's not the same thing, just because it's changed. — Metaphysician Undercover

My own argument would be that, as with the Ship of Theseus problem, the parts of the chair can change but as long as the whole, the gestalt, remains unchanged in form and/or functionality, it remains the same chair. Darn it though, this gets into issues of identity and change. ... But I too am an curious to see what Terrapin has to say.

Whether there's any "continuity of existence" depends on whether you mean by that that the chair is logically identical at T1 and T2. If so, then there's no "continuity of existence." This doesn't imply that the chair at T2 has no connection to the chair at T1. They're developmentally, causally, continuously related. — Terrapin Station

In trying to understand this better, you’re saying that there’s no continuity to some perfectly static existent between T1 and T2, right? Not that there’s no continuity to a given we can all discern as having remained the same …

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Terrapin, I’d like to see how you—and others—might disagree with this:

T1, T2, T3, etc. is an abstraction of time wherein the observer is no longer present. I’ll call it “observer-devoid time”. Observer-devoid time is typically applied to the past by all of us (unless our memories are of former personal experiences which we relive) and, when further abstracted, can then result in the notion of B-series time (objective time being a changeless, tenseless time).

Time you term the present phenomenal experience, however, holds within it the extremities of past and future in a manner parallel to observer-relative spatial dimensions. For simplicity, we can solely appraise the dimension of up and down as always relative to our personal spatial location as observers: There is no absolute top and absolute bottom to space; there are only relations to ourselves as observers; as we change our spatial positions relative to each other and to an inanimate context, so too changes what is up and what is down relative to us. Placing a whole bunch of us together in the same interactive space further stabilizes up and down for the cohort. As with observer-relative spatial dimensions, so too is past and future a temporal dimension held within awareness relative to that which is the experienced present duration … with there being no clear threshold between memory and forethought that takes place in the present experience. This then results in A-series time (tensed time)—or, “observer-endowed time”.

In B-series time before and after is always relative to abstract events from which the observer is removed—and, as previously stated, an observer-devoid time is typically applied to the past, especially when cognized in the third-person. In A-series time before and after is always relative to the concrete reality of a present phenomenal experience.

One can build on this, but I’m curious to see if there’s any significant disagreement with what was just stated.

If there’s no significant disagreement, then a lot of the former arguments I've read have been about equating apples with oranges … this by overlapping or else mistaking A-series time to B-series time.

You're aware that Bohm's reputation in US academia had already been permanently affected by his early association with communism? — Wayfarer

I wasn’t knowledgeable of this. … Them community-lovers. (there’s sarcasm here somewhere).

I was having a discussion here a few months back about an interesting feature of the double-slit experiment, which is that the interference patterns are not rate-dependent. Whether you fire one photon at a time, or many together, you end up with the same pattern (up to a certain point). I posted a couple of threads about this on physics forums. — Wayfarer

Although I understand what you're referring to, I yet want to acknowledge the following: I can easily get lost in the maths with which modern physics is deeply entwined. [Could barely keep up with the more complex maths of ecology: When they started talking about 16-dimensional models of what was going on on the ground is when I started doodling things in my notebooks … pondering about the premises/axioms these folks used.]

It strikes me as being philosophically significant, although nobody on the physics forums were prepared to acknowledge that. To me it signifies that the probability wave is not a function of time, and from a relativistic point of view, therefore not of space-time. — Wayfarer

If I’m interpreting your statement properly, I agree. Still, in candor, you are addressing far more detailed concepts of physics and its notions of time than I’m currently making sense of, imo.

But the overall reason why I agree:

QM relies upon time that is Newtonian like; Relativity deems time non-absolute but, traditionally, deterministic so that one obtains a Block-Time. Both these notions of time can be deemed problematic. The absence of a physical theory of everything which combines QM and Relativity attests to this, imo. Neither, imo, do theories fare better when attempting to unify QM with Relativity by declaring time to be non-real … although I’ve read one book where this was done.

The philosophical qualm then becomes the question of what time is, this meta-physically. Obviously, this is not an easy issue to resolve. However, as always, once the metaphysical construct of what time is becomes better appraised by us, then we’ll hold new axiomatic foundations with which to address and remodel the mathematical representations of what’s going on. Otherwise, we will continue to gauge reality through use of inappropriate axiomatic notions of time. Like Newtonian physics, this is useful to some extent--but, due to the rudimentary errors involved, it will not be able to resolve the questions which we current seek answers to. The implications of QM here come to mind.

