Quentin Meillassoux
rexal...@gmail.com
http://speculativeheresy.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/3729-time_without_becoming.pdf
"I call 'facticity' the absence of reason for any reality; in other
words, the impossibility of providing an ultimate ground for the
existence of any being. We can only attain conditional necessity,
never absolute necessity. If definite causes and physical laws are
posited, then we can claim that a determined effect must follow. But
we shall never find a ground for these laws and causes, except
eventually other ungrounded causes and laws: there is no ultimate
cause, nor ultimate law, that is to say, a cause or a law including
the ground of its own existence. But this facticity is also proper to
thought. The Cartesian Cogito clearly shows this point: what is
necessary, in the Cogito, is a conditional necessity: if I think, then
I must be. But it is not an absolute necessity: it is not necessary
that I should think. From the inside of the subjective correlation, I
accede to my own facticity, and so to the facticity of the world
correlated with my subjective access to it. I do it by attaining the
lack of an ultimate reason, of a causa sui, able to ground my
existence.
[...]
That’s why I don’t believe in metaphysics in general: because a
metaphysics always believes, in one way or the other, in the principle
of reason: a metaphysician is a philosopher who believes it is
possible to explain why things must be what they are, or why things
must necessarily change, and perish- why things must be what they are,
or why things must change as they do change. I believe on the contrary
that reason has to explain why things and why becoming itself can
always become what they are not- and why there is no ultimate reason
for this game. In this way, “factial speculation” is still a
rationalism, but a paradoxical one: it is a rationalism which explain
why things must be without reason, and how precisely they can be
without reason. Figures are such necessary modalities of facticity-
and non-contradiction is the first figure I deduce from the principle
of factiality. This demonstrates that one can reason about the absence
of reason- if the very idea of reason is subjected to a profound
transformation, if it becomes a reason liberated from the principle of
reason- or, more exactly: if it is a reason which liberates us from
principle of reason.
Now, my project consists of a problem which I don’t resolve in After
Finitude, but which I hope to resolve in the future: it is a very
difficult problem, one that I can’t rigorously set out here, but that
I can sum up in this simple question: Would it be possible to derive,
to draw from the principle of factiality, the ability of the natural
sciences to know, by way of mathematical discourse, reality in itself,
by which I mean our world, the factual world as it is actually
produced by Hyperchaos, and which exists independently of our
subjectivity? To answer this very difficult problem is a condition of
a real resolution of the problem of ancestrality, and this constitutes
the theoretical finality of my present work."
Bruno Marchal
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Brent Meeker
I don't think we can use reason to defeat reason.
What machines can do is to use reason to go beyond reason, and find some non provable or non rational truth.
This is not a defeat of reason. It is the complete contrary, I would say.
Bruno
On 02 Jul 2010, at 22:55, rexal...@gmail.com wrote:
Any thoughts?
http://speculativeheresy.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/3729-time_without_becoming.pdf
"I call 'facticity' the absence of reason for any reality; in other
words, the impossibility of providing an ultimate ground for the
existence of any being. We can only attain conditional necessity,
never absolute necessity. If definite causes and physical laws are
posited, then we can claim that a determined effect must follow. But
we shall never find a ground for these laws and causes, except
eventually other ungrounded causes and laws: there is no ultimate
cause, nor ultimate law, that is to say, a cause or a law including
the ground of its own existence. But this facticity is also proper to
thought. The Cartesian Cogito clearly shows this point: what is
necessary, in the Cogito, is a conditional necessity: if I think, then
I must be. But it is not an absolute necessity: it is not necessary
that I should think. From the inside of the subjective correlation, I
accede to my own facticity, and so to the facticity of the world
correlated with my subjective access to it. I do it by attaining the
lack of an ultimate reason, of a causa sui, able to ground my
existence.
[...]
That�s why I don�t believe in metaphysics in general: because a
metaphysics always believes, in one way or the other, in the principle
of reason: a metaphysician is a philosopher who believes it is
possible to explain why things must be what they are, or why things
must necessarily change, and perish- why things must be what they are,
or why things must change as they do change. I believe on the contrary
that reason has to explain why things and why becoming itself can
always become what they are not- and why there is no ultimate reason
for this game. In this way, �factial speculation� is still a
rationalism, but a paradoxical one: it is a rationalism which explain
why things must be without reason, and how precisely they can be
without reason. Figures are such necessary modalities of facticity-
and non-contradiction is the first figure I deduce from the principle
of factiality.
You don't spell out what this principle of facticity is, but it seems that it refers not to the world, but to our explanations of the world.� It is explanations that may be contradictory, not facts.� And so the principle reduces to the well known one that every explanation is in terms of something else (hopefull something we understand better).
This demonstrates that one can reason about the absence
of reason- if the very idea of reason is subjected to a profound
transformation, if it becomes a reason liberated from the principle of
reason- or, more exactly: if it is a reason which liberates us from
principle of reason.
Now, my project consists of a problem which I don�t resolve in After
Finitude, but which I hope to resolve in the future: it is a very
difficult problem, one that I can�t rigorously set out here, but that
I can sum up in this simple question: Would it be possible to derive,
to draw from the principle of factiality, the ability of the natural
sciences to know, by way of mathematical discourse, reality in itself,
We may have a complete explanation of reality - but we can never know that we do.
Brent
Allen Rex
>
> You don't spell out what this principle of facticity is, but it seems that
> it refers not to the world, but to our explanations of the world.
So the first sentence says: “I call 'facticity' the absence of reason
for any reality”
In his book “After Finitude”, Meillassoux explains that the principle
of facticity (which he also refers to as “the principle of unreason”)
stands in contrast to Leibniz’s “Principle of Sufficient Reason”,
which states that anything that happens does so for a definite reason.
From pg. 33 of After Finitude:
“But we also begin to understand how this proof [the ontological proof
of God] is intrinsically tied to the culmination of a principle first
formulated by Leibniz, although already at work in Descartes, viz.,
the principle of sufficient reason, according to which for every
thing, every fact, and every occurence, there must be a reason why it
is thus and so rather than otherwise.
