It seems to me that it is the various explanations for how and why the world we perceive is as it is that involve various conceptual lenses (conceptual schemes), and that is not that what we perceive is determined by conceptual lenses, but rather by what is noticed, what is selected, which in turn is determined by what is of interest or use.

No doubt some will reject this article out of hand, but anyway here is a counterpoint:

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/swamp-apocalypse-wednesday-february

The gist is that the DOGE is merely reconnoitering, and that Congress will act on the information gathered, and that the courts will have no say in the matter.

True, but I don’t see magnetism as a good example of more going on. It’s perceptible. So Arcane’s argument supporting the assertion that there is more going on than just a bunch of perceptible properties based on a distinction between seeing apples and (somehow not explained in the post) distinguishing magnetism doesn’t work. — Fire Ologist

The attraction is perceptible—the magnetic field is not—it is a theoretical explanation. Strict empiricism, pace Hume, claims that causation of any kind is not perceptible and is hence merely an inference made on account of the experience of constant conjunctions of observed effects and events.

You responded to the introduction of Rousseau. I think there is considerable anthropological research which tells against your claim. Anyway, I would agree that generally speaking when things get tough, the worst aspects of humanity come to the fore, and the tougher they get the worse the manifesting qualities, and I think that is what we are now witnessing, so it is not unrelated to the subject of the OP.

Which anthropology has comprehensively debunked - many tribal and non-industrialised cultures are shown to have high rates of murder and domestic violence. — Wayfarer

Can you cite sources for that claim?

Neither can I. I just believe in it. — Arcane Sandwich

I have definitely been drawn to the idea, but I have never been able to believe in it. Same with religion and mythos in general. I love some of it as literature, as expression of the endlessly creative human imagination. That'll do for me.

I think the point of the OP is that there is more going on that what we can be conscious of directly sensing, from which it would seem to follow that there is more to objects than just a bunch of perceived qualities.

We need light to see objects attract and repulse - all we ever see is light, we never see anything else. — Fire Ologist

I think that's not quite correct. All we ever see is not light, but due to light. We see objects on account of the light that reflects from them. We cannot see light itself. Our eyes are affected by light, but that effect is pre-cognitive, and I don't think it can rightly be counted as "seeing" because we cannot be conscious of the effect of light except when we look at its source or at a reflecting object.

Why does democracy fail to bring about what he hoped? — frank

In order to give all people freedom democracy would need to be strictly regulated with a view to stopping personal accumulation of wealth (at least beyond a certain quite limited point) and its economic policies would need to take account of the environment as an integral part of the economy in order to curtail the depletion of resources.

Many would likely consider such measures undemocratic. hence the problem—people will not vote for a party that proposes introducing the kinds of regulation that would be necessary to support the continuation of democracy—and democracy unchecked undermines itself.

It sounds illogical to be able to imagine a world independent of mind, when imagining is a function mind. — Corvus

That doesn't seem to follow. Do you have an argument for why and how the fact that imagining is a function of mind precludes the possibility of imagining that the world is independent of mind?

I'm afraid you're right...the world might get the Mumps.

I doubt it is as benign or 'business as usual' as you seem to want to paint it Frank. Anyway, we'll see how it all plays out and what the ramifications are. Not just for the US, but for the world.

The kid seems to be pointing to Trump. I imagine him saying "look Dad, there's a disgruntled ogre over there".

Nothing to comment here, from me. I neither agree nor disagree with those statements. — Arcane Sandwich

Fair enough.

Deleuze says he was an atheist. — Arcane Sandwich

Yes, and I think that's a fair reading. Spinoza's God is a deistic one. not a personal one either aware of or concerned with its creatures. Spinoza's God also lacks free will, just as we do according to Spinoza. So there is little to distinguish his God from Einstein's conception of nature.

As far as I'm concerned, Hegel's concept of the Absolute Spirit is the Ultimate Truth about Reality itself. I do not intend that as a polemic. It is simply what I believe. — Arcane Sandwich

Whereas Spinoza's God is static and eternal, Hegel's God is evolving along with its creatures. Peirce extended Hegel's idea to posit that even the laws of nature have evolved, having become crystallized due to established habit.

