This is confusing syntax and semantics. Strings are infinitely dimensional space, we are talking about the concept of integers, which are ordered set.

"2 + 2 = 4" (with or without ↪simeonz
's "cyclic group" qualifier) cannot ultimately be known. Its knowledge ultimately rests on a feeling of knowing, which is a kind of intuition, and intuitions are not objective reliable as justifications for knowledge — Acyutananda

I have a discussion with another member of this forum in a different thread. I am arguing there that ultimately everything rests on innate conviction, or persuasion, and that it cannot be denied. Of course, one can continuously reevaluate the quality of such persuasion, as they gain new insight and amalgamate their various persuasions, but again, even if a person is wrong about something, one can always hope that nature will decrease their chance of thriving and evolution will replace their erroneous influence. So, don't worry about it. Genocide is a form of logical argument.

P.S. : I am a little out of line here, but I hope you understand my well meant drift. You don't have to be right.

I don't see how we can escape from the essential role of a pattern of synaptic firings that results in a subjective feeling of knowing. And then the problem is, as I suggested earlier, that if one day my brain functions differently than it usually does, that pattern might be triggered not by 2 + 2 = 4, but by 2 + 2 = 5. Evolution has guaranteed that such days will be rare, but is a high order of probability the best we can do in trying to prove that 2 + 2 = 4?

If I'm missing something, I hope that someone can pinpoint what that is. — Acyutananda

You are correct, strictly speaking. Practically speaking, this does not apply to arithmetic anymore, unless you were a raised as a feral child, a.k.a Mowgli style. The formalization of such extremely rudimentary and materially manifest abstractions doesn't happen under spontaneous impetus. Those ideas were internalized, starting long ago, with routine behavior associations in our remote animal ancestors, as @Banno proposed them to be, then they were gradually absorbed into awareness through notions that articulate vaguely aspects of nature, and then finally conceptualized. Conceptualization also follows a historical process of refinement involving the civilizational fabric of society and the formal academic convention, passing through stages of eccentricity that resemble arithmetical theism. So, your spontaneous conception of ideas regarding the basic qualities of nature, such as arithmetic, are relatively unimpactful, because you are entrenched into continuous multi-generational collective refinement of those concepts, spanning many evolutionary stages.

Theoretically it could, but in reality, it more so applies to the axiom of choice or law of excluded middle. We are not sure where to look for correspondence to those axioms. The methodology that should determine their soundness is debatable. The problem there is different in some sense. Because the experience that needs to arbiter the design of our abstraction is not immediate and obvious. So, we are left at the mercy of guesses, but not for materially manifest pervasive aspects of nature, such as quantification. Even if you are theoretically correct, that the collective solution can still be wrong, the chance for it is much smaller then the odds of perishing in an ecological catastrophe in the next decade.

There are many things to consider. First, I think we agree that abstract reasoning is the game of token resolutions that substitute for directly established facts, such as 2 + 2 = 4, instead of those two apples and those two apples are enough to feed a single apple to each of those four people. Soundness depends on the proper selection of rules that govern reasoning in accordance to a set of matching observations. We need structure that amounts to what is essentially a generalized fact, but which can be inferred through a mechanical process. How do we establish a "generalized fact"? The design involves the extraction of unchanging patterns. We need to represent experience, according to some metric of practical fitness for purpose, according to some assignment of average utility, according to some perception of correspondence. As I said, approximately, probabilistically, homomorphically. There are two issues here. How to derive such representation and how to verify such representation. Although we know how to mechanically arrive at some simple models in particular cases, our technology to extract concepts from environment cues is still not quite there. Human beings rely on evolutionary, developmental, as well as ecosystemic features. That is, billions of years worth of evolutionary context, millennia of accrued culture, symbiotic group relationship, neural network that uses 100 billion nodes (neurons) and 100 to 1000 trillion connections (synapses), some of which specialized. So, emulating nature's job digitally, effectively even, is a pain. On a different note, we cannot design concise criteria of what makes a model good independent of the circumstances. Not involving a neural network is not really feasible, unless we are accessing some kind of apriori knowledge that does not depend on experience. Now, to confirm the value of our models, people can use evidence. We can also keep check through consensus and experimentation. Theories and axiomatic systems with infinite domains cannot be confirmed exhaustively, but because the general statements are usually applied in some restricted range (and are frequently not even expected to be valid outside of the scope of application), the intuition is mostly sound if it is confirmed through a comparatively small set of instances, whose coverage is judged according to various criteria, such as the perception of discontinuity and symmetry breaking in the physical structure of the objects, as well as the reasonable uniformity of the grid of instance placements, etc. And the rest of the range is assumed to reproduce the pattern. Something called inductive reasoning.

The second issue is about actual formalization. Our brain is capable of utilizing abstraction without explicit formalization, but the repetitive subconscious application of rules is not its forte. We want to design a system of inference that can be mechanized. Even if it will be handled manually, we want to separate the process of modelling and interpretation, from the derivation of theorems. There are a few comments here.First, 2 + 2 = 4 is rarely an axiom, but a theorem. You could make the argument that this is arbitrary, because it could be used nonetheless, but the successor relation follows a more basic correspondence to the repeating aggregation of unit values rooted in the physical and socio-economic structure of quantification. Second, when dealing with models that involve numeral constants, like this one, it is more useful to specify a schematic recurrence, and the successor recursive relation of numerals has a simpler, more elegant expression. Having infinite number of axioms, but specified in a single (or multiple) recursive schemata is called effectiveness. And, as a side note, you don't need numerals for arithmetic. You can simply specify the relations of various operations, and express 4 as "1 + 1 + 1 + 1" in every instance where it is needed. Or you can use the simpler unary system that encodes the result of "1 + 1 + 1 + 1" as "1111". Or you could use binary, which is more compact to axiomatize then other bases. And third, when formalizing science or mathematics and arithmetic, you want your minimal system of axioms. A property called independence. So, if you specify "3 + 1 = 4", you don't need to specify "2 + 2 = 4".

What is the goal? Avoiding any deception at all costs, or living to see your grand-kids?

By the way, I made a mistake in my first post. I said ring in the last paragraph, whereas I should have said cyclic group. I don't practice my algebra.

Sorry, I was ambiguous. The latter. My aim was to clarify the meta-statements in my response, but I meant the basic ones in the text.

The meta-statements are both true and false. They are true in the sense that the soundness of the basic statements depends on the evaluation of fitness for purpose of axiomatic choices and rule selections that itself is not subject to formal proof. It is subject to implicit neurological representations that we have developed through history (personal or collective) of refinement, before they have even become explicated formally. Note that this is not magic. Our ability to model some parts or aspects of nature by encoding them in other parts and aspects is possible, thanks to nature's amorphity. A machine would be equally able, for better or worse, to emulate the refinement in the model selection process that our intuition captures, using trial and error, cost and reward criteria. (Where reward is chance of sustenance.)

The meta-statements are false in the sense that once the approximate abstract structure of some natural phenomena is captured formally (or much more generally, is neurologically encoded), you can prove (or mentally derive) the correctness of the basic statements without intuition.

