What is non-dualism ?

Non-dualism represents the absence of a distinction that seperates reality into subject-object, appearance-thing in itself, becoming-being, nothingness-somethingness, necessity-contingency etc. In short, binary distinctions created by our langauges and thoughts dissappear.

Who are we from the non-dual perspective ?

Brahman, who is pure consciousness. — Sirius

I'm wanting to explore a technicality and see how, or if, it resonates. (FYI, this correlates with parts of something I'm currently working on.)

In any such non-dualistic ontology, there is a subtlety to reality when philosophically addressed: In the world as is, because there are dualities we as conscious beings are aware of - to include that between any I-ness / ego and what is relative to it other - there will then necessarily occur a duality between a) the non-duality which is real (else, the ultimate reality) and which is in the OP termed Brahman and b) (what in the same sense of ultimate reality would be) illusions of duality, hence illusions of separateness, of a subject-object dichotomy, and so forth (what in Hinduism is specified as Maya). In ultimate reality, this being what is real from the vantage of Brahman, then all I-ness is an aspect of Maya. Yet in what might be termed mundane, or profane, reality, the occurrence of I-ness as other than that which it is not is about as stable a concrete fact as they come.

Point being, in any non-dualistic ontology, there is an almost but not quite paradox: there necessarily occurs a duality between two fundamental essences (so termed to avoid all connotations associated with the term "substance"): one ultimately real - here, the Brahman, aka pure consciousness per se - and one ultimately illusory: all that is not the Brahman, to include both the mind and matter which consciousness apprehends, or witnesses, and is constrained by.

Such an ontology, by my current reckoning, could then be properly classified either as a) a form of idealism, for all that occurs, both pure consciousness and all that it is conscious of (this being both mind and matter), can here be deemed psychical in nature or, else, as b) a form of neutral monism, for here both mind and matter equally pertain to that fundamental essence which is non-Brahman, thereby posing no ontological dualism between apprehended mind and apprehended matter but, instead, only a property dualism of the very same essence (which, again, would in a non-dualistic ontology be ultimately illusory in whole ... although nevertheless quite real in a mundane sense of what is real); an illusory essence of both mind and matter which, as essence, is itself dependent on the non-illusory essence, hence, in the OP's terminology, on the Brahman.

To summarize, unless I'm getting something wrong here, any non-dualistic ontology regarding the world as is will then necessarily consist of a duality between two fundamental essences: one ultimately real and non-dualistic that is neither mind nor matter but the pure consciousness aware of both, and one ultimately illusory that is itself via different properties both mental stuff (thoughts, ideas, imaginings, etc) and material stuff (physicality).

To be even more laconic about things: a non-dualistic ontology, in order to be valid within the world as it is currently known, can only consist of a duality of fundamental essences: one real, and one illusory.

It seems that for AGI to join us, not only does it require some form of "reiterative automaticity" - that is to say, to spontaneously rewrite, live/in the present moment, its own predictive algorithms independent of us, but that such algorithms must be further compressed until they no longer require googols of data but the same or less data than a typical human in order to reason. — Benj96

Seems reasonable.

The second thing is how do we give it both "an objective" but also "free auto-self-augementation" in order to reason. — Benj96

The “free auto-self-augmentation” to me so far translates into a literal free will to pursue closer proximity to whatever objective it, the AGI, might choose to progress toward. So, AGIs would then need to be programed with different objectives, i.e. goals to actualize, which the AGI would then be metaphysically free to choose among—this in terms of which objective to attempt to actualize and, thereby, which heuristics pertaining to itself to augment in its attempts.

That said, we as a humanity still don’t agree on whether free will is a real possibility.

Yet, given that I uphold the reality of freely willed choices, while AGI gaining a free will capacity is to me not impossibility, how an AGI might be made into a freely willing agency that can thereby autonomously choose between objectives is, to at least me, currently incomprehensible. And if there were to be no free will, then I don’t get how a “free auto-self-augmentation” in AI can ever be implemented. In this case, the AGI’s choices would all be fully predetermined by the developed programing.

And curiously, could that be the difference between something that feels/experiences and something that is lifeless, programmed and instructed? — Benj96

I take this to be the general case (here granting different magnitudes of free will capacity; e.g., an adult chimp’s capacity of free will being far less than that of the average adult human’s).

p.s., While I don't mean to turn the thread into yet another discussion regarding the possibility of free will, I honestly don't find any other way of frankly addressing the issue in the OP.

My question came about because of the use of the word 'confidence', which I had laid out in a different context earlier, as an alternative to faith. — Tom Storm

Sorry. I missed that connection.

The only time I use the word faith in conversation is to describe someone's religious views. — Tom Storm

OK, but, as you well know, you are not the only English user of that word. Other people do use it in wider contexts than just the religious, even if you might consider such usage “inaccurate”.

I try to avoid using this word to describe quotidian matters. — Tom Storm

I don't know. Religious matters can well be quotidian (i.e., commonplace and everyday) in certain populaces, which seems to fully sidestep the distinction you're trying to make. For instance:

Especially in relation to all the radical relativism discussions that have been going about, that 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 is upheld by some as sometimes being valid and true—everyday/commonplace and so quotidian though this issue of the Trinity might be for many—seems nevertheless significant to this discussion regarding types of faith. Namely, is the presented summation valid and true on account of it being socially constructed by those who have faith in its so being—this as radical relativism would have it—thereby making this arithmetic justifiable? Or would this be an article of religious faith that is reason-impervious regarding matters of fact and thereby wrongheaded—quotidian though it is in most aspects of western cultures?

So faith is absolute confidence? But confidence need not be absolute? — TiredThinker

How did you arrive at that? Isn't faith certainty? — Tom Storm

If @TiredThinker had something else in mind, he can of course provide a different answer. For my part, though:

Certainty comes in different degrees of strength—e.g., from being fairly certain to being extremely certain—and so it need not be absolute, by which I here understand “unshakable” and “complete”.