I can't claim to have understood the idea of Absolute Spirit. or the 'end of history'.

Nice summations! :up:

I was drawn to Whitehead's philosophy and struggled on and off for years to penetrate what I thought must be the sense of it, only to conclude in the end that it is pretty much vacuous, unintelligible.

Cheers, I haven't read the book. I'll place it on my list.

Are you assuming that God exists?
— Janus

No, I am not. Fictional entities have essences, just as much as real entities do.

Because if God is merely a human idea, something imaginary, it seems strange to say that it is impossible to understand it.
— Janus

No essence can be understood. — Arcane Sandwich

I'm confused here because you say even fictional entities have essences and then say that no essence can be understood. The first statement seems to suggest that an essence cannot be some intrinsic thing like being because fictional entities have no substantive being beyond what is said or imagined about them, and also what is said or imagined can presumably be understood.

But the idea of an essence as a set of defining or identifying characteristics would also seem to be ruled out because such sets must surely be understandable.

There's nothing incoherent about the idea of a single unique essence. It's called pantheism. Spinoza was a pantheist, unlike Descartes, for example. — Arcane Sandwich

Whether or not Spinoza was a pantheist is a matter of interpretation. An alternative would be to see him as an acosmist. Spinoza held a distinction between 'natura naturata' and 'natura naturans' with the former being the manifest nature we experience via the senses and the latter being something like creative nature or the laws of nature that give rise to manifest nature.

It's possible. Kant didn't believe in intellectual intuition, yet Meillassoux does. In After Finitude, he says: — Arcane Sandwich

Correct, and Hegel tried to reintroduce it. Yet the historicist character of Hegel's thought is not compatible with Spinoza's system of thought.

.

Clearly illegality is not the proper benchmark of corruption, nor is it the proper benchmark for "incitement."
5 hours ago — Count Timothy von Icarus

Particularly when you consider the absurd presidential power to arbitrarily and with impunity issue pardons.

The situation afterwards is hard to know. It makes me think of the novel, Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. — Paine

Tarkovsky made a fascinating movie, Stalker, loosely based on Roadside Picnic. Arkady and Boris Strugatsky wrote the screenplay.

No essence can be understood. — Arcane Sandwich

Could that be because the idea of a single unique essence is incoherent? I think of essences as sets of specifying characteristics. So, I would say that we have a set of specifying characteristics for God, which is it is an imaginary entity are understandable.

If God is a real entity, then there may well be real essences, which would presumably be the ideas of things in God's own understanding of them. In that case it would seem though, to echo Spinoza, that God would have infinite attributes, of which we can comprehend only extensa and cogitans.

As you no doubt no Spinoza thought the highest function of reason was a kind of intellectual intuition— to see things "sub specie aeternitatis", and that intuition may well be ineffable, or only partly effable.

It is impossible for human reason to understand the essence of God. — Arcane Sandwich

Are you assuming that God exists? Because if God is merely a human idea, something imaginary, it seems strange to say that it is impossible to understand it.

Thanks for your interesting reply. I'm not all that familiar with the various interpretations of and theses about the nature of the quantum realm. Asa I understand it they are all compatible with observed results, which makes me wonder how we might assess their various plausibilities.

The other issue is that they all seem to be attempts to understand the observed behavior of the microworld using concepts derived from our experience of the familiar macroworld, and I see little reason to expect that is an entirely coherent endeavor. That said, I understand that we cannot help pursuing it.

Then perhaps you'll be surprised to know that Bunge suggests that the Big Bang didn't happen. In other words, Bunge himself denies premise FTI10: the Big Bang did not happen, precisely because (in Bunge's view), creatio ex nihilo is impossible. He says that as a physicist. He thinks that the Universe is somehow eternal in an Aristotelian sense. — Arcane Sandwich

Did Bunge say the Big Bang did not happen? I haven't encountered such a statement in my readings of Bunge. I doubt that many physicists consider the Big Bang to be "creation ex nihilo", that is creation out of absolutely nothing. The Big Bag is compatible with a Universe that cycles form Big Bang to Big Crunch for example (I am aware that current evidence is considered to tell against this thesis). It is also consistent with the multiverse thesis.

Even if we want to say that God created the Universe out of nothing, this is not really out of nothing because God, if it exists, is not nothing (even if it might be no-thing).

