The Scientific Tradition
andy-k
appreciated:
1. Science entails the investigation of order prevalent in the contents
of consciousness, with a view to increasing ones ability to make
accurate predictions about that order.
2. Scientific Realism is the metaphysical postulate that the order
prevalent in the contents of consciousness is grounded in realities that
exist independently of that consciousness, and that we can have
increasingly accurate knowledge about.
3. Scientific Materialism is the metaphysical postulate that the reality
underpinning Scientific Realism is material as opposed to mental (i.e.
non-conscious at its fundamental level).
4. Scientism (scientific fundamentalism) is the absolutist conviction
that everything is explicable in terms of scientific knowledge and will
in the fullness of time be revealed by scientific investigation. In its
most extreme form Scientism is the conviction that everything is
explicable within the framework of Scientific Materialism.
Jeff Relf
" 1. Science entails the investigation of order prevalent in
the contents of consciousness, with a view to increasing
ones ability to make accurate predictions about that order. "
Science is the art of consumption.
It perfects measurements in order to consume.
Everything, Including science is about this.
Leonardo Dasso
"andy-k" <spam....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:Xm8na.59$a46....@newsfep2-win.server.ntli.net...
> Constructive comments on the following descriptions would be
> appreciated:
>
> 1. Science entails the investigation of order prevalent in the
contents
> of consciousness, with a view to increasing ones ability to make
> accurate predictions about that order.
If by "order prevalent in the contents of consciousness" you mean "
observable phenomena", I'd more or less agree.
> 2. Scientific Realism is the metaphysical postulate that the order
> prevalent in the contents of consciousness is grounded in realities
that
> exist independently of that consciousness, and that we can have
> increasingly accurate knowledge about.
Realism posits taht there is an external reality. It doesnt really say
anything about getting accurate knowledge about it.
> 3. Scientific Materialism is the metaphysical postulate that the
reality
> underpinning Scientific Realism is material as opposed to mental (i.e.
> non-conscious at its fundamental level).
Materialism posits that everything that exists is physical. Not as
opposed to "mental", a colourful term that does not mean much, but as
opposed to "supernatural" (another colourful term that does not mean
much either).
> 4. Scientism (scientific fundamentalism) is the absolutist conviction
> that everything is explicable in terms of scientific knowledge and
will
> in the fullness of time be revealed by scientific investigation. In
its
> most extreme form Scientism is the conviction that everything is
> explicable within the framework of Scientific Materialism.
>
Nobody knows what will happen in the "fullness of time". Essentially,
scientism is the view that science is the most powerful method to
inquire about reality, and that there are natural explanations for all
phenomena. Scientism rejects supernatural bullshit, is based on
empiricism and reason and is particularly concerned with the
philosophical implications of scientific discoveries.
regards
leo
Bill Snyder
"andy-k" <spam....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:Xm8na.59$a46....@newsfep2-win.server.ntli.net...
> Constructive comments on the following descriptions would be
> appreciated:
>
> 1. Science entails the investigation of order prevalent in the contents
> of consciousness, with a view to increasing ones ability to make
> accurate predictions about that order.
>
> 2. Scientific Realism is the metaphysical postulate that the order
> prevalent in the contents of consciousness is grounded in realities that
> exist independently of that consciousness, and that we can have
> increasingly accurate knowledge about.
>
> 3. Scientific Materialism is the metaphysical postulate that the reality
> underpinning Scientific Realism is material as opposed to mental (i.e.
> non-conscious at its fundamental level).
>
The definition as it stands is a bit circular: sci mat is a kind of mat. I
think your meaning is evident, but maybe you should explicate a bit what is
meant by "material", e.g., "spatio-temporal", or "dimensionally extended"
(or some such phrase, to make certain that our definition applies to the
multi-dimensioned reality which seems to be emerging in contemporary
Physics). Maybe the "as opposed to mental" is enough; but even there would
it not also be opposed to spiritual, or to the kind of non-spatial,
non-temporal reality which Plato assigns to the Forms (and he explicity
denies that they are in any way "mental").
> 4. Scientism (scientific fundamentalism) is the absolutist conviction
> that everything is explicable in terms of scientific knowledge and will
> in the fullness of time be revealed by scientific investigation. In its
> most extreme form Scientism is the conviction that everything is
> explicable within the framework of Scientific Materialism.
>
I think this far too narrow a definition, to be useful, and perhaps too
poetic ("in the fulness of time"). E.g., what do you make of a view like
mine: I am a scientific materialist who believes that all meaningful
questions about the make-up of the world in which we live (and the make up
of ourselves) are questions for which the application of scientific method
is the only path to secure answers. In the areas where science has not
progressed sufficiently we must make do with empirical methods which emulate
scientific inquiry, but do not yet attain sufficient scientific rigor to be
regarded as "hard" science (one such sphere would be clinical psychology, in
the broadest sense of the term; or even, many areas of medecine). But no
question can be asked about the make-up of our world which in not, in
principle, a scientific question. Will we ever "in the fulness of time"
answer them all through science (in the strict sense)? Unlikely. An I will
add: I am a materialist in that I believe than "mind" and "mental phenomena"
are merely ways in which matter has become organized in certain complex
beings like ourselves. There is only one type of thing (dimensionally
extended things). But notice; mental phenomena are real, in the sense that
those complex forms of structured matter are real and thus constitute
awareness and the like.