Faith, however, is unshakable and complete, and so it is more than mere psychological certainty. It is unshakable psychological certainty. Via the dichotomy I’ve just expressed in my last post, this either because one’s logically consistent justifications upon which one’s faith rests do not warrant one’s questioning one’s own faith, or, otherwise, because one is dogmatic about one’s faith in manners impervious to any reasoning evidencing it erroneous.

As an example of the first, I personally have full-fledged faith that solipsism is false precisely because this a) is an unshakable belief/certainty which I hold despite not having any infallible proof for it and b) because it is fully in-line with the body of all justified beliefs which I hold such that no contradictions unfold by my holding this unshakable belief/certainty. Here, the stated faith remains for me unshakable until the time contradictions in my holding this faith arise.

As an example of the second, were someone to have faith that the pink elephant they saw in their own house when they were drunk actually exists (rather than being a figment of their imagination) despite all reasoned arguments to the contrary (e.g., the house doorways needing to be damaged were an elephant to walk through the house from room to room), then this would be one example of a logic-impervious unshakable belief/certainty. Here, this faith remains unshakable regardless of the contradictions that might or else do arise.

But both will be faith in that they are unshakable and complete certainties regarding facts for which no proof exists.

So faith is absolute confidence? But confidence need not be absolute?

I understand confidence in plausible things happening, but religion asks people to have confidence in things that quite possibly never happened before. — TiredThinker

Here's what will likely be a controversial post for many regarding the issue of faith.

All which follows will assume that “faith” is here interpreted to signify “one’s firm, or else complete, belief in something for which one has no proof”:

To my mind there is first and foremost an umbrella dichotomy between these two types of faith: a) faith in that which directly contradicts the basic logical reasoning which one otherwise upholds and a) faith in that which doesn’t do this.

An example of (a): in certain cases, 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 is valid and true, i.e. conforms to that which is real (this being the typical interpretation of the Christian Trinity)

Firm belief in a plethora of common sense tenets for which there is no proof will be a vivid example of the second type of faith: from faith that what we experience as time and change is not fully illusory, to faith that the sun will once again rise tomorrow (rather than the planet being destroyed by a meteor or an alien laser beam in the meantime), to faith in what is technically termed free will and the praise and blame this allows for, to faith that everyone else is not a p-zombie, to faith that the goodness which humanity has so far imperfectly exhibited with not all go down the drain in the blink of an eye, and so on and so forth (examples could get far more outrageous in terms of things which typical common sense denounces but for which one holds no proof of so being erroneous).

For a good number of people, questioning (b) type faith will be just as reflexively taboo as questioning (a) type faith.

Also, those who proclaim to not live their lives via any faith whatsoever—this as faith is defined above—will, for example, either not hold firm belief in others not being p-zombies (this being commonly considered a sigh of less than optimal mental health) or, otherwise, will profess to hold proof that others are not p-zombies (this being bullshit, or else the proof could be readily shared with all others upon request).

Going by the just expressed, all sane people will to some extent live their lives via faith (irrespective of whether it is consciously recognized or else strictly unconsciously maintained), faith which is often enough required to engage in life-sustaining actions and reactions. The principal difference, again, being that some live their lives by reason supported, and thereby justifiable, faith (this being faith-type (b)) while others will uphold their faith in manners contradicted by the very reasoning they otherwise support (this being faith-type (a)).

Though a controversial stipulation for some, to my mind, none of this should be in any way surprising to any fallibilist out there. (For one thing, in honest fallibilism, there is no definitive proof for anything, for nothing epistemological is infallible. But this does not preclude firm, or else complete, belief in fallible conclusions—conclusion for which there thereby is no proof—this just in case these conclusions are consistently justified by reasoning such that they cohere into one’s total body of justifications without any contradictions.)

Quantity only exists in Nature because we displace Nature with quantity, etc. Think of quantity without reference to any form of representation, but on its own, in its allegedly pure and essential form as it supposedly inhabits Reality. You can't, that's absurd, right? The very thinking utilizes representations. Then why do we shy away from acknowledging that our uniquely human Conscious experiences are structured by representations and as such, they are not ultimately Real? — ENOAH

I should start with the observation that we don't share the same ontological models of reality. That mentioned, I think of it this way when I put my ontological/metaphysical cap on:

If there happens to be two or more coexistent psyches, then quantity necessarily is existentially in the cosmos in an objective manner: for here there factually co-occur a plurality of psyches (if absolutely nothing else). If, on the other hand, there is no quantity in reality, then this will entail the fact that there is no plurality of coexistent psyches: with this directly resulting in solipsism - wherein the one solipsist by unexplained means "fictionalizes" everything, quantity very much included. I in no way uphold the possibility of solipsism - though I'm not here to argue this out. Because I don't, I then conclude that it is logically impossible for quantity to be illusory, or fictional - again, this because at the bare minimum a plurality of psyches co-occur.

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I'll also add that, as I so far interpret them at least, representations are such precisely because they re-present that which is present. Without that which is present, no representations could obtain.

Getting back to the thread's topic, our representations of present quantities might well be deemed mental constructs, but the quantities themselves (which our representations re-present) are not (unless one starts entertaining notions such as that of objective idealism wherein everything is mind stuff, but even here quantity would yet be a staple aspect of the universal effete mind ... which is not the fully localized and active minds that you and I are, individual active minds which represent portions of this same universal effete mind which all coexistent active minds share).

How many gods, or deities are there on the head of a pin. — Punshhh

My late night answer: This will in large part depend on whether these incorporeal beings are zero dimensional; and to a far lesser extent, on the size of the pin ... of course.

:razz:

If you replaced the word math, with symbols, or representations, would the above also hold true for you? — ENOAH

As I tried to explain, to my thinking quantity can only be represented via math - such that at the very least rudimentary math is a representation of quantity (I should add, and its relations). Because of this, my answer will be "yes".

But more questions follow: "is math only in us? If so, where does it come from? What causes it?"

