But 2 plus 2 is four and there is a process there which is more than finding new words. — Gregory

I thought that all mathematics is considered analytic a priori knowledge. That might make a certain amount of sense. There are studies showing that babies have a sense of number at a very early age.

So there are linguistic skills learned analytically and processes learn synthetically, both being different in *how* humans learn them. — Gregory

Are you saying that language is analytic a priori knowledge. It is pretty well established that very young children have an apparently hardwired ability to learn language. I guess we could call that analytic, although I'm not sure it makes sense to call a capacity knowledge. It's also true that children who are never exposed to language at a young age will never develop it, even if they are exposed at a latter time.

That's an example of an analytic truth, not synthetic. The value is that it is definitional. It tells you what a bachelor is. — Hanover

Sorry. That sentence was a non-sequitur. I was talking about synthetic a priori knowledge and then switched to analytic. I didn't know the distinction between the two types of knowledge when I read @Tom Storm's post, so I looked it up. It seems useless. Synthetic knowledge is nothing but regular old empirical knowledge and analytic knowledge is trivial. People wave a priori knowledge around like it's a magic wand, but it's just fancy words for regular old stuff.

I would be interested to hear what others have to say about a priori - and synthetic a priori. There may be space in this discussion to explore the idea of properly basic beliefs. These are all part of a foundationalist view of reality. — Tom Storm

Let me see if I have this straight - synthetic a priori means "makes sense, but I'd better check." That's fine, but it's not usually how people use the term in philosophy. At least not on the forum. It's generally used to mean that it's so obvious that it doesn't need to be justified. Sometimes even more than that - that it is somehow woven into the very structure of reality. Which is what this whole thread is about.

What is the value of knowing that all bachelors are unmarried?

I think introspection is a valid form of empirical knowledge.
— T Clark
But introspection illusions, no? — 180 Proof

Can intuition be wrong? Of course it can. Does that mean it isn't valuable. Of course it doesn't. One thing intuition is very good for is setting off alarms when you hear something that doesn't fit. That happens to me all the time. When I go to check, I'm usually right. How good is intuition as justification for action? It depends on the consequences of failure. I'll bet a buck I'm right. Sure. Seems like a good idea, I'll put my lifesavings on it. Probably not.

Our intuitions are not there for the purpose of truth. That's a pretty easy one to figure out if you think about it. — noAxioms

Babies have to build their own worlds. They have to take in all the sensory information they gather and process it through neurological and mental mechanisms of their minds and use it to construct a model of how the world works. As we grow, the model increases in complexity and scope. This is my understanding based on introspection and reading authors such as Stephen Pinker, Lisa Feldman Barrett, and Karen Wynn.

In my experience, most of what I know in the world is rapped up in that model. Most of what I know I know by intuition.

I can remember reading about the baby's retina aleady stimulating the brain with shapes. Don't ask me how they found out... Maybe you have seen it with your eyes closed. Concentric rings flowing in and outwards. Surely the bodily baby shape somehow projects in the baby brain. — Haglund

As I said, this makes sense to me.

Nothing. Knowledge takes the form of sensory data. — Harry Hindu

I agree, but many people don't.

Knowledge of god can't be empirical, although you can see them all around. — Haglund

I'm not a follower of any religion, so I may not be the right person to have an opinion on this. It has always seemed to be that religious faith is based on a human experience of something, something believers think of as God. I think introspection is a valid form of empirical knowledge.

The baby already has knowledge of the world without ever having walked in it. How can that be? The knowledge must have evolved already in the womb, with closed eyes. In a sense the baby is in the world 9 months. Structures in the brain, without halt, running around during evolving from nothing to baby size. Baby eyes sending patterns, brain reacting, balance, body sending formal information, baby brain reacting. Knowledge forming. No tabula rasa. Then we are thrown in. The world showing itself. The world projected in the fertile soil of the baby brain. — Haglund

This makes sense to me, although I don't know if there are studies about experiences babies pick up in the womb.

How does the baby dog know to go to mamma's nipples? The dog image or dog knowledge is already there a priori, contrary to the a priori knowledge of the goose. Smaller brain. — Haglund

It seems like you are making a distinction between baby humans and animals. It is my understanding that some of the baby's first reactions such as sucking are built-in, instinctual, unlearned, much as the animals are. I'm not even sure it makes sense to call it knowledge.