But I do think that there are other types of questions which need to be
asked which are not and cannot be scientific questions, since they are not
questions about how the world is and how it functions. Questions like you
are raising here, e.g., in the area of Philosophy which I would call
"Metaphysics, in the good sense", i.e. Philosophy of First Principles. I
would also include Ethical questions; while I regard ethical and moral
questions to have primarily an "emotive" meaning (understanding "emotive" to
include attitudes, aspirations, emotions, et al.), I do believe that it is
possible and extremely useful to subject the questions and our "emotive"
life to critical, reasoned scrutiny. In fact I would relegate the whole of
Philosophy, except for that which analyses and clarifies and explicates the
language of science, to be concerned with emotive and attitudinal matters
(including Philosophy of First Principles). The aim of philosophy my view
is to through reasoned criticism and analysis organize the various
principles and practices which are expressed in various areas of life into a
harmonious and coherent whole. There are many ways to do that; there are no
ways to "prove" one superior to the others; one can only say: expressed on
an intellectual level, this is what I am.
Now, am I an advocate of Scientism, or not? Whatever your answer, it should
be premised on my conviction that any question which asks about how or what
the world is, or how it functions, is, in principle, a scientific question
and should be transformed into a clear one as quickly as possible.
Bill Snyder
kamerynn
andy-k wrote:
> Constructive comments on the following descriptions would be
> appreciated:
>
> 1. Science entails the investigation of order prevalent in the contents
> of consciousness, with a view to increasing ones ability to make
> accurate predictions about that order.
>
> 2. Scientific Realism is the metaphysical postulate that the order
> prevalent in the contents of consciousness is grounded in realities that
> exist independently of that consciousness, and that we can have
> increasingly accurate knowledge about.
>
> 3. Scientific Materialism is the metaphysical postulate that the reality
> underpinning Scientific Realism is material as opposed to mental (i.e.
> non-conscious at its fundamental level).
Kam:
I merely wish to object that what is material should not
be opposed to what is mental. This seems to make the
mental something that is impossible, i.e. something that
is not material and hence something that cannot interact
with material. The mental is clearly possible and existent -
when we refer to a conscious state, there is *something*
that we are referring to. What that is, is up for grabs, of course.
> 4. Scientism (scientific fundamentalism) is the absolutist conviction
> that everything is explicable in terms of scientific knowledge and will
> in the fullness of time be revealed by scientific investigation. In its
> most extreme form Scientism is the conviction that everything is
> explicable within the framework of Scientific Materialism.
Kam:
Scientism, under this construal, is unfalsifiable. We could, one
day, know everything that submits itself to comprehension. Those
things that do not submit to our comprehension are things that we
will never be aware of - we will never know that we don't know them.
Our knowledge could easily appear complete to our limited selves
without actually being so.
1) Scientism is unfalsifiable (it cannot be tested)
2) Anything untestable cannot be known, according to
a scientific construal of what it is to know something.
3) We will never know if scientism is true.
4) Scientism must be false.
4 follows from 3 because scientism is, here, construed as the
conviction that we will one day (scientifically) know everything.
Edgar Svendsen
"andy-k" <spam....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message news:Xm8na.59$a46....@newsfep2-win.server.ntli.net...
> appreciated:
>
> 1. Science entails the investigation of order prevalent in the contents
> of consciousness, with a view to increasing ones ability to make
> accurate predictions about that order.
My contact with scientists leads me to say the none of them would
agree with this. No scientist I knew thought he was studying the
contents of consciousness; they all thought they were observing
phenomena in the real world or analyzing such observations.
>
> 2. Scientific Realism is the metaphysical postulate that the order
> prevalent in the contents of consciousness is grounded in realities that
> exist independently of that consciousness, and that we can have
> increasingly accurate knowledge about.
Again, the scientists I knew seldom thought about the relationship
between reality and mind. When the issue did arise they took a
stand that reverses the order you have. That is, the order is in reality
and, if there is order in consciousness, it is a reflection of the order in
reality.
>
> 3. Scientific Materialism is the metaphysical postulate that the reality
> underpinning Scientific Realism is material as opposed to mental (i.e.
> non-conscious at its fundamental level).
No scientist that I've met believes that matter that is not organized
in a brain-like structure, thinks. They would not be sceptical of the
thesis that reality is mental, they would find it incomprehensible,
and if you insisted, they would find it silly.
>
> 4. Scientism (scientific fundamentalism) is the absolutist conviction
> that everything is explicable in terms of scientific knowledge and will
> in the fullness of time be revealed by scientific investigation. In its
> most extreme form Scientism is the conviction that everything is
> explicable within the framework of Scientific Materialism.
All the people I know who do science believe this, even the churchgoers,
oddly enough.
Ed
>
>
>
>
>
Bill Snyder
One other thing, I just read Laurent's post and largely agree with him. But
it suggests to me a different way to put my qualms about your definition of
Scientific Materialism. Matter is whatever scientific investigation (and
particularly in Physics) tells us it is. If you come at these things with a
preconceived concept of matter which does not agree with the best in
Physical Theory, then the term Scientific Materialism may very well be an
oxymoron.
Bill Snyder
"Bill Snyder" <wsn...@direcpc.com> wrote in message
news:b7kae...@enews1.newsguy.com...
mitch
andy-k wrote:
> Constructive comments on the following descriptions would be
> appreciated:
>
> 1. Science entails the investigation of order prevalent in the contents
> of consciousness, with a view to increasing ones ability to make
> accurate predictions about that order.
