Wouldn't it be better to say something like "The universe can be modeled by a mathematical or logical system"? — MindForged

Sure, if you assume that there's that brute-fact objectively-existent, fundamentally-existent physical world, that we're modeling.

But the complex logical system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts is a lot easier to explain, and doesn't require any explanation, assumptions or brute-facts.

...and there's no need to assume that your experience in our physical world is other than that.

Because reality and formal systems (or abstract objects if you swing that way) have properties the other cannot.

Any fact about our physical world implies and corresponds to an if-then fact. ...and is part of the "if " premise of some if-then facts, and is the "then" conclusion of other if-then facts. ...as I've described in more detail, with examples, in other posts. (I'll gladly paste that description here, if you haven't seen it).

There are an infinite number of mathematical and logical systems so it almost seems inevitable that at least one could be isomorphic with [our physical] reality...

Yes.

You mean the physical reality of your experience in our universe. (I use Reality, without modifier, only to mean all of Reality--more than is covered or described by physical or metaphysical reality.)

Yes, I agree, and that's what I've been proposing.

And there' s no reason to believe that your experience is other than one of those infinitely-many complex systems of inter-referring abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals.

in some sense (while other such systems would map onto different possible [physical] realities).

Yes.

Michael Ossipoff

You said:
.

How about seeing a bent straw in water, or mirages and illusions? Would those qualify as bugs in the system?

.
No, because those instances of refraction are completely consistent with known physics.
.

What about mental/physical disorders?

.
Less well-understood, but not unexplainable enough to support Simulated-Universe.
.
I’d said:
.

The "computer-simulated universe" theory doesn't make any sense.

.
How are transistor-switchings in a computer somewhere supposed to be able to "make" a world?
.
All that a computer programmer, or the running of his program, could accomplish would be the duplication and display, of some already, timelessly, "existent" possibility-world, showing it (as you seem to mean it) from the objective point-of-view.

.
The computer simulation could display that to its viewing-audience, but it certainly can't create it.
.
The "computer-simulated universe" theory requires faith in some magical power of transistor-switchings.

.
You said:
.

Minecraft is a first-person game where you explore an infinite world and the world generates itself as you move into new areas

.
In my proposal, your life-experience possibility-story isn’t being generated as your experience unfolds. That story is already timelessly there. The time that you experience is within that story-system, and that story is across its own time, not generated in time.
.
The complexity of your experienced world, and its self-consistency, make it difficult to explain how a person could write that story on-the-fly during his/her first day of life, immediately after being born (and in late fetal life, for that matter).
.

, thereby growing the world as you explore it.

.
Again, your life-experience possibility-story is already timelessly, there, and isn’t being written sequentially in time, as you experience it.
.
You and your surroundings are the two complementary halves of your life-experience possibility-story, which is about your experience.
.

Each world has a seed - a string of characters - that is used in an algorithm to generate the world at the beginning.

.
You’re talking about something written on-the-fly, and I’m talking about a story that is a logical system that already timelessly is.
.
(I mean “is” in a much less strong sense than “exists”. I mean “is” in a hypothetical, insubstantial sense, or discursive grammatical sense, instead of existential sense. …referring only to a topic of discussion, not something existent.)
.
You’re in a life because you’re the protagonist of one of those life-experience possibility-stories.
.

What if the world that you perceive didn't exist

.
The word “exist” isn’t metaphysically-defined. I agree with what you’re saying there--I don’t claim that this world exists. I don’t make any claims about the existence of anything metaphysical, including this world or the abstract if-then facts of which it’s composed.
.

, rather it was just your consciousness that was the program - you know, like your dreams.

.
Different from dreams, because dreams are composed by you, subconsciously. Your life-experience possibility-story couldn’t be being composed by you on-the-fly. As I said, what about the day you were born? You couldn’t have composed a complex self-consistent physical world then.
.
In fact, in general, self-consistency could be a problem if you were writing your experience-story on-the-fly.
.
Though I don’t agree with philosophers’ chase after Consciousness separate from body, I agree that it can fairly be said that Consciousness—that’s each of us--is at the basis of each of our experience-story. After all, we and our experience are what that story is about. So I don’t think it’s wrong to suggest that Consciousness is at the basis of it all.
.

All the other people were just sub-programs.

.
Inevitably, in your experience-story, you’re a member of a species, and therefore, consistent with your “existence”, there must be other members of your species in that experience-story.
.

In a way, it would be solipsism, but not quite because your program exists within a real world, or else it wouldn't make sense to call it a program. It would be solipsism.

.
I don’t think it’s Solipsism, because it isn’t just in your mind, and isn’t being sequentially-written by you. As I said, you and your surroundings are the two complementary halves of your life-experience possibility-story, and that story timelessly is.
.
…and for each of the other people and other animals in that story, their experience from their own point-of-view, is just as valid as yours.
.
Aside from those differences, most of what you said agrees with my proposal.
.
TheMadFool said:
.

The point is both cyberspace and our universe are based on mathematical rules. See?

.
You replied:
.

The real world isn't based on mathematical rules.

.
True. The main requirement for your experience-story is that it be self-consistent, non-contradictory, because there’s no such thing as inconsistent facts. Obviously not all of your experience is mathematical.
.
But, as soon as you examine or investigate the physical world, and make some measurements of it, you find that it follows mathematical physical laws.
.

Mathematics is just a model of how things are. They are not the basis of how things are.