For not only does such a principle require that there be a possible
explanation for every worldly fact; it also requires that thought
account for the unconditioned totality of beings, as well as for their
being thus and so. Consequently, although thought may well be able to
account for the facts of the world by invoking this or that global law
- nevertheless, it must also, according to the principle of reason,
account for why these laws are thus and not otherwise, and therefore
account for why the world is thus and not otherwise. And even were
such a ‘reason for the world’ to be furnished, it would yet be
necessary to account for this reason, and so on ad infinitum.
If thought is to avoid an infinite regress while submitting to the
principle of reason, it is incumbent upon it to uncover a reason that
would prove capable of accounting for everything, including itself - a
reason no conditioned by any other reason, and which only the
ontological argument is capable of uncovering, since the latter
secures the existence of an X through the determination of this X
alone, rather than through the determination of some entity other than
X - X must be because it is perfect, and hence causa sui, or sole
cause of itself.
If every variant of dogmatic metaphysics is characterized by the
thesis that *at least one entity* is absolutely necessary (the thesis
of real necessity) it becomes clear how metaphysics culminates in the
thesis according to which *every* entity is absolutely necessary (the
principle of sufficient reason). Conversely, to reject dogmatic
metaphysics means to reject all real necessity, and a fortiori to
reject the principle of sufficient reason, as well as the ontological
argument, which is the keystone that allows the system of real
necessity to close in upon itself. Such a refusal enjoins one us to
maintain that there is no legitimate demonstration that a determinate
entity should exist unconditionally.”
> It is explanations that may be contradictory, not facts.
Pg. 60:
“We are no longer upholding a variant of the principle of sufficient
reason, according to which there is a necessary reason why everything
is the way it is rather than otherwise, but rather the absolute truth
of a *principle of unreason*. There is no reason for anything to be
or to remain the way it is; everything must, without reason, be able
not to be and/or be other than it is.
What we have here is a principle, and even, we could say, an
anhypothetical principle; not in the sense in which Plato used this
term to describe the Idea of the Good, but rather in the Aristotelian
sense. By ‘anhypothetical principle’, Aristotle meant a fundamental
proposition that could not be deduced from any other, but which could
be proved by argument. This proof, which could be called ‘indirect’
or ‘refutational’, proceeds not by deducing the principle from some
other proposition - in which case it would no longer count as a
principle - but by pointing out the inevitable inconsistency into
which anyone contesting the truth of the principle is bound to fall.
One establishes the principle without deducing it, by demonstrating
that anyone who contests it can do so only by presupposing it to be
true, thereby refuting him or herself. Aristotle sees in
non-contradiction precisely such a principle, one that is established
‘refutationally’ rather than deductively, because any coherent
challenge to it already presupposes its acceptance. Yet there is an
essential difference between the principle of unreason and the
principle of non-contradiction; viz. what Aristotle demonstrates
‘refutationally’ is that no one can *think* a contradiction, but he
has not thereby demonstrated that contradiction is absolutely
impossible. Thus the strong correlationist could contrast the
facticity of this principle to its absolutization - she would
acknowledge that she cannot think contradiction, but she would refuse
to acknowledge that this proves its absolute impossibility. For she
will insist that nothing proves that what is possible in-itself might
not differ toto caelo from what is thinkable for us. Consequently the
principle of non-contradiction is anhypothetical with regard to what
is thinkable, but not with regard to what is possible.”
Continuing on pg. 77:
“It could be objected that we have conflated contradiction and
inconsistency. In formal logic, an ‘inconsistent system’ is a formal
system all of whose well-formed statements are true. If this formal
system comprises the operator of negation, we say that an axiomatic is
inconsistent if *every* contradiction which can be formulated within
it is true. By way of contrast, a formal system is said to be
non-contradictory when (being equipped with the operator of negation)
it does not allow *any* contradiction to be true. Accordingly, it is
perfectly possible for a logical system to *be* contradictory without
thereby being inconsistent - all that is required is that it give rise
to *some* contradictory statements which are true, without permitting
*every* contradiction to be true. This is the case with
‘paraconsistent’ logics, in which some but not all contradictions are
true. Clearly then, for contemporary logicians, it is not
non-contradiction that provides the criterion for what is thinkable,
but rather inconsistency. What every logic - as well as every logos
more generally - wants to avoid is a discourse so trivial that it
renders every well-formulated statement, as well as its negation,
equally valid. But contradiction is logically thinkable so long as it
remains ‘confined’ within limits such that it does not entail the
truth of every contradiction.”
> And so the principle
> reduces to the well known one that every explanation is in terms of
> something else (hopefull something we understand better).
If every explanation is explained in terms of something else, this
leads to the infinite regress that Meillassoux refers to in the above
passage, right?
Are you making the claim that there is no final explanation, but
rather that every explanation itself has an explanation - so there are
an infinite number of explanatory layers?
And further, that there is no first cause? That there are an infinite
number of causes in our past?
A first cause wouldn’t be explainable in terms of something else, would it?
Neither would a final explanation, I wouldn’t think...
> We may have a complete explanation of reality - but we can never know that
> we do.
An explanation that explained itself and the rest of the universe also?
Or are you saying that we could have a complete explanation, but no
reason for why that explanation holds?
But in that case, it wouldn’t be a “complete” explanation of reality, would it?
Allen Rex
> I don't think we can use reason to defeat reason.
>
> What machines can do is to use reason to go beyond reason, and find some non
> provable or non rational truth.
>
> This is not a defeat of reason. It is the complete contrary, I would say.
I don't think he's trying to use reason to defeat reason, but rather
to show that that reason indicates that there is no reason for what we
observe.
See my response to Brent for further quotes from Meillassoux's book.
He states own his case pretty well I think.
Brent Meeker
On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 2:27 PM, Brent Meeker <meek...@dslextreme.com> wrote:You don't spell out what this principle of facticity is, but it seems that it refers not to the world, but to our explanations of the world.
So the first sentence says: �I call 'facticity' the absence of reason for any reality�
You mean the absence of a sufficient reason for any piece of reality?