However, the actual translation of his ideas is potentially problematic, especially the idea of going beyond good and evil. What would this mean? It could be used to justify almost anything. — Jack Cummins

This idea shows up when discussing any issue about abandoning traditional values or the possibility of behaving in accordance with an inner voice. Look at the all the discussions we have on the forum about the possibilities of morality without God. It's the strongest criticism against one of my favorite philosophical works - Emerson's "Self-Reliance." I've also seen it as criticism of Taoism. Here's a profoundly radical quote from "Self-Reliance."

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested, — “But these impulses may be from below, not from above.” I replied, “They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil’s child, I will live then from the Devil.” No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. — Emerson

Welcome to the forum. As for people your own age - most of us here are old people. We consider 50 year olds youngsters. Have you looked through the discussions? Did you see anything you're interested in contributing to? Can you live with a certain level of crankiness sometimes sliding over into rudeness? The forum is moderated and the moderators are generally fair and reasonable, but it is assumed you can take care of yourself.

Take a look at the Shoutbox at the top of the front page. That's the place where people mouth off about just about everything without having to meet anything but the minimum standards of civility. You get to see our personalities.

I can't say you treated the song unkind. You could have done better, but I don't mind. — T Clark

@unenlightened

Let's try this instead:

I can't say you treated the song unfair. You could have done better, but I don't care.

Great song, great musicians, but I don't like it, they overplayed it and over-sentimentalised it, and clearly thought twice or even three times. I wish there was something they could sing or play to try and make me change my mind, but they entirely lost the vitriol and irony of the original. And you even linked it twice! — unenlightened

It's the greatest breakup song of all time and Dylan plays the best version. The bitterness is wonderful. "You just sort of wasted my precious time." Perfect. But I like that Tedeschi mixed the pain in too. That adds something good to the bitterness. I don't see it as sentimental.

I can't say you treated the song unkind. You could have done better, but I don't mind.

The universe is a computational system that continually recomputes its current data state from its previous data state. Minds sample the universal data state as neural data structures in our brains and simulates it as the familiar 'physical' world we experience.

My model of how this happens is discussed in detail in my Complete Theory of Everything at https://EdgarLOwen.info — Edgar L Owen

This is not a thread about the mathematical nature of the universe. It's about cause. I haven't seen anything you've posted here that relates to that.

That's exactly the problem, it isn't science at all, because instead of acknowledging that the predictive failures of the theory are due to a faulty theory, people will assume the real existence a phantom entity, dark matter, as the cause of the unpredictable behaviour. It's no different from saying a ghost did it, or attributing the failings of the model to a dragon. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't agree.

Light doesn't necessarily have to move in the way predicted by general relativity theory, because there's some otherwise undetectable matter scattered around throughout the universe, which causes the light to behave in the unpredictable way. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am very, very far from being someone who can make a definitive statement in this area, but dark matter and dark energy seem like reasonable rationalizations worthy of being tested. If they can't be verified, then the theories will have to be changed. I sez that's science. You sez no.

It seems to me that forcing the term "physical" into the discussion of causal events is what creates many of the problems that you are trying to solve. — Harry Hindu

As I noted, I just wanted to keep things simple. I think there are issues with non-physical causes that would muddy the waters of a discussion.

Making exceptions to the rule stipulated by the theory, whenever the theory fails in its predictive capacity, to account for these failings, instead of acknowledging that the theory is faulty, is not science. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's science until the attempt to verify the changes to the theory are investigated and not confirmed. If, at that point, people don't acknowledge that the theory is faulty, then it stops being science. Or at least it stops being good science.

Dark matter is posited as such an exception to the rule. Where general relativity fails in its predictive capacity, dark matter is posited to account for that failing. There is nothing to look for except the reasons why general relativity fails in its predictive capacity, i.e. the faults of the theory. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. General Relativity has been an incredibly successful theory for 100 years. You get to tinker under the hood for a while before you buy a new theory.

As a prefatory remark, I want to state my position that whatever differences there are between how you see things and how I do are metaphysical. They have to do with what we think are the best ways to represent reality. Neither is true or false. I've written a lot about this in the past on the forum. I'm sure you seen some of that. What that means is that the way to judge a position is based on what works best in a particular situation.

Obviously there are no things-as-perceived absent perceivers; does it logically follow that there are no things at all? — Janus

Things are concepts unless you're an idealist. I'm not. Concepts don't exist independent of there being someone to conceive of them.