I guess this would probably depend on your views on perception. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Hmm, I find the issue more intimately entwined with whether or not quantity in fact occurs within the cosmos. I find the stipulation that it does not hard to even fathom, much less entertain. But if quantity does occur within the cosmos, then the means of addressing this quantity in the cosmos is, and can only be, what we term maths. Maths is a language with quantity as its referent. No quantity, no maths.

It is only when we humans get into axiomatized maths that maths can be deemed to become fully relative to the axioms we humans concoct.

No lesser animal has a clue about axiomatized maths, but some lesser animals can and do engage in rudimentary maths just fine; again, with quantity as their referent.

Hence, to my mind, the only way of appraising all maths as strictly within us and thus as having nothing to do with the quote unquote "real world" is by appraising the "real world" to be fully devoid of quantity.

While writing this post I was touching my body in order to stimulate — not in a weird way — thoughts about the topic. — Lionino

:grin: Yes, OK. Understandable.

BTW. not that I’m saying this is what you were getting at but, I had a hunch this topic might inadvertently awaken thoughts of touching oneself in sexually sensual manners for some out there … just want to mention that, in itself, there’s nothing weird about it :razz: … it’s been evidenced healthy even.

Let's say our mind is indeed immaterial, being immaterial, it does not extend in space, so we can metaphorically say it has 0 dimensions. As soon as we reflect upon the experience of touch, it seems that experience is spatially extended. Being experience an attribute of the substance we call mind, it would be reasonable to conclude the initial assumption is wrong, and that the mind does extend in space (even if it is still immaterial perhaps). — Lionino

As to mind and perception, I find myself agreeing with the latter sentence. You’re focusing on physiological perceptions via the physiological senses; still, the same issue of spatial extensions will also be found in imaginations which incorporate imagined senses of perception: imagined sights via the mind’s eyes, imagined sounds via the mind’s ears, imagined tactile feels via the mind’s skin, if not all other senses as well. I get that not everyone can easily imagine things, but some are quite apt at it. All these imaginings will require spatial distances of delimitation to that which is being imagined. And since imaginings are purely mental, this then points to mind necessarily being extensional when in any way engaging in, at the very least, willful imaginings.

So, from where I stand, yes, the Cartesian notion of res cogitans can often be, if it is not always also, res extensa. This to my mind makes the Cartesian distinction between mind and matter fruitless, to say the least.

That addressed, I would however express that I nevertheless find it reasonable to affirm that consciousness (the first-person point of awareness which we all are and which apprehends givens: understandings, concepts, physiological percepts, and imaginings, among other things) could be of itself construed as zero-dimensional. This though the mind (of which it is consciously aware of and also those portions which remain unconscious relative to itself) by which consciousness can be said to be enveloped can at times be extensional, if not always so being.

So if an argument is to be made for 0D, I so far don't find it possible that it is the mind which is 0D (the mind again consisting of things such as percepts, concepts, etc.; in short, of cogitations one is aware of) but I do find it possible to interpret the consciousness/awareness which is aware of both its own mind/cogitations and of the external world as being, of itself, zero dimensional.

It can be upheld that whereas passions in themselves always addressed ends (passions always being in some way wants and that wanted being the end pursued - javra

I am not sure about this. The "passions" are generally associated with emotion, and I am not sure these always have "ends". Consider being depressed or angry; is there necessarily an "end" here? Oftentimes the passions seem so problematic precisely because we cannot identify ends that would relieve/gratify them. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Here evidencing that this is always true would be difficult at best. So I wont engage in such arguments. That said, it is however not impossible or inconsistent that all passions, or emotions, are contingent on agencies of mind such that some of these passions are unconsciously produced by unconscious agencies of mind; this so that these either consciously or unconsciously produced emotions are all intentional, hence purposive, and hence goal oriented—this even if one is not consciously aware of their particular goals. As with most other emotions, both depression (though I’m not clear if depression qualifies as an emotion) and anger are broad and imprecisely defined umbrella terms for a wide enough range of possible experiences. Here speculatively addressed, some depressions might be one’s unconsciousness’s way of telling one that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way one is operating, such that their possible aim is a fundamental change in one's modus operandi. On the other hand, some forms of anger which consist of animosity and an urge to harm will then hold as their aim the intent that that which one holds animosity toward is to be harmed. But I grant these presented possibilities in no way evidences the goals here speculated upon, much less that it is always true that passions are goal-oriented.

[reason] will always strictly be a means toward the ends pursued—including potentially those ends of discerning what is true - javra

Again, I am not sure if this is always true. Is intuiting or understanding something we have not set out to understand an end or desire? It seems like understanding and knowledge sometimes come upon us "out of the blue," not as the end of some process, and yet these seem bound up in reason. — Count Timothy von Icarus

These too (intuitions and eureka understandings) can be suggested to be resultant from unconscious agencies of mind—which, again, would here unconsciously reason so as to optimally arrive at the goals unconsciously pursued. But again, arguing that this is the case is a difficult challenge, and so I will not here engage in it.

That the desire for what is truly good and true is different from the desire for other ends is precisely Plato's point. No other desire is capable of shaping the other desires in the same way. No other end might be seen as "the end of ends." The distinction is a key point for our anthropology. Are all things with ends the same "sort of thing," or is this a bad way to classify them? I would tend to agree with the latter. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I fully agree with this statement and that not all desires are of the same kind. I would go so far as to express that some subordinate desires are wrong/incorrect in that they are unable to satisfy one’s predominant desire(s) or else right/correct in that they are so able to satisfy. That, in Platonic terms, wrong desires (given their context, etc.) prevent one from approaching the Good whereas right desires (given their context, etc.) facilitate one’s approaching the Good. And that it is only via reasoning one can thereby differentiate between good and bad desires.

