Everything in the universe is physically connected - the universe is one quantum-mechanical field, one spacetime.

But it seems that whatever criteria you come up with to differentiate "objective" groups from non-groups would be arbitrary to some extent. A non-arbitrary approach would be to say that any objects constitute a group but some groups may be more tightly held together by physical forces than other groups.

Well, then there is no Earth either, apart from the idea of it. Because Earth is a group of things too. So, is there anything else than ideas?

A collection is simply a group. No human is needed to put the Sun, Earth and Moon into a group. They constitute the group automatically.

You might say that 10 is larger than 5, or of greater magnitude, but our subject is not magnitude, it is priority. — Metaphysician Undercover

But the magnitude determines the order of natural numbers from smallest to biggest. So if there is a magnitude of numbers, there is also their ordering from smallest to biggest.

A set of points does not create wedges, nor angles. This requires further definitions, lines. — Metaphysician Undercover

A line is defined as the set of points whose coordinates satisfy a linear equation. All the points are already there, in the space in which the circle is contained, and their geometrical relations are already there. All lines and all other possible curves in that space are defined. A human just selects those he finds useful for a particular purpose and may give them names.

And there is a problem here with the relationship between the line and the circle, which makes pi "irrational". Despite tireless effort by the Pythagoreans, this irrationality could not be overcome. This is how we know that circles don't actually exist. A circle is an "ideal" which cannot be obtained in actuality because it contains an irrational ratio, i.e., it is contradictory. — Metaphysician Undercover

Irrational numbers are not contradictory. A perfect circle exists in an infinitesimally grained space, which may or may not be the physical space we live in. Anyway, you don't need a circle to define angles; an angle is a relation between two lines.

No, we were talking about the existence of sets, not the existence of numbers. — Metaphysician Undercover

You said natural numbers are not ordered from small to big unless someone counts them, which is nonsense. The magnitudes of numbers, which order them, are already there by definition of the numbers, no matter whether anyone counts anything.

I could potentially build myself a very nice house. Because I didn't actually do this, means that this very nice house is not there. — Metaphysician Undercover

But the circle is already there and thus the points on its circumference and the point in the center of the circle define all possible wedges. Someone just arbitrarily selected wedges that are 1/360 of the circle and called them degrees.

I cannot see any sense in which we can say that a collection of objects is not dependent on human perception and understanding. — Janus

A collection is constituted automatically by the objects it is a collection of. Don't you think there was a collection of Sun, Earth and Moon before humans existed? If there wasn't then at least one of those objects didn't exist. And btw, each of those objects is itself a collection of smaller objects.

As I said, the example is irrelevant because a set is artificial and an atom is not. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, it is relevant, because you said that a number doesn't exist until it is counted. So the carbon atom didn't have 6 electrons until someone counted them.

The question would be whether the circle had 360 wedges without having been counted as 360. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course it had, that's what I said. And it also had 370 wedges and any other number of wedges. Just because someone didn't name, count or draw them doesn't mean they were not there.

So you don't believe that an atom of carbon had 6 electrons before someone counted them? That would be pretty outlandish. Those 6 electrons determine carbon's chemical properties without which no humans would come into existence.

The circle consisted of 360 wedges even before someone called them degrees. Just as it also consisted of 370 (smaller) wedges or any other number of wedges, which no one called degrees. Just because someone called 360 wedges degrees doesn't mean that those 360 wedges were not there before.

A set is just a collection of objects. Its existence doesn't depend on whether some human names it or counts the objects.

Cardinality must be determined, and this is the process which takes time. Counting takes time, requiring numbering in the order of 1,2,3,4, etc.. Therefore time is required for this ordering. Set cardinality requires time. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, as I said, cardinality of a set exists whether or not someone counts it. The number of electrons in the atom of carbon was 6 even before anyone counted them. Counting does not create cardinality; it can only confirm it.

Clearly I was talking about "the ordering" of numbers, as the topic was "logical priority". So cardinality is irrelevant to my example. — Metaphysician Undercover

Set cardinality expresses the same as natural numbers: how many things there are. That's the property that orders natural numbers from the smallest to the biggest. Time is not needed for this ordering.

Notice that you've reversed things. The product of your reduction is disorder, not order. — Metaphysician Undercover

The disorder I talked about is entropy, not absence of time ordering. Entropy is a measure of the randomness of the structure of the universe. High entropy = lots of randomness, much disorder; low entropy = little randomness, little disorder. According to the second law of thermodynamics, entropy of the universe increases with time. It is generally accepted that the arrow of time is defined as the direction of increasing entropy of the universe. So entropy of the universe provides time ordering of the states of the universe.