You haven't answered the question as to how the totally amorphous, changeless thing in itself gives rise to perceivers who perceive change, and "carve up" the world in fairly cohesive and consistent ways. — Janus

The philosophy that means the most to me is Taoism. Taoism doesn't talk about things-in-themselves, it talks about the Tao. I think the concepts have things in common. The Tao is the original unitary undifferentiated oneness. That oneness becomes separated into the multiplicity of things when they are named. As to how namers evolved from the oneness - the Tao and the multiplicity of things are the same. It's just two different ways of looking at it. Metaphysics.

I assume you find this answer unsatisfying. There have been lots of discussions of Taoism and similar topics on the forum. I don't think it's especially related to the subject of this thread.

Serious question - Did Kant think that things-in-themselves changed?
— T Clark

I think Schopenhauer might have been the best interpreter of Kant.. — schopenhauer1

I'm not trying to be a smarty pants here, but does that answer my question. It doesn't seem like it does to me.

The term is 'logical necessity' and the question is the relationship (if any) between logical necessity and physical causation. My (tentative) argument is that scientific laws are where these are united in some sense - that scientific laws are where material causation converges with logical necessity. But I know I'm skating on thin ice. — Wayfarer

I called it the wrong thing, but I think my position stays the same. I don't see any connection between physical cause and logical necessity. Seems like the premises of a syllogism are where you load the phenomena we observe in the world, e.g.

[Premise] If I push on this button then P will show up on the screen
[Premise] I push on the button
[Conclusion] P will show up on the screen

The conclusion is connected to the premises by logical necessity, but the only role a physical entity like cause can fill is in the premises.

So the 'thing in itself' is completely changeless and amorphous and any "cutting up" we do is totally arbitrary? — Janus

Before it can change, it has to be a thing. That thing then can change into something else. Change is something that happens to things. Change is a thing.

Serious question - Did Kant think that things-in-themselves changed?

No big bang, no rapid inflationary period, no galaxy formation, no changes on pre-life earth? — Janus

The universe just universes. Reality just realitys. Not-even-stuff not-even-flowing not-even-around. A not-even-miasma of not-even-chaotic not-even-existent not-even-things. Then sentience comes along with it's conceptual knife and cuts all that not-even-stuff into things, and stuff, and events. Cuts the One into the multiplicity of things. And here we are.

Can non-sentient things (non-animals) have perspective? If not, what is the "platform" of interactions? What is even an "event" in this non-sentient/perspective world? — schopenhauer1

I would say that non-sentient beings do not have perspective. There are no events in an a world with no sentient beings.

The problem with dark matter is that it's dark and probably can't be directly detected. Maybe if sky observation techniques get sufficiently sophisticated or if DM particles are detected on Earth it can be solved once and for all. The planned European gravitational wave detector can shed more light on this modern-day enigma. — Haglund

I agree.

I’ve recently read Material Girls by Kathleen Stock. Hadn’t previously realized that there could be such a large and complex rift between feminists and trans activists — praxis

Here's something you won't hear me say very often - I am sympathetic to the feminist position. They've worked hard to improve conditions for women, to improve the definition of women if you will, then along comes this new group and want to muddy the waters. Feminism, while still controversial in many places, is mainstream controversial. To claim that feminists and transgender activists are in the same fight tends to push them out of the mainstream. They lose sympathy for their positions.

This is where the trickery lies. Instead of recognizing, and accepting that when the model fails at the fringes, this means it is wrong, we produce "excuses" for the failings, exceptions to the rule. — Metaphysician Undercover

You call it trickery, I call it science. It's perfectly valid until it isn't. Discomfort about the trickery provides the pressure to keep looking or to change models.

The anomalies are dealt with by positing things like dark matter and dark energy. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not sure if that's a good example or not. Someone proposes dark matter as a solution to an inconsistency, so people go looking for it. Eventually, they find it or, if they don't, they have to change models. Isn't that the way it's supposed to work?

If I push on the keyboard and a P shows up on the screen, I can see saying that my finger caused the P to show up. But isn't that what you are calling physical causation.
— T Clark

Isn't it? Didn't I? It's your intentional action, plus a lot of work by the likes of NoAxioms that has been done in the background, to ensure that it works this way. — Wayfarer

We're agreed to call that "physical causation." I'm not sure what logical causation is then, if it's not the syllogism I used previously.