Would it not be more correct to make this assertion about the cognitive
development of individuals (especially at a young age when causality in the
cognitive sense is being formulated)? Science entails a formalization of
this process as a social activity. It is, however, not an arbitrary social
activity since the ability to effect environmental change according to
stated priorities seems to have attracted a certain political capital
through the ages.
>
> 2. Scientific Realism is the metaphysical postulate that the order
> prevalent in the contents of consciousness is grounded in realities that
> exist independently of that consciousness, and that we can have
> increasingly accurate knowledge about.
>
To be more precise, the order itself is the reality whose independent
existence is in question--at least, this is true with respect to Kant's
analysis as given in the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics.
The last part of your statement would better be understood as an ancillary
expectation. I can only hope that people start to recognize marginal
utility with respect to "big" science. Personally, I can no longer afford
tax burdens promoting the fantasies of modern physicists.
>
> 3. Scientific Materialism is the metaphysical postulate that the reality
> underpinning Scientific Realism is material as opposed to mental (i.e.
> non-conscious at its fundamental level).
>
There is a non-material physicalism consistent with realism in this
context. This may account for some of the objections in other responses
concerning the way you formulated this statement.
The materialist assertion is basically a belief that God would not lie to us
by creating a universe we could not comprehend...
And, then there are those who understand the meaning of faith.
>
> 4. Scientism (scientific fundamentalism) is the absolutist conviction
> that everything is explicable in terms of scientific knowledge and will
> in the fullness of time be revealed by scientific investigation. In its
> most extreme form Scientism is the conviction that everything is
> explicable within the framework of Scientific Materialism.
This would describe the dogmatic defense of scientific theory and the
underlying causal assumptions. But, then, that is what you were trying to
capture.
andy-k
> news:Xm8na.59$a46....@newsfep2-win.server.ntli.net...
> > 3. Scientific Materialism is the metaphysical postulate that the
> > reality underpinning Scientific Realism is material as opposed to
> > mental (i.e. non-conscious at its fundamental level).
> >
> The definition as it stands is a bit circular: sci mat is a kind of
> mat. I think your meaning is evident, but maybe you should explicate
> a bit what is meant by "material", e.g., "spatio-temporal", or
> "dimensionally extended" (or some such phrase, to make certain that
> our definition applies to the multi-dimensioned reality which seems to
> be emerging in contemporary Physics). Maybe the "as opposed to
> mental" is enough; but even there would it not also be opposed to
> spiritual, or to the kind of non-spatial, non-temporal reality which
> Plato assigns to the Forms (and he explicity denies that they are in
> any way "mental").
Correct me where I'm wrong please Bill. As I understand scientific
materialism, it is monistic in that it takes as axiomatic the
proposition that the cosmos consists of one kind of 'stuff' that can be
described completely by physics. This demands that this 'stuff' must be
identified, and leads to an understanding of the cosmos in terms of
fundamental units of mass/energy in a framework of space/time. It is
physicalist in the sense that it takes reality _in toto_ to consist of
nothing more than such configurations of mass/energy in space/time.
Finally, this leads to reductionism and the notion of causal closure.
(My qualifier "as opposed to mental" was taken directly from Descartes'
distinction between Res Extensa and Res Cogitans, implying that
scientific materialism entails a rejection of Cartesian Dualism.)
"In the fullness of time" was meant to convey a conviction that although
science may be having little impact on some very hard problems right
now, these problems are *in principle* solvable within the scientific
framework, and will in all probability eventually fall to the inexorable
progress of the scientific enterprise. This constitutes a kind of faith
similar to religious faith, and the conviction that science is the "one
true method of gaining knowledge about the nature of reality" sounds
very much like the claims of various religions, even down to the
condemnation of those "heretics" that, by daring to question this claim,
are "abandoning all reason".
> But I do think that there are other types of questions which need to
> be asked which are not and cannot be scientific questions, since they
> are not questions about how the world is and how it functions.
> Questions like you are raising here, e.g., in the area of Philosophy
> which I would call "Metaphysics, in the good sense", i.e. Philosophy
> of First Principles. I would also include Ethical questions; while I
> regard ethical and moral questions to have primarily an "emotive"
> meaning (understanding "emotive" to include attitudes, aspirations,
> emotions, et al.), I do believe that it is possible and extremely
> useful to subject the questions and our "emotive" life to critical,
> reasoned scrutiny. In fact I would relegate the whole of Philosophy,
> except for that which analyses and clarifies and explicates the
> language of science, to be concerned with emotive and attitudinal
> matters (including Philosophy of First Principles). The aim of
> philosophy my view is to through reasoned criticism and analysis
> organize the various principles and practices which are expressed in
> various areas of life into a harmonious and coherent whole. There are
> many ways to do that; there are no ways to "prove" one superior to the
> others; one can only say: expressed on an intellectual level, this is
> what I am.
I'm a little bit confused by this Bill. You seem to be saying that
questions in First Philosophy need to be asked, but that the answers are
meaningless since they afford no security -- do I understand you
correctly? If so, I would question why you feel they need to be asked.
> Now, am I an advocate of Scientism, or not? Whatever your answer, it
> should be premised on my conviction that any question which asks about
> the world is, or how it functions, is, in principle, a scientific
> question and should be transformed into a clear one as quickly as
> possible.
"Bill Snyder" <wsn...@direcpc.com> wrote in message
news:b7n80...@enews4.newsguy.com...
> Andy,
>
> One other thing, I just read Laurent's post and largely agree with
> him. But it suggests to me a different way to put my qualms about
> your definition of Scientific Materialism. Matter is whatever
> scientific investigation (and particularly in Physics) tells us it is.