.
That’s a big assumption. You’re assuming that, for some reason, there’s that brute-fact world, and we just model it by logic and mathematics.
.
Uncontroversially, there are those logical/mathematical if-then facts (…but I don’t say that they “exist”—see above, regarding how I mean “are”), and complex systems of inter-referring if-thens. As I said, inevitably one of those infinitely-many logical systems has the events and relations of your experience. There’s no reason to believe that your experience is other than that.
.
So the burden of proof is on someone who wants to say that there’s a “real”, “concrete” objectively-existent physical world, superfluously existing alongside that logical system, and duplicating its events and relations.
.

There is just how things are…

.
…as a brute-fact?
.

Asking if this world is a computer program just creates an infinite regress because you then have to ask, "How do we know that the world our program is in isn't a program too?"

.
Quite so. Most advocates of the Simulated-Universe theory say that we’re in a simulation that’s being run within another simulation, which is being run within another simulation…and so on.
.
I’ve told what’s wrong with the Simulated-Universe theory.
.
Michael Ossipoff

The "computer-simulated universe" theory doesn't make any sense — Michael Ossipoff


The point is both cyberspace and our universe are based on mathematical rules. See? — TheMadFool

Yes, I didn't miss that similarity to what I've been saying. One thing I like about the Simulated-Universe theory is that it isn't so far from what I'm saying. The popularity of Simulated Universe shows that people aren't really so far from agreement with my suggestion.

Yes the universe is a mathematical/logical system. No, it wasn't created by the writing or running of a computer program, or by transistor-switchings somewhere. ...because mathematical and logical systems just timelessly are.

A computer programmer, or the running of a computer, can't create what already timelessly is.

They can only duplicate it and display it for a viewing audience.

So yes, I didn't mean to disparage Simulated Universe. I don't agree with it, but I like it because it's so close to what I'm proposing.

Michael Ossipoff

In other words, "If A then B" is the if-then proposition. So, if "If A then B" is true, then the if-then proposition is true.

(...even if A, or B, or both, are false.)

...and is therefore an if-then fact.

A mathematical theorem is an if-then proposition whose "if " premise includes, but needn't be limited to, some mathematical axioms. When it's been shown that that theorem's conclusion follows from its premise, then that theorem is said to be true,

No one says that the axioms must be proven to be true, in order for the theorem to be accepted as true.

I've begun checking sources on the Internet, and I haven;t yet found one that supports Janus's unusual definition of "true"

Michael Ossipoff

No, it remains valid, not true. You need to brush up on your terminology. I suggest you take a course in elementary logic. — Janus

I'll look up the definitions. I've read something about "sound" being different from "true". But "true" has an obvious meaning that I thought everyone agreed on.

If the truth of a certain "if" premise would always make a certain "then" conclusion true, then It's certainly true to say that the truth of that premise would always make that conclusion true. ...and that's all an if-then proposition says.

I'll look up the definitions but I doubt very much that they'll support your bizarre re-definition of "true".

Michael Ossipoff

An "if-then" proposition is true if the "if" is true and the "then" is valid. — Janus

Its truth doesn't require that.

Neither the "if" premise nor the "then" conclusion need be true.

An if-then proposition is true, and therefore is a fact--an if-then fact--if what it says is true, viz:

...that the truth of the "if" premise would mean the truth of the "then" conclusion

I'll quote an example that I've been using:

"If all Slitheytoves are (or were) brillig, and all Jaberwockekys are (or were) Slitheyitoves, then all Jaberwockeys are (or would be) brilllig."

That remains true even if there aren't any Slitheytoves or Jaberwockeys.

And it would remain true if there were Slitheytoves and Jaberwockeys, but none of the Slitheytoves were brillig, &/or none of the Jaberwockeys were Slitheytoves.

Michael Ossipoff

The truth of premises is not demonstrated by logical arguments; and must be assumed or evidenced by something other than mere logic. — Janus

...only if you think that the truth of the premises and conclusions is necessary.

The truth of an if-then fact is quite independent of whether its premise is true. I've been talking about a metaphysical world consisting of the if-then facts themselves, and not the truth of their conclusions or premises.

Michael Ossipoff

Any discussion about what "exists" is a mess, partly because "exist", "real" and "is" are metaphysically-undefined.

For example, here are two frequent objections to my metaphysics:

1. "What makes you think that abstract facts exist?"

I don't claim that they "exist", whatever that would mean. Obviously the if-thens in an inter-referreing system of if-thens have relation to eachother, whether they "exist" or not. Their "existence" has nothing to do with what I've been saying. That's something that I've been emphasizing all along. That's all my metaphysics is about.

2. "How do those hypothetical facts give rise to an actual, concretely real, world?"

They don't. I don't claim that our world is "actual" or "concretely real", whatever that would mean.

...unless "actual" has the more limited meaning that some others have expressed:

"of, consisting of, or part of the world in which the speaker resides."

Of course it goes without saying, with respect to this discussion, that our physical world is actual in that limited, but operationally-meaningful, sense.

Michael Ossipoff

Casino dice are required by law to be as balanced and perfectly cubic as possible.

The pips, in order to have the same density as the rest of the die, are filled with the same material as the rest of the die, but just dyed a different color.

Ordinary store-bought dice are testably unbalanced and biased...as one would expect.

I once did an experiment in which I threw an ordinary store-bought die, about 3000 or 5000 times.

What I expected was that 6 would come up significantly more often than 1.

And indeed it did.