I.e.:

'2 + 2 = 4' can be proved, but its interpretation and soundness rather rests on intuition
'A square must be rectangular' can be proved, but its interpretation and soundness rests on intuition

I agree with much, but probably not the conclusion. I agree that sometimes evolutionary biology is wrongly ascribed as resolution of philosophy, ethics, or something else of that nature. Nonetheless, even as pure empiricism, stating the obvious, i.e. what can be will be, it can be argument for expressing judgement on the utility, plausibility, or feasibility in our ethical and philosophical interrelations. Assuming that we are biological entities, of course, and not substance-dual, it can also emphasize the need for the various collective and personal compromises, i.e. the tradeoffs inherent in our decisions.

As theory of guidance of life through genocidal adversity, I am not sure that evolutionary biology is actually so spiritually abject. It is indeed absent of benevolent antropocentric antropomorphic character, but it still allows people to accept their impulse to seek dignity and decency, even under the belief in dystheistic higher order, and the caustic implications.

There are two aspects to each of those statements. One is validity and the other soundness. In ordinary everyday reason, those are usually joined. They are explicitly separated only in mathematics, and sometimes in philosophy, but it always helps to treat them on their own, because they are naturally separable.

Validity is a matter of procedural correctness. Basically, you define the rules for your game and you play consistently. Playing with obscure variations is its own source of fallibility. For example, you claim that 3 + 1 = 4, that 2 + 1 = 3, and that 1 + 1 = 2, or more colloquially, you describe the successors of each number through addition. Then you describe the operation as being associative, i.e. (x + y) + z = x + (y + z). Then, you "prove" that 2 + 2 = 4, which is just another way of saying, that the game produces this statement as one of its many outputs. These statements are procedural by virtue of some system for formal deduction, which is essentially a qualifying description for a process that applies a set of rules. You can use this system to design steps to play the game. There are syntactic nuances that I am skipping, such as the use of terms, infix notation, etc., but those are not fundamental.

Soundness makes procedural validity applicable to life. Soundness depends on interpretation. With interpretations, you try to fit a square peg in a round hole, and claim that some part of your environment appears to match, approximately, probably, your procedure and its expressions. How does soundness occur. Through proper modelling, which is the inverse of interpretation. You take many different pegs with closely related shapes and you design a round hole to fit them all. Fingers, eggs, atoms, distance, etc. They all become numerico-analytic, i.e. quantifiable, by the simulation game you have designed.

Now, you may think that this does not apply to informal human reasoning, but merely to abstract mathematical formalization or mechanized computing. That is, I will contend, not true. Our mind constantly models its environment. Our brain structure implicitly plays games all the time, and tries its best to fit square pegs into round holes, as it navigates our circumstances. The driver of the modelling process are our survival instincts and our innate cognitive traits, themselves consequence from various homostatic and allostatic objectives that nature has, but it is still a matter of applying some approximately homomorphic rules to symbolic representations of the surrounding reality. Sometimes, our brain explicitly conceptualizes the implicit models, because we are gifted with self-aware cognition and then we create formal science. And finally, we transfer those rules to machines.

Now, what makes a statement true in practice? This question has two meanings, but they are related. Why is the procedural correctness ever interpretationally correspondent to fact? That is, why are the relationships between facts procedurally expressible? And second, why are facts at all relatable? The answer to both of these questions is - such is the nature of things. Representation by procedure and symbolism is possible, because nature is pervasively homomorphic, by which I mean that the different processes and features of objects in nature are similar enough, to be capable of consistent congruence under the proper design of their initial conditions. And processes follow consistent patterns and relationships over time and in space, because they have no other choice. The option of not doing so is an epistemic illusion. Whether those patterns and relationships remain consistent with our predictive description, is a matter that is subject to change, but they are themselves always appearing in the only way possible.

Note that 2 + 2 = 4, only if you are not in a cyclic group, which you will be if 2 is a walking distance on a circular path, with the perimeter being 3. And a square is rectangular in the Euclidean sense if the shortest distance paths between two of the adjacent vertices are traced by parallel lines, and that is only true if there is no gravity.

Out in the real world, it's about the argument from power. — baker


Darwinism rules! — Wayfarer

Although Wayfarer is probably sarcastic, I am not on the opinion that the statement is incorrect. The answer to your question is, that arguments have power, because they are product of the argument in power, as you put it. Dispute and argument sometimes appease the necessity. And sometimes there are other more direct ways to deal with certain contexts that employ order automatically, even if it isn't of the antropocentric mental kind. Sometimes, there are simply more effective ways to debate then to talk, and more effective ways to argue, then to explain. But conversant eloquence and sophisticated sense of resolution through human reason has some place. If I am not misreading Wayfarer's previous remarks on this forum, they would similarly interpret the existence of reason as being sourced at the ultimate power of nature as well.

Simply put....there are no feelings intrinsic to a purely empirical statement, in the same way I do not have a feeling about the water I may or may not put to some use. — Mww

But we never deal with the statements in the abstract, but with their evaluations in some terms, even if syntactic terms. We deal with analysis, conjectures, assertions, objections. Sensation itself does not prompt reaction. Reason itself does not prompt conclusions. We infer and react. Being compelled by reason is feeling of trust in reason. Reason, as we abstractly define it, is not emotional, but being under rational influence is itself, I think, an emotion. Having faith in reason, for me, is an emotion. A preconception. Empiricism, is emotional preconception. But not every emotional preconception is empirical.

#246 is an empirical statement, for, on the one hand it has to do with the perceptions of someone else and the knowledge possible from them, and on the other, it has to do with the sensations that belong to me alone, from which follows the possibility of my own knowledge. — Mww

But is knowledge direct result from sensations, or is it reaction to sensations. A conviction that emotionally stems, possibly through reason, from those sensations.

You hinted at it yourself: truth is in what you think, then to ask of a feeling about the same thing, implies the truth is not in that. — Mww

I think..., that thinking is ultimately a drive, by which I mean, a kind of emotion, not some undisputed fact. It isn't any more or any less reality automatically, but the properties of conviction by reason are particular in some sense, as every emotion has particular qualities, whose relevance is instinctively conveyed to the subject. When I argue with you, I am not being impartial. But I don't mean, merely because of my conviction in my assertions, but more so through my sense of justification by reason and experience. I believe in my methodology. But my methodology (of being reasonable, critical, objective, argumentative, etc.) is not rooted in immutable reality without right of objection. Reason has particular qualities that make it a commendable feeling to have, because I feel it to be. But, ironically, reason is also critically interested in all feelings, because they are its only subject in application. And, somewhat ironically, thinking doubts feeling, for a good reason. Thinking doubts thinking, for a good reason.