> If you come at these things with a preconceived concept of matter
> which does not agree with the best in Physical Theory, then the term
> Scientific Materialism may very well be an oxymoron.
I'd appreciate your thoughts on the following issues Bill ...
There is experience only of qualities and the relationships between
them. "Matter", as near as I can get to understanding the term, is a
substrate upon which such qualities are predicated (e.g. mass, charge,
linear and angular momentum, color, size, shape, etc.), and so must
itself be devoid of qualities. Being devoid of qualities, then, it is
not amenable to experience. So what scientific evidence is there for the
existence of matter? (If you understand the term differently then I'd be
interested to hear your definition).
What scientific evidence is there for conscious experience? What exactly
is to be measured? How can it be accounted for within the framework of
scientific materialism?
How can the application of the scientific method help us to securely
account for the existence of a level of order in the cosmos that is
specific enough to admit of organisms that can be astonished by the
improbability of their own existence?
In view of your claim that "no question can be asked about the make-up
of our world which is not, in principle, a scientific question", would
you consider questions about matter, consciousness, and order to *not*
be about the make-up of our world, or would you consider them to be
scientific questions, amenable (in principle) to the scientific method?
(I'll take your point if you should decline to address any or all of
these issues, though I'm not clear about the criteria by which you
distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' metaphysics.)
andy-k
news:3E9DD36C...@me.com...
> andy-k wrote:
<snip>
> > 3. Scientific Materialism is the metaphysical postulate that the
> > reality underpinning Scientific Realism is material as opposed to
> > mental (i.e. non-conscious at its fundamental level).
>
> Kam:
> I merely wish to object that what is material should not
> be opposed to what is mental. This seems to make the
> mental something that is impossible, i.e. something that
> is not material and hence something that cannot interact
> with material. The mental is clearly possible and existent -
> when we refer to a conscious state, there is *something*
> that we are referring to. What that is, is up for grabs, of course.
Thanks Kam. How would you criticize the view that there is only the
experiential, and that the material *and* the mental are simply
classifications of what is experienced?
> > 4. Scientism (scientific fundamentalism) is the absolutist
> > conviction that everything is explicable in terms of scientific
> > knowledge and will in the fullness of time be revealed by scientific
> > investigation. In its most extreme form Scientism is the conviction
> > that everything is explicable within the framework of Scientific
> > Materialism.
>
> Kam:
> Scientism, under this construal, is unfalsifiable. We could, one
> day, know everything that submits itself to comprehension. Those
> things that do not submit to our comprehension are things that we
> will never be aware of - we will never know that we don't know them.
> Our knowledge could easily appear complete to our limited selves
> without actually being so.
>
> 1) Scientism is unfalsifiable (it cannot be tested)
> 2) Anything untestable cannot be known, according to
> a scientific construal of what it is to know something.
> 3) We will never know if scientism is true.
> 4) Scientism must be false.
>
> 4 follows from 3 because scientism is, here, construed as the
> conviction that we will one day (scientifically) know everything.
Nice argument. Do you have a more appropriate construal of scientism?
andy-k
news:HUnna.26548$ey1.2...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
You may be right Ed, but I suspect that's because the scientist's role
is to investigate the prevalent order, and not (ostensibly at least) to
question the metaphysical foundations of their own discipline. My
cogitation on the latter lead me to suspect that "common sense" entices
us to put the cart before the horse.
Bill Lewis Clark
> 2. Scientific Realism is the metaphysical postulate that the order
> prevalent in the contents of consciousness is grounded in realities
> that exist independently of that consciousness, and that we can have
> increasingly accurate knowledge about.
> 3. Scientific Materialism is the metaphysical postulate that the
> reality underpinning Scientific Realism is material as opposed to
> mental (i.e. non-conscious at its fundamental level).
"andy-k" <spam....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message news:<HYMna.385$Cl4....@newsfep1-win.server.ntli.net>...
> My cogitation on the [metaphysical foundations of science] lead me to
> suspect that "common sense" entices us to put the cart before the horse.
My own ideas involve an acceptance of something like (3), along with a
rejection of (2). So, I'm not sure that Scientific Materialism should
necessarily be thought of as an extension of Scientific Realism. I
also think that we're not only putting the cart before the horse, but
that we're failing to notice that the cart *is* another horse!
My views run roughly like this: There is a world outside out minds.
Our brains organize sensory inputs regarding that world. The order we
perceive is a result of the way our brains happen to be structured,
and beyond the fact that our brains are part of the world, has nothing
more to do with the world at large. (That last sentence is my
rejection of Scientific Realism.)
I liken the order we perceive (which includes the whole of
mathematics) to the situation with language: we can describe the
world in English, but that doesn't mean that English is "grounded" in
the world in any important sense. The order which serves as the
framework for our scientific theories can adequately describe the
world (hence why I accept Scientific Materialism) -- but so can any
number of other, possibly incompatible, alternative worldviews.
So, I think there is a material world, which includes perceiving
brains, which "color" the worldview they produce with their own notion
of "order", which is then assumed to be grounded in the material
world.
-Bill Lewis Clark
Bill Snyder
into account. Certainly, if you begin with the Cartesian view, then
"extended substance" (his term) is clearly all there is.