In his book �After Finitude�, Meillassoux explains that the principle of facticity (which he also refers to as �the principle of unreason�) stands in contrast to Leibniz�s �Principle of Sufficient Reason�, which states that anything that happens does so for a definite reason. >From pg. 33 of After Finitude: �But we also begin to understand how this proof [the ontological proof of God] is intrinsically tied to the culmination of a principle first formulated by Leibniz, although already at work in Descartes, viz., the principle of sufficient reason, according to which for every thing, every fact, and every occurence, there must be a reason why it is thus and so rather than otherwise. For not only does such a principle require that there be a possible explanation for every worldly fact; it also requires that thought account for the unconditioned totality of beings,
Why "thought"?
as well as for their being thus and so. Consequently, although thought may well be able to account for the facts of the world by invoking this or that global law - nevertheless, it must also, according to the principle of reason, account for why these laws are thus and not otherwise, and therefore account for why the world is thus and not otherwise. And even were such a �reason for the world� to be furnished, it would yet be necessary to account for this reason, and so on ad infinitum. If thought is to avoid an infinite regress while submitting to the principle of reason,
Why does it need to avoid an infinite regress?� Maybe reality is like an infinite set of Russian dolls.� Actually my favorite is the virtuous circle of reasons.� You just follow it around until you find one you understand.
it is incumbent upon it to uncover a reason that would prove capable of accounting for everything,
including itself - a reason no conditioned by any other reason, and which only the ontological argument is capable of uncovering, since the latter secures the existence of an X through the determination of this X alone, rather than through the determination of some entity other than X - X must be because it is perfect, and hence causa sui, or sole cause of itself. If every variant of dogmatic metaphysics is characterized by the thesis that *at least one entity* is absolutely necessary (the thesis of real necessity) it becomes clear how metaphysics culminates in the thesis according to which *every* entity is absolutely necessary (the principle of sufficient reason). Conversely, to reject dogmatic metaphysics means to reject all real necessity,
and a fortiori to reject the principle of sufficient reason, as well as the ontological argument, which is the keystone that allows the system of real necessity to close in upon itself. Such a refusal enjoins one us to maintain that there is no legitimate demonstration that a determinate entity should exist unconditionally.�
It is explanations that may be contradictory, not facts.
Pg. 60: �We are no longer upholding a variant of the principle of sufficient reason, according to which there is a necessary reason why everything is the way it is rather than otherwise, but rather the absolute truth of a *principle of unreason*. There is no reason for anything to be or to remain the way it is; everything must, without reason, be able not to be and/or be other than it is. What we have here is a principle, and even, we could say, an anhypothetical principle; not in the sense in which Plato used this term to describe the Idea of the Good, but rather in the Aristotelian sense. By �anhypothetical principle�, Aristotle meant a fundamental proposition that could not be deduced from any other, but which could be proved by argument. This proof, which could be called �indirect� or �refutational�, proceeds not by deducing the principle from some other proposition - in which case it would no longer count as a principle - but by pointing out the inevitable inconsistency into which anyone contesting the truth of the principle is bound to fall. One establishes the principle without deducing it, by demonstrating that anyone who contests it can do so only by presupposing it to be true, thereby refuting him or herself. Aristotle sees in non-contradiction precisely such a principle, one that is established �refutationally� rather than deductively, because any coherent challenge to it already presupposes its acceptance. Yet there is an essential difference between the principle of unreason and the principle of non-contradiction; viz. what Aristotle demonstrates �refutationally� is that no one can *think* a contradiction, but he has not thereby demonstrated that contradiction is absolutely impossible. Thus the strong correlationist could contrast the facticity of this principle to its absolutization - she would acknowledge that she cannot think contradiction, but she would refuse to acknowledge that this proves its absolute impossibility. For she will insist that nothing proves that what is possible in-itself might not differ toto caelo from what is thinkable for us. Consequently the principle of non-contradiction is anhypothetical with regard to what is thinkable, but not with regard to what is possible.�
The trouble with the principle of non-contradiction is that it's application is only to statements of the form "X and not-X".� In realistic cases which are of the form "If Y then not-X.� And X."� It is sometimes the case that the conditional turns out to be false.
Continuing on pg. 77: �It could be objected that we have conflated contradiction and inconsistency. In formal logic, an �inconsistent system� is a formal system all of whose well-formed statements are true. If this formal system comprises the operator of negation, we say that an axiomatic is inconsistent if *every* contradiction which can be formulated within it is true. By way of contrast, a formal system is said to be non-contradictory when (being equipped with the operator of negation) it does not allow *any* contradiction to be true. Accordingly, it is perfectly possible for a logical system to *be* contradictory without thereby being inconsistent - all that is required is that it give rise to *some* contradictory statements which are true, without permitting *every* contradiction to be true. This is the case with �paraconsistent� logics, in which some but not all contradictions are true. Clearly then, for contemporary logicians, it is not non-contradiction that provides the criterion for what is thinkable, but rather inconsistency. What every logic - as well as every logos more generally - wants to avoid is a discourse so trivial that it renders every well-formulated statement, as well as its negation, equally valid. But contradiction is logically thinkable so long as it remains �confined� within limits such that it does not entail the truth of every contradiction.�
Yes, I'm familiar with Graham Priest.
And so the principle reduces to the well known one that every explanation is in terms of something else (hopefull something we understand better).If every explanation is explained in terms of something else, this leads to the infinite regress that Meillassoux refers to in the above passage, right?
Are you making the claim that there is no final explanation, but rather that every explanation itself has an explanation - so there are an infinite number of explanatory layers?
And further, that there is no first cause? That there are an infinite number of causes in our past? A first cause wouldn�t be explainable in terms of something else, would it? Neither would a final explanation, I wouldn�t think...
Maybe there are two or three or 42 "first" causes.� Or maybe there are some higher cardinality of "first" causes.
We may have a complete explanation of reality - but we can never know that we do.An explanation that explained itself and the rest of the universe also?
Or are you saying that we could have a complete explanation, but no reason for why that explanation holds?
But in that case, it wouldn�t be a �complete� explanation of reality, would it?
Sure it would.