I think that Bohm was necessarily cautious about declaring consciousness and/or free will is necessitated by QM. — Rich

Bohm dared not go so far though he's clearly implied it was there. — Rich

Yes, we all know how that goes in certain academic circles. There the making a living part that goes hand in hand with reputation.

Though nowhere near as eruditely as others, I investigated Bhom’s views after first discovering this experiment. This in what then were my attempts to hold onto determinism.

Of course, the observer who also participates in the field has an effect. With the possibility of free will, we have a casual model of QM which permits creative actions. — Rich

That is the crux of it, at least for me: does or doesn’t the causal factor which we term freewill take place? I couldn’t deny the implications of the delayed choice quantum erasure experiment—basically, that consciousness is in some way integral to the causal factors of the physical world as we know it. Which then brought me into numerous reveries regarding how determinism and freewill could mechanistically co-occur. Though I’ve lost count of the details then read, I remember Bhom’s interpretations of determinism somewhat lacking in this regard—though very aesthetically pleasing in numerous other ways. I’d have to reread things to better understand/remember the De Broglie-Bohm interpretations.

What I was intending to get at is that the experiment appears to fully substantiate that consciousness has some top-down causal role in what physically, presently is. And it does this by accounting for all variables that could lead to alternative conclusions. I, at least, wasn't imaginative enough to find any. [just remembered, there's the multiple world scenario, but spiritual unicorns being on occasion seen by some is to me a far more plausible reality than that of the multiple world scenario]

This is the experiment that got me to change my mind about hidden variables some time ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_choice_quantum_eraser



I’d be impressed to see how people disagree with this experiment’s concluded implications in a manner consistent to the experiment’s methods and data.

I'm intrigued but confused by this. I'm also struggling to understand the ensuing paragraph. — Noble Dust

Seems worth expanding into a longer from, though. — Noble Dust

Thank you for the invitation to do so. Cop out though this may be, I’ll not now expand on the perspective. This, basically, because I get lost for words with which to properly express it in the span of a few paragraphs.

Well, my response may have been a little over-zealous. I was maybe reading a pet peeve of mine into your post. Apologies. — Noble Dust

No need, and no problem. :)

I think I agree with this concept if I'm reading it right, I just use the word objective in a different sense. I think of the physical world as an objectified form of spirit. Which is ironically sort of an opposite use of the term, so maybe not. — Noble Dust

Or maybe not. [edit: maybe your not wrong in thinking of the physical world as an objectified form of spirit; its close to what objective idealism would affirm ... though I've come to see myself more of a neutral monist. Sorry for the ambiguity.] What objectivity is is something we all hold an intuitive sense of ... but different folks, imo, will crystallize this concept in different ways. Its a heavy duty topic of metaphysics in which I obviously have some opinions--not always accordant to others.

So what would bring about that state, evolution? — Noble Dust

No, it's more like that state exists as a future potential that nevertheless predates all being as telos. Evolution by natural selection would be one repercussion of it given a plurality of agencies that each desires to satisfy its own interests. Did I mention that this perspective requires the metaphysics of freewill? So there's degrees of freewill to be closer on equal terms with others (given the limitations of the physical world and one's own biological phenotype, etc.) or to dominate others for one's own personal advantage. Fast forward to competition among various agents of various freewill capacities and it kinda unfolds into Darwinian evolution among life.

Like I said, its a long spiel. And in summative form it can well be less than cogent. (Still working on it by the way.)

What's so sacred about overcoming biases at the altar of Lord Science? I've never understood that. If the entire world shed it's biases and accepted an analytic, rational, scientistic belief system, how would this serve some sort of evolutionary telos? What exactly would be accomplished for mankind? What would mankind accomplish by doing this? I'm not interested in living in a world full of philosophy forum members. :P — Noble Dust

Just so it’s said, I wasn’t intending to be ironical-ish in any way.

I could try to make a better case for what I hypothesized. But this isn’t the place for a well-argued thesis. Still, the gist of this better argument would be that objectivity is not physical reality but the metaphysical Real/Truth … to which we are all subjects of. With the presumption of such telos, physical reality would indeed be objective, but objectivity itself would be equivalent to an existent state of being that could be expresses as perfect selflessness and, thereby, a perfect equality of being. Fairness, impartiality, and an unbiased opened mind/heart all then could be expressed as facets of being closer to this metaphysical state of objectivity—which could also be expressed as perfect innocence. (All this is where at least all the physicalists get … um, uneasy? And I can just see them now stampeding to demolish my little ol’ hypothesis.) And this isn’t to say that daydreams and fantasies are somehow wrong. It’s a long spiel. But, on the other hand, the same metaphysical objectivity as telos would mandate that all life prioritizes the objectivity of the physical world over such things as fantasies. We can fantasize that we can fly like birds but let’s not try to actually fly off of tall things—kind of a thing.