But I do have difficulties with this:

So, the desires of reason don't seem to be "just another desire" that persons have, but rather key to the definition of persons, making it play an entirely different role in philosophical anthropology. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Did you by the bolded text intend “desires for reason”? If not, what do you intend by saying that reason per se holds its own desires (i.e., the desires of reason)? I ask because this is so far unintelligible to me: to me it so far seems to entail that reasoning per se holds its own agency of being ... such that, for one example, reasoning can choose between the desires it holds.

the simple fact that we can tell where we are being touched just by feeling it hints that our mind has extensionality (it is not a substance without dimensions, 0D). It is not just that the mind has the idea of extension within it and that some interaction with our organs causes some idea of spatial localisation¹, but that experience itself can be located with coordinates x,y,z — we can isolate sight and smell and hearing to operations or projections of our 0D mind, but we can't do that with touch. — Lionino

But I think that touch goes even beyond. When we hear something at our left or our right, we simply hear it, and that sound invokes the idea of left or right, the experience does feel like it is happening within your brain; but when it comes to touch, we can tell the actual experience is not in our brain but all over our body. Maybe that makes sense. — Lionino

I think it makes a lot of sense. I’ll complement what you’ve written by adding that via vision, for example, our body is other relative to us as first-person points of view (i.e., as conscious minds) that seem to be affixed to this perceptual other via the location of our eyes. It is only via touch that we as first-person points of view—i.e. as consciously aware beings—permeate throughout and are, as such, fully unified with our own bodies in an indisputable manner: such that we are here defined as that awareness which touches and anything we touch becomes other relative to us, thereby delimitating us as bodies (yes, this does get complicated by the touching of one’s own body, but the relation between subject of awareness being that which touches and its objects of awareness being that which is touched remains unchanged).

Point being, only via touch do we hold immediate awareness of us conscious minds being unified with our physiological bodies via which we then experience otherness; in all other exteroceptive senses—sight, smell, and sound, included—we as conscious minds experience our own bodies as an object of awareness, i.e. as other, that then is automatically inferred to be perceptual experiences of one own physiological self.

I’m not certain we could isolate sight, smell, sound, as occurring within a 0D mind as I interpret you describing (e.g., if sight is deemed to be a strictly mental occurrence, then the mind cannot be of zero dimensions, for it consists of sight which itself cannot be of zero dimensions ... or so it seems to me). That said, I too find touch to be a unique and highly underrated physiological sense—this, at the very least, in philosophies addressing the subject of perception.

I'm mainly antagonistic to the Cartesian take on "res extensa" being utterly severed from mind stuff due to the former having extension in space but not the latter. — javra


And do smells necessarily have extension in space? — Count Timothy von Icarus


The question raised here is an interesting one, and I also take trouble with the split of res extensa and res cogitans. — Lionino

Apropos to directional smell, turns out research does evidence directional, else stereo, smell in humans. Given that most other mammals have a keener sense of smell than we do, I by this then infer that smell is generally directional, and, hence, spatial, in most lifeforms that are equipped with this physiological sense.

To be free, one must overcome the shackles of instinct, desire, and circumstance. How is this accomplished? In The Phaedo and Book IV of The Republic, Plato argues that this can only be accomplished by having our soul unified and harmonized by our rationality. Why should our rationality be "in charge?" Why not have reason be a "slave to the passions," as Hume would have it? — Count Timothy von Icarus

A well written OP. You’ve touched upon passion vs. reason. Here only want to present the case that Hume’s stipulation that “reason is a slave to the passions” is not necessarily contrary to the overall gist of the OP, at least as I currently interpret the OP.

It can be upheld that whereas passions in themselves always addressed ends (passions always being in some way wants and that wanted being the end pursued), reasoning (even when human reasoning is construed to be a part of the universal logos) will always strictly be a means toward the ends pursued—including potentially those ends of discerning what is true or, else, the end of a maximal eudemonia.

Hence, without any held ends, reasoning is useless and thereby devoid of meaning. On the other hand, ends held and pursued without reasoning can be likened to a headless chicken’s moving to and fro (this metaphor here primarily addressing the inability of obtaining the ends pursued in the absence of any and all reasoning).

At which point lesser lifeform’s reasoning changes from reasoning that is in some way human-like in being consciously appraised to being purely that of the universal logos (which applies to rocks and to automata alike) is of course not something that can be definitively delimitated. That aside, were there to be a universal logos, it than stands to the reason here presented that it too would hold its own end toward which it only serves as a means. For example:

The OP references the Platonic notion of the Good. Here, a somewhat subtle but important change in focus can be found occurring between Platonism and Neoplatonism: wherein, tmk, the first addressed the Good as that upon which all else is contingent on (only implicitly at best upholding that the Good is to be pursued as an end), the latter furthers this by explicitly framing the Good as also being that which is to be pursued as end in the form of henosis with the One. In at least this latter conceptualization, then, the universal logos is not equivalent to the Good / the One but is that which emanates from it and which is reconciled in it—with logos being here considered the intermediary between soul, nous, and highest level of reality: the One. My point here being, in this case as example, the logos (universal reasoning) is still a means toward the One, with henosis (unification with the One) being of itself a passion: here again making reasoning subordinate to (end-driven) passion(s), albeit at a more universal level of contemplation.

Going back to Plato as you’ve mentioned in the quote, reasoning here is also only a means to the end of freedom and the related eudemonia that results from a unified and harmonized soul. The want for this end is then a passion, to which reasoning is then again subservient to.

I know its not a definitive argument and there are alternative ways of interpretation. All the same, that reason is subordinate to passion—either on an individual basis or on a global scale—seems to me an important observation, and one which in no way contradicts the authority of reasoning per se. Granted, to avoid radical relativism, these very observations would then need to be embedded within the very metaphysics here addressed: wherein “the Good” is an absolute end (and is absolute in so being).

I'll leave it there, but for now I think it's worth considering how much our society is driven by appetites (consider the electorate's response whenever consumption must decrease) and passions (consider the fractious, tribal political climate), as opposed to its rational part and how this constricts freedom of action on implementing ethically-minded policy. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This implicitly presumes that individuals are goal-driven and hence hold desires that they want satisfied. In which case, the question isn’t one of whether reasoning is subservient to passion but, instead, whether the reasoning being employed satisfies the very core passions addressed. Judging by the ever increasing rates and depression, suicide, and related issues, they give no indication of so doing.

p.s. This is a topic that gets complicated very easily by our having predominant passions to subordinate passions. But I find that it is precisely reasoning which facilitates all our subordinate passions optimally satisfying our predominant passion(s). Again, serving as a means toward (desired) ends.