Brent
Brent Meeker
On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 9:33 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:I don't think we can use reason to defeat reason. What machines can do is to use reason to go beyond reason, and find some non provable or non rational truth. This is not a defeat of reason. It is the complete contrary, I would say.I don't think he's trying to use reason to defeat reason, but rather to show that that reason indicates that there is no reason for what we observe.
Brent
Allen Rex
>> On 7/12/2010 7:56 PM, Allen Rex wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 2:27 PM, Brent Meeker <meek...@dslextreme.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> You don't spell out what this principle of facticity is, but it seems that
>>> it refers not to the world, but to our explanations of the world.
>>>
>> for any reality”
>>
>
> You mean the absence of a sufficient reason for any piece of reality?
No, I imagine he means what he says. Any reality.
I assume you were going to say something about quantum indeterminancy
here? Or am just I being paranoid?
>> For not only does such a principle require that there be a possible
>> explanation for every worldly fact; it also requires that thought
>> account for the unconditioned totality of beings,
>>
> Why "thought"?
Why not thought? What’s wrong with the use of thought there?
He’s French, he does things like that.
>> If thought is to avoid an infinite regress while submitting to the
>> principle of reason,
>>
> Why does it need to avoid an infinite regress?
An infinite regress in a series of propositions arises if the truth of
proposition P1 requires the support of proposition P2, and for any
proposition in the series Pn, the truth of Pn requires the support of
the truth of Pn+1. There would never be adequate support for P1,
because the infinite sequence needed to provide such support could not
be completed.
Distinction is made between infinite regresses that are "vicious" and
those that are not. One definition given is that a vicious regress is
"an attempt to solve a problem which re-introduced the same problem in
the proposed solution. If one continues along the same lines, the
initial problem will recur infinitely and will never be solved. Not
all regresses, however, are vicious."
Trying to find a reason for a reason for a reason...seems like the
vicious kind of infinite regress.
Hey, look, the “The Münchhausen-Trilemma”! I’ll read that tomorrow.
Arguing with Brent has paid dividends yet again!
> Maybe reality is like an
> infinite set of Russian dolls. Actually my favorite is the virtuous circle
> of reasons. You just follow it around until you find one you understand.
Why would reality be that way instead of some other way? Why our
particular circle of reasons instead of some other circle? Why not a
vicious circle instead of a virtuous one?
>> it is incumbent upon it to uncover a reason that
>> would prove capable of accounting for everything,
>>
> Who says it's incumbent...and why should I care?
Quentin Meillassoux...and because you’re intellectually curious?
Actually, you’re more intellectually grumpy I think.
> If every variant of dogmatic metaphysics is characterized by the
> thesis that *at least one entity* is absolutely necessary (the thesis
> of real necessity) it becomes clear how metaphysics culminates in the
> thesis according to which *every* entity is absolutely necessary (the
> principle of sufficient reason). Conversely, to reject dogmatic
> metaphysics means to reject all real necessity,
>
> Why "all"? Quantum mechanics already rejects some necessity and replaces it
> with probabilities - but not "all"; instead it recovers necessities in
> certain limits (eigenfunctions, decoherence,...).
Quantum mechanical laws would still enforce the necessity of one
probability distribution instead of some other, wouldn’t they?
The probabilistic aspect takes place within the fixed and unchanging
context of quantum mechanics.
Like the randomness of the shuffle takes places within the
deterministic rules of poker.
Do the rules of poker change from one day to the next? The suits?
The number of cards in the deck? Are those aspects random?
Does quantum mechanics have similarly fixed aspects? Do new
fundamental forces pop in and out of existence? Are there days when
electromagnetism doesn’t work?
And if not, why not? What enforces the consistent application of the
QCD and QED and gravity? And what enforces the consistent application
of that enforcement? And what enforces the enforcement of the
consistent application of the enforcement? And so on.
Is there a sufficient reason for these things? Or is this just the
way it works, for no reason?
>> Clearly then, for contemporary logicians, it is not
>> non-contradiction that provides the criterion for what is thinkable,
>> but rather inconsistency. What every logic - as well as every logos
>> more generally - wants to avoid is a discourse so trivial that it
>> renders every well-formulated statement, as well as its negation,
>> equally valid. But contradiction is logically thinkable so long as it
>> remains ‘confined’ within limits such that it does not entail the
>> truth of every contradiction.”
>>
> Yes, I'm familiar with Graham Priest.
Splendid. His wikipedia entry says that he is 3rd Dan, International
Karate-do Shobukai; 4th Dan, Shi’to Ryu, and an Australian National
Kumite Referee and Kata Judge.
>> If every explanation is explained in terms of something else, this
>> leads to the infinite regress that Meillassoux refers to in the above
>> passage, right?
>>
>
> Not necessarily. It may lead to a circle of explanations..
Why that circle of explanations instead of some other circle of
explanations? Why a circle instead of a line of explanations? Why a
circle instead of some crazy cyclic graph of explanations?
Why any explanations at all?
>> Are you making the claim that there is no final explanation, but
>> rather that every explanation itself has an explanation - so there are
>> an infinite number of explanatory layers?
>>
>
> I'm not making any claim. I'm pointing out possibilities.
And I appreciate the effort you put into it.
>> And further, that there is no first cause? That there are an infinite
>> number of causes in our past?
>>
>> A first cause wouldn’t be explainable in terms of something else, would it?
>>
>> Neither would a final explanation, I wouldn’t think...
>>
>
> Maybe there are two or three or 42 "first" causes. Or maybe there are some
> higher cardinality of "first" causes.
None of which would be explainable in terms of anything else, would
they? This comment was a bit of a non sequitur.
>>> We may have a complete explanation of reality - but we can never know that
>>> we do.
>>>
>> An explanation that explained itself and the rest of the universe also?
>>
> An explanation doesn't need to explain itself since it is an explanation -
> not part of reality.
Explanations aren’t real?
If I explain the color of my pen by reference to photons, you’re
saying photons aren’t “real”, in some sense?
Electromagnetism isn’t “real”...there are no laws, no necessities,
just experiential events that we fit “unreal explanations” to as
calculational devices?
I’m fine with that view. Though it should probably be made more
explicit to the general public I think.