But, surprisingly to me, that wasn't its biggest bias:

The 6 and the 1 came up more often than the 5 and the 2, which came up more often than the 4 and the 3.

All of these biases happened to a degree that would be unlikely by chance. I don't remember what the significance levels were, but some of them were as good as having less than 1% probability by chance, and others were as good as having less than 5% probability by chance.

The big differences in the occurrences of those pairs of numbers can be explained by the die's dynamic unbalance. It was wobbling like a dynamically-unbalanced tire, making some rolling-orientations more stable than others.

Michael Ossipoff

If the weight of the coin were to be unevenly distributed that would be a loaded coin. — TheMadFool

Sure, but has it ever been (intentionally) done? Would it be able to significantly affect the probabilities of heads and tails?

Make the coin of aluminum, but have a bit of osmium concealed in it, at one edge, on one side.

Without examining the problem, my first guess would be that that would, in some way, very slightly affect the relative probabilities of heads and tails. But enough to help you win enough money to make it worth the trouble?

Michael Ossipoff

How do we go about answering the question whether we're machines or not? — TheMadFool

As animals, we're purposefully-responsive devices, basically like a mousetrap, refrigerator-lightswitch or thermostat--but differing from those by having been designed by many millions of years of the events of natural-selection.

Michael Ossipoff

The "computer-simulated universe" theory doesn't make any sense.

How are transistor-switchings in a computer somewhere supposed to be able to "make" a world?

All that a computer programmer, or the running of his program, could accomplish would be the duplication and display, of some already, timelessly, "existent" possibility-world, showing it (as you seem to mean it) from the objective point-of-view.

The computer simulation could display that to its viewing-audience, but it certainly can't create it.

The "computer-simulated universe" theory requires faith in some magical power of transistor-switchings.

Michael Ossipoff

If a child was being beaten in the library, shouldn't you have gone to the scene and interceded, maybe asking the checkout and reference desks to record that person's name and address if possible? ...or to look it up if they know that customer? ...so that the child-abuse could be reported?

I don't know medicine, and I don't know about panic attacks, and so I don't know if a doctor is needed. Probably not though. ...but I emphasize that I'm not qualified to give medical advice.

It sounds to me like a symptom of reading too much philosophy, especially the angst-ridden philosophers known as "Existentialists".

Michael Ossipoff

The more interesting and pressing question is whether the phantasmagoria of experience exhausts the category of the real. — Thorongil

I don't know about that, but Reality is unknowable, undiscussable, un-describable. Metaphysics doesn't cover or describe Reality.

In other words, the more important question is not what objects are, but why they are.

Of course. Metaphysics is the discussion of explanation and origin. But it's also about the matter of what is. (...though that part of course is also called "Ontology" too). In this usage "what is" needn't refer only to physical objects (except of course for Materialists).

If this question has no answer, nihilism results. If this question has an answer, but we can't know it, skepticism results.

If you ask someone that question, and they say that it's unknowable, undiscussable and un-describable, that could be called an answer, or not, depending on what you mean by "answer".

You're referring to something more ultimate than metaphysics. Idealism and Materialism are only metaphysicses.

If this question has an answer, and we can know it, ...

I think most of us would agree that that's not so.

then something like theism results.

Maybe some Theisms. But many Theists, including those in some of the official church denominations with the largest membership;, don't believe in that knowability.

It has been a recent contention of mine that the data of experience are the same in all metaphysical systems, whether idealistic or materialistic — Thorongil

Of course. As I've been saying, it can't be proved that Materialism's world doesn't exist as a brute-fact and an unverifiable, unfalsifiable proposition.

Of course there are things in metaphysics that can't be proved. There are also definite things that can be uncontroversially said.

But let's not imply that all metaphysicses are equal. Brute facts and unverifiable, unfalsifiable propositions are considered unaesthetic, unappealing and unconvincing.

Michael Ossipoff

If the coin is loaded — TheMadFool

I've never heard of a loaded coin. Loaded dice, sure, the Romans used them. But loaded coin? I've heard of 2-headed or 2-tailed coins.

Michael Ossipoff

I'd said:

As I've said, I can't prove that the Materialist's concretely, fundamentally, objectively existent world doesn't superfluously exist, as an unnecessary brute-fact, an unverifiable and unfalsifiable proposition, along side of, and duplicating the events and relations of, the complex system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals that i've been referring to. — Michael Ossipoff

You replied:

And I wouldn't agree with that depiction of materialism. — Marchesk

Nor should you, when I don’t give any justification for what I say.

So let me say what I meant, and why I said that.

Then, if you still disagree, at least I’ll have have clarified what I meant, and what you disagree with.

I suggest the following:

Any fact about this physical world implies and corresponds to an if-then fact.

For example:

"There's a traffic roundabout at the intersection of 34th & Vine."

"If you go to 34th & Vine, then you'll encounter a traffic roundabout."

Additionally, any fact in this physical world is at least part of the "if " premise of some if-then statements, and is the "then" conclusion of other if-then facts.

For example:

A set of hypothetical physical-quantity values, and a hypothetical relation among them (called a "physical law") are parts of the "if " premise of an if-then clause.

...except that one of those quantity-values can be taken as the "then" conclusion of that if-then fact.

Obviously, a quantity-value can be part of the "if " premise of some if-then facts, and the "then" conclusion of other if-then facts.

There are infinitely-many complex systems of such inter-referring if-then facts about hypotheticals.

Inevitably, there's one system, among those infinitely-many logical systems, whose events and relations are those of your experience. There's no reason to believe that your experience is other than that.