What would you think if I told you I'd seen such things? — Janus

Since you asked: I'd think it a hallucination, or at the very least as not having anything to do with what can take place in the objective world, this due to my core metaphysical commitments. I'm certain I'd think this even if I myself were to "see" such things. Other's might not so interpret, but that would be due to their disparate core commitments.

I don't think any of this has much to do with metaphysics. — Janus

OK, thanks for sharing. But then we do disagree on what metaphysics is. My view being in general accord with this:

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality. This includes studies of the first principles of: being or existence, identity, change, consciousness, space and time, necessity, actuality, and possibility.[1] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics

... which to me fits in well enough with the answer I just provided to your question above regarding core metaphysical commitments (that, again, can be unconsciously held and thereby not be consciously analyzable worldviews but, instead, in part being - as you say - "habitual expectations based on what has been encountered and observed in the course of one's life"). I get it, you hold a different semantics and views and thereby find it important to assert that you disagree. But that, of itself, again doesn't warrant my view being egregious.

Got a few lightbulbs to change (metaphorically speaking) such that philosophizing right now will be a bit too distracting - so I'll be signing off for the time being.

While I’m here, getting back to the OP:

Metaphysics might be viewed as being in part comprised of discerning just how many philosophers it takes to change a light-bulb - tricky issue because many, if not all, will sit about endlessly debating the topic.

Else, it might be viewed as those aspects of ontology universal to all beings which facilitate both the possibility of the light-bulb being changed and the possibility of debating the issue without end - aspects that objectively are irrespective of one’s beliefs on the matter, if any.

I so far like this generalized appraisal; though, of course, other perspectives - some of which will disagree - are possible.

I don't find any of this surprising and I don't think professed worldviews tell us much. — Tom Storm

Yea, my point being about the same.

OK. Thanks.

As an example, though I do not uphold the claim of "no atheists in foxholes", I do have evidence that some atheists no longer act according to their atheistic principles in dire situations. Although of course disagreements can abound regarding this, to me this does illustrate that sometimes one's professed worldview - while in no way being a lie - can in some ways be self-deceptive when put the test, so to speak. But this is one example among potentially many.

Thanks again for your views, though.

The two don’t have to be in conflict. — Joshs

This can be in full accord to "not necessarily equating". To be clearer, do you find that hypocrisy in what is maintained in praxis and what is professed via propositions cannot occur and, if so, due to what reason(s)?

I am thinking that it is only in the philosophies that came after Hegel and were strongly influenced by him that we get an articulation of metaphysics as comparable to worldview. That is, as an overarching framework of intelligibility that orients us to the world and ties all its aspects together in a global unity, but that in most cases is held naively, unconsciously. — Joshs

In many a way I agree, but how would you account for discrepancies such as these:

I’ve met self-proclaimed non-spiritual atheists that uphold this metaphysical worldview but are in practice superstitious and affirm things like “your car was broken into today because you weren’t cordial to person A last week” or, as an example of the flipside, self-proclaimed Christians that adhere to all ritual aspects of their faith and uphold this metaphysical worldview while at the same time in practice being in many a way atheistic (e.g., they fear - and hence innately believe - death to be a cessation of being; or else don’t believe in the occurrence of spiritual realities in the here and now, as contrasted to occurring for biblical figures (e.g., “burning bushes” are OK biblically but not in reality that is lived); etc.) - this to not address the grave hypocrisies in ethical principles relative to Jesus Christ’s teaching that often enough occur (the ontology of values being in many a way metaphysical).

Here, there seems to me to be a professed and defended metaphysical worldview that is explicitly maintained which is in at least some ways in direct contradiction to the metaphysical beliefs/principles implicitly maintained.

Because of examples such as these, I don’t then necessarily equate a being’s often unconsciously occurring Umwelt (for lack of a better word) to - in the case of humans - the self-professed worldview which is consciously upheld and maintained.

I don't know, I don't know what examples you are referring to — Janus

This is mouth dropping to me. I'll highlight them for you:

For just one example, were one to witness billiard balls randomly fall through solid table tops or else hover in midair, one would hold a confirmation bias in line with one’s core ontological understanding as to what is in fact possible. Most would assume it to either be stage magic or tricks of the eye precisely due to this confirmation bias. Whether or not miracles can occur is again determined by one’s core ontology’s confirmation bias. — javra

Having done that, have a nice day.

Can you provide for your contention that people cling to “some core conviction regarding the nature of the world via which we assimilate all novel information"some "meaningful justification" for "outside of “it doesn’t sit well with my own intuitions”"? — Janus

Are the examples I just provided to this very effect rationally or empirically in any way contradictory to - or else do they in any way not cohere to - reality as we all know it?

But if you're in search of infallible proof I've none to give.

Can you explain the difference? — Janus

For one thing, a metaphysical worldview is a strictly conscious construct which is itself pivoted upon - and hence not equivalent to - some core conviction (or core set of convictions to be more precise) regarding the causal, spatial, temporal, etc. nature of the world, the latter often enough not being consciously analyzable in fully explicit manners the way that the metaphysical worldview is.

No empirical or logical grounds can be adduced to support or deny the contention. It comes down to how you see people and whether in this particular connection you see uniformity or diversity. — Janus

OK. So your contentions that it is an egregious - by which I understand “outstandingly bad” - generalization comes down to an opinion that you can provide no meaningful justification for, outside of “it doesn’t sit well with my own intuitions”.

Moreover, I take any and all ontological understanding - be it consciously upheld or else unconscious - to in itself be metaphysical in nature. Whereas from what I’ve so far perused of your expressed perspective you take it mean something akin to anything out of the ordinary in relation to ontology. This, of itself, would make a large difference in what I myself stated.