>>> Or are you saying that we could have a complete explanation, but no
>>> reason for why that explanation holds?
>>>
>> Yes.
>>
>>> But in that case, it wouldn’t be a “complete” explanation of reality, would
>>> it?
>>>
>
> Sure it would.
If electromagnetism explains why things happen one way rather than the
other, then what explains electromagnetism? If the answer is “I don’t
know,” then we don’t have a “complete” explanation of reality.
“It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it
exists.” -- Ludwig Wittgenstein, 6.44, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Allen Rex
>> On 7/12/2010 8:00 PM, Allen Rex wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 9:33 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>>>
>>> I don't think we can use reason to defeat reason.
>>> What machines can do is to use reason to go beyond reason, and find some non
>>> provable or non rational truth.
>>> This is not a defeat of reason. It is the complete contrary, I would say.
>>
>>
>> I don't think he's trying to use reason to defeat reason, but rather
>> to show that that reason indicates that there is no reason for what we
>> observe.
>
>
> He's arguing that if we don't have a reason for everything we can't have any
> reason for anything. In which case I have no reason to believe him.
But in that case you have no reason to disbelieve him either.
So, if the deterministic physicalists are right then given the initial
conditions of the universe plus the causal laws of physics as applied
over ~13.7 billion years, you could not believe other than you do at
this moment. You are bound to your beliefs and to your destiny by
unbreakable causal chains.
And if the indeterministic physicalists are right then that's still
basically true, but there were also some coin flips involved in
chaining your beliefs down to their current configuration. You are
bound to your beliefs and to your destiny by...constant coin flips. A
bad run of luck, and there's no telling how you'll end up.
And if I'm right, there is no reason for the existence of your
conscious experience of holding those beliefs. There's no mysterious
"physical world" that underlies and explains what you oberve but has
no explanation itself. Instead, your conscious experience exists
fundamentally and uncaused. There is no you. There is no future.
Only the conscious experience of these things.
Again, to me it looks like all three possibilities amount to the same thing.
The first two options just have a lot of extra
inferred-from-experience "behind the scenes" infrastructure which
serves no purpose except...what?
Occam's Razor is on my side. Join us Brent.
Bruno Marchal
On 7/12/2010 6:33 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:I don't think we can use reason to defeat reason.
What machines can do is to use reason to go beyond reason, and find some non provable or non rational truth.
What do you mean by a non-rational truth? A statement that is true but unprovable or a statement for which there is no evidence or is contrary to the preponderance of evidence, i.e. no reason to believe it true? I can understand using reason and experience to find statements that are true but unprovable (either axiomatically or empirically. But if we find a non-rational truth doesn't that mean finding some evidence for it and hence making it a rational truth?
This is not a defeat of reason. It is the complete contrary, I would say.
Bruno
On 02 Jul 2010, at 22:55, rexal...@gmail.com wrote:
Any thoughts?
http://speculativeheresy.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/3729-time_without_becoming.pdf
"I call 'facticity' the absence of reason for any reality; in other
words, the impossibility of providing an ultimate ground for the
existence of any being. We can only attain conditional necessity,
never absolute necessity. If definite causes and physical laws are
posited, then we can claim that a determined effect must follow. But
we shall never find a ground for these laws and causes, except
eventually other ungrounded causes and laws: there is no ultimate
cause, nor ultimate law, that is to say, a cause or a law including
the ground of its own existence. But this facticity is also proper to
thought. The Cartesian Cogito clearly shows this point: what is
necessary, in the Cogito, is a conditional necessity: if I think, then
I must be. But it is not an absolute necessity: it is not necessary
that I should think. From the inside of the subjective correlation, I
accede to my own facticity, and so to the facticity of the world
correlated with my subjective access to it. I do it by attaining the
lack of an ultimate reason, of a causa sui, able to ground my
existence.
[...]
That’s why I don’t believe in metaphysics in general: because a
metaphysics always believes, in one way or the other, in the principle
of reason: a metaphysician is a philosopher who believes it is
possible to explain why things must be what they are, or why things
must necessarily change, and perish- why things must be what they are,
or why things must change as they do change. I believe on the contrary
that reason has to explain why things and why becoming itself can
always become what they are not- and why there is no ultimate reason
for this game. In this way, “factial speculation” is still a
rationalism, but a paradoxical one: it is a rationalism which explain
why things must be without reason, and how precisely they can be
without reason. Figures are such necessary modalities of facticity-
and non-contradiction is the first figure I deduce from the principle
of factiality.
You don't spell out what this principle of facticity is, but it seems that it refers not to the world, but to our explanations of the world. It is explanations that may be contradictory, not facts. And so the principle reduces to the well known one that every explanation is in terms of something else (hopefull something we understand better).
This demonstrates that one can reason about the absence
of reason- if the very idea of reason is subjected to a profound
transformation, if it becomes a reason liberated from the principle of
reason- or, more exactly: if it is a reason which liberates us from
principle of reason.
Now, my project consists of a problem which I don’t resolve in After
Finitude, but which I hope to resolve in the future: it is a very
difficult problem, one that I can’t rigorously set out here, but that
Bruno Marchal
On 13 Jul 2010, at 05:00, Allen Rex wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 9:33 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>
> wrote:
>> I don't think we can use reason to defeat reason.
>>
>> What machines can do is to use reason to go beyond reason, and find
>> some non
>> provable or non rational truth.
>>
>> This is not a defeat of reason. It is the complete contrary, I
>> would say.
>
> I don't think he's trying to use reason to defeat reason, but rather
> to show that that reason indicates that there is no reason for what we
> observe.
By introspection it is hard for me to not believe in the truth of the
axioms of elementary arithmetic, and everyone seems to believe in them
(except sunday philosophers). I can show that indeed we cannot
explain such axioms from something simpler, indeed all universal
machines can do that.
Then from this, I can explain why and how persons appears and develop
beliefs of the kind of the beliefs in universes, God, quantum
superposition, laws, etc. Again all universal machines can do that.
This makes elementary arithmetic a pretty cute TOE. imo and imt (in
my opinion and in my taste).