I call that your life-experience possibility-story.
You’re in a life because you’re the protagonist in one of the infinitely-many life-experience possibility-stories.

I can't prove that the objectively, fundamentally, existent physical world that Materialists believe in doesn't superfluously, exist, as an unverifiable, unfalsifiable brute-fact alongside of, and duplicating the events and relations of, the if-then system that I've described.

We're used to declarative, indicative grammar, and it's convenient. But, as described here, this physical world can be described entirely by conditional grammar. Maybe we're too willing to believe in the grammar that we use..

Instead of one world of "is", infinitely-many worlds of "if".

This suggestion was apparently first made (in the West at least) by the physicist Michael Faraday, in 1844.

Michael Ossipoff

Yes, any discussion of things that aren't what they are, facts that are both true and false, might be a fun wordgame for some, but contradictory "facts" aren't facts, and add up to just nonsense.

One hard question that someone asked me was, "And why is your life-experience possibility-story self-consistent? What keeps it self-consistent?"

I'd been a bit troubled about that too. But I think that can be answered by saying that a person's life-experience possibility-story consists of a system of abstract if-then facts, and there's no such thing as mutually inconsistent or contradictory facts.

Michael Ossipoff

I don't require more than non-contradiction for existence. (But it is not as simple as it may seem, because since there can be no inconsistency in reality, every existing object must be defined consistently with all other objects.) — litewave

Sure, within a particular logical system, I don't think we disagree on anything.

Michael Ossipoff

One other comment:

We share the liberal metaphysical view that all possibilities constitute reality, which goes far beyond not only materialism but also religions.

I want to emphasize that I claim that metaphysics doesn't cover, describe, explain or govern all of Reality. Metaphysics is the limit of what's discussable, describable and arguable, and not all of Reality is discussable, describable or arguable.

There's physical reality, and metaphysical reality. ...and there's Reality which physics and metaphysics don't cover, describe or explain.

Michael Ossipoff

"Physical reality and metaphysical reality can be explained by a system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals. The hypothetical premises and conclusions of the if-then facts are about hypothetical objects." — Michael Ossipoff


But the objects (hypothetical or whatever) are not relations, at least not all of them. That's why I'm saying that in addition to relations there must also be "stuff" (non-relation) that stands in those relations. — litewave

Of course, but those objects, that stuff needn't be other than hypothetical. ...nothing more than part of the if-then fact, whose "objects" needn't "be", in any sense other than the non-contradiction sense that you referred to.

What I was emphasizing about the if-then facts was that the "objects" that they're about needn't have any existence other than the non-contradiction that you referred to.

All that the true if-then fact is saying about the existence of Jaberwokeys is "if there were Jaberwockeys, and if all Jaberwockeys were Slitheytoves..."

So I'm not positing "objects" anything like the physical things that Materialism believes in.

We share the liberal metaphysical view that all possibilities constitute reality, which goes far beyond not only materialism but also religions.

Sometimes "religion" just refers to Literalist allegories. I don't agree with the Literalist allegories, but most likely many of the people who accept them also have meta-metaphysical feelings too.

I don't believe that all of Reality is discussable, describable or arguable. Metaphysics is the limit of what's discussable, describable and arguable.

I'm not saying that meta-metaphysics, what's not discussable, describable or arguable, has to be called religion. I'm just saying that some of what's called religion is meta-metaphysical feeling or impression.

But since I've been in this forum I have always claimed that these possibilities include not only relations but also objects that are not relations.

Sure, but those objects needn't be claimed to exist, other than in the sense of not being contradictorily or inconsistently defined.

The truth of the if-then facts doesn't depend on what they're about existing other than in that sense.

Michael Ossipoff

"If all Slitheytoves are (or were) brillig, and all Jaberwockeys are (or were) Slitheytoves, then all Jaberwockeys are (or would be) brillig.

"That if-then fact about hypotheticals is true, even if there aren't any Slitheyitoves or Jaberwockeys". — Michael Ossipoff

Unless the objects you have named "Slitheytoves", "brillig" etc. are inconsistently defined they exist. They exist in the most general sense of "exist", which means "be consistent". — litewave

True. I just meant that it isn't necessary for anyone to actually find and hold up a Slitheytove or Jaberwockey, in order for the if-then fact to be true.

...and, by that meaning of "exist", which I have no disagreement with, what objection is there to the Eliminative Ontic Structural Subjective Idealism that I've been proposing?

Michael Ossipoff

"There are abstract if-then facts. Who says there has to be concrete, objectively-existent objects and "stuff" for them to be about?" — Michael Ossipoff


So what are the if-then facts about? About "hypothetical" objects rather than about "objectively-existent" objects? — litewave

Yes.

If so, what is the difference between "hypothetical" and "objectively-existent"?

Good question. I guess "objectively-existent" is something made-up by the Materialist. He'd have to be the one to say what he means by it. After all, he's the one who's claiming that "hypothetical" isn't enough, and that the physical world is something more than that.

Maybe one meaning for "objectively-existent" is "somehow more than hypothetical."

Whatever "objectively-existent" means, I'm saying that there's no need to say it.

Physical reality and metaphysical reality can be explained by a system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals. The hypothetical premises and conclusions of the if-then facts are about hypothetical objects.

The if-then facts are true, and there's no need for their premises or conclusions to be true, or be about something with meaning or "existence" other than hypothetical.