For instance, there is no reason to the ordering of the natural numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc., without a temporal referencing. The ordering would be completely random, without the temporal act of counting, in which 1 is prior to 2, etc.. You might argue that 2 is greater than 1, but by what principle would this be true, other than the fact that 2 comes after one in the act of counting. — Metaphysician Undercover

A set of 3 elements will always have a greater cardinality than a set of 2 elements, no matter whether someone counts them. This fact is not dependent on anyone counting the elements. Counting only confirms this fact (unless the counting person makes a mistake). So you don't need a temporal order to order natural numbers.

Actually, it seems that temporal ordering can be reduced to logical/mathematical ordering. In the theory of relativity, time is treated as a special spatial dimension and space is a mathematical structure with no need for reference to time. On the time dimension of spacetime we can then define the arrow of time from past to future as the direction of increasing entropy (disorder) of the mathematical structure of each time slice.

I don't agree that you need both temporal and logical ordering to explain causality. All that is needed is temporal ordering. — Metaphysician Undercover

Temporal order doesn't seem sufficient to explain causality: if one event precedes another in time, it doesn't necessarily mean that the earlier event caused the later.

We want the cause to be within a particular spatial radius because that's what experience and induction (consequentially our inductively produced premises) tell us must be the case. — Metaphysician Undercover

How do you determine the particular spatial radius though? It seems that you must formulate a theory that involves laws of physics and based on this theory you deduce the effect from the cause, in the context of an arrow of time.

In the case of interference effects, the history of the observed particle is the sum of the particle's component histories. "Before" and "after" are still well-defined for the particle (i.e, it goes into an interferometer, unitary processes occur and it is finally observed at a detector). However each component history must be considered separately, with cause preceding effect in each separate case. What doesn't make sense is to apply "before" and "after" in aggregate when no measurement has been performed (which would of course result in a singular observation where "before" and "after" are well-defined for that component history). — Andrew M

But since laws of physics don't differentiate between past and future and there is no entropic arrow of time for a particular component history, how do you know where is past and where is future for a particular component history?

What is the difference between a cause and effect, if not their ordering in time? A common attempt to remove temporal ordering from the relationship, beloved by some fundamentalist apologists, is to replace temporal ordering with logical ordering, by which they envisage something like an entailment A->B, with the cause being the antecedent A and the effect the consequent B. The trouble with this is that, in most cases, when all information is incorporated into the calculation, the arrow becomes bidirectional A<->B. — andrewk

It's no problem that the effect is entailed in the cause (and in the laws of physics) and that the cause is entailed in the effect (and in the laws of physics). However, what differentiates the effect from the cause is that the cause is prior to the effect in time. So you need both logical and temporal ordering to explain causality, where the temporal ordering (the arrow of time) is defined by the increasing entropy of the universe along the time axis of spacetime.

I would say it's actually classical physical explanations that break down rather than causality.

Events A and B are independent transformations which can be ordered differently. — Andrew M

Does it even make sense to differentiate between "before" and "after" on the quantum level? I've heard that no, because the arrow of time for a quantum system only gets defined when the system decoheres into a classical system (the wave function collapses), thereby increasing entropy.

And if there is no difference between "before" and "after", what sense does it make to differentiate between cause and effect?

no. Ask a pyrenean skeptic "Do you know that you don't know" and his answer would be: No. Perfectly consistent — khaled

If it's consistent, what's the problem? Logic is intact.

Because "some theories about reality" are "better than others"? Don't forget reality is the reference; we just try to curve-fit our data and our theories to it. Some just fit better than others, so they're 'better' (i.e. more useful) than others. — Pattern-chaser

So, you said it yourself - some of our theories apparently fit reality better than others. So the relationship between theories and reality is one of "fitting", or correspondence.

And this is because the relationship between "fact/reality and our perception of it" is unknown and unknowable to humans. "Fact/reality" = Objective Reality. Our perception shows us (interactive) images of a world - a consistent, testable and comprehensible world - whose relationship to Objective Reality cannot be known. So I don't think we can meaningfully or usefully assert anything about whether these two are separated or not. — Pattern-chaser

Why then are some theories about reality better than others? For example, why is theory of relativity better at making predictions than Newtonian physics?

True, but it would also refute every other argument with it. It's like an intellectual suicide bomber. You can refute the principle of identity, refute your own refutation and still be perfectly consistent in a state of eternal "I don't know". That's what the phyrrhonean skeptics did and I believe their position is the most valid and unassailable in philosophy. — khaled

It's not even an eternal "I don't know" (because that would also mean "I do know"). It's nothing. An inconsistent statement refers to nothing (its parts may refer to something but the statement as a whole refers to nothing).