Bruno
Bruno Marchal
On 12 Jul 2010, at 20:27, Brent Meeker wrote:On 7/12/2010 6:33 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:I don't think we can use reason to defeat reason.
What machines can do is to use reason to go beyond reason, and find some non provable or non rational truth.
What do you mean by a non-rational truth? A statement that is true but unprovable or a statement for which there is no evidence or is contrary to the preponderance of evidence, i.e. no reason to believe it true? I can understand using reason and experience to find statements that are true but unprovable (either axiomatically or empirically. But if we find a non-rational truth doesn't that mean finding some evidence for it and hence making it a rational truth?By non rational I mean either (according to the context) just non provable.
Brent Meeker
On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 12:13 AM, Brent Meeker <meek...@dslextreme.com> wrote:On 7/12/2010 8:00 PM, Allen Rex wrote:On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 9:33 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: I don't think we can use reason to defeat reason. What machines can do is to use reason to go beyond reason, and find some non provable or non rational truth. This is not a defeat of reason. It is the complete contrary, I would say.I don't think he's trying to use reason to defeat reason, but rather to show that that reason indicates that there is no reason for what we observe.He's arguing that if we don't have a reason for everything we can't have any reason for anything. In which case I have no reason to believe him.But in that case you have no reason to disbelieve him either.
So, if the deterministic physicalists are right then given the initial conditions of the universe plus the causal laws of physics as applied over ~13.7 billion years, you could not believe other than you do at this moment. You are bound to your beliefs and to your destiny by unbreakable causal chains. And if the indeterministic physicalists are right then that's still basically true, but there were also some coin flips involved in chaining your beliefs down to their current configuration. You are bound to your beliefs and to your destiny by...constant coin flips. A bad run of luck, and there's no telling how you'll end up.
And if I'm right, there is no reason for the existence of your conscious experience of holding those beliefs.
There's no mysterious "physical world" that underlies and explains what you oberve but has no explanation itself. Instead, your conscious experience exists fundamentally and uncaused. There is no you. There is no future. Only the conscious experience of these things.
Again, to me it looks like all three possibilities amount to the same thing. The first two options just have a lot of extra inferred-from-experience "behind the scenes" infrastructure which serves no purpose except...what?
Occam's Razor is on my side. Join us Brent.
Brent
Mark Buda
Allen Rex
> On 7/12/2010 10:54 PM, Allen Rex wrote:
>>
>> So, if the deterministic physicalists are right then given the initial
>> conditions of the universe plus the causal laws of physics as applied
>> over ~13.7 billion years, you could not believe other than you do at
>> this moment. You are bound to your beliefs and to your destiny by
>> unbreakable causal chains.
>>
>> And if the indeterministic physicalists are right then that's still
>> basically true, but there were also some coin flips involved in
>> chaining your beliefs down to their current configuration. You are
>> bound to your beliefs and to your destiny by...constant coin flips. A
>> bad run of luck, and there's no telling how you'll end up.
>>
>
> My beliefs are formed by reality - I'll take that as a compliment.
In that view, you know who else's views were formed by reality?
Charles Manson. Ted Bundy. John Wayne Gacy. Stalin. Hitler. Every
murdering, molesting, schizophrenic, delusional, or psychopathic
deviant who has ever lived.
That's who.
SO. I wouldn't take it as *that* big a compliment. Don't pat
yourself on the back too hard.
> And if I'm right, there is no reason for the existence of your
> conscious experience of holding those beliefs.
>
> No, IF you're right there is no finite causal chain of explanations for
> that.
No, if I'm right (as opposed to the physicalists) there are no
explanations. Just facts of experience.
>> There's no mysterious
>> "physical world" that underlies and explains what you oberve but has
>> no explanation itself. Instead, your conscious experience exists
>> fundamentally and uncaused. There is no you. There is no future.
>> Only the conscious experience of these things.
>>
>
> You've made a great leap from "I can't have a complete explanation of the
> world." to "There is no world". You and Meillassoux are like the little boy
> who discovers that no matter what his mother says he can ask "Why?", except
> you consider it a profound discovery.
I think we're more like the little boy who points out that the emperor
wears no clothes.
>> Again, to me it looks like all three possibilities amount to the same thing.
>> The first two options just have a lot of extra
>> inferred-from-experience "behind the scenes" infrastructure which
>> serves no purpose except...what?
>>
>
> If you don't think it serves your pursposes, then don't believe. I've found
> it serves mine.
Indeed...I imagine that the dogmas of religious belief can be a great comfort.
>> Occam's Razor is on my side. Join us Brent.
>>
>
> Us? Who's us? In any case I don't exist. I'd explain why, but ....
You don't exist, but in my experience, emails bearing the name Brent
Meeker always have interesting content.
Speaking of which, you didn't respond to my previous email. I was
particularly curious about your response to:
Brent Meeker
On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 11:45 AM, Brent Meeker <meek...@dslextreme.com> wrote:On 7/12/2010 10:54 PM, Allen Rex wrote:So, if the deterministic physicalists are right then given the initial conditions of the universe plus the causal laws of physics as applied over ~13.7 billion years, you could not believe other than you do at this moment. You are bound to your beliefs and to your destiny by unbreakable causal chains. And if the indeterministic physicalists are right then that's still basically true, but there were also some coin flips involved in chaining your beliefs down to their current configuration. You are bound to your beliefs and to your destiny by...constant coin flips. A bad run of luck, and there's no telling how you'll end up.My beliefs are formed by reality - I'll take that as a compliment.In that view, you know who else's views were formed by reality? Charles Manson. Ted Bundy. John Wayne Gacy. Stalin. Hitler. Every murdering, molesting, schizophrenic, delusional, or psychopathic deviant who has ever lived.
That's who. SO. I wouldn't take it as *that* big a compliment. Don't pat yourself on the back too hard.And if I'm right, there is no reason for the existence of your conscious experience of holding those beliefs. No, IF you're right there is no finite causal chain of explanations for that.No, if I'm right (as opposed to the physicalists) there are no explanations. Just facts of experience.