You're the last person here with whom I expected to disagree about Eliminative Ontic Structural Subjective Idealism vs Materialism, because I thought we agreed on that matter, in conversations around the time when I first joined this forum.

Michael Ossipoff

You said:
.

What about inorganic process? IF these are not purpose-driven processes, then I assume you are arguing that beings with purposes emerge out of processes without purposes

.
You know they do. …in the physical story.
.

, Is this a gradual development?

.
I don’ t know. Doesn’t it seem as if the first reproducing organism, and its natural-selection-designed offsprings, could be considered an abrupt new thing?
.
But afterwards, the subsequent development was gradual of course.
.

Also, If purpose is an evolutionary adaptation, is it formed in the way that Dawkins and Dennett believe, by a blind watchmaker? In other words, selective processes act on dumb matter to create organisms like humans who have the illusion of purpose, a mere intentional 'stance' that at its core is nothing but good old fashioned efficient causation?

.
In the physical story, sure. …except that I’d say “purpose” instead of “illusion of purpose”. The purposefulness of purposefully-responsive devices is genuine.
.

Are alleged purposeful humans just meme generators?

.
I think we’re purposeful, not just allegedly purposeful.
.

I'm not saying this hypothesis is wrong, but it is unsatisfying to some who think that it doesn’t do justice to the richness of the structure of phenomenal experience.

.
Of course. They’re right.
.
It’s the physical story, and it’s valid as far as it goes, but it certainly isn’t the whole truth. That’s the difference between me and a Materialist. Dawkins is a Materialist; I’m not. Materialists believe the Material world is what’s fundamentally-existent, and that it has objective existence. I don’t. I’m a Subjective Idealist.
.

For me the larger problem with this account is that I think there is a more satisfying account available for the explanation of the origin of purpose and intention

.
Yes. I say that you’re in a life because you’re the protagonist of one of the infinitely-many hypothetical life-experience possibility-stories. …complex systems of inter-referring abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals.
.
That’s where your purpose and intentions started.
.
What I call “the physical story” is the self-consistent system of logical relations constituting the possibility-world that is the setting for your life-experience possibility-story.
.

, which comes out of an alternative to Dawkins'
idea of evolutionary adaptation Stephen Rose is a biologist who is among those who argue that adaptation is not simply gene-driven, but argue for a kind of neo-Lamarkianism.

.
I, too, have read that Lamarkianism has been vindicated.
.

The organism alters its internal and external environment through its functioning and in this way shapes its own adaptive transformation. Rather than viewing purpose as emergent out of non-purpose, this account views adaptation as involving purposiveness via the self-reflexive , self-organizing tendencies of all living things. Piaget was one of the first to model biological change in this way.

.
Then the old Darwinian evolutionary scenario isn’t complete, and evolution happened/happens differently.
.
But I say that Materialism is wrong, and our origin isn’t physical (except in the physical-story). Ultimately, first there was (timelessly is) the infinity of life-experience possibility-stories. You and the life-experience possibility-story of which you’re the protagonist are metaphysically prior to the physical world.
.
Michael Ossipoff

"Doyou really think rationality characterizes our species?" — Michael Ossipoff


It seems simply obvious to me - rationality, language
— Wayfarer

I didn't say we aren't different from the other animals. Language is one such difference.

As for "rationality", I don't think it's present as much as you do. It's the exception with humans. Overall, as a species, there's nothing rational about "H. Sapiens".

That very name is a pompous chauvinistic vanity.

Humans do think that they're rational, but that isn't quite the same thing. In fact it just worsens things.

Humanity is a quagmire, for itself, and really bad news for the other life on the planet.

, story-telling

Yes, storytelling is encountered whenever the "news" comes on. But humans didn't invent lying. Chimpanzees in the wild have been observed lying to eachother.

, meaning-seeking

You mean like the endless blather of academic philosophers?

, technology and science

Rational on the part of the scientists, but then disastrously irrationally misused by the population &/or their herders.

Things got bad in a hurry as soon as agriculture started.

Anyway, humans are not only animals, or not simply animals, but animals who have either attained or been thrust into the ability to wonder about the meaning of existence.

Did your cat tell you that it doesn't wonder about the meaning of existence?

I don't think we know much about what the other animals are thinking, because they don't talk.

I never denied that humans are different from all the other animals. But you seem to be implying more than that, You seem be be implying that, as a species, humans are somehow better than the other animals. There are lots of humans who aren't nearly as good as a dog, cat, deer, rabbit, etc.

I suggest that other animal species have an incomparably higher percentage of good individuals than the human species does.

I don't think we really disagree. It's just a matter of how it's said.

I think there can be something good about being human. It offers unique potential.

If there's reincarnation (and there probably is), then I want to be a human again, in the remainder of my subsequent lives. So I'm not disparaging human-ness. I'm just disparaging most humans.

Well, among those who speak of reincarnation, there seems to be a consensus that humans reincarnate as humans (though some suggest that extraordinary barbarity and abuse can result otherwise).

Our human world is "The Land of the Lost", and there's no point trying to defend it.

Michael Ossipoff

I didn't deny that the kinds of animals differ from eachother in salient ways.

I said that we're very different from the other animals (and that they, too, differ greatly from eachother)

I suppose the fact that you don’t recognize the salience of rationality doesn’t really come as a surprise :-) — Wayfarer

Well I recognize the salience of the irrationality of chauvinism.

Do you really think rationality characterizes our species?

Michael Ossipoff

.

In general why anything exists is a question everyone has a problem answering. — Marchesk

Not really.