Ethics, et al.) are "meaningless"; they are not scientific questions. But
they are quite real questions, simply because human beings are emotive,
attitudinal, anticipatory, hopeful, regretting, etc. creatures. We cannot
but ask such questions. We just need to be clear what we are asking and how
matters are to be resolved. The quest for clarity is a central part of the
philosophical quest, as is the quest for resolution of questions which are
not scientific in nature. I do not think that questions in First Philosophy
can be resolved, in the sense that there is a definitive answer which can be
"demonstrated" to be true. I think that they may be able to resolved for
the individual thinker and those who share his predispositions. But to be
clear about what one believes may be all that is possible in this area (as I
think that it is in Ethics).
consciousness is an activity of our central nervous system, with the brain
as a central part of that activity. To go back to our old issue: the
processes of choice (deliberation, selection, etc.) are nothing but
activities of the central nervous system, largely of the brain. But since
they are that, they really do exist! I see no mystery at all in how our
subjective experience of consciousness can be equated with brain activity.
Awareness of the fact that we are aware of X is simply somewhat more
complicated neurological activity than is our "bare" awareness of X. "How
do we get from the conscious awareness, to the activity of the central
nervous system?" is a meaningless question. There is nowhere to "get"!
They are the same identical thing viewed in two different ways.
>
> (I'll take your point if you should decline to address any or all of
> these issues, though I'm not clear about the criteria by which you
> distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' metaphysics.)
>
greater length later. I believe that the idea of "matter, as substrate" has
completely lost its relevance, both scientifically and philosophically (and
philosophically, that has been, at least, since Hume). There are just
charges, masses, energies, fields, strings of pulsating energy, or whatever
the Physicist talks about. The idea that there is something else there
which "underlies" those things is pure mythology. It is a completely
useless and superfluous hypothesis generated by lack of understanding of
scientific language. And indeed it is not even a "hypothesis" since it is,
in principle, untestable. Maybe you have not noticed: not only am I a
materialist (in the sense that only extended things are real), I am also an
empiricist.
Bill Snyder
Bill Snyder
metaphysics"/"bad metaphysics" question. Metaphysics, in the only sense
which I consider legitimate is the INQUIRY into (i.e, not the mere
enunciation of) First Principles. It involves attempts at definition or
explication of fundamental terms, explanations of relationships among them,
and dialectical attempts to defend them, dialectical (see Aristotle and
Plato) as opposed to either deductive or inductive derivations, both of the
latter being impossible since the principles being defended are primary,
therefore there is nothing more fundamental which allows their derivation.
Bad metaphysics is engaging in controversy about questions which are
inherently unresolvable by any rational inquiry. In such areas, all one can
do is enunciate one's views in as clear a manner as possible. All argument
about such matters simply amounts to bullshit; one example is the free
will/determinist "controversy"; both sides yammer away accomplishing nothing
except (if the internet could convey odors) the stench of idiocy.
Bill Snyder
"Bill Snyder" <wsn...@direcpc.com> wrote in message
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John Jones
well,- my server plays up something rotten, so my responses are hard to
make.
andy-k <spam....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:iYMna.384$Cl4....@newsfep1-win.server.ntli.net...
John Jones
> development of individuals (especially at a young age when causality in
the
> cognitive sense is being formulated)?
Yes, but by saying that it is the cognitive development of individuals that
defines matter, rather than 'consciousness', you assume a material basis.
jJ
mitch <mit...@rcnNOSPAM.com> wrote in message
news:3E9F4866...@rcnNOSPAM.com...
mitch
John Jones wrote:
> > Would it not be more correct to make this assertion about the cognitive
> > development of individuals (especially at a young age when causality in
> the
> > cognitive sense is being formulated)?
>
> Yes, but by saying that it is the cognitive development of individuals that
> defines matter, rather than 'consciousness', you assume a material basis.
>
I am not entirely certain that that is true. I admit a physicalist bias that
seems necessary in order to communicate using this pidgin we call the English
language. But, physicalism need not be materialist.
As I am not too adept with philosophical jargon, I would greatly appreciate a
longer explanation.
andy-k
news:b7q2qc$9mg$2...@titan.btinternet.com...
> I am losing the first thread in my posts, and many replies to them as
> well,- my server plays up something rotten, so my responses are hard
to
> make.
You can catch up by visiting:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=alt.philosophy
kamerynn
andy-k wrote:
> > > 3. Scientific Materialism is the metaphysical postulate that the
> > > reality underpinning Scientific Realism is material as opposed to
> > > mental (i.e. non-conscious at its fundamental level).
> >
> > Kam:
> > I merely wish to object that what is material should not
> > be opposed to what is mental. This seems to make the
> > mental something that is impossible, i.e. something that
> > is not material and hence something that cannot interact
> > with material. The mental is clearly possible and existent -
> > when we refer to a conscious state, there is *something*
> > that we are referring to. What that is, is up for grabs, of course.
>
> Thanks Kam. How would you criticize the view that there is only the
> experiential, and that the material *and* the mental are simply
> classifications of what is experienced?
Kam:
Everything is, in a sense, experiential - at least, everything
that can be experienced (even indirectly, with instruments),
which is everything we can possibly know about. So, it
makes practical sense to assume that everything is experiential;
everything discoverable is experiential, and everything else...
well... is not discoverable. Assuming that non-experiential
things exist defies Occam's razor every time one does it
(one would be multiplying entities without justification).