Post-modern convention says that may be the case. I agree, speaking from my well-worn armchair, that knowledge, and here we’re talking empirical knowledge, the kind with which #246 concerns itself, is a relative conviction, but not a feeling of being convinced. That condition reduces to mere persuasion, and we not persuaded to knowledge, but convinced upon arriving at it. But with respect to what you’re asking here, I would deny that empirical knowledge follows from virtue, which makes conveyance sans justification moot. A set of virtues conveyed without need of justification, is called interest. At the same time, I would affirm that knowledge is by definition already as good as possible iff knowledge is taken to mean certainty under the preconceived criteria from which it arises. But not necessarily so, insofar as there may be no preconceived criteria, re: experience, in the event of new knowledge. — Mww

But sensibility and reason are a variety of persuasion. Are you not persuaded to trust them? I think that it would be mistake to assume that people should treat all of their persuasions the same. And it will be mistake to oppose different kinds of persuasions to each other. We trust our senses, we trust our reason, and we trust even our instinct in general. We don't use our senses, reason, and general instinct in the same way. We relate them to each other, and they complement each other. The end product, however, is still a persuasion. The question is, not whether we should follow our innate convictions, and not even which innate convictions we should follow, but how do innate convictions relate to each other best, in our experience, and how we best relate them between us, in discourse.

Your comment is commendable, anthropology aside that is, but epistemically I’d take issue with....

.....one doesn’t irrationally believe a conviction, but rather, a persuasion, which reduces to merely holding with an opinion;
.....instinct doesn’t make itself available from experience, but from lack of it, manifest in sheer accident or pure reflex, or congruent circumstances wherein reason is otherwise supervened. — Mww

My point is... an opinion is never merely held. It is held by someone having personal investment in it. Reason is a personal investment. Sensory experience is a personal investment. Being a spoiled child, being in need of ice cream, is still a personal investment. We can relate between the virtues of our personal investments, because they are compelled to relate naturally (not necessarily unambiguously). We can relate between each other our personal investments, as best as we can. There is nothing more to do. We arrive at more investments as we experience life. That is what I meant by instinct. Something that is triggered automatically by involvement, not so much the biological term of being innate at birth.

P.S.: I wouldn't know how to comment on the post-modern quality of my statements.

Here is where Witt’s #246 plays, insofar as it is false for you to claim knowledge of my pain, or sensations in general, and it is nonsense for me to claim knowledge of my pain or sensations in general. — Mww

That is true, when you think about it. But is that how you feel about it? Isn't knowledge ultimately a feeling of conviction that you don't need to fight, but to refine, until it becomes as good as possible under preconceived criteria, a set of virtues conveyed without need for justification. Isn't all life an impulse. It is as useless to fight your faith in objective knowledge, as it is futile to fight one's sensible doubt in it. I am fully justified in doubting whether you feel or are as real as I am. But how do I know that I am actually real, if not through the impulsive realization that I am, through the trust in the conviction that fact and perception are joined. Can I rationally justify that perceiving you is equivalent to the sense of proof I get from perceiving myself? No. But do I ever rationally justify that I perceive any two things the same way? No. Not even perceiving myself in my different aspects. Are they all real, or are some more real then others? I relate perceptual realizations instinctively. I am bound to, compelled to. I have faith in the property of relatability, between myself and between appearances in general. But I am also equally emotionally compelled to doubt them, because my reason fights my conviction, and I have conviction in my reason. I am also instinctively compelled to discover how you emulate your reaction of my emotion, by observing the apparent image of your neurological construction as it is presented to me. And then, I am similarly emotionally compelled to be appreciative of the apparent closeness between our responses and to respect the meaning of this closeness, as I feel it, whatever it might be.

I object to the rational justification of treating the immediate observation (as I feel myself to exist) and perceptual inference (as I project qualities onto the appearances of other organisms or objects, which demonstrate superficial similarity to the enactment of my presence in the world), if that is any consolation. But I find that I do not object the irrational conviction in that equivalence. I am not debating the value of inductive reasoning, belief in self, will to attain fulfillment, will to attain involvement, etc. All that matters is that I rationally doubt anything irrational. But I should irrationally believe my convictions until a stronger, more convincing instinct makes itself available from experience. I wanted to bring that point into the debate here, and see where it takes us. For example, which irrational convictions can be turned into reasonable statements?

I.e. - I questioned in one post in this thread whether existence outside of myself can be a reasonable statement. I didn't question that it can be a sensible statement, but the two senses of existence, perceptual and my own, do not equate. Then, one starts to ask, when do sensible statements become reasonable statements, and through what means, so forth.

This is a common misunderstanding of affect and the amygdala, supported by essentialism, mental inference fallacy and the misguided notion of a triune brain structure. The amygdala has been more recently proven NOT to be the source of emotion in the brain - it activates in response to novel situations, not necessarily emotional ones. Barrett refers to volumes of research dispelling claims that the amygdala is the brain location of emotion (even of fear or anxiety). Interpretations of behaviour in those with reduced or even destroyed amygdala appear to imply the secondary nature of affect because that’s our preference. We like to think of ourselves as primarily rational beings, with the capacity to ‘control’ our emotions. In truth, evidence shows that it’s more efficient to understand and collaborate with affect in determining our behaviour - we can either adjust for affect or try to rationalise it after the fact, but it remains an important aspect of our relation to reality. — Possibility

I know that it is me who brought it up, but I dare say that the precise function of the amygdala is not that relevant to our discussion. Unless you are drawing conclusions from the mechanism by which people attain these anomalous traits, I would consider the explanation outside the topic. Regarding the quality in cognitive and neurological research, I assume that interpretational lattitude exists, but the conclusions are still drawn from correlations between activation of the brain region and cues of affects after exposure to perceptual stimulus. From brief skimming over the summary of a few recent papers, I am left with the impression that there appears to be no clear and hard assertion at present, but what is stated is that there might be primary and secondary effects, and interplay between this limbic component and other cognitive functions. Until I have evidence that allows me to draw my own conclusion, I am assuming that the predominant opinion of involvement in emotional processing is not completely incorrect.

I’m not sure which research or case studies you’re referring to above (I’m not sure if the subjects were born with reduced amygdala or had it partially removed and I think this makes a difference in how I interpret the account) but from what you’ve provided, I’d like to make a few points. I don’t think that an impaired or reduced access to interoception of affect makes much difference to one’s capacity for conceptualisation, or their intelligence as commonly measured. I think it does, however make a difference to their capacity to improve accuracy in their conceptualisation of social reality in particular, and to their overall methodology in refining concepts. They lack information that enables them to make adjustments to behaviour based on social cues, but thanks to the triune brain theory and our general preference for rationality, they’re unlikely to notice much else in terms of ‘impairment’. — Possibility

Psychiatry labels the individuals I was referring to as having antisocial personality disorder, but that is a broad stroke diagnosis. The hereditary variant of the condition goes under additional titles in related fields - forensic psychology and neurology call it psychopathy. Since psychopaths are not experiencing overwhelming discomfort from their misalignment with pro-social behaviors, they are almost never voluntary candidates for treatment and are rather poorly researched. I am not at all literate on the subject, but I am aware of one paper that was produced in collaboration with such affected individual. According to the same person, a dozen of genes are potentially involved as well, some affecting neurotransmitter bindings and from my observation of the responses given from self-attestated psychopaths on quora, the individuals indeed confirm smaller amygdala volume. This is a small sample, but I am primarily interested that their callous-unemotional traits seem to be no obstruction to having reasonably eloquent exchanges. They can interpret situations cognitively, even if they lack emotional perception of social cues.