It's arguably one of the many causes. I mean, the thing probably wouldn't have shown up there just then had your finger not pressed that spot just then. — noAxioms

Agreed. That's why I wrote "I can see saying that my finger caused the P to show up." That's intended as a non-committal statement. We've gone back and forth on the forum discussing what constitutes causality. Those are questions I don't intend to get in to here.

But what about when it is applied to (for example) computing? Then there is plainly causation involved, as it produces a physical outcome. The fact that such-and-such is the case causes a particular result. I can't see how causation is not involved. — Wayfarer

Maybe I misunderstood. If I push on the keyboard and a P shows up on the screen, I can see saying that my finger caused the P to show up. But isn't that what you are calling physical causation. Whereas my syllogism is what I assumed you are calling logical causation. That's the situation where I said no causation is involved.

It seems to me that the widespread scepticism about this issue all goes back to David Hume's questioning of inductive reason. — Wayfarer

I don't see the connection between the so-called problem of induction and what you are calling logical causation. I don't really know what that means.
In this syllogism:

• If A then B
• A
• Therefore B

There is no causation involved. Or did you mean something else?

To me, induction provides the meat that is ground in the machine of deduction.

Beyond that, as we discussed in a recent thread, I think causation is a metaphysical property that is not particularly useful. I assume that is not what you want to talk about and I won't bring it up again.

I just went to a ridiculous example to make the point more obvious. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think it's a better example because it represents a real situation - people used the Ptolemaic system for a long time and it allowed them to make pretty detailed, pretty correct predictions. It was finally replaced because a better system was developed that was simpler, more consistent with observations, and allowed better predictions. Your dragon causing the sun to go around the Earth didn't really allow any predictions at all beyond that the sun would come up, which everyone already knew by keeping track of the behavior of the sun.

Like I said, feel free what you think. There is no evidence that we are a pocket in an eternally inflating fantasy. — Haglund

I have provided evidence. You haven't refuted it. You haven't even responded to the substance of my argument. Your only response is "That's fantasy." That's not an argument.

No need to respond. I'm done with this.

I don't disagree with initial inflation. I disagree with the eternal variant. — Haglund

Also, it is my understanding that astronomers are currently looking for evidence of other universes associated with inflation.

I don't disagree with initial inflation. I disagree with the eternal variant. — Haglund

It's not a question of what you and I agree with, it is what the current state of knowledge in cosmology indicates. Again, I'm not saying it's perfect, but it is evidence. Maybe you'll turn out to be right, but for now, it's reasonable for me use the current state of knowledge as evidence.

Thesis: Gods created spacetime and particles.
Observation: There are particles and spacetime
Thesis proven — Haglund

• Cosmic Inflation is currently the scientific model that matches the cosmology we observe best.
• One of the consequences of Cosmic Inflation is the existence of multiple "universes" separate from our own.
• This provides indirect, not conclusive, evidence for the multiverse.

Weren't you the one who introduced this great book here? — Olivier5

It was Tim Wood who showed it to me.

When a hypothesis produces a prediction which works, this does not necessarily mean that the hypothesis ought to be accepted. Prediction is mostly produced from observation of temporal patterns, statistics, and mathematics, and a hypothesis generally goes far beyond the simple mathematics. So for example, imagine that I watch the sun rise and set day after day, and I produce a hypothesis, that a giant dragon takes the sun in its mouth around the back side of the earth, and spits it out every morning. I might predict the exact place and time that the sun will rise, and insist that my theory has been proven by my uncanny predictions. Clearly though, the successful predictions are nothing more than successful predictions, and my hypothesis hasn't been proven at all. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think a better example would be the Ptolemaic cosmological system. It was very complicated and it turns out in the end it was wrong, but it worked well until Copernicus and Kepler came along. Their theory eventually superseded Ptolemy's. Ditto with Newton and Einstein. I guess Newton was wrong, but we still use his theories for non-relativistic applications, which is most of what we deal with.

I would add Collingwood's Essay on Metaphysics, for its radically simple and effective way to conceptualize metaphysics. — Olivier5

I agree. I struggled for a long time with the idea of metaphysics. I wasn't sure what it is, but I knew what I want it to be. Collingwood helped me put words to that.

Cosmic inflation is no indirect evidence — Haglund

I disagree.

There is no evidence to support many worlds. — Haglund

Cosmic inflation is indirect evidence.