The answer depends on whether or not the Universe is comprehensively and rigidly deterministic . Current scientific understanding says it is not. But then the question is whether (assuming that our current understanding is correct) randomness on the quantum level produces a fully deterministic macro world.

I don't know the answer to that, and I doubt whether the question is even decidable in principle, because regardless of whether the macroworld is subject to randomness to a sufficient degree to make randomness operative at the macro level, knowing the answer would seem to depend on us experiencing a counterfactual reality, which is impossible in principle since anything we experience cannot rightly be thought to be a counterfactual.

Or maybe the younger Namatjira simply prefers a less polished, grittier style.

Are you sure about that? It sounds like it's true, but don't want to rush to any conclusions here. — Arcane Sandwich

As far as I know in all monotheistic traditions God is considered to be an eternal, infinite being that depends on nothing else for its existence. I think that is what is meant by "necessary". The point is that if such a being exists then it would necessarily exist. Of course I'm open to counterexamples.

Jesus' being God is not necessary
— Janus

Are you sure about that? — Arcane Sandwich

Why would it be necessary that God, assuming that it necessarily exists, should incarnate as a man, let alone as one and one only man?

it is only in one tradition that, in the doctrines of its some sects, it is claimed that Jesus is God.
— Janus

Again, are you sure about that? — Arcane Sandwich

As far as I know it is only in Christianity that God is believed to have incarnated as one and one only individual, namely Jesus. I also know that some sects of Christianity do not accept Jesus as the unique human incarnation of Goid.

Again, I am open to refutation. If you can show evidence that other religions held that Jesus was God or that every Christian sect held that Jesus was God incarnate.

I find it odd that Christian philosophers only offer arguments for the conclusion that God exists, while not offering any arguments for the conclusion that Jesus is God. Why would you resort to logic in the former case but not the latter? Is there any reason that warrants this differential treatment? — Arcane Sandwich

In all monotheistic traditions God is considered to be a necessary being. Jesus' being God is not necessary, and it is only in one tradition that, in the doctrines of its some sects, it is claimed that Jesus is God.

By 'ineffable' I mean our experience cannot be adequately described. Every experience is unique, and giving word to it only generalizes something which is profoundly particular. It is the particularity of experience which is ineffable.

It seems to me that language enables much more than mere "species' reproduction"—language is not even really needed for that, although of course humans use it for that purpose.

The major survival boon, and curse, of language, most potently in its written form, is that it enables collective learning, which in turn makes us the most adaptable of species. With the accumulated knowledge enabled by writing we have become able to inhabit virtually every environmental niche.

When we have exhausted the resources in one niche, we can go somewhere else, and our population is thus not automatically trimmed by famine when we have been feasting too hard for our habitats to sustain. This will work for us until we have nowhere left to go, when we have exhausted all resources everywhere and undermined the viability of every habitat.

Anyway, I'm veering into another topic, so I'll leave it there.

:up:

I think we are always already back there—and that's the ineffable part of our experience our words cannot capture. Poetry, literature, perhaps come closest.

I agree that what stands out for humans as well as other animals is probably largely what affords a use. We don't know whether things also stand out for animals because they are spectacular or beautiful (as we might reasonably think so for humans), but it seems reasonable to think the threatening aspects of the environment would be gestalted.

I agree, definitely there is interplay, but I give some priority to world over word. After all things first had to stand out for the human in order for language to begin. And judging from their behavior it seems obvious that things stand out for prelinguistic beings such as children and animals.

Recondite! Closer to home it could be expanded to be Apastimeologist, but I guess we all fall into that category.

:up: Me neither.

I personally think "what is useful determines what is true," is a fairly disastrous way to do science and philosophy. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Just the kind of pragmatism that Peirce wished to distance himself from!

"What counts as an insect" is much the same question as "How should we use the word insect". — Banno

How we should use the word "insect" is not constrained by what seems to count as being an insect?

I'm curious about it, since it sounds like a real word. — Arcane Sandwich

It always seemed obvious to me that it is a play on "epistemologist". I also wondered whether the "pus" bit was of any significance.