It’s a long complicated perspective, now that I think of it. Still, as a brief summation of this view, I think that what I’ve previously said can still hold. And no, it’s not a variation of physicalism—even though the scientific method of the empirical sciences is endorsed.

Point taken though.

As I've said elsewhere, I'm a sucker for teleology. What more do I need? I need to know the secret to the whole thing; I need to know where this thing is going. That preoccupies my philosophical interests more than anything else. — Noble Dust

Whether evolution does or doesn’t hold a telos would be part and parcel of whether existence does.

But, via induction, I suppose that evolution might hold the telos of “adaptation and acclimation to that which is objective”. And this can be translated into being in accordance to that which is regardless of biases.

Not that every lifeform sits on its ass to ponder what objectivity may be. It takes sapience to do that. It’s just that life that becomes overly discordant to that which is objective tends to no longer be.

Contingent on the hypothesis being valid, this would make objectivity good.

I get what you mean by comfortable pessimism … in some ways reminds me Pink Floyd’s “comfortably numb”.

The active pessimist would be active in trying for a better context; from a better personal life to a better world, as the case might be. This requires some measure of hope in what could be by definition.

The presence of hope in some possible future may then not equate to optimism. But does it still warrant the label of "pessimist”? If so, how so?

---------

BTW, a quote from a guy named George Will that I find fitting:

The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.

A new trend in presentism is to give the present a separate temporal dimension, I call it breadth. [...] What happens is that the present is now not a dimensionless point, but a point with its own dimension. — Metaphysician Undercover

I like that. Rather than a geometric point, a sphere whose volume is in perpetual flux may be a better mapping of the present’s breadth. This fits in well with my current views.

There’s the present of experience. Then there’s the objective present of the physical world—which, as per what relativity expresses, can be more complex than not.

The present of experience, what William James termed the “specious present”, is always in flux. In listening to some sound, say a birdsong, there’s the breadth of time that the duration of song is within the experienced present prior to it becoming experienced memory. We like to quantify time. Nevertheless, in listening to a bird’s chirp (simpler than a melody or a conversation) there’s always an extended duration of the present moment that is not itself quantifiable. It’s not moment 1; stop of moment 1 and start of moment 2; moment 2; etc. It’s a fluid transition without discernable, temporal parts—resulting in a fluid whole that nevertheless is. What’s more, the present moment consists—at least in part—of the same fluid transition to an extended duration applicable to all that is taken in by all senses and introspections. Furthermore, part of what I mean to say by the experienced present moment being in flux is that this extension of the present moment can be wider or narrower—this to certain limitations. For example, an intense stimuli will be brief and acute, often resulting in narrower duration of the experienced present moment relative to what is normal.

So while I find the breadth of the experienced present to be in flux I nevertheless deem it present to awareness; in other words, the experienced moment is to me real and not specious.

The difficulties for me are in going from an acknowledgment that all sentience (and not only sapience) experiences some breadth of the present—this by definition due to their capacity to sense/perceive information—to … well, to physical time (aka objective time). But, again, if each sentient being is its own frame of reference, then objective time would in one way or another unfold due to simultaneity resulting from interactions … similar enough to what relativity endorses.

Eah, a difficult topic. Thanks for the heads up as to the new research in presentism. I’ll do my best to look into it.

My argument is simply that any instance of a present occurrence which we refer to, can, upon analysis, be determined to be a combination of part past and part future. This is also the case when we refer to a present experience, what we refer to is part past and part future. — Metaphysician Undercover

It’s interesting to me that when taken verbatim, the same can be upheld for a metaphysics of presentism. I’m not confusing your metaphysics with that of any presentism. It’s just that for presentism to be consistent, the present will logically contain both past and future.