Is there any metaphysical basis for logic or are humans just stuck with a certain type of hardware — khaled

My understanding is that logic is ultimately based on the principle of identity: A=A. It seems impossible to mount a successful argument against identity because an argument against identity would automatically refute itself (it would deny that the argument is what it is). Not to mention that denying identity just seems plain bonkers. So, logical truths seem to be necessary truths.

Now, there are some logicians who entertain so-called "paraconsistent" logics where the principle of identity is violated. However, note that even in doing so they still rely on the principle of identity, otherwise they would not be able to make any arguments at all. In their paraconsistent logics, the principle of identity is violated only in arbitrarily selected cases, so that the rest of their logical system remains consistent and thus capable of producing arguments.

I have heard that paraconsistent logic can be useful for example in database analysis where it can come to meaningful conclusions even when parts of a database contain inconsistent information (that is, information that violates the principle of identity). By isolating these inconsistencies, paraconsistent logic can prevent them from contaminating and thus making useless the rest of the database. Paraconsistent logic in general does not say that the inconsistent information is true (although some paraconsistent logicians, called dialetheists, do make this outlandish claim).

Apparently, the principle of identity also holds in the physical world we live in, which is not surprising.

So you offer the possibility that the conscious mind has been unknowingly detected, more or less by coincidence, and this is your answer to why physicists can't seem to find the conscious mind, just as they can't seem to find souls? :chin: — Pattern-chaser

At this point I can't rule out that the conscious mind is wholly constituted by familiar physical particles and there is no soul that survives the death of the physical body. I am just considering the possibility that there actually is such a soul and how it would work.

I realise that. But the arguments you present concerning the soul also seem to apply to the conscious mind. Physicists can't find them either. — Pattern-chaser

If the conscious mind is just familiar physical particles then physicists have detected it - they have detected the particles, the effects of the particles on their measuring instruments. But such a mind wouldn't survive the death of the physical body.

I imagine most such theories would be constructed on the basis of currently-unknown particles, forces, or something similar. To create a theory that might be possible is easy. To show that it is likely, or even correct, is more difficult, as (I know) you are well aware. :wink: So how do we choose between them? Or how do we evaluate them individually? :chin: — Pattern-chaser

The theory also needs to explain why those unknown particles or forces have not been detected by physicists. I have suggested that they have not been detected because they interact very weakly with familiar physical particles but they can have a significant impact on the brain by interacting with it quite strongly via resonance, which is however difficult to detect too because such an influence is difficult to distinguish from myriads of other influences from familiar physical particles inside and outside the brain.

This theory needs to be further specified and I am not aware that anyone has done it.

Your theory might be possible. There are other theories that might be possible too. How shall we choose between them? I see no obvious criteria that we could usefully use. Can anyone else? — Pattern-chaser

What other theories? The theory should be consistent with known physics and explain how the soul can interact with the physical body without being detected by physicists.

But I offer the observation that what you say about the soul could easily be said of the conscious mind. It also eludes the observation of physicists. — Pattern-chaser

You can only observe something other than you by the effects of its interaction with you. By observing the soul I mean observing the effects of the soul's interaction with physical particles and thus ultimately with physicists (who interact with the physical particles by observing them). The problem is that if the soul can survive the death of the physical body, it must be something else than familiar physical particles, because familiar physical particles constitute the physical body that stops working and cannot hold consciousness anymore after its death. But physicists have not observed the effects of anything else than of familiar physical particles.

Physicist Victor Stenger used to define matter informally as the stuff that kicks back when you kick it. In other words, matter is whatever we can interact with. Was he a materialist? I guess it doesn't matter.

I think that is a reification. A field is ‘a region in which each point is affected by a force’. It occupies space and contains energy. But I don’t believe it is correct to characterise fields as ‘objects’. — Wayfarer

Well, I don't know what the word "object" means for you but I use it simply as a synonym for "something", as opposed to nothing. So in this sense, unless a field is nothing, it is something, an object, an entity. And it exists in the way it is defined.

One major consequence of modern scientific method is to exclude the qualitative - exactly because it CAN’T be quantified or objectively assessed. — Wayfarer

I agree that a quality cannot be quantified but it cannot exist without quantitative/mathematical relations to other qualities. For example, any two qualities constitute a set with cardinality 2. Qualities thereby necessarily constitute relational structures that can be mathematically described. Causal relations are a type of quantitative/mathematical relations among qualities too.

Whereas, the mind, in the sense of first-person awareness, is never among the objects of perception at all, but is that to which the quantitative data appears. — Wayfarer

Does the mind not perceive itself? Is it not conscious of itself?