For just one example, were one to witness billiard balls randomly fall through solid table tops or else hover in midair, one would hold a confirmation bias in line with one’s core ontological understanding as to what is in fact possible. Most would assume it to either be stage magic or tricks of the eye precisely due to this confirmation bias. Whether or not miracles can occur is again determined by one’s core ontology’s confirmation bias.

But there are innumerable examples - many very different due to very different core ontological beliefs that can be held in theory if not also in practice.

And again, in the absence of evidence that people go about life in the complete absence of core ontological beliefs - if not consciously maintained than unconscious - around which they assimilate new information such that they hold a confirmation bias to these very core beliefs, your decrying my perspective egregious is, basically, completely unwarranted.

Read more carefully what I actually wrote and you might find I never once mentioned that we cling to “metaphysical worldviews” but to “some core conviction regarding the nature of the world via which we assimilate all novel information [...]" - which in my lexicon are quite distinct propositions.

Thanks for the corrections.

Was it approximately 1000 pages or closer to about 360? — TonesInDeepFreeze

Bad online reference apparently. Yes it now seems to be the latter.

Was the axiom of reducibility used in the proof? — TonesInDeepFreeze

A best inference on my part, The axiom was indeed introduced in PM according to this reference. Haven't been able to verify if it was used to prove 1 + 1 = 2.

Let me know if you find these well received corrections make a change in what I uphold in that post: to paraphrase, that some more basic aspects of mathematics give all indications of being universal while other more developed maths do not.

[...] In pursuit of this accelerated post-Singularity future, any harm they’ve done to the planet or to other people is necessary collateral damage. It’s the delusion of people who’ve been able to buy their way out of everything uncomfortable, inconvenient or painful, and don’t accept the fact that they cannot buy their way out of death. — Joshs

Thanks for that! :up: The whole article reverberates quite well with me.

As what I find to be a somewhat humorous apropos to what's here quoted:

One’s death - irrespective of what one assumes one’s corporeal death to this world to imply ontologically - can be ultimately understood to be the “obliteration of one’s ego” (whether one then no longer is or else continues being only being a possible appended issue). Taxes on the other hand - something that many, especially those who are rich, are also morbidly averse to - are when symbolically addressed “one’s contribution to the welfare of a community/ecosystem/whole without which the community/ecosystem/whole would crumble” (be it a tyranny, a democracy, or any other politics when it comes to the monetary contribution of taxes per se).

At least when thus abstractly understood, I can jive with Franklin in that death and taxes, as much as they might be disliked, are sooner or later both certainties for individuals partaking of a societal life and, hence, for humans - transhumanist of otherwise.

Not an argument I'm gonna defend. Just an opinionated observation to be taken with a grain of salt.

Can we make progress in understanding and navigating the world by continually revising this scheme, without having to declare the earlier versions ‘false’? — Joshs

Tricky question in so far as I too am a construcitivst in many a sense, though by no means a radical relativist.

I'll use the notion of scientific progress as an example: to me, there can be no such thing - to include no Kuhnian paradigm shifts that in any way improve anything of our understanding - without there being an objective reality to be progressed toward via scientific investigations - one that is in and of itself true. (Granted, this to me requires a different metaphysical approach than either that of physicalism or of any notion entailing an Abrahamic deity as ultimate reality, to list just two.)

So appraised, while the Newtonian understanding of the physical world was and remains quite pragmatic for everyday purposes, it is nevertheless a false understanding of the physical world. This just as much as declaring the the sun revolves around the Earth is pragmatic for everyday purposes (such as is implied in sunrises and sunsets) but nevertheless false.

In the absence of a functional theory of everything regarding physicality, the same too can be hypothesized of the theory of relativity as it currently stands (nevertheless granting many a variation in its interpretation).

To me, then, if progress is in fact made from understanding A to understanding B, this then entails the (non-fabricated) truth that B is a better understanding than is A. That, though, does not then entail that understanding B is the (objectively) true understanding (if this notion is in any way intelligible). But it does entail that understanding A was then in some way faulty - and, in so being, it can then in this sense be declared false. This will however extend beyond a strictly bivalent notion of truth-value (for me, one that however still makes no use of dialetheism; one that nevertheless acknowledges partial truths, along with different vantages of reality to which these pertain).

Complex topic, but I think that summarizes my view. In short, if progress is in fact made, one's formerly held but now discarded understandings will be far more false - falser - that will be one's currently maintained understanding.

That is, if we drop the notion of truth as a valid assessment of our utterances in favour of the will to power or some such, we are endorsing the powerful, reinforcing their hegemony.

Post modernism cannot speak truth, therefore it cannot speak truth to power. — Banno

Well, to my best understanding, post-modernists can speak fabricated truth to powers that likewise fabricate truths - without there being any right or wrong to it. It's one interpretation of the "Will to Power".

I personally view fabricated truths as deception - be it self-deception or otherwise - if not outright lies. But that's just me.

I suppose my own "axis mundi" consists of – begins with – the principle of non-contradiction (PNC). — 180 Proof

:grin: :up: Yup, it forms part of my axis mundi as well. :smile:

In other words, both the non-pomo left and the far right believe in the non-relativist objectivity of scientific truth. They just disagree on what constitutes the proper scientific method for attaining objective truth. Postmodernists, on the other hand , disagree with both of these groups on the coherence of their various ideas of objective truth. — Joshs

I'm having a hard time understanding this. To not be presumptuous, can you clarify the following:

According to radical relativism, is the "scientific method" which produces the claim that dinosaurs walked the earth along humans on a par to rather distinct, also termed "scientific method" that produces the claim that humans did not exist when dinosaurs roamed the earth?

Secondly, are both just mentioned claims of objective truth of equal value in their being socially constructed truths that nevertheless compete for dominance within society?

Lastly, if postmodernists do not believe in there being correct facts - else expressed, do not believe in objective (rather than fabricated/created) truths - how do postmodernist resolve the contradictory nature of the two just stipulated claims?