Psychopaths do not report to be completely unemotive. They can enjoy a scenery. The production of gratifying feeling from successful mental anticipation and analysis of form, as you describe, from music or visual arts, is not foreign to them. Probably, less expressively manifest then in a neurotypical, but not outright missing.

I would predict that they may also have an interest in languages, mathematics, logic and morality - because these ensure they have most of the information they need to develop concepts without the benefit of affect. They may also have a sense of disconnection between their physical and mental existence, relatively less focus on sporting or sexual activity, and an affinity for computer systems and artificial intelligence. — Possibility

There might be an allusion here. I am not getting my information first hand. I would characterize myself as neurotic. Granted, a psychopath would mask themselves, so you could make of it what you will, but I am at worst slightly narcissistic.

As for anxiety, this theoretically refers to the amount of prediction error we encounter from a misalignment of conception and interoception. If there’s reduced access to interoception of affect by conceptualisation systems, there’s less misalignment. — Possibility

What you describe seems more like being in a surprised state. I am thinking more along the lines of oversensitivity and impulsiveness, heightened attention, resulting from the perception of impactfulness and uncertainty. In any case, psychopaths claim that both their fear and anxiety responses are diminished.

I do, however, believe that notions such distance, shape, space, time, value and meaning refer to an underlying qualitative structure of reality that is undeniable. We ‘feel’ these notions long before we’re able to conceptualise them. — Possibility

I understand, that you specifically emphasize that we perceive and indeed this is opposition to Chomsky's theory of innate conceptualization. Granted, perception does not rely on abstractly coded mental awareness. But even if we agree to disagree regarding the plausibility of Chomsky's claim, what you call feeling, I could be justified to call perceptual cognition. Even pain is registration of objective physical stimulus (unless there is a neurological disorder of some kind), and as analytically-blocking and agonizing as it can be, it is not intended to be personally interpretative.

I think bacterial lifeforms are aware of the principles governing their habitat only to the extent that they impact allostasis. Any rudimentary sense of values would be initially qualitative, not quantitative - corresponding to the ongoing interoception of valence and arousal in the organism. But as Barrett suggests, the neuronal structure conceptualises in order to summarise for efficiency, separating statistical similarities from sensory differences to eliminate redundancy. Our entire evolutionary development has been in relation to the organism’s capacity to more efficiently construct and refine conceptual systems and structures for allostasis from a network of interoceptive systems. The systems and network we’ve developed now consist of whole brain processes, degeneracy, feedback loops and a complex arrangement of checks and balances, budgeting the organism’s ongoing allocation of attention and effort. — Possibility

Again, interoception, when it expresses an objective relation between the subject and their environment, is simply perception. How do you distinguish this interoceptive awareness from being cognizant of the objective features of your surroundings? The fact is that we are able to percieve objects easily and to discern visual frame constituents quickly. There is specialization in the development of our brain structures and it is very important for drawing empirical information from our environment. Which suggests to me that empirical assessment is natural to us and part of our intellectual function.

I think this sense that a chair is still a chair to us relates to goal-oriented concepts. Barrett references the work of cognitive scientist Lawrence W. Barsalou, and demonstrates that we are pre-programmed to develop goal-oriented concepts effortlessly: to categorise seemingly unconnected instances - such as a fly swatter, a beekeeper’s suit, a house, a car, a large trash can, a vacation in Antarctica, a calm demeanour and a university degree in etymology - under purely mental concepts such as ‘things that protect you from stinging insects’. “Concepts are not static but remarkably malleable and context-dependent, because your goals can change to fit the situation.” So if an object meets that goal for you, then it’s a chair, whether it’s made of wood or plastic, shaped like a box or a wave, etc. — Possibility

I do agree, that if we grouped only according to innate functions, every object that provides static mechanical connection between underlying surface and rested weight would be a chair. That would put a trash bin in the same category and it isn't in it. However, we do have a function concept of the mechanical connection, i.e. the concept of resting weight through intermediary solid, and it has not changed significantly by the discovery QM. We develop both function concepts and use concepts, intentionally, depending on our needs. The metrics through which we cluster the space of our experience can be driven by uses or functions, depending on our motivation for conceptualization.

Charles Peirce’s pragmaticist theory of fallibilism, as described in Wikipedia’s article on empiricism: “The rationality of the scientific method does not depend on the certainty of its conclusions, but on its self-corrective character: by continued application of the method science can detect and correct its own mistakes, and thus eventually lead to the discovery of truth". The historical oppression of pragmatic truth by empirical truth translates to a fear of uncertainty - of being left without solid ground to stand on. — Possibility

Going back to the influence of QM and the convergence of physical concepts. Aristotle taught that movement depends on the presence of forces. Newton dismantled that notion. But we are still perceiving the world as mostly Aristotelian. I am aware of Newtonian physics and I do conceptualize the world as at least Newtonian. But I consider the Newtonian world as mostly Aristotelian in my average experience. New physical paradigms do not uproot entirely how we evaluate the features of our environment, but refine them. They revolutionize our perception of the extent of the physical law, which makes us reevaluate our physical theories and make us more observant. The same is true for relativity and QM.

Yes, pragmatic truth is less precise in a static sense, but surely we are past the point of insisting on static empirical statements? Quantum mechanics didn’t just change our perception of atoms, but our sense that there is a static concreteness underlying reality. We are forced to concede a continual state of flux, which our sensory limitations as human observers require us to statistically summarise and separate from its qualitative variability, in order to relate it to our (now obviously limited sense of) empirical truth. Yet pragmatically, the qualitative variability of quantum particles is regularly applied as a prediction of attention and effort with unprecedented precision and accuracy. — Possibility

I am not sure which aspect of staticity you oppose. Truth does not apply to antropological realities in the same sense by default. As I stated in another thread, you cannot always support truth with evidence, because not all statements have this character. Antropological phenomena, including science, depend on the "rightness of approach", which is settled by consensus rather then just hard evidence. On the other hand, empirical truth underlies the aim of the scientific pursuit, and it is the quality of its attainment that can produce convergence. It may not be attained in reality, but if it is attained, the result will be gradually converging.

Lets suppose that truth, as we can cognitively process it, is never static. Lets examine a few reasons why that could be.