It's more like there is quantity and quality, and qualia defies third person description, and can't be physically described. — All sight

These qualities however are linked together by mathematical relations and therefore form mathematically (and scientifically) describable structures. Just the simple fact that you have two different qualities instead of one automatically puts qualities into a numerical structure. If the soul is made up of qualities, it also has a mathematical structure, just as the world of which the soul is a part. Science deals with the description of the structure of the world.

But you're barking up the wrong tree - all due respect. Not objects, forces, and stuff. — Wayfarer

Why not? An object is anything, including a field. And if an object induces oscillations via resonance in another object, it exerts influence via a force.

According to quantum field theory all matter is fields that are locally excited in the form of particles. The soul might be just another type of field/particle and thus fit naturally into an expanded specific form of quantum field theory.

Furthermore, what I'm suggesting is the idea of biological fields, which are not recognised by mainstream science at all, and that Sheldrake's morphic field theory could be understood to account for the persistence of memories from one life to the next. — Wayfarer

The morphic resonance idea actually seems similar to my idea of the soul as a vibrating object that may influence brain activity via resonance but may otherwise have very weak interaction with other (non-resonant) physical objects and thus elude scientists' detection.

See this post for an outline as to why. — Wayfarer

According to quantum field theory all fields are physical objects whose local energy excitations are particles. So if you regard the soul as a field, it is a physical object which interacts with other physical objects according to laws of physics.

Well the laws of physics might be different outside the machine, but what would be more relevant is the laws of the computer(s) hosting our virtual universe. — Devans99

But the information is inside the universe, in the objects inside the universe, no? So it should follow the laws of physics.

That just does not remove the problem. Instead it makes the soul something physical. — Banno

If the soul is an object in spacetime that is subject to causation or exchange of energy, we may regard it as "physical". It seems that popular notions of the soul fit into this picture. It is just a different kind of physical object.

Presumably alcohol has some weird effect on the weak force interaction such that the soul looses its capacity for good judgement... — Banno

It has effects on neuronal firings which may combine with effects of the soul.

So the soul disappears when one goes to sleep? — Banno

Maybe just goes into a temporarily suppressed mode.

Well, yeah, you do. Further, that is a much more reasonable approach than searching for a gap in physics into which the soul can be slot; the weak force has nothing to do with souls. — Banno

I don't mean weak nuclear force, rather a weakly acting force in general. Maybe even gravitational force.

You instead have a world of objects being presented before a soul. Sure, you have a world of objects 'out there', but 'out there' only exists in relation to the apprehension of a soul. — Inyenzi

I assumed the idea of a soul as a conscious individual who can incarnate in a physical body.

or there might be no such thing as a soul. Problem solved. — Banno

The idea of the soul has inspired passions for millennia. You don't solve the problem by saying that there might be no such thing as a soul.

If the universe turns out to be virtual like ‘The Matrix’ then our soul is really just our information. It’s possible to move information between computers so in theory the transmigration of the soul might be possible. — Devans99

The movement of information should be consistent with known laws of physics though...

From what I've learned from esoteric studies, the progression as we evolve from our initial, through our transitory and to the final phase of life cannot have a regression. There may be delays but never regression. — BrianW

Then you probably mean something else than Western esoteric traditions like Gnosticism, Hermeticism or Neoplatonism, all of which claim that forgetting our original (divine) identity was a spiritual fall. Gnosticism even condemns the material world as evil, while Hermeticism and Neoplatonism regard the material world as part of an overall good creation and the souls' incarnation in it as part of divine plan but still insist that the souls made regrettable mistakes during their incarnation in the material world. Eastern mystical religions like Hinduism and Buddhism show a similar rejection of the material world as Gnosticism.

The teaching goes something like:
Initially, we are like 'electrons' in the 'sun'. We have the warmth and light (love and wisdom) of the 'sun' but we are solely dependent on it. That is, by ourselves, say the 'electrons' are hurled through space, the warmth and light would diminish gradually. Therefore, our evolution is the process by which we learn to become 'suns' and have the capacity to give warmth and heat of our own volition and nature.

Does this make any sense? — BrianW

Yes, but there are better and worse ways of learning something. You wouldn't want your child to learn that fire hurts by incinerating their hand. It is better to show them how fire can destroy an inanimate thing and let them come closer to fire so they can feel the increasing heat without getting to the point of getting burned. There seems to be a similar difference between learning through a "righteous" path and learning through a fall and then recovering from it.

Secondly, you got me thinking, what about addiction? Addicts do choose to go through hell and most often without much to learn from it. — BrianW

But that is obviously a regrettable mistake, something similar to spiritual fall.