I think this is an egregious generalization—all I can think of to say in response is "speak for yourself". — Janus

As you've expressed in a post elsewhere last time we chatted, you don't care what I think. All the same:

1) I am speaking for myself: it's my established worldview. (Right up there with you not being a p-zombie.)

2) On what rational or empirical grounds do you affirm that what I previous expressed is "an egregious generalization"? (Hint: that "I don't like it" is not such a justification.)

There’s this saying: one can (try to) lead a horse to water, but …

We all consciously or unconsciously cling to some form of what Mircea Eliade termed an axis mundi when more abstractly appraised—some core conviction regarding the nature of the world via which we assimilate all novel information, without which we would loose our bearings, around which all of what we interpret to be the world pivots, and which, because of all this, we either implicitly or explicitly consider to be sacred (at the very least in relation to ourselves). To some this is the Abrahamic deity, to others it is scientism, to yet others it is the conviction that there are no correct facts, or otherwise some notion akin to the Platonic or Neo-Platonic notion of “the Good”, and so on and so forth. And we all hold confirmation biases in terms of this personal, typically implicitly maintained, axis mundi.

There is no convincing another that their own axis mundi is incorrect without the other being able to replace it with what they find to be a better axis mundi—one which accounts for the entire body of knowledge and values they already possess in addition to all new information they might be exposed to.

Or at least so I so far find. And so disagreement among humans on many but the most concrete of interpersonally experienced facts can be found.

But then this too is in itself a metaphysical perspective of sorts.

Are these aggressive anti-philosophy beliefs being promulgated in universities these days? — Gnomon

While it is likely that in some yes and in others no, I have no idea as to the overall reality of the matter. Opinionated as they might be, I doubt that others would know either in the absence of any impartial research regarding this topic.

I respect many of your views, but:

But it is one thing to claim that they ignore or distort facts , it is quite another to assert that they have taken radical relativists to heart and think that there are no correct facts. [...] They tend to be metaphysical, or naive, realists about both ethical and objective truth. — Joshs

How is that not blatantly incongruous (this in non-dialetheistic systems, if it needs to be said)?

Where “truth” is understood as conformity that which is actual/real/factual, that “the truth that ‘there is no truth’ is itself and affirmed truth” is not true on account of having no truth-value—and that one must be learned in many an authority figure to comprehend this—certainly seems post-modernistic to me. And, here, truth is whatever one wants to be true just in case one has the leverage, or power, to force the belief of its reality upon not only oneself but upon as many others as possible. Truth here can only be created in radically relativistic manners, rather than ever being the ontically uncreated waters in which we swim and breathe as psyches (this metaphorically speaking) and, on occasion, being that which can be discovered. In which case, this “metaphysical/naive realism regarding ethical and objective truths” wherein “facts can be and are ignored and distorted” is in perfect keeping with the radical relativism wherein there is no objective truths to speak of. This, again, granting a non-dialetheist reality.

For my part, in the world I live, most people need there being an unquestionable authority in their life. Most of those that then in one or another do away with the Abrahamic notion of an omni-this-and-that deity—which I find quite understandable on multiple grounds—will then turn to this nebulous term “science” as being just such an unquestionable authority. As a common enough example, for such people proclaiming “science says so” is to proclaim the unquestionable truth of that which is stipulated.

This is a gross misrepresentation of what the empirical sciences are. The vast majority of today's, for example, sciences regarding physics are, if fact, thoroughly entwined with a large sum of theoretical speculation—both inductive and abductive. There is zilch empirical about any interpretation of QM, regardless of what it might be. And when one takes a look at the nitty gritty of how we’ve arrived at today's QM, one will find a plethora of such inductive and abductive theoretical speculations regarding what in fact is. The proof that there is something objectively and fundamentally wrong with today's physics is that QM cannot be integrated into the theory of relativity in as is form so as to provide a theory of everything physical.

Science's only merit is that it can falsify those theoretical suppositions regarding that which can be empirically observed—this via empirical observations—and, by not falsifying, it can then to varying extents validate, but never “prove”, the theoretical suppositions in question.

This gross misunderstanding of science typically held by most people—these very same yet upholding science (hence, scientific inferences taken to be scientific knowledge) to be the de facto unquestionable authority regarding what is real—is, for example, readily witness in the popularized claim that “science has not proven human-caused global warming”. This being an utterly nonsensical claim, least of all because absolutely nothing of science is infallible and thereby beyond any and all doubt.

All that for now being placed aside, other than validating that it has a brain, science has nothing to say about whether or not a dog, for example, is conscious of anything, thereby holds a consciousness, thereby is a conscious being. It has no possible solution to the Sorites paradox. Nor does it have anything to say regarding the ontological standing of that which we all empirically perceive to be and label “the physical world”. In keeping with a long list of pertinent issues that science can only remain silent on is that of whether or not the universe is foundationally meaningless. Any position held on all of these many issues then being entirely metaphysical claims.

Which in a way brings me full circle to this:

Because, for one example, there’s nothing wrong with a bunch of lemmings actively swimming their way toward a climate change catastrophe in today’s status quo metaphysics of a meaningless universe. — javra

To deny the importance of any and all metaphysics is to be (bluntly expressed) ignorant of one's very own suppositions (be they culturally inherited or else arrived at by oneself) regarding what reality in fact is and consists of. Which, however, is not to then claim that all such suppositions are of equal value; some such being valueless, e.g., being the brain in a vat constructed by another brain in a vat constructed by another, this ad infinitum, though plausibly conceivable as a metaphysical possibility, is devoid of any value regarding, for example, what I should best do with my life or else how I should best understand value theory and, hence, the values by which I and others live our lives.

The idea of 'truth-value realism, which is the view that mathematical statements have objective, non-vacuous truth values independently of the conventions or knowledge of the mathematicians' is I guess what I am am exploring too. — Tom Storm

This hinging on the bifurcation I initially mentioned in my original post, here’s a simple argument for (some) mathematical statements having such "truth-value realism":

Regardless of ontological approach (materialism, idealism, dualism, pluralism, and so forth), that quantity occurs in the world is a fact. Secondly, the cognition of quantities can only occur via mathematical semantics (this irrespective of their symbolic representation, if any). Therefore, some mathematical statement (namely, those which can be mapped onto the empirically know world) have "objective, non-vacuous truth values independently of the conventions or knowledge of the mathematicians".