1. Is it that the world is essentially indescribable? That there is no symbolic representation that could ever encompass the manner of operation and state of nature even through approximate probabilistic homomorphism. This is equivalent to the conjecture that a machine making approximate probable assessments of the evolution of its locale is impossible to construct even in principle. Really? I would not make such conjecture, but it may be true. I am not omniscient. If such machine existed, however, then I see no reason why homo sapiens wouldn't be endowed through natural selection with similar cognitive functions, even if they are working towards social and ecological goals as well.
2. Or maybe we cant perceive the world exhaustively and objectively, because of our sensory limitations? Would the character of those limitations be impossible to compensate with instrumented observations?
3. Or maybe we lack the analytic and logical capacity? But we don't need to process information on the fly, if we are committed to analyzing facts retrospectively and draw conclusions.
4. Or maybe we are constrained by non-analytic dispositions? I am not sure that emotions oppose logical reasoning. Do they? Even if emotion takes part of some open or closed loop in our mental process, does that immediately imply that it detracts from the objective empirical value of our conclusions? In fact, it might motivate them.

I do not contend interoception. Appreciation of music and art is, I believe, interoceptive-analytical loop of sorts. Most mental actions involve a degree of satisfaction that manifests also interoceptively. I only contend that it sways our cognitive response from objective analysis of the information to some allostatically aimed impulsive reaction. For social interactions, as they are inherently subjective, this may be true, but for empiricism and physical feature analysis, I would say not so much.

It is the qualification of ‘best discernment without excessive distinction’ that perhaps needs more thought. Best in what sense? According to which value hierarchy? And at what point is the distinction ‘excessive’? It isn’t that the taxonomy is formed in an arbitrarily personal fashion, but rather intersubjectively. It’s a process and methodology developed initially through religious, political and cultural trial and error - manifesting language, custom, law and civility as externally predictive, four-dimensional landscapes from the correlation of human instances of being. — Possibility

You are right that many complex criteria are connected to values, but the recognition of basic object features, I believe is not. As I mentioned, we should account for the complex hierarchical cognitive and perceptual faculties with which we are endowed from the get go. At least, we know that our perceptual system is incredibly elaborate, and doesn't just feed raw data to us. As infants, we don't start from a blank slate and become conditioned by experience and interactions to detect shapes, recognize objects, assess distances. Those discernments that are essential to how we later create simple conceptualizations and are completely hereditary. And although this is a more tenuous hypothesis, like Noam Chomsky, I do actually believe that some abstract notions, such as length, order and symmetry, identity, compositeness, self, etc - are actually biologically pre-programmed. Not to the point, where they are inscribed directly in the brain, but their subsequent articulation is heavily inclined, and under exposure to the right environment, the predispositions trigger infant conceptualization. I think of this through an analogy with embryonic development. Fertilized eggs cannot develop physically outside the womb, but in its conditions, they are programmed to divide and organize rapidly into a fetus form. I think this happens neurologically with us when we are exposed to the characteristic physical environment during infancy.

This heritage hypothesis can appear more reasonable in light of the harmonious relationship between any cognizant organism and the laws of the environment in which it operates. To some extent, even bacterial lifeforms need to be robotically aware of the principles governing their habitat. Our evolutionary history transpired in the presence of the same constraining factors, such as the inertial physical law for objects moving in the absence of forces, and thus it is understandable that our cognitive apparatus would be primed to anticipate the dynamics in question, with a rudimentary sense of lengths and quantities. Even if such notions are not explicit, the relationship between our reconstruction of the features of the world and the natural laws would be approximately homomorphic. And the hypothesis is, that at some point after the appearance of linguistic capabilities, we were further compelled by natural selection towards linguistic articulation of these mental reconstructions through hereditary conceptualization. Whereas fundamental discernment of features of appearances would have developed even earlier , being more involuntary and unconscious.

The recent psychology/neuroscience work of Lisa Feldman Barrett in developing a constructed theory of emotion is shedding light on the ‘concept cascade’, and the importance of affect (attention/valence and effort/arousal) in how even our most basic concepts are formed. Alongside recent descriptions in physics (eg. Carlo Rovelli) of the universe consisting of ‘interrelated events’ rather than objects in time, Barrett’s theory leads to an idea of consciousness as a predictive four-dimensional landscape from ongoing correlation of interoception and conception as internally constructed, human instances of being. — Possibility

Maybe I am misreading the argument. Affective dispositions are essential to human behavior where social drives and other emotions come into the foray, but people also apply a layer of general intelligence. I will try to make a connection to a neurological condition of reduced amygdala volume, which renders people incapable of any affective empathy, and for the most part, highly diminishes their sense of anxiety. They are capable of feeling only anger or satisfaction, but the feelings fade quickly. Such individuals are extremely intelligent, literate, articulate. They conceptualize the world slightly differently, but are otherwise capable of the same task planning and anticipation. Considering the rather placated nature of their emotions (compared to a neurotypical), and the exhibition of reasonably similar perception of the world, intelligence isn't that reliant on affective conditions. Admittedly, they still do have cognitive dispositions, feel pain or pleasure, have basic needs as well, are unemotionally engaged with society and subject to culture and norms (to a smaller extent). But the significant disparity in affective stimuli and the relative closeness to us in cognitive output appears to imply that affective dispositions are a secondary factor for conceptualization. At least on a case by case basis. I am not implying that if we all had smaller amygdala volume, it wouldn't transform the social perception.

I also agree that concepts can be perceived as both fluid and stable. This reflects our understanding of wave-particle duality (I don’t think this is coincidental). But I also think the ‘maximally-informed model’ we’re reaching for is found not in some eventual stability of concepts, but in developing an efficient relation to their fluidity - in our awareness, connection and collaboration with relations that transcend or vary conceptual structures. — Possibility

To be honest, it depends on whether a person can reach maximally informed state, or at least sufficiently informed state, with respect to a certain aspect of their overall experience. For example, quantum mechanics changed a lot about our perception of atoms, and atoms changed a lot about our perception of the reaction of objects to heat, but I think that to some extent, a chair is till a chair to us, as it was in antiquity. I think that while we might perceive certain features of a chair differently, such as what happens when we burn it, or how much energy is in it, or what is in it, its most basic character, namely that of an object which offers solid support for your body when you rest yourself on it, is unchanged. The problem with the convergence of information is its reliance on the potential to acquire most of the discernment value from a reasonably small number of observations. After all, this is a large universe, with intricate detail, lasting a long time.

It’s more efficient to discriminate events than objects from each other in the bulk of our experience. Even though our language structure is based on objects in time, we interact with the world not as an object, but as an event at our most basic, and that event is subject to ongoing variability. ‘Best discernment without excessive distinction’ then aims for allostasis - stability through variability - not homeostasis. This relates to Barrett as mentioned above. — Possibility

I do believe that intelligence, to a great extent, functions like a computer trying to evaluate outcomes from actions according to a some system of values. The values are indeed derived from many factors. I do agree that there are implicit aspects to our intelligence strongly engaged with ecosystemic stability, where the person is only one actor in the environment and tries to enter into correct symbiotic alignment with it. The function of the personal intelligence becomes allostatically aimed, as you describe. On the other hand, there aspects to our intelligence, not always that clearly separated, but at least measurably autonomous from this type of conformant symbiotic thinking, that are concerned with representational accuracy. You are right there, that I was focusing more on this type of conceptual mapping, and indeed, it is the only one that is homeostatically aimed. In fact, the recent discussions in the forum were addressing the subject of belief and its relationship to truth, and I meant to express my opinion, which exactly follows these lines. That our personal ideas can seek alignment with the world either by exploring compelling facts outside of our control, or by maneuvering ourselves through the space of possible modes of being and trying to adjust according to our consequent experience. The distinction and the relationship between the two is apparently of interest, but is also difficult to reconcile. Also, I was referring to objects, but objects are merely aspects of situations. Even further, as you suggest, situations are merely aspects of our relation to the context in which these situations occur. I was simplifying on one hand, and also, I do indeed think that we do classify objects as well, since thankfully we have the neurological aptitude to separate them from the background and to compress their features, thanks to our inherited perception apparatus and rudimentary conceptualization skill.