The metaphysics that I propose doesn't have or need a brute-fact, or any assumptions.

There are abstract if-then facts. No one denies that, And so there are complex systems of inter-referring abstract if-then facts.

Why is there the following if-then fact?:

If all Slitheytoves are brilling, and all Jaberwockeys are Slitheytoves, then all Jaberwockeys are brillig.

Does it really need an explanation for its origin or "existence"?

You might ask why there'd be any abstract facts if there were no experiencers. My answer is that the systems of inter-referring abstract facts that I discuss are the ones that have experiencers, as part of the system of inter-referring abstract facts.

So that question doesn't relate to my metaphysics.

And such systems of inter-referrng abstract facts don't need a "why" answer, any more than the "Slithytoves & Jaberwockeys" fact does.

Each system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts is quite independent and separate from anything else, and doesn't need a global "permission" or justification, or a larger context or medium in which to be.

The matter of abstract facts' independence from experiencers is an interesting issue, and it seems to me that there are things that can be said about it. But it doesn't bear on my metaphysics.

Michael Ossipoff

I think it holds up pretty well. — Marchesk

Sure, if you don't mind an unnecessary brute-fact

(Why is there the concretely, fundamentally, objectively existent world that you believe in?)

As I've said, I can't prove that the Materialist's concretely, fundamentally, objectively existent world doesn't superfluously exist, as an unnecessary brute-fact, an unverifiable and unfalsifiable proposition, along side of, and duplicating the events and relations of, the complex system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals that i've been referring to.

Trouble is when it comes to mind, at least consciousness. But that's a small part of the entire universe, so I'm not as sold on the hard problem as I used to be.

The "Hard Problem of Consciousness" isn't a problem, even for Materialism. There's at least one branch of Materialism that knows that.

Michael Ossipoff

it is the Greek definition of man as the rational animal. And in this case, it is a difference that really makes a difference. — Wayfarer

No one denies that the various animals differ from eachother, and have their own talents, skills, niches.

Yes, humans are very different from the other animals, who also differ greatly from eachother, in various other ways.

Michael Ossipoff

The problem is that only relations are describable, but if there are relations then there must also be objects between which those relations are. Those objects can't be nothing because relations between nothings would be absurd. — litewave

So some people say. But lots of things are said by some people somewhere.

To re-quote:

The problem is that only relations are describable — litewave

True, but a problem only for Materialism.

, but if there are relations then there must also be objects between which those relations are.

Why? There are abstract if-then facts. Who says there has to be concrete, objectively-existent objects and "stuff" for them to be about?

Those objects can't be nothing because relations between nothings would be absurd.

[/quote]

I didn't say there are objects that are nothing. i said that there needn't be the concretely objectively existent objects that are the subject of the abstract if-then facts.

The whole thing woudln't be "real"? I didn't say it was. in fact "real" is metaphysically undefined anyway.

I've been saying that a complex system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals needn't be real, existent and meaningful in any context other than its own inter-referring context, and doesn't need any medium in which to be.


The relations can be described as abstract if-then facts. They don't need an explanation or an origin.

No brute facts. No assumptions.

That suggestion was evidently first made in the West by Michael Faraday, in 1844.

Let me repeat an example that I've been using here:

If all Slitheytoves are (or were) brillig, and all Jaberwockeys are (or were) Slitheytoves, then all Jaberwockeys are (or would be) brillig.

That if-then fact about hypotheticals is true, even if there aren't any Slitheyitoves or Jaberwockeys.

It's obvious that abstract if-thens can be true without saying anythiing about the "existence" of the hypothetical subjects of the hypothetical premise and conclusion of the if-then fact.

Michael Ossipoff

"You mean I didn't say what kind of animals we are?" — Michael Ossipoff


There's a one-word answer, which is specifically relevant to philosophy. — Wayfarer

But you're not going to say what it is?


"There is a metaphysical view called Russellian monism according to which physics and mathematics only describe relations (including causal relations) but relations cannot exist without "things" that stand in those relations. The "things" are not relations or structures of relations and therefore they are also non-mathematical and indescribable." — litewave

Yes, and the words "brute-fact" and "unverifiable, unfalsifiable proposition" suggest themselves.

Litewave, you'd been posting some of the things that I later said, before I posted them, Especially of interest was what you said about the relation between "real" and "self-consistent" I've been saying that our life-experience possibility-stories have to be consistent, because there are no mutually inconsistent or contradictory facts.

“Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little; it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover.” — Bertrand Russell

He's expressing an unverifiable belief in indectable unknown entities in the physical world.

Of course not all of Reality is knowable, describable, discussable, But it isn't necessary to posit the unknowability and indeterminacy at the metaphysical and physical levels.

Of course it might be that physics will remain an open-ended endless series of explanations of explanations.

Michael Ossipoff

"Humans are animals". — Michael Ossipoff

Incorrect - Missed a qualifier there. — Wayfarer

You mean I didn't say what kind of animals we are?

Regardless of what kind of animals we are, we're animals.

Michael Ossipoff

Or there's another option:

"Mind" or "Consciousness" separate from and different from the body, that your academic philosophers are so confused about, is in their own minds, a faith-based Spiritualist belief of theirs.

Humans are animals. The animal is unitary, no separate body and "Consciousness".

Animals, including humans, are purposefully-responsive devices, not different in principle from mousetraps, refrigerator lightswitches or thermostats. (..but differing from then in complexity, and natural-selection origin).