But, to say that everything is experiential is to say very
little. It certainly doesn't seem to be an ontological/metaphysical
statement. Agreeing with it doesn't commit one to a substance
monism or substance pluralism, for example. It seems compatible
with both idealism and realism. The statement is about how we
gain knowledge, but it isn't about the nature of that knowledge or
the reality that such knowledge reflects. To say that there *is*
only the experiential is to place a practical statement within
ontological clothing. That is, unless one takes that statement
to mean that there is only mind - unless one takes it as an affirmation
of idealism. My response assumes that you didn't mean that...
>
> > > 4. Scientism (scientific fundamentalism) is the absolutist
> > > conviction that everything is explicable in terms of scientific
> > > knowledge and will in the fullness of time be revealed by scientific
> > > investigation. In its most extreme form Scientism is the conviction
> > > that everything is explicable within the framework of Scientific
> > > Materialism.
> >
> > Kam:
> > Scientism, under this construal, is unfalsifiable. We could, one
> > day, know everything that submits itself to comprehension. Those
> > things that do not submit to our comprehension are things that we
> > will never be aware of - we will never know that we don't know them.
> > Our knowledge could easily appear complete to our limited selves
> > without actually being so.
> >
> > 1) Scientism is unfalsifiable (it cannot be tested)
> > 2) Anything untestable cannot be known, according to
> > a scientific construal of what it is to know something.
> > 3) We will never know if scientism is true.
> > 4) Scientism must be false.
> >
> > 4 follows from 3 because scientism is, here, construed as the
> > conviction that we will one day (scientifically) know everything.
>
> Nice argument. Do you have a more appropriate construal of scientism?
Kam:
Actually, no. I emphasize the "under this construal" bit because
I've heard other plausible uses of the term, "scientism." My dictionary
(Websters New World College Dic., 4th ed.) lists the following definitions:
1 The techniques, beliefs, or attitudes characteristic of scientists.
2 The principle that scientific methods can and should be applied
in all fields of investigation.
Number two is the usage I've heard before. Number one doesn't
even make all that much sense to me (scientism *is* the beliefs,
attitudes...? Wouldn't it be the belief that one *should* hold such
beliefs, attitudes, etc.?)
Anyway - I wasn't calling your usage into question, just
covering my tracks :-)
Leonardo Dasso
Completely in agreement. This story of the mysterious substratum that
underlies the physical is just another example of how metaphysics tries
to impose old-fashioned labels on things, failing to take on board
scientific knowledge.
regards
leo
andy-k
> "andy-k" <spam....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:2YMna.382$Cl4....@newsfep1-win.server.ntli.net...
> > Correct me where I'm wrong please Bill. As I understand scientific
> > materialism, it is monistic in that it takes as axiomatic the
> > proposition that the cosmos consists of one kind of 'stuff' that can
> > be described completely by physics. This demands that this 'stuff'
> > must be identified, and leads to an understanding of the cosmos in
> > terms of fundamental units of mass/energy in a framework of
> > space/time. It is physicalist in the sense that it takes reality _in
> > toto_ to consist of nothing more than such configurations of
> > mass/energy in space/time. Finally, this leads to reductionism and
> > the notion of causal closure.
> >
> > (My qualifier "as opposed to mental" was taken directly from
> > Descartes' distinction between Res Extensa and Res Cogitans,
> > implying that scientific materialism entails a rejection of
> > Cartesian Dualism.)
>
> No disagreement, here. I was just taking the whole of the Western
> tradition into account. Certainly, if you begin with the Cartesian
> view, then "extended substance" (his term) is clearly all there is.
To what extent would you say the issue of objectivity features in the
definition of scientific materialism today (the emphasis on public data,
third-person methodology, and observer-independent judgements)?
> > I'm a little bit confused by this Bill. You seem to be saying that
> > questions in First Philosophy need to be asked, but that the answers
> > are meaningless since they afford no security -- do I understand you
> > correctly? If so, I would question why you feel they need to be
> > asked.
>
> I am not saying that such questions as I lumped together (First
> Philosophy, Ethics, et al.) are "meaningless"; they are not scientific
> questions. But they are quite real questions, simply because human
> beings are emotive, attitudinal, anticipatory, hopeful, regretting,
> etc. creatures. We cannot but ask such questions. We just need to be
> clear what we are asking and how matters are to be resolved. The
> quest for clarity is a central part of the philosophical quest, as is
> the quest for resolution of questions which are not scientific in
> nature. I do not think that questions in First Philosophy can be
> resolved, in the sense that there is a definitive answer which can be
> "demonstrated" to be true. I think that they may be able to resolved
> for the individual thinker and those who share his predispositions.
> But to be clear about what one believes may be all that is possible in
> this area (as I think that it is in Ethics).
Sorry for the misunderstanding Bill (I took you too literally when you
said that you are "a scientific materialist who believes that all
meaningful questions about the make-up of the world in which we live
(and the make up of ourselves) are questions for which the application
of scientific method is the only path to secure answers.")
The problem I have in understanding this point of view is that
"complexity" isn't really an answer, it's more of an excuse for not
being able to provide an answer yet, which brings us back to my
description of scientism as a kind of religious faith. But I think the
problem of consciousness is more serious than just a case of "sooner or
later our understanding of the brain will be sufficiently complete to
admit of an explanation of how consciousness evolved, how it is
generated by the brain, and what its function is." The reason for my
skepticism is that science and technology can presently offer us no way
of detecting the presence or absence of consciousness (or the degree to
which it is present) by any third-person methodology, or of even of
acknowledging its existence, and still worse, doesn't have a clue how to
begin to address these issues. If you consider the question of
consciousness to be "good metaphysics" then perhaps you would care to
present a clear definition of the word and your explanation of its
relationship with the neural substrate?