Here, though, the psyches/sentience of all living beings would be somewhat prioritized, this in all its horrid splendor of complexity. In simple terms, for example, when two or more sentient beings in any way interact, their frame of spatiotemporal reference will synchronize, and this may be further argued to result in the past being fixed, the present being a reality of active interaction, and the future being a realm of possibilities contingent on the fixedness of the past in conjunction with the interactions of the present. And, of course, this can all be constrained by a holistic telos that interacts with all the particulars of any given present.

This is closer to my own current affinities, and not a projection upon what you're saying, of course.
… but the problems are always in the details.

Though, of course, I like many think the significance accorded to Nietzche's views to be spurious, his ideology having served in turn for example to provide a pseudo-authenticity for Neo-Nazi ideology as currently resurected by the extreme right - claiming as it does to constitute an ultimately 'invarient objective good' and using the tired old line to justify ignoring 'conventional' morality, "You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs"! — Robert Lockhart

I want to break this down into what I take to be the bare elements. There’s domination imposed upon sentience by sentience as a good, and then there’s egalitarianism as a good. The first can lead to enslavement and tyranny; the second can lead to peace, love, and understanding … also to democracy [something that to me is vastly different from mob-rule, i.e. mob tyranny].

Within moral relativism, whether domination of equalitarianism is good will be relative to opinion.

Within the framework of there being an objective good, the leading philosophical issue is which of the two equate to what is morally good. Here isn’t the problem of particulars but of what is the universal right/correct/non-fallacious good; otherwise stated, within this framework one of the two “oughts” is an illusory good (that leads to bad in the long term) and the other is real (a good that, where it not for bad intervening, would be a stable good in and of itself).

Both moral relativism and the upholding of an objective good have their own internal difficulties.

Again, though, it’s not in any way contradictory that there be an objective good and that multiple moralities co-occur.

To illustrate via use of a relatively weak argument that occurred in ancient western cultures: one can, as an example, simplistically argue that all bad (e.g., hatred, resentment, envy, etc.) stems from fear of good (i.e., love). It’s a simpleton/laconic argument, I acknowledge. Yet, even in its simplicity, it is noncontradictory to there being an objective good in conjunction with many mores/morals that are opposed to it. More complex arguments can at least potentially be brought up that, nevertheless, address the same pivotal relation between an objective good/right and an objective bad/wrong. (The objective bad/wrong being nothing else than an illusory, or fallacious, good/right).

For emphasis, I’m only arguing that an objective good is not contradictory to a hierarchy of morals.

They don't require a period of time--they are what time is in the first place. Time isn't something separate from changes/motion. — Terrapin Station

The "morphing" is the present. — Terrapin Station

We’re in agreement with this.

I think what most of the others are getting at is that, were the present as we experience it to be real, our non-illusory sense of the present would not of itself resolve the many problems in physics regarding the nature of time.

This can be viewed in parallel to Zeno’s paradoxes: I choose to believe there’s something wrong with the conceptual premises of the paradoxes rather than choosing to believe that motion/change is itself a nonreality. This, though, doesn’t in itself resolve Zeno’s paradoxes … and the premises used for the paradox are common to measurements/maths of space and time; e.g. geometric points, lines, etc.

I thought nature/reality used mathematics like computers use code. It would seem silly to think the mathematics is fundamental and reality is then built on top of it because where would it exist "fundamentally"? — intrapersona

Hey, I agree. But to some reality pretty much is equivalent to mathematics, thereby making nature the product of maths. For such, maths—or at least the quantity they address—becomes of itself a monistic substance of sorts, encapsulating both quantity and quality without exception. And it’s an old appraisal of reality: Pythagoras was the first recorded person affirming it, me thinks, and stands in contrast in many ways to Heraclitus (this being the guy who spewed mystical stuff about Logos).

This sounds similar to the concept of universals and how they have some existence outside of the concepts that "the form" is inhabiting in reality. IE "the perfect triangle exist abstractly even though there are no perfect triangles in reality" I call bs on that. — intrapersona

Animals exist in reality—and they’re distinct from plants in reality as well. Yet their both abstractions and universals; I say this while denouncing there being any such thing as a perfect form of either. Animals include particulars such as real cats and dogs. But cats and dogs are abstract universals as well. It’s only when one addresses a particular physical instantiation of an animal that you’re then addressing something concrete that isn’t a universal. But now, you’ve lost sight of what an animal is: a bird, a fish, an ant, a whale, a nematode, and even a sponge—all these are animals but none in its concrete presence establishes the reality of what an animal is. Yes, the universal of animal can hold relatively fuzzy borders to us epistemologically, but these borders become distinct when distinguished from the universal of plants. And again, both animals and plants are ontic--this, in part, via all their particular physical instantiations, none of which can on its own equate to the universal of “animal” or "plant".