A purposefully-responsive device's "Consciousness" is is property of being a purposefully-responsive device.

A purposefully-responsive device's experience is its observed surroundings and events, in the context of its purposes as a purposefully-responsive device.

Michael Ossipoff

So a person's story has a beginning (birth) but not an end? — Marchesk

It doesn't have an end, but are you sure that it has a remembered beginning?

Appealing to reincarnation to continue experience...

...is something that I didn't do.

Though reincarnation is implied by my metaphysics, my metaphysics doesn't depend on or appeal to reincarnation.

In fact, I explicitly said:

we can set that aside, for the purpose of this discussion, along with the reincarnation issue. — Michael Ossipoff

and

(if there isn’t reincarnation) — Michael Ossipoff

Experience doesn't end, whether there's reincarnation or not. I made that explicit in my previous post here.

Demonstrable? Are we getting Science-Worshippy?

Not only is reincarnation not demonstrable or provable, but I suggest that past lives are completely indeterminate (not just unknowable).

I suggest that reincarnation is metaphysically implied and supported. But of course you won't agree if you're a Materialist. We can and must leave that question aside if you're a Materialist. If you wanted to talk about it, we'd first have to talk about your Materialism. For example, Materialism doesn't hold up well in discussion.

Arguing reincarnation wasn't my purpose,which is why I said the things that I quoted above.

Reincarnation isn't appealed to or depended on by the things that i said in m previous post.

Michael Ossipoff

You wrote:
.

On a subjective idealist account…

.
I’m a Subjective Idealist.
.

, there are only perceivers and their perceptions. Some of those perceptions involve death. We see that living things die, and once dead, no longer behave as if they are perceivers.

.
…from the point of view of their survivors. But as soon as you speak of matters from the point of view of your survivors, then you’ve left the Subjective account.
.

Furthermore, we often perceive causes for their deaths.

.
Let's say I perceive someone pointing a gun at me with the intention of ending my life. The person pulls the trigger, and they experience me turn into a corpse. I no longer am experienced by anyone as a perceiver.

.
The question is why would any perception result in the end of perceiving for a perceiver?

.
It wouldn’t.
.
Who says it did? In the shooter’s perception you’re dead. What about for you? You never experience a time when there’s no experience.
.
You’re mixing two entirely different accounts.
.

Compare this to a dream. I can experience someone shooting me in a dream, and my experiences will continue. From an idealist perspective, what makes perception different?

.
Some near-death-experiences don’t sound unlike the kind of dream that you speak of. NDEs are experiences at and near the very beginning of death.
.
As for afterwards, from your own point of view, it’s as Shakespeare said, “To sleep, perchance to dream.” I don’t think anyone would disagree with the suggestion that (if there isn’t reincarnation) when this life ends, it ends in sleep, ever more deep sleep.
.
As for the “dream” part, we can set that aside, for the purpose of this discussion, along with the reincarnation issue.
.
But that doesn’t mean that you reach an experience of no experience at all. How could you experience it? It’s a meaningless notion.
.

Why should a perceived bullet have a different result from a dream or imagined bullet?

.
Neither ends your experience.
.

Is there something special about perception for the subjective idealist that gives perception more weight?

.
Sure. Your experience is what it’s about.
.

Is the perceived bullet afforded powers that an imagined one lacks?

.
One difference between “real” life and a dream is that experience in life tends to be self-consistent. Seemingly inconsistent things can happen, but are often or usually later consistently explained. It seems to go without saying that we expect them to be at least potentially consistently explainable later.
.
Someone objected to me, “Why is the life-experience possibility-story consistent?” It’s because it’s a complex system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts. There’s no such thing as mutually-inconsistent facts.
.
If you regard someone’s experience-story as being “created” or “written”, on the fly, so to speak, as it plays out, then someone could say, “What makes it consistent?” For example, the day you were born, how could you know about the laws of physics, etc. Well, you weren’t “writing” that story as it happened.
.
You and your surroundings are the two complementary halves of a life-experience possibility-story. That story isn’t being “written” as it happens. It’s timelessly there, as a possibility-story, a complex logical system. It’s already timelessly there, across the time in that’s in that story, even though your experience is sequentially in terms of that time.
.
That sounds like positing an assumption or brute-fact, but it’s natural and to be expected if your life-experience is a timeless possibility-story, a logical system.
.
Of course dreams don’t usually have inconsistency that you know of at the time, do they? After you wake up, and tell someone about the dream, you mention that one thing turned into another thing, But, when it happened, you probably didn’t remember that it was supposed to be what it previously was.
.
I mention all that because you asked about differences between dream and waking life.
.
Michael Ossipoff

It could be that people who benefit from society say that it is moral and functional, but they are only saying this because it favours them, but then that kind of society is hard to change. — Andrew4Handel

Impossible to change or improve, I'd say.

All we can do is try to stay out of the rulers' way, and somehow live a quiet and peaceful life.

We sometimes hear "If you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem."

Solution? What solution? You can't be part of an impossible solution.

You aren't part of the problem unless you're participating in its perpetration.

Michael Ossipoff

The origin of that individual problem is surely societal, though of course there could be hereditary weakness that would make someone less able to survive the bad societal environment.

Michael Ossipoff

I'd said;

Absolutely. I believe that there's probably reincarnation, because, as i was saying, it's metaphysically implied and supported.

This is more of a technical point, but I'm careful about using the term reincarnation, because of the religious baggage.