I guess I wanted to point out that there is more structural process to the development of concepts than categorising objects of experience through cluster analysis or dimensionality reduction, and that qualitative relations across multiple dimensional levels play a key role. — Possibility

In retrospect, I think that there are two nuances to intelligence, and I was addressing only one. The empirically representationally aimed one.

Edit. I should also point out, that the intelligence you describe, is the more general mechanism. I have previously referred to a related notion of distinction, that of pragmatic truth versus representational truth. And pragmatic truth, as I have stated, is the more general form of awareness. But it is also the less precise and more difficult to operate. It is outside the boundary of empiricism. Your description of allostatic conceptualization is actually something slightly different, yet related. It brings a new quality to pragmatic truth for me. I usually focus on empirical truth. Not because I want to dispense with the other, but because it has the more obvious qualities. Even if both are evidently needed, if the latter then operates under the former.

Sorry, I saw your reply just yesterday evening.

The person is the subject of all the possible true descriptions and explanations of her or him. — Janus

This is difficult for me to process. I realize that you like to be general and broaden the scope, but this makes the discussion a little unconstrained. I am not asking if you are dualist, as if to expose your conviction and mock it, but it is pertinent to the discourse. The next question would be, how does this dualism manifest. Does it cause irregular patterns, such as distribution biases in QM.

No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that while quantum indeterminacy is necessary if there is to be freedom, In the sense that it allows that we always could have done otherwise, our moral choices cannot be determined (rather than merely enabled) by that indeterminism, but must be determined by the purposeful self or consciousness in order to themselves count as free and determining, as opposed to merely random, choices. — Janus

Unless you are a dualist and you suggest that QM affords the manifestation of will through probability distribution changes from the norm, you appear to suggest that our freedom stems from the conventional possible fluctuations in the chemical processes in our brain due to QM uncertainty. That is, a neurotransmitter binds to a neuroreceptor a microsecond earlier or later and that jags our thought process enough to give it physical autonomy from the externally compelling forces of the world. To me, this is the same as having a coin tossed inside your brain. Yes, we could claim that it is your own private coin, but I think that the killer thought experiment is still pertinent.

That's because the intelligent answer to that conundrum (from long ago, that is from Augustine) is that God exists in eternity, and so it's not a matter of God knowing what you do before you do it, which would suggest predetermination. God knows all of the past, present and future, so for God there is no before and after. — Janus

I meant that the deity is considered free (even if trivially), without it itself having uncertainty. If the deity can be free and certain, why shouldn't people be credited with freedom in the same way. In fact, if someone is a theist, they should consider the freedom of the deity granted to them as part of being. If the deity is free, then the creation is on the whole a choice, then everything in it is the manifestation of a choice, and carries this choice in their embodiment. In any case, you propose that determinism is a matter of perspective, which appears to me to equate non-determinism and lack of knowledge.

Edit: Sorry for not replying, but I am in a sort of a flux. I apologize, but I expect that I may tarry awhile between replies even in the future.

This is too vast a landscape to be dealt with properly in a forum format. I know this is sort-of a bail out from me, but really, it is a serious subject. I wouldn't be the right person to deal with it, because I don't have the proper qualification.

The oversimplification I made was multi-fold. First, I didn't address hereditary and collective experience. It involved the ability to discern the quantities, a problem for which you inquired, and which I would have explained as genetically inclined. How genetics influence conceptualization and the presence of motivation for natural selection that fosters basic awareness of endemic world features need to be explained. Second, I reduced the feature space to a single dimension, an abstract integer, which avoided the question of making correlations and having to pick most discerning descriptors, i.e. dimensionality reduction. I also compressed the object space, to a single point, which dispensed with a myriad of issues, such as identifying objects in their environment, during stasis or in motion, anticipation of features obscured from view, assessment of orientation, assessment of distance.

The idea of this oversimplification was merely to illustrate how concepts correspond to classes in taxonomies of experience. And in particular, that there is no real circularity. There was ambiguity stemming from the lack of unique ascription of classes to a given collection of previously observed instances. Such as in the case of 3, there is inherent inability to decide whether it falls into the group of 1 and 2, or bridges 1 and 2 with 5. However, assigning 1 and 3 to one class, and 2 and 5 to a different class would be solving the problem counter-productively. Therefore, the taxonomy isn't formed in arbitrary personal fashion. It follows the objective of best discernment without excessive distinction.

No matter what process actually attains plausible correspondence, what procedure is actually used to create the taxonomy, no matter the kind of features that are used to determine the relative disposition of new objects/samples to previous object/samples and how the relative locations of each one is judged, what I hoped to illustrate was that concepts are not designed so much according to their ability to describe common structure of some collection of objects, but according to their ability to discriminate objects from each other in the bulk of our experience. This problem can be solved even statically, albeit with enormous computational expense.

What I hoped to illustrate is that concepts can both be fluid and stable. New objects/impressions can appear in previously unpopulated locations of our experience, or unevenly saturate locations to the extent that new classes form from the division of old ones, or fill the gaps between old classes, creating continuity between them and merging them together. In that sense, the structure of our concept map is flexible. Hence, our extrapolations, our predictions, which depend on how we partition our experience into categories with symmetric properties, change in the process. Concepts can converge, because experience, in general, accumulates, and can also converge. The concepts, in theory, should gradually reach some maximally informed model.

Again, to me, all this corresponds to the "cluster analysis" and "dimensionality reduction" problems.

You are correct, that I did presuppose quantity discernment and distance measurement (or in 1-D difference computation). The denizen knows how to deal with the so called "affine spaces". I didn't want to go there. That opens an entirely new discussion.

Just to scratch the surface with a few broad strokes here. We know we inherit a lot genetically, environmentally, culturally. Our perception system, for example, utilizes more then 5 senses that we manage to somehow correlate. The auditory and olfactory senses are probably the least detailed, being merely in stereo. But the visual system starts with about 6-million bright illumination photoreceptor cells and many more low illumination photoreceptor cells, unevenly distributed on the retina. Those are processed by a cascade of neural networks, eventually ending in the visual cortex and visual association cortex. In between, people merge the monochromatic information from the photoreceptors into color spectrum information, ascertain depth, increase the visual acuity of the image by superimposing visual input from many saccadic eye movements (sharp eye fidgeting), discern contours, detect objects in motion, etc. I am no expert here, but I want to emphasize that we have inherited a lot of mental structure in the form of hierarchical neural processing. Considering that the feature space of our raw senses is in the millions of bits, having perceptual structure as heritage plays a crucial role in our ability to further conceptualize our complex environment, by reinforcement, by trial and error.