Our abstraction of "animal" is the concept; the reality of animal-ity is the universal that exists independently of our concepts.

I’m anticipating disagreements. But I’m still upholding that universals are not bs. The headaches, btw, start only once you acknowledge their presence 8-) … this concerning issues of what governs what. It’s like an age old problem in anthropology: does culture govern people, vice versa, or both. It’s when you accept that it’s both that you venture into the perils of uncharted territory.

As to geometric forms, they’re not my foremost interest. Like up and down and the geometric expression of this dimension, I acknowledge that they make sense as universals as well. But I’d rather learn of your take on animals and plants being, or not being, real universals of which we hold epistemological understandings of. (Using what I said above; without use of Platonic forms as typically interpreted.)

At any rate, though they may seem similar—the idea of maths as monistic substance and the idea of universals—universals can well occur without need to be derived from a foundation of maths. … I so argue.

1. What determines a measurement? Even molecules can exhibit the same behavior that electrons and photons do in the double-slit experiments. — Marchesk

Even proteins (large molecules). So in the normal functions of a cell, some of its microscopically observable parts can hold particle-wave duality when on their own. But can the cell still be a functioning whole if its molecular parts do not pertain to a stable macro-reality? When looking through a microscope at microscopic life we all say “no”. Beats me how this happens; however, given what we know of QM and bio, it nevertheless does: macro-level reality as we know it becomes stabilized at the level of microscopic life--or, if one prefers, microscopic sentience.

4. Do normal, macro-scale objects exist when we're not "looking"? I recall reading that Bohr and Einstein debated whether the moon was still there when they turned their backs. Bohr, being the champion of the Copenhagen Interpretation, argued it was just a range of possible states. — Marchesk

This then is part of the stable macro-reality that, as aforementioned, somehow gets stabilized at the level of microscopic life. The question posed might be more applicable to the physics of multiple worlds than to the issue of QM.

I’ll for now skip my opinions on the other questions (not that I have an opinion for all of them).

A question I would like to clear up is this. Does the Universe and the physical laws of physics happen because of math of QM or does the mathematics of QM just describe the behavior? — Mike

If it’s of help, another way of asking this: Is nature the language of maths or are maths a language of nature.

Science can’t answer this one. Neither can mathematics. But I like your question. Either answer, though, can result in quantity holding limitations upon what can be.

Myself, I’m of the opinion that maths are one of the many languages of nature. Nature’s Logos as some used to call it. Stated otherwise, I don’t uphold that maths are foundational to reality. For a more down to earth example, maths can quantify and measure music so that computers can produce music, but the vibe/soul/meaning/etc. of music (often resultant of indistinguishable variations that together harmonize into an expressive whole) can never be mathematically identified, even in principle. This, however, isn’t to say that others won't boisterously laugh at what I've just said via their opposite convictions. I agree with Rich, though: the issue is one of metaphysics.

OK, before we go down the terrorism route, by some of the argument so far presented all acts of altruism then belong to the DSM (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).

That soldier who jumped on a grenade to save his fellows? An insane moron! I, on the other hand, shall live the good, virtuous life by waiting for one of those crazies to jump on the grenade before we all explode.

That guy that ran into a burning building to save another’s life at risk of his own … an insane moron!
A list can be built but it will get repetitive.

You’ll notice that this same “insanity gene” for altruism is found in many species of social animals … from meerkats, to canids, to porpoises, to primates. But it takes humankind to have discovered the truth: caring for another at expense of one’s own life in times of peril is an abomination of ethics by definition.

darth, excuse my sarcasm to a well intending OP. It’s just that the mindset I’ve just expressed is proliferating in my neck of the woods, and I’m adverse to it.

On the other hand, for those that get sickened by anything that they can call “theistic belief”: there’s a science that is in part devoted to explaining why an individual’s life is less valuable then the group to which the individual belongs: e.g., kin selection plays a part in this explanation, although it cannot account for altruism toward strangers (among other things).

In sum, no, the preservation of one’s own physical life is not an invariant determination of what is virtuous. And even to a non-base hedonist, there can be pleasure in having helped another at the detriment of one’s own life.

Not really. It makes possibility prior to actuality. And if you then give pure possibility a name like Apeiron, you seem to be pointing to a quality - and saying I count just one of these.