> > (I'll take your point if you should decline to address any or all of
> > these issues, though I'm not clear about the criteria by which you
> > distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' metaphysics.)
>
> I will be brief here, because I am running out of time. I may go on
> at greater length later. I believe that the idea of "matter, as
> substrate" has completely lost its relevance, both scientifically and
> philosophically (and philosophically, that has been, at least, since
> Hume). There are just charges, masses, energies, fields, strings of
> pulsating energy, or whatever the Physicist talks about. The idea
> that there is something else there which "underlies" those things is
> pure mythology. It is a completely useless and superfluous hypothesis
> generated by lack of understanding of scientific language. And indeed
> it is not even a "hypothesis" since it is, in principle, untestable.
> Maybe you have not noticed: not only am I a materialist (in the sense
> that only extended things are real), I am also an empiricist.
You seem to be arguing that the term "scientific materialism" has no
connection with the concept of "matter" at all, and that the qualifier
"materialism" denotes that the discipline deals only with "whatever the
Physicist talks about"? If so, I wonder what you think of Werner
Heisenberg's comment that "[i]f one wants to give an accurate
description of the elementary particle ... the only thing which can be
written down as a description is a probability function. But then one
sees that not even the quality of being ... belongs to what is
described." (Physics and Philosophy, pp70) ... ?
andy-k
> A little more time emerged; so, I want to respond to the "good
> metaphysics"/"bad metaphysics" question. Metaphysics, in the only
> sense which I consider legitimate is the INQUIRY into (i.e, not the
> mere enunciation of) First Principles. It involves attempts at
> definition or explication of fundamental terms, explanations of
> relationships among them, and dialectical attempts to defend them,
> dialectical (see Aristotle and Plato) as opposed to either deductive
> or inductive derivations, both of the latter being impossible since
> the principles being defended are primary, therefore there is nothing
> more fundamental which allows their derivation. Bad metaphysics is
> engaging in controversy about questions which are inherently
> unresolvable by any rational inquiry. In such areas, all one can
> do is enunciate one's views in as clear a manner as possible. All
> argument about such matters simply amounts to bullshit; one example is
> the free will/determinist "controversy"; both sides yammer away
> accomplishing nothing except (if the internet could convey odors) the
> stench of idiocy.
I'm not really attempting to re-open the "freedom" sore, but since you
bring it up, Libet's work pretty much clinches it on the
"rational inquiry" side for me (though he still seems to be in denial
himself, so perhaps if academic papers could convey odors then Libet's
would carry the stench of idiocy too?)
andy-k
news:29b75758.03041...@posting.google.com...
Thanks Bill -- I was hoping to get your angle on my descriptions.
This seems like a form of substance dualism to me Bill -- taking the
brain, its sensory inputs, and the processing of those inputs to be part
of the world outside the mind, how does any of that processed data
become the contents of mind? And if the contents of mind have nothing
more to do with the world outside the mind, then all subjective
phenomena would seem to be causally impotent in that world, so are you
espousing epiphenomenalism (and I regard this as "one-way" dualism)?
I have to confess to being a little perplexed at the claim that "the
contents of mind have nothing more to do with the world outside that
mind" is a rejection of realism -- if the order prevalent in the mind
has nothing to do with the order prevalent in the world, then don't we
have two mutually exclusive domains? And if so, then why do we need to
postulate the existence of the world outside the mind? Surely we just
end up with solipsism?
Bill Snyder
pseudo-question. As far a I can see it has nothing to do with "good"
metaphysics. It can be conjured, via an idealistic interpretation into a
particularly interesting type of bad metaphysics.
>
>
> > > (I'll take your point if you should decline to address any or all of
> > > these issues, though I'm not clear about the criteria by which you
> > > distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' metaphysics.)
> >
> > I will be brief here, because I am running out of time. I may go on
> > at greater length later. I believe that the idea of "matter, as
> > substrate" has completely lost its relevance, both scientifically and
> > philosophically (and philosophically, that has been, at least, since
> > Hume). There are just charges, masses, energies, fields, strings of
> > pulsating energy, or whatever the Physicist talks about. The idea
> > that there is something else there which "underlies" those things is
> > pure mythology. It is a completely useless and superfluous hypothesis
> > generated by lack of understanding of scientific language. And indeed
> > it is not even a "hypothesis" since it is, in principle, untestable.
> > Maybe you have not noticed: not only am I a materialist (in the sense
> > that only extended things are real), I am also an empiricist.
>
> You seem to be arguing that the term "scientific materialism" has no
> connection with the concept of "matter" at all, and that the qualifier
> "materialism" denotes that the discipline deals only with "whatever the
> Physicist talks about"? If so, I wonder what you think of Werner
> Heisenberg's comment that "[i]f one wants to give an accurate
> description of the elementary particle ... the only thing which can be
> written down as a description is a probability function. But then one
> sees that not even the quality of being ... belongs to what is
> described." (Physics and Philosophy, pp70) ... ?
>
English more like a pronoun than like a quality word; I know some people
speak in phrases like "such and such has being" as if it were a quality.
But I regard that as plain silly. Just say: "It exists." And as Kant long
ago pointed out: existence is not a predicate (in the sense of a property
conveying word; with repect to observable properties there is no difference
between an imaginary dollar and a real one; of course you can spend the real
one, but spendability is not a property of the thing, but a relationship
between the dollar, me, and the other person); (2) In so far as his
interpretation of quantum theory is correct, fine; an elementary particle is
just a probability funtion. I am not a physicist and am not about to argue
that issue.