As a Vedantist, that doesn't bother me, though i consider reincarnation a matter of metaphysics, not religion.

That said, there seems to be plenty of evidence in what NDErs are claiming that supports the idea that we choose, for example, to come here to have specific experiences. Or that we choose to come here, not only for the experiences of being human, and the limitations that brings,

Oh yes, Like many people, I used to say (still sometimes tend to say), "I didn't choose this! I didn't ask to be born!"

But now I can't convince myself of that, because it's metaphysically evident that we're in a life because of predisposition, such as want, need, inclination. .

I think this life is meant to be very difficult, it's not meant to be a good time

I hope that not all lives are in a world like this one. Eastern philosophers suggest that, over many lifetimes, as we perfect our lifestyle, our next incarnations will be in better worlds. I agree, and of course I hope that's so.

Here's one possible way by which our own character could affect our next incarnation-world:

Say you've lived a life of selfishness and violence. Now you've died, and have become unconscious (but haven't reached deep-sleep). You've forgotten about your just-ended life, but your emotions, feelings, inclinations are still there. There's a life-experience possibility-story that has you as protagonist. What kind of a world would it be in? What kind of a world is consistent with you? How about a world with the kind of people who would beget someone like you?

, although we can experience good times.

I like to suggest that it averages-out, over the lives.

Most come here, it's my contention, to experience the struggle. You can compare it to someone who wants to scale a mountain, and the struggles that ensue, or an athlete who struggles to attain perfection.

Oh I don't know about that.

Sure, there's a good analogy with video-games. We want a video-game to be challenging, because otherwise it wouldn't show how good we are. And if you insist that your father let you play video games, he wouldn't limit them to games that you always win.

I used to regard it that way.

But might not the badness of this world we were born in be the result of our own character (previous, at least), rather than our wish or intention?

One thing that demolishes the argument that we're in a bad world because we need it, to show how good we are, and what we can accomplish, is the fact that this world is entirely hopeless and irreparably unfixable.

I think the struggle here generally makes our character stronger, but there are probably many other reasons too.

Well, the badness around us it teaches us, by bad example, to be a better person. I suggest that the reason why we're here is because of the person we were. ...not for educational purposes, not for the purpose of improving us, but merely because this world is what was implied by, consistent with, who we were, and was what we qualified for.

But learning to be a better person, eventually perfecting our lifestyle--They say (in the East) that that's inevitable, over sufficiently-many, finitely-many, lifetimes, and that everyone eventually will achieve that life-completion that brings us to the end-of-lives.

Michael Ossipoff

I'd said:

S/he neither knows nor cares about it.

It's just sleep.

Because it's our final outcome, and is timeless, I claim that it's our natural, normal and usual state of affairs.

You replied:

I have some sympathy with the idea of eternal (meaning not perpetual, but atemporal) existence. But we cannot conceive how that would be

Of course, because, for one thing, it's rare to remember anything about deep sleep. For another thing, of course the sleep at the end of lives of course will become deeper than that.

I try to avoid presumption. if something is knowable, and I convince myself that I know about it when I don't, then I'm cheating myself out of finding out about it. If something is unknowable, and I convince myself that I know about it, than that false knowledge cheats out of knowledge about what's unknowable, or a self-honest open attitude about what I don' know about.

Sure, I'm just making suggestions about it, But i try to justify them, below.

, so we cannot say "she neither knows, nor cares"

But I'm talking about a late stage of shutdown, shortly before actual complete (never-experienced) shutdown of consciousness. So isn't it a fair suggestion that there won't be knowledge or concern about matters of life, events, time, and identity? Aren't those things related to waking-life, and maybe not-so-deep sleep, which will be long-gone by then?

or "it's just sleep"

Of course it becomes deeper than the nightly deep-sleep. But, wouldn't it be a continuation and extension of that?

It's of interest, the matter of what's going to happen. Of course we can't know the details of what anything un-experienced will be like, but surely there are a few things that can be suggested. ...negative suggestions about it, and likening it to sleep? Comparison with sleep sounds like the best way to say something about, or try to somewhat understand that.

And isn't sleep what Atheists and Materialists expect too, at that time?

Shakespeare said, "...perchance to dream." Of course that allows for a lot of possibilities. I suggest that one of them is that metaphysically-implied reincarnation scenario that I've been suggesting. But, for those (probably very few) people without predisposition for that, it seems reasonable to suggest that the person remains present for hir shutdown process (which I suggest can be at least roughly likened to, best described as, sleep), right to the approach to Nothing.

or that it's "our natural, normal and usual state of affairs". These kinds of statements simply make no sense in the context of eternity

But doesn't timelessness imply that?

...and doesn't the fact that I'm talking about a person's final outcome, final state of affairs, imply that?

; they are 'temporamorphic' projections.

Of course I've been trying to avoid that, but as you suggest below, language isn't at its most effective in that area.

Probably we cannot form any statements that do make sense in that context

Nisargadatta said that anything that can be said is a lie.

Ok, but we can try to use language to suggest something about it.

..., other than apophatic ones.

Yes, other than suggesting that the experience can be likened to sleep, which proceeds to deep sleep, and then sleep that's deeper than usual deep sleep, I've been trying to limit what I say to negative statements (but suggested, not stated).

But i don't claim that any of this describes what it will be like, because I agree that that would be impossible. Convincing one that one knows about something unknowable is a way of cheating oneself.

Michael Ossipoff

Will reply tomorrow morning if i don't tonight.

Michael Ossipoff