This conclusion, however, will directly ground mathematical thinking in the metaphysics of identity as foundation, for quantity can only occur with the occurrence of individuated identities (i.e., units, aka unities of that being addressed), and these are not always as intuitive as they might at first appear (the Sorites paradox as one easily expressed example of this).

At any rate, the only way I see of disparaging this stated conclusion is by disparaging the reality of quantity in the world.

These are far more abstract conceptualizations than that which I was addressing: the semantic which we, currently, in our culture, symbolize by "1" being universally equivalent to the semantics we convey in English by the phrase of "a unity".

So that "one unity and another unity will be equivalent to two unities" is then a universal staple of all mathematical cognition: in all humans as well as in lesser animals.

Hence, my question was intended to be specific to whether you find the semantic of "a unity"/"1" to be arbitrary and thereby not ubiquitously universal?

Asking whether math is different in other cultures is like asking whether chess is different in other cultures. — Lionino

Not sure what you mean by this. Chess has a long history and has had changes over time in different cultures. For example:

1200–1700: Origins of the modern game

The game of chess was then played and known in all European countries. A famous 13th-century Spanish manuscript covering chess, backgammon, and dice is known as the Libro de los juegos, which is the earliest European treatise on chess as well as being the oldest document on European tables games. The rules were fundamentally similar to those of the Arabic shatranj. The differences were mostly in the use of a checkered board instead of a plain monochrome board used by Arabs and the habit of allowing some or all pawns to make an initial double step. In some regions, the queen, which had replaced the wazir, or the king could also make an initial two-square leap under some conditions.[64] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess#1200%E2%80%931700:_Origins_of_the_modern_game

Does that to you then imply that something like 1 + 1 = 2 is constructed within specific culture contexts, such that the quantity "1" is arbitrary rather than ubiquitously universal?

does this point to maths being more arbitrary than we think? — Tom Storm

While I’m no math wiz either, I think (else presume) I know enough about maths to express the following (may I be corrected where appropriate):

Some maths are universal in their semantics (however these semantics might be expressed symbolically, if at all so expressed).

From these universal maths then can and often do get constructed derivations which, as such, often enough don’t consists of the same universality of semantics in that which is derived, but are to some extent constructed.

For instance, the mathematical semantic here expressed by the symbol “1” can only be universal. The symbol “one” here holding the semantic of “a unity” (which can get rather metaphysical when getting into the metaphysics of identity theory). It is a universal not only to all humans but also to all lesser animals that can in any way engage in any form of mathematical cognition.

So something like the semantics to 1 + 1 = 2 can only be universal relative to all sentience that is in any way capable of any mathematical cognition regarding addition.

On the other hand, mathematics which are very advanced derivations of this and similarly universal maths—such as surreal numbers or the mathematics to qubits—will be in part contingent on mathematical factors whose semantics are not universal to all those who can engage in mathematical cognition. Such complex mathematics can then be argued to be in some way constructivist (if in no way speculative) and, thereby, to some extent culture-relative.

For example, the Principia Mathematica (written in 1910) is commonly known to take about a thousand pages to in part formally prove that 1 and 1 is in fact equivalent to 2. No such formal proof occurred previously in human history (obviously, this didn’t prevent humans from successfully applying the mathematics of 1 + 1 = 2). Yet, while everyone has always universally agreed that 1 + 1 = 2, the formal mathematical proof of the book by which this is established is not universally agreed upon without criticism. As one example of this, at least one of the axioms the book uses, its introduced axiom of reducibility, has a significant number of criticism—thereby not being universally apparent in the same way that 1 + 1 = 2 is but, instead, being a best reasoned supposition which was set down as axiomatic.

So, 1 + 1 = 2 is universal and hence not culture relative or in any way socially constructed. The formal proof that 1 + 1 = 2 is however not fully comprised of that which is universal and thereby in no way culture relative or socially constructed—but, instead, can be deemed to be in part constructivist in ways which imply the relativity of some of its mathematical semantics (however these are expressed symbolically).

More directly to the quoted question: The mathematical semantics of 1 + 1 = 2 is in no way arbitrary. But it’s formal mathematical proof in some ways is (albeit yet constrained to reasoned best inferences).

The proper answer to the quoted question should then be relative to those specific mathematical notions implicitly addressed. Overall, the answer is "no and yes," this at the same time but in different respects.

------

P.s. In large part posting this in a want to see if any more formally mathematical intellect would find anything to disagree with in what was here expressed.

This would satisfy my idea of perfection as that which can't be improve upon. — Tom Storm

OK. Understood. To be clear, my own vantage in this discussion wasn't concerned with the issue of whether circles are perfect in the sense you here specify - to me, we both so far have given all indications that we both accept they are - but, rather, whether perfect circles are subjectively perfect (as you seem to have so far repeatedly upheld) or else objectively perfect. But its not the most pivotal of issues to me.

In seeing you've started a new thread on the issue of mathematics, best of luck in your investigations.

But you are quite right to say that a perfect circle and a unicorn have little in common. A perfect circle is a mathematical abstraction, while a unicorn is a mythical creature. The unicorn relies upon open an open ended imaginative discourse, while the circle's properties are defined mathematically. — Tom Storm

Almost makes it sound as though the perfect circle - being here a mathematical abstraction delineated by its mathematical definition and, hence, not occurring to anyone prior to any such formal definition of it - is purely a construct of human imagination. This rather than being apprehended by understanding as something that objectively is (again, this in non-physical manners).

But, if so, then – via pi and so forth – so too is all our modern scientific knowledge of quanta nothing more than concoctions of human imagination. This rather than being discoveries (however imperfect) regarding the way the world in fact is.

Which to me would kind of relate to those magical unicorns you bring up: this being magical thinking with global efficacy.