Another type of heritage is proposed by Noam Chomsky. He describes, for which there is apparently evidence, that people are not merely linguistic by nature, but endowed with inclinations to easily develop linguistic articulations of specific categories of experience in the right environment. Not just basic perception related concepts, but abstract tokens of thought. This may explain why we are so easily attuned to logic, quantities, social constructs of order, pro-social behaviors, like ethical behaviors, affective empathy (i.e. love) etc. I am suggesting that we use classification to develop concepts from individual experience. This should happen inside the neural network of our brain, somewhere after our perception system and before decision making. I am only addressing part of the issue. I think that nature also genetically programs classifiers in the species behavior, by incorporating certain awareness of experience categories in their innate responses. There is also the question of social Darwinism. Because natural selection applies to the collective, the individuals are not necessarily compelled to identical conceptualization. Some conceptual inclinations are conflicting, to keep the vitality of the community.

Well said. I think the whole determinism indeterminism debate is a red herring. That’s not actually what people care about when they think of freedom and agency. I don’t think you need the possibility of doing otherwise to be free or morally responsible. All you need is uncertainty of the future, and lack of external impositions. — khaled

I wouldn't even require uncertainty. For example, theism generally ascribes omnipotence and omniscience to the deity, yet no one claims that they are not free. I know that this example comes out of left field for me, but the point is, that we don't seem to have problem with certainty either.

But even if you cannot accept absurdism, because it appears counter-anecdotal to any experience that you have with the universe, this still leaves the question - do you accept any ecocentric (i.e. non-antropocentric) or self-denigrating forms of theism - dystheism, panpsychism, pandeism, etc. To me, it appears that most theists are comparatively optimistic. Why? Isn't that indication for bias? — simeonz

I would still ask you, as per my above question, if you are biased to accept only optimistic resolutions of your theist concerns, why shouldn't people suspect you that you prioritize your interest in solving your existential anxiety over the stoic pursuit for truth. I am talking about priorities here, not about your potential for actual attainment of stoicism. Do you admit any potential hypothesis that doesn't grant you dignity and peace of mind?

You're aware of the phrase 'the hermeneutics of suspicion'? What if the motivation of this criticism arises not from science per se, but from the 'Enlightenment values' which seek to objectify and instrumentalise. — Wayfarer

There is difference between unfounded suspicion and reasonable suspicion. Suspicion is reasonable when you have already observed the deceptiveness of confidence from our mental faculties or when we have no prior experience with the analysis of phenomena of some kind. Do you mean to propose that human beings are not biased towards self-affirmation and that vanity does not distort their perception? You haven't encountered it in your routine interactions with people? Why not be consequently at least somewhat skeptical about the optimism in your own convictions?

'Cosmos is all there is' saith Carl Sagan. But this is again just scientism speaking - 'cosmos' means 'an ordered whole', and that concept can hardly be maintained in modern cosmology, which according to some critics is Lost in Math. — Wayfarer

I said, might be, but I am not sure. What I don't understand is how such hypothesis, as the idea that the universe is self-contained, can be so decisively and completely negated in favor of another similarly unproven hypothesis. I may have my inclinations, but as you can see, I practice what I preach. I am skeptical. Theism may be right and there might be benevolent deity, but in consideration of all the possible theist possibilities, being so specific about aspects of the universe of which we have no prior perception whatsoever is not just biased, it is extravagant. Hypotheses have to be made with minimalism at mind. I would always ask question for each assumed property of theism.
Why antropocentrism and not ecocentrism? Why benevolent and not immoral deity? Why singularly directed omnipotent will and not many conflicting potencies? Why reasonable and not unreasonable foundation?

Humans and quantum particles pretty much act in similar manner, which is no surprise since everything is quantum. — MondoR

Human cells are made of many quantum particles. Neurons and synapses are made of many quantum particles. Admittedly neurotransmitters are not made of as many particles, but to my understanding a few dozen neuroreceptors need to be stimulated simultaneously to cause a neuron to fire. In other words, I doubt that the variance of the event is that significant. We don't accuse other objects at the macro-scale of acting as quantum particles, because the variability in the output of big aggregate systems is very small. Why do that for human beings? This seems rather selective and intentional on our part.

As I said, I am still not sure why tossing dice has anything to do with personal agency. Consider the thought experiment I proposed earlier. All murderers in some hypothetical deterministic world are completely governed in their actions by natural law, save one that has a dice that they use to decide if they should shoot someone. Are they more free? Are they more responsible?

Free will implication, heh? I'll settle for tonight.

Alright.

I say, we can leave it at that.

Basically, I mean that we cannot talk about non-determinism or determinism at the scale of the universe and its entire history. At least not empirically.

If it's locally unpredictable, it is no-deterministic in that sense of the word. — Olivier5

I can shake on that. Although that is the physics definition and this is a philosophy forum, so people may have different intended ideas behind the same term.

It may still be called deterministic in the sense that some predictions can be made at macro scale. Like we can predict that the sun will become a red giant at some point, but not who will win the lottery tomorrow. — Olivier5

I understand. But I meant that, as you yourself remarked earlier, we cannot test whether if we replicate the universe, it would replicate the outcome. Therefore the more metaphysically inclined interpretation of the question is not essential (for physics). We can only talk about our ability to use mathematically expressed locally acting physical relations to predict the outcome. This is, I think, as you said, aesthetically unrelated to the metaphysical debate, which cannot be decided by any scientific discovery.
Or maybe need not be.

question of determinism vs. indeterminism, a question which I see as at best aesthetical, and at worse metaphysical. — Olivier5

I agree with that, I think.

"That" is indeterminism, a metaphysical view of a universe open to novelty, where opportunities happen, where time is not wholly redundant.

It's not about total chaos, it's about letting a little lash between the big wheels of determinism, a little play without which those big wheels won't turn. — Olivier5

But don't you think that lack of determinism within spatially and temporally confined setups, as in the double-slit experiment, is not the same as the suggestion that the universe is not pre-determined. It is just evidence, that it not predictable using the locally acting physical laws. I am not claiming that we can even discuss determinism vs non-determinism other then locally, but I am making the point that we cannot call the universe non-deterministic. It is more accurate to call it locally unpredictable.

So, to the extent of QM being locally non-deterministic at a certain scale, I agree. And there is nothing more that can be said about that, I think.

But that's the thing: indeterminism never ever pretended that the world was pure chaos. It just says that the future is not fully determined by the past. — Olivier5

I agree with that. This is how physics works. At least locally. Globally, as I said, we cannot discuss. (I am not alluding to superluminal effects, but to some property that is feature of the initial conditions of the universe and cannot be measured other then by the outcome of the quantum interactions. This is meaningless to talk about, because it is undetectable.)