There's no mysterious "physical world" that underlies and explains what you oberve but has no explanation itself. Instead, your conscious experience exists fundamentally and uncaused. There is no you. There is no future. Only the conscious experience of these things.
You've made a great leap from "I can't have a complete explanation of the world." to "There is no world".� You and Meillassoux are like the little boy who discovers that no matter what his mother says he can ask "Why?", except you consider it a profound discovery.
I think we're more like the little boy who points out that the emperor wears no clothes.
Again, to me it looks like all three possibilities amount to the same thing. The first two options just have a lot of extra inferred-from-experience "behind the scenes" infrastructure which serves no purpose except...what?
If you don't think it serves your pursposes, then don't believe.� I've found it serves mine.
Indeed...I imagine that the dogmas of religious belief can be a great comfort.
You're the one insisting that you have found the secret of the universe.� If we think it, it's a fact.
Occam's Razor is on my side. Join us Brent.
Us?� Who's us?� In any case I don't exist.� I'd explain why, but ....
You don't exist, but in my experience, emails bearing the name Brent Meeker always have interesting content.
Sorry, I have no explanation for that.
Speaking of which, you didn't respond to my previous email. I was particularly curious about your response to:If every variant of dogmatic metaphysics is characterized by the thesis that *at least one entity* is absolutely necessary (the thesis of real necessity) it becomes clear how metaphysics culminates in the thesis according to which *every* entity is absolutely necessary (the principle of sufficient reason). Conversely, to reject dogmatic metaphysics means to reject all real necessity,Why "all"? Quantum mechanics already rejects some necessity and replaces it with probabilities - but not "all"; instead it recovers necessities in certain limits (eigenfunctions, decoherence,...).
Quantum mechanical laws would still enforce the necessity of one probability distribution instead of some other, wouldn�t they? The probabilistic aspect takes place within the fixed and unchanging context of quantum mechanics. Like the randomness of the shuffle takes places within the deterministic rules of poker. Do the rules of poker change from one day to the next? The suits? The number of cards in the deck? Are those aspects random? Does quantum mechanics have similarly fixed aspects? Do new fundamental forces pop in and out of existence? Are there days when electromagnetism doesn�t work? And if not, why not? What enforces the consistent application of the QCD and QED and gravity? And what enforces the consistent application of that enforcement? And what enforces the enforcement of the consistent application of the enforcement? And so on. Is there a sufficient reason for these things? Or is this just the way it works, for no reason?
Dunno.� Let's try to find out - instead of throwing up our hands and deciding in advance that nothing can be explained because everything can't be explained (or at least can't be known to have been explained).
Brent
John Mikes
On 7/12/2010 6:33 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:I don't think we can use reason to defeat reason.
What machines can do is to use reason to go beyond reason, and find some non provable or non rational truth.
What do you mean by a non-rational truth? A statement that is true but unprovable or a statement for which there is no evidence or is contrary to the preponderance of evidence, i.e. no reason to believe it true? I can understand using reason and experience to find statements that are true but unprovable (either axiomatically or empirically. But if we find a non-rational truth doesn't that mean finding some evidence for it and hence making it a rational truth?
This is not a defeat of reason. It is the complete contrary, I would say.
Bruno
On 02 Jul 2010, at 22:55, rexal...@gmail.com wrote:
Any thoughts?
http://speculativeheresy.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/3729-time_without_becoming.pdf
"I call 'facticity' the absence of reason for any reality; in other
words, the impossibility of providing an ultimate ground for the
existence of any being. We can only attain conditional necessity,
never absolute necessity. If definite causes and physical laws are
posited, then we can claim that a determined effect must follow. But
we shall never find a ground for these laws and causes, except
eventually other ungrounded causes and laws: there is no ultimate
cause, nor ultimate law, that is to say, a cause or a law including
the ground of its own existence. But this facticity is also proper to
thought. The Cartesian Cogito clearly shows this point: what is
necessary, in the Cogito, is a conditional necessity: if I think, then
I must be. But it is not an absolute necessity: it is not necessary
that I should think. From the inside of the subjective correlation, I
accede to my own facticity, and so to the facticity of the world
correlated with my subjective access to it. I do it by attaining the
lack of an ultimate reason, of a causa sui, able to ground my
existence.
[...]
That’s why I don’t believe in metaphysics in general: because a
metaphysics always believes, in one way or the other, in the principle
of reason: a metaphysician is a philosopher who believes it is
possible to explain why things must be what they are, or why things
must necessarily change, and perish- why things must be what they are,
or why things must change as they do change. I believe on the contrary
that reason has to explain why things and why becoming itself can
always become what they are not- and why there is no ultimate reason
for this game. In this way, “factial speculation” is still a
rationalism, but a paradoxical one: it is a rationalism which explain
why things must be without reason, and how precisely they can be
without reason. Figures are such necessary modalities of facticity-
and non-contradiction is the first figure I deduce from the principle
of factiality.
You don't spell out what this principle of facticity is, but it seems that it refers not to the world, but to our explanations of the world. It is explanations that may be contradictory, not facts. And so the principle reduces to the well known one that every explanation is in terms of something else (hopefull something we understand better).
This demonstrates that one can reason about the absence
of reason- if the very idea of reason is subjected to a profound
transformation, if it becomes a reason liberated from the principle of
reason- or, more exactly: if it is a reason which liberates us from
principle of reason.
Now, my project consists of a problem which I don’t resolve in After
Finitude, but which I hope to resolve in the future: it is a very
difficult problem, one that I can’t rigorously set out here, but that
Bruno Marchal
Mark Buda
Bruno, ask yourself this question: if you were an integer, how would you factor yourself?
Mark Buda
the whole 2012 Mayan calendar thing relates and the mechanism behind it
and the relationship between evolution, intelligent design, quantum
mechanics, objective reality, subjective reality, narrative reality, human
psychology, the ultimate answer to the question of life, the universe, and
everything is in my brain, because I am 42, and I think it would be really
funny if I could prove to Richard Dawkins that Douglas Adams was a prophet
of God, and that Jesus was a real historical figure, and in the process
redeem all the evils that religion, in particular the Catholic Church, of
which I am now proud to have never officially left, have done by
explaining it to the world.