That's why Plotinus did call his version "the one". The quality was named after its quantity, is seeming it's most essential characteristic to him - the undivided that logically must stand at the end of a trail of divisions. — apokrisis

But now we’re addressing different species of thought, regardless of how analogous they might be in their structures.

The One is termed so due to being a perfect unity of being. You know, here we could revel in labels all we want. A rose is still a rose by any other name. The One, as clearly presented by Plotinus, was unlimited quality. Being unlimited, it was non-quantity. For instance, a different label for “The One” was “The Good”. This qualitative property, however, currently doesn’t seem to fit into you’re system’s modeling of the Apeiron.

Trust me, I’d really like to discover that I’m wrong about this just affirmed belief of mine—such that the Apeiron can also be equated with “the good”.

But it does mean that we can treat the Apeiron as a quality which we know how to quantify. — apokrisis

I’m for now presuming we’re on the same page in this regard: It’s there because we can point to it as abstraction via use of our reasoning as a pointing instrument. It’s that, and not other than that which it is. It therefore holds discernable identity. To us.

The apparent disagreement resides in this:

You seem to want to say it is known because some of its properties are known. Among these being that quality and quantity emerge from it.

I disagree by upholding that what the Apeiron is can only be unknowable, even when specified mathematically by the system of metaphysics you uphold. Again, within your system, the Apeiron is utterly other than what we are as existent beings. This though we are all, in some way, aspects of the Apeiron. It is, and is for the reasons given qualitatively different from any quality we can be aware of. Because it is non-quantity, however, no quantitative resemblance between it and that which is resultant of it can be made.

These conclusion, again, makes quality metaphysically prior to quantity.

Measurement is experience. But it grows in rational sophistication as we go from the firstness of naming some brute quality - exclaiming "I see red" - to the thirdness of some habit like reading numbers off the dial of an instrument. — apokrisis

In referent to this and to other previous comments concerning quantity and quality:

I agree that quantity and quality co-occur with domains of space and time—by which I here intend realms of distance and duration. And what you say of aesthetics to me makes sense; otherwise we’d be lost in opinions of faith where anything goes.

I would first like to be clear by emphasizing the aforementioned: imo, quality and quantity is not an either-or dichotomy but a necessary conjunction of anything that holds duration and closeness/furtherance. This in some ways can be comparable to the dyad of up and down.

Yet there remains for me the issue of metaphysical priority. I’d like to import into the conversation what you’ve termed the apeiron. If the apeiron is perfect symmetry, then it—in and of itself--would by definition be a non-quantity. It would thereby also be immeasurable. Despite this, it would yet be qualitatively different than anything non-symmetrical. As I understand it, to the extent that symmetry occurs within space and time, this same non-quantitative quality would also be present within realms of existence.

There may be disagreements with the aforementioned. If, however, there’s general agreement:

There then occur some aspects of existence that remain immeasurable. At the very least, the proposed finale which you term the apeiron would itself be something which holds presence (not to be confused with the presence held by physical objects) while not being quantifiable in and of itself.

I address all this in my belief that quality holds metaphysical priority over quantity--and therefore that some quality is immeasurable. But, as I’ve previously emphasized, this is not arguing that quantity’s importance is diminished within realms of space and time. It’s akin to arguing that meaning is primary to language, though its due to language that we can entertain the meanings which we entertain.

No… The experiential content of my present sensations is incorrigible. — lambda

I’m on board with this position. Although one has to grant that once it is turned into a proposition—rather than it being direct experience—it can then become corrigible, depending on the proposition held and its expression. It’s when our evolved ape-minds then start pricking and poking at the whys and hows.

For instance, the issue of direct experience gets tricky when we start to appraise our sensations of agency via narrative. Our sensation of agency easily translates into our holding of some top-down causal ability over our own bodies and, for example, in how we interact with others.

This to me is the zenith of conflict between our sensations and our cognitions of which metaphysical reality is true relative to what is ontic: our sensation of having freewill verses our mainstream conceptual constructs that no such thing is possible. Unless I’m wrong, it where the “illusion” motif stems from as regards what we experience.

As far as I’m aware, moral relativism is the view that moral values are hierarchical rather than absolute — Robert Lockhart

There is nothing contradictory between a hierarchy of morals and there being an invariant, objective good. Most everything else in your comments is then superfluous to the issue. It can all go hand in hand with the reality of an objective good.