:up:

What's interesting is that if you start with Russell's (bad) theory, it is very hard to extricate yourself. You end up compulsively concerned with the question concerning a verifiable "definite description." — Leontiskos

Yes, the salient difference between descriptions and "a verifiable definite description".

I don't see what to make of this except as saying that there is stuff. So, yes. And folk want to say more, but as soon as they do, there are all sorts of problems. — Banno

I actually agree with you on that. I was just trying to unpack the logic employed by Spinoza regarding necessity and contingency.

But we do know who the question refers to... Socrates. Yes, there is more that one can learn about Socrates, but that is still about Socrates. Kripke's point, that we do not need a definite description at hand in order for a propper name to function correctly, stand... no? — Banno

I can't see how we could know who the name refers to if we didn't know at least one of the following that Socrates is purported to be; that is 'the teacher of Plato', 'the agora gadfly' 'the man charged with corrupting the youth of Athens and condemned to drink hemlock' and so on.

Of course if someone is familiar with those descriptions the proper name 'Socrates' "functions correctly", but for someone who doesn't I can't see how it functions at all.

The big picture as I see it is that what has been for decades happening more covertly and to a lesser extent is now beginning to happen more overtly and to a greater extent. This is exactly what should be expected. Desperate times lead to desperate measures. Trump has a mandate from the US electorate and so far seems to be doing exactly what he said he would.

The biggest problem with democracy is that the majority of electors are stupid, gullible, don't really understand the issues or don't really care about anything much beyond improving or preserving their living conditions, of which the most important elements apart form food, shelter and clothing are entertainment, comfort and convenience.

I have trouble seeing a connection between dependency and modality. — Banno

Spinoza has modes, but they are conceptually different to modality in modern logic, as I understand it. The simple point is that Spinoza sees necessity in terms of dependence. A necessary being does not depend on anything for its existence, whereas contingent beings do. So, contingent temporal beings that come into and go out of existence depend on Nature or God (Deus siva Natura) for their existence, Nature or God is eternal, does not come into or go out of existence and depends on nothing.

Yes, it is. SO the question is clear, and the referent fixed - the question is about Socrates. It would be odd to answer "But since you don't know who Socrates is, I don't understand your question". — Banno

It's not a matter of not understanding the meaning of some reference to Socrates when one has no idea who the name 'Socrates' refers to, but of not knowing who or what is being referred to. Descriptions will be necessary to provide that information.

Well, in S5 that would lead to everything being necessary. Much as Spinoza concluded. But that's not a theistic god. It seems pantheism is more logical than theism... :wink: — Banno

Yes, Spinoza was a determinist so in one sense for him everything was necessary, but he also made a distinction between a being (God or Nature) that is necessary in the sense of depending on nothing else, for its existence and beings that are contingent in that they depend on other conditions and beings for their existence.

You'll be familiar with the examples. Who is the question "I've never heard of Socrates, when did he live and what did he do?" about? I suggest it is about Socrates, despite the speaker perhaps not having anything available with which to fix the referent. It's not that there are no definite descriptions, but that they are not needed in order for reference to work perfectly well. — Banno

Right, logically the question is about Socrates, but for someone who does not know who Socrates is said to have been, descriptions will be needed for reference to work.

For consistency god must have created the world of necessity. In modal logic (S5) if there is a necessary being then everything in every possible world is necessary. — Banno

Is there any logical reason why there could not be just one necessary being?

But now, given the ubiquity of the use of the name, there is a widespread agreement as to the referent of "Socrates" such that it is not dependent on that particular act. — Banno

But does the widespread agreement not come about due to many descriptions that form part of the causal chain? This would seem to be inevitable if there were more than oine Socrates and question like 'Which Socrates are you referring to?" or 'I've never heard of Socrates, when did he live and what did he do?'.

I agree that for those who already know who the name refers to descriptions need not be at hand. :cool:

Likewise, God recalling all of creation history from outside time does not affect the freedom of creatures in time. Boethius decisive innovation was to make it clear they being located at one moment in time is as limiting as being located in one space. To be at just one moment of time is to be separated from oneself, and not to fully possess all of oneself. God was already thought to be most truly One, so God's existence in time also runs into the problem of dividing God from Himself. — Count Timothy von Icarus

An interesting addition to the argument!