Rest assured that I am well aware of this. — Olivier5

Well, then you understand why I don't consider it the opposite of determinism. It still has predictive utility. And consequently it makes certain processes very reliable, whether they can be completely determined or not. So, I doubt that free will can rest on that. Or that we can claim that the prediction-based model of the world is just a fairy tale.

A lot of assumptions you got there... The reason in question could be purely probabilistic. — Olivier5

It still has to guarantee sufficient utility. Meaning it has to be deterministic enough.

Ah okay. I guess I go by the QM typethen. Didn't know a form of indeterminism existed that did not function with probabilities. — Olivier5

It doesn't. At least not in physics. That was just to clarify that QM non-determinism isn't just some arbitrary outcome. It includes underlying properties (it is counterfactually definite), which make it statistically predictive.

@Olivier5
I should actually make a correction, that my "factual non-determinism" is not verifiable by finite number of observations, but two such hypotheses are distinguishable by finite number of observations. Whereas with QM, two hypotheses may not be ever discernable completely.

But if some such representation is possible by any species, then the world is approximately deterministic, at least on the necessary scale. And if that is true, then the neurological processes are governed by deterministic laws (assuming they are not influenced by microscopic interactions sufficiently.)

What I meant is, that as long as indeterminism doesn't include the notion of propensities, it is testable by a finite collection of observations. QM is a different kind of indeterminism, which allows the weighing of different outcomes in accordance to hypothesized propensities. Those propensities are actually called counter-factual outside of the multiple worlds interpretation (where they are, we could say, simultaneously factual, if you will) Such counter-factual properties, such as the wavefunction, cannot be confirmed by any amount of observations, although they can be judged by statistical inference - i.e. interval testing, bayesian inference.

You call it absurd, I don't. I'm just saying that human beings are contingent. They could never had appeared, or be different than they are. Therefore their reason, our reason, which has at least some natural, evolutionary basis, could also be different. It's at least possible that it be contingent. Otherwise what? God gave us the Logos? — Olivier5

In relation to the human condition, such as morality, the irrationality of our existence lies exactly in the fact that the initial state of the environment are contingent. I agree that our human sensibilities may not be grounded in the natural law, and instead be product of arbitrary initial circumstances. That can most certainly be true and I am inclined to be absurdist in that sense for sure.

But when we consider our analytic faculties, I think that reason arises as consequence from a low-entropy system trying to simulate the external environment in an internal heavily compressed image of the external state and natural laws. And the goal is to anticipate hypothetical outcomes and construct plans that sustain the system. This is oversimplification, because we don't actually simulate our surroundings. Frequently, we just make associations. But there is some approximate probabilisitic homomorphism between the external state and the neurological state. To that extent, some part of being reasonable is arbitrary, as it can never be perfect and it is formed over time, and each organism needs different kind of reason. But the potential for the emergence of approximate probabilistic homomophic representation is what makes the world reasonable. And to me, an absurd world is one where the lack of reproducibility in the local relations between prior and posterior physical conditions and the lack of enough stability, as low-entropy, make such construction impossible long-term. I believe that to be true for this world, ultimately. We are doomed to fail to sustain ourselves. But it is not because of non-determinism, but because there is too much entropy in the world and it increases constantly.

But if you are proposing that the natural law is completely impossible to internalize homomorphically, then this type of analytic absurdism, let's call it that, I propose cannot be reasoned with.

Why would there be only one form of reason? Just because we are born with a particular form of reason doesn't mean it is the only one. — Olivier5

Yes, but the point is, while we don't have to limit ourselves to our experience, we still must have some restraint to our concept's meaning to evaluate them in our discussion. If we call anything and everything reason, then I agree that absurdism will be reasonable, because that is precisely the definition of absurdity. But then again, I think we are ending with one useless word in the vocabulary. You must have something else in mind, I suspect, to compel you to propose that reason for absurd reality exists beyond our comprehension. Could you elaborate any of its qualities, even if you can't define it?

I didn't think so.

:smile:
Could you be just a tad bit more specific?

You may wish to be coherent. You can't say something and then its opposite. — Olivier5

Are you suggesting that some of my previous posts are contradicting?

I’m glad you added this. I have some issues with your example - not the least of which is its ‘zero-dimensional’ or quantitative description, which assumes invariability of perspective and ignores the temporal aspect. — Possibility

Actually, there are multiple kinds of dimensions here. The features that determine the instant of experience are indeed in one dimension. What I meant is that the universe of the denizen is trivial. The spatial aspect is zero-dimensional, the spatio-temporal aspect is one-dimensional. The quantities are the measurements (think electromagnetic field, photon frequencies/momenta) over this zero-dimensional (one-dimensional with the time axis included) domain. Multiple inhabitants are difficult to articulate, but such defect from the simplifcation of the subject is to be expected. You can imagine complex communication would require more then a single point, but that breaks my intended simplicity.

The idea was this - the child denizen is presented with number 1. Second experience during puberty is number 2. Third experience, during adolescence is number 5. And final experience during adulthood is number 4. The child denizen considers that 1 is the only possibility. Then, after puberty realizes that 1 and 2 both can happen. Depending on what faculties for reason we presume here, they might extrapolate, but lets assume only interpolation for the time being. The adult denizen encounters 5 and decides to group experiences in category A for 1 and 2 and category B for 5. This facilitates its thinking, but also means that it doesn't have strong anticipation for 3 and 4, because A and B are considered distinct. Then it encounters 3 and starts to contemplate, if 1, 2, 3, and 5 are the same variety of phenomenon with 4 missing yet, but anticipated in the future, or 1, 2, 3 are one group that inherits semantically A (by extending it) and 5 remains distinct. This is a choice that changes the predictions it makes for the future. If two denizens were present in this world, they could contend on the issue.

This resembles a problem called "cluster analysis". I proposed that this is how our development of new concepts takes place. We are trying to contrast some things we have encountered with others and to create boundaries to our interpolation. In reality, we are not measuring individual quanta. We are receiving multi-dimensional data that heavily aggregates measurements, we perform feature extraction/dimensionality reduction and then correlate multiple dimensions. This also allows us to predict missing features during observation, by exploiting our knowledge of the prior correlations.

QM and the Gut-brain axis can be used as new insights. The actual impact of coordinated quantum events is something to explore. — MondoR

I actually agree. By coordinated quantum events, am I mistaken that you probably mean quantum entanglement? In either case, we can explore them, but making hard statements about their relation with free will is stretching the power of such conjecture. And as I said, I am still unsure that we need it at all. Tossing dices and having will, even if the dices provides a measure of state independence, I think need not be equated.

They is no reason to limit anything to there brain any longer. The Gut-brain axis bidirectional communication is accepted by biological science. — MondoR

I realize that. There is also the extended mind thesis. But I still claim that resting free will on non-determinism via QM implies that the standard deviation to the brain process outcome caused through quantum interactions is significant.

Edit: In other words, I am not sure if that changes our picture in relation to non-determinism.