Think of it this way, to say that “might makes right” is not the correct description of metaphysical reality is not to deny that power-games are an integral staple of existence. But that’s rather obvious, isn’t it?

The same way I think we have a tendency to perceive our feeling as being about neutral when we are confortable, negative when we feel more suffering and positif when we feel less suffering. — Raphi

Here’s a different hypothesis: we suffer when we don’t get out way.

In accordance with the word’s etymology, to suffer is to carry (a load), to be burdened by something. From this vantage, physical pain is different from suffering: e.g. a marathon runner in physical pain while about to be first at the finish line will not be unhappy but happy; his/her burden of physical exhaustion will be very outflanked by his/her getting his/her way, so to speak.

Thus interpreted, for suffering to occur then mandates a different baseline property of the psyche: the expectation of things turning out the way we plan, anticipate, intend, or desire—and the being pleased by (pleasure of) this outcome. In other words, to be lucky or fortunate, or to have happenstance be on your side: to be happy and thereby feel happy. In this view, the issue becomes converse to that which you’ve hypothesized. For there can be no suffering without a baseline impetus for happiness (as just addressed).

This isn’t to deny the complexity of the human psyche: conscious and unconscious desires/expectations fluidly converge, as one example. But if we’re talking about the pith of what is foundational to life, I’ll go with the impetus for happiness (however evolved or unevolved it might be relative to our human experience of it).

On the surface, it seems implausible that a consciousness could only experience different variation of suffering, but you have to take for account that our brain is also, according to me, really good to entertain illusions, making itself believe that life is more than just suffering. — Raphi

This reminds me of another glass-is-half-empty dictum: life, from the moment of birth, is a process of dying. As there’s something odd about this perceptive—it gives you the intuitive feeling that there’s a contradiction there somewhere—so too with the perspective that the baseline of life is suffering. I’m not a merry-go-lucky optimist, by the way. More a realist of sorts.

I wonder if it is clear that possession is founded on and an increment of detachment? — unenlightened

Didn’t at the time have anything significant to add to this. But I don’t want it to slip by without complementing it some.

There’s a vast difference in belongingness (yes, it’s a word) between that which is owned and that which one adheres into. Pets make for an easy example: “my pet” can be something owned like any other disposable commodity with no intrinsic value to yourself (a possession; something you are sovereign over while detached from) or can be a being that one in some psychological way adheres into as a fellow being: something far harder to philosophically describe but typically addressed in terms of “love”. Less comfortable is human romantic relations; but the same dynamics always apply: e.g., degrees of having the other as a trophy-prizes one is detached from and flaunts to others for social capital (a possession), for example, verse degrees of having the other person as someone you adhere into as a self (a wholly different kind of belonging than that of possession; here, when the other suffers, you suffer). Both are still addressed by “my girlfriend/boyfriend” or “my wife/husband”. (And yes, for us more aged folk, sometimes as “my pet”.)

I’m very much in agreement with you that possession results due to detachment from the other … and that detachment results in a lack of caring.

I wouldn't say that wondering how the golden rule could even exist at all "standing on its own" would be tangential to the issue of whether it stands on its own, but okay. — Terrapin Station

Regarding this and a few subsequent comments, when addressed biologically, the sense of fairness would be something inherited through genotype. The reason I’m avoiding questions such as “where would it be located” is because it’s located in psychological (and not strictly physiological) phenotype. And this is a hefty topic, not too much unlike asking, “where is that emotion located?” (e.g., to dichotomize between conscious and unconscious locations would be a misplaced dichotomy).

Aside from my comments above, this argument doesn't hold water. Say that a sense of fairness is unconscious, that it's innately part of our biological makeup. Well, there can be an individual who has physiological abnormalities so that they have no such unconscious sense as part of that individual's biological makeup. Thus, the sense of fairness is still relative to individuals. It's present in the individuals who have it, and not present otherwise. — Terrapin Station

Genetic abnormalities do complicate matters, granted, and in this view the issue is no longer white & black on either side. But say there is a person birthed devoid of capacity to sense physiological pain. I still would say that this capacity is nevertheless a universal human trait. You can argue that it isn’t. At the end of the day, though, do you perpetually question whether the individually person next to you is so endowed with this capacity?

It can get complicated in other ways as well: one can lose all sense of empathy as an adult due to horrendous experiences as a child; preadolescent bullies most always have a bad time at home, though most still hold onto some empathy.