It's really, really, funny. But you're going to have to ask nicely.
Because I have other stuff to do. Whee!
Really, just use google and wikipedia and most of you can figure out how
to reach me.
I love it when a plan comes together!
Please call me, whoever figures this out first. I know you all want the
answers as much as I do. But it's a pain in the ass to explain, just ask
Bruno. And I know why! I have to do it face to face! Or at least
interactively over the phone.
Richard Dawkins, I'm an angel of God, and I'm coming your way! Feel free
to use my evidence to prove or disprove the existence of God... because
it's all in how you look at it. (That's a hint.)
> God made the integers, all else is the work of man. I'VE GOT IT!!!! But
> I'm not going to go running out naked.
>
> Bruno, ask yourself this question: if you were an integer, how would you
> factor yourself?
>
>
>
> --
> Mark Buda <her...@acm.org>
> I get my monkeys for nothing and my chimps for free.
>
>
> On Jul 14, 2010 10:03 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>
> If we are digital machine, the causal network is plausibly (with Occam)
> 100% arithmetical.Incompleteness explains why we will never get bored,
> indeed.
>
> Bruno
>
> On 13 Jul 2010, at 17:50, Mark Buda wrote:The problem is that the causal
> network is half physical and half mental and infinite and looped in such a
> way that you will never get bored, guys. Trust me. It's going to be
> glorious.
> --
> Mark Buda <her...@acm.org>
> I get my monkeys for nothing and my chimps for free.
>
>
> On Jul 13, 2010 11:45 AM, Brent Meeker <meek...@dslextreme.com>
> wrote:
>
> On 7/12/2010 10:54 PM, Allen Rex wrote: On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 12:13
> AM, Brent Meeker <meek...@dslextreme.com> wrote:
> On 7/12/2010 8:00 PM, Allen Rex wrote:
>
> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 9:33 AM, Bruno Marchal
> <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>
> I don't think we can use reason to defeat reason.
> What machines can do is to use reason to go beyond reason, and find some
> non
> provable or non rational truth.
> This is not a defeat of reason. It is the complete contrary, I would say.
> I don't think he's trying to use reason to defeat
> reason, but rather
> to show that that reason indicates that there is no reason for what we
> observe.
> He's arguing that if we don't have a reason for everything
> we can't have any
> reason for anything. In which case I have no reason to believe him.
> But in that case you have no reason to disbelieve him either.
>
> I don't need a reason to disbelieve him.
>
> So, if the deterministic physicalists are right then given the initial
> conditions of the universe plus the causal laws of physics as applied
> over ~13.7 billion years, you could not believe other than you do at
> this moment. You are bound to your beliefs and to your destiny by
> unbreakable causal chains.
>
> And if the indeterministic physicalists are right then that's still
> basically true, but there were also some coin flips involved in
> chaining your beliefs down to their current configuration. You are
> bound to your beliefs and to your destiny by...constant coin flips. A
> bad run of luck, and there's no telling how you'll end up.
>
> My beliefs are formed by reality - I'll take that as a compliment.
>
> And if I'm right, there is no reason for the existence of your
> conscious experience of holding those beliefs.
> No, IF you're right there is no finite causal chain of explanations for
> that.
>
> There's no mysterious
> "physical world" that underlies and explains what you oberve but has
> no explanation itself. Instead, your conscious experience exists
> fundamentally and uncaused. There is no you. There is no future.
> Only the conscious experience of these things.
>
> You've made a great leap from "I can't have a complete explanation of the
> world." to "There is no world". You and Meillassoux are like the
> little boy who discovers that no matter what his mother says he can ask
> "Why?", except you consider it a profound discovery.
>
> Again, to me it looks like all three possibilities amount to the same
> thing.
>
> The first two options just have a lot of extra
> inferred-from-experience "behind the scenes" infrastructure which
> serves no purpose except...what?
>
> If you don't think it serves your pursposes, then don't believe.
> I've found it serves mine.
>
> Occam's Razor is on my side. Join us Brent.
>
> Us? Who's us? In any case I don't exist. I'd explain
--
Brian Tenneson
I was wondering if you could help me flesh out an idea. It's related to the questions "is reality dynamic or static," and of determinism versus non-determinism. Also another question that plagues me is What breathes dynamism into static principalities?
I view our world as being on a static or dynamic (to be decided later) storage device of some sort. This stored set of scenarios is "read" by a temporal mechanism, aka transition and change, to give us the impression that things really are dynamic. The reading of the film exposes something that time changes. But if you look at the sum of all instantiations of the film being read, this sum is a fixed set of scenarios.
The DVD metaphor.
There is a DVD (ie, recording), let's call it DVD#1, which is the film and it is read by a "laser" and that laser transitions by some temporal mechanism. DVD#1 doesn't change, the way it is looked at changes. This change implies the existence of time relative to DVD#1. In my metaphor, the film, which is DVD#1, is the totality of all observations an any observer could have.
Now say someone films me watching DVD#1 and call this a new DVD, DVD#2. DVD#2 doesn't change, the way it is looked at changes. This change implies the existence of time relative to DVD#2, yet DVD#2 is actually static.
Continue indefinitely. Let n denote an arbitrary number. We've got DVD#n for all n>=1. DVD#n is the DVD created by filming an observer that is observing DVD#(n-1).
What significance does the union of all these DVD#n have, if any?
It would appear that dynamism and stasis are juxtaposed in an unending hierarchy and saying "time exists" (ie, reality is dynamic) and saying "time does not exist" (ie, reality is static), is equivalent to saying the light is on if it is flipped once per second forever. In essence, this hierarchy is like a divergent series (by which I roughly mean union).
Jason Resch
Furthermore, evidence from relativity has shown there is no such thing as an objective, or absolute present. Every observer with a different velocity has their own conception of what the present includes. Since no reference frame is more valid than any other, and every observer could have their own view, there can be no absolute present, no laser beam reifying a point in time for all beings in the DVD. The appearence of different presents for different reference frames can be explained as a side effect of observers embedded in a four-dimensional universe, with each observer's present being a slice at a certain angle through those four dimensions.
Jason
--