Yet the same question can be brought up: do we as agents originate the reality of the Golden Rule individually and communally in manners in which the Golden Rule could fully vanish among the morality of people were all people to so will?

Ability to accomplish what? And you're obviously equivocating here, as you were talking about power in the context of governments and societies and "might is right." — Terrapin Station

Anything. Just checked, this definition is accordant to definition 1.1 on Wiktionary--“ability to affect or influence”--as well as definition 1.2: “control or coercion” [emphasis on the “or”].

No equivocation on my part. Moral relativism addresses morality which is due to individual(s)’ ability to affect, influence, control, or coerce others (in this case, regarding that which is moral) – hence, ethics which is there due to power.

Then: the might (a term synonymous with power) to affect, influence, control, or coerce others makes right. More briefly: might makes right.
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Even if you were to argue that it's impossible to have a human with abnormal physiology, so that they have no sense of fairness, and necessarily, all humans have the sense, it would still be relative to humans, since it's not a part of rocks, say. — Terrapin Station

Yes, as I’ve already stated. It would then be a human universal.

No--how could it "stand on its own" where it's "indifferent" to what people think etc. about it? How could it even exist at all in that case? Where would it be located? What would it be a property of? — Terrapin Station

All valid questions, but tangential to whether or not the Golden Rule stands on its own or is a product of agency so willing it to be (see below). Let’s not sidetrack the main issue.

That's not "indifferent" to what anyone thinks, however. Stalinism would be declared "corrupt" due to comparison to the Golden Rule to someone who feels that the golden rule is a normative basis for ethical judgment. So that's dependent on what someone thinks. — Terrapin Station

One does not need to have a formalized theory of the Golden Rule for it to be innately present, such as instincts are. To say otherwise would be to say that there can be no sense of fairness devoid of there being cognition of what fairness implies. A child playing in the school yard doesn’t need to know what the abstract concept of fairness is—to have thought of fairness—in order to sense that it is unfair to be bullied or to bully, for example.

Some social lesser animals have a sense of fairness, aka the Golden Rule, and they don’t hold it due to thought concerning what the concept of fairness entails.

So no. Feeling something is not equivalent to thinking something. Nothing new in this. Do we will those basic feelings of fairness into being? … is the question here addressed to moral relativists. This is contrasted to those basic feeling of fairness being part of our inherent biological makeup as humans, which would make the foundations of ethics no longer morally relative.

<sigh> No, that doesn't work, because moral relativism doesn't amount to saying that moral judgments "originate with power." — Terrapin Station

< gees > power is ability to accomplish; it is therefore what agency entails; moral relativism requires agency to originate that which is ethical—for, otherwise, that which is ethical would be in manners independent of/indifferent of what agency wills; therefore, if it isn’t originated by agency/power it isn’t encapsulated by moral relativism. < can we stop with the sighs and such; rational arguments welcomed >

So it neither originates with a social decree nor is it independent of what various people have to say about it. — Terrapin Station

I’ll take a leap and proclaim we’re using “independent of” in different ways. You understand it in terms of “severed from” and I understand it in terms of “indifferent to”. Hence, for me, the Golden Rule isn’t severed from people but is stands in ways indifferent to people’s rationalized opinions.

If it doesn’t originate with power so willing it as a right—which shouldn’t be confused with powers defending it against corruption or the like—then doesn’t it stand on its own as a right in manners indifferent to what people may will, say, or think about it?

In more concrete terms, Gandhi defended the Golden Rule; Stalinism went against it even while mimicking its motto of comradeship. Was the Golden Rule then unethical during Stalinism? If so, then it too originates with the dictums of power—and, again, I here disagree. However, if Stalinism can be declared corrupt only due to comparison to the Golden Rule (and its implications), then the Golden Rule, again, stands regardless of what authority wills—be it authority of individuals or of the masses.

In short, if it doesn’t originate with power, then the Golden Rule isn’t an aspect of moral relativism.

But do you understand that no one is saying that it's right because of mass appeal or because of legislation? — Terrapin Station

Hold on there, the Golden Rule is either there due to some power(s) so decreeing it to be right or, else, it stands on its own regardless of what various powers have to say about it. You can argue that it’s relative to human nature, but then it would no longer be an issue of moral relativism. This because it becomes again conjoined to the issue of objective universals.

By the way, I’m not denying that many go with the flow of whatever is popular for the sake of their own immediate stability of being. This conversation though concerns whether there is anything objective about ethics.