As for the stuff about matter, matter is that which exists as extended in
the spatio-temporal continuum, whatever that may be (if there are more than
4 dimensions, this clearly would have to be modified to embrace that view).
There are no non-spatial, non-temporal realities. The rejection of the
substrate stuff is merely denying that there is some mysterious something or
other besides the extended things (fields, masses, charges, quarks, leptons,
etc.). That is not a rejection of "matter"; it is a refusal to allow
"matter" to be regarded as some mysterious unknowable, unobervable (either
directly or indirectly), un-get-at-able dingus which we postulate as that in
which material qualities inhere. Material qualities just are; they have no
need of some mysterious other thing in which to inhere. The inherence stuff
merely shows that our reason is often clouded by our imaginative capacities,
i.e., it generates an illusion: there must be something there over and above
the mass which HAS the mass. As Hume pointed out, if you persist in that
mode of thought, then you could just as well called it God, or thinking
substance, or material substance, I will add, bxtmphlt. Since it a
mysterious other beyond observation and knowledge, it has no role to play in
either Science OR Philosophy.
Bill Snyder
andy-k
> "andy-k" <spam....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:PZjoa.3344$9P....@newsfep1-gui.server.ntli.net...
> >
> > "complexity" isn't really an answer, it's more of an excuse for not
> > being able to provide an answer yet, which brings us back to my
> > description of scientism as a kind of religious faith. But I think
> > the problem of consciousness is more serious than just a case of
> > "sooner or later our understanding of the brain will be sufficiently
> > complete to admit of an explanation of how consciousness evolved,
> > how it is generated by the brain, and what its function is." The
> > reason for my skepticism is that science and technology can
> > presently offer us no way of detecting the presence or absence of
> > consciousness (or the degree to which it is present) by any
> > third-person methodology, or of even of acknowledging its existence,
> > and still worse, doesn't have a clue how to begin to address these
> > issues. If you consider the question of consciousness to be "good
> > metaphysics" then perhaps you would care to present a clear
> > definition of the word and your explanation of its relationship with
> > the neural substrate?
>
> The "question" of consciousness is a scientific question or it is a
> pseudo-question. As far a I can see it has nothing to do with "good"
> metaphysics. It can be conjured, via an idealistic interpretation
> into a particularly interesting type of bad metaphysics.
Thanks Bill.
> > You seem to be arguing that the term "scientific materialism" has no
> > connection with the concept of "matter" at all, and that the
> > qualifier "materialism" denotes that the discipline deals only with
> > "whatever the Physicist talks about"? If so, I wonder what you think
> > of Werner Heisenberg's comment that "[i]f one wants to give an
> > accurate description of the elementary particle ... the only thing
> > which can be written down as a description is a probability
> > function. But then one sees that not even the quality of being ...
> > belongs to what is described." (Physics and Philosophy, pp70) ... ?
>
> With respect to Heisenberg: (1) "being" is not a quality; it functions
> in English more like a pronoun than like a quality word; I know some
> people speak in phrases like "such and such has being" as if it were a
> quality. But I regard that as plain silly. Just say: "It exists."
> And as Kant long ago pointed out: existence is not a predicate (in the
> sense of a property conveying word; with repect to observable
> properties there is no difference between an imaginary dollar and a
> real one; of course you can spend the real one, but spendability is
> not a property of the thing, but a relationship between the dollar,
> me, and the other person); (2) In so far as his interpretation of
> quantum theory is correct, fine; an elementary particle is just a
> probability funtion. I am not a physicist and am not about to argue
> that issue.
I think his meaning is clear -- matter reduces to the possibility of
certain qualities rather than their actuality. Furthermore, the
breakdown of the distributive law in quantum logic gives us strong
grounds for believing that those qualities themselves are inseparable at
their most fundamental level, bringing into question the whole notion of
separativity. This is supported by the EPR/Bell/Aspect developments on
non-locality at the quantum level. And the inseparability of the
observer from the quantum system under observation brings into question
the whole notion of an observer-independent reality, of a "view from
nowhere" as Nagel put it. Isn't quantum physics pulling the rug from
under the whole edifice of scientific materialism?
> As for the stuff about matter, matter is that which exists as extended
> in the spatio-temporal continuum, whatever that may be (if there are
> more than 4 dimensions, this clearly would have to be modified to
> embrace that view). There are no non-spatial, non-temporal realities.
The fact that the universal quantum wave function is time-independent
carries the implication that reality at its most fundamental level is
indeed non-temporal. And since the notion of separativity seems to be a
casualty of quantum physics, the claim that there is no non-spatial
reality also looks suspect.
andy-k
The reason I asked was because your response seemed to be approaching
the Radical Empiricism of William James, which postulates the primacy of
experience. I guess the significance of his position (as far as I can
ascertain) is precisely the repudiation of any substance-based
interpretation of mind and of matter, and consequently the liberation
from all the problems that follow in the wake of such interpretations.
Bill Snyder
quantum physics is pulling the rug from under scientific materialism, unless
one means by materialism that the real is some sort of hard solid "particle"
(like a very, very small grain of sand); I am not a materialist in that
sense. An elementary particle is at the same time particulate under some
circumstances, wavelike under others, and can also be properly seen as a
field, not that which generates the field, but the filed itself, and it
probably can be legitimately be viewed in other ways! The problem here is,
I think, not one of conceptualizing what is going on (and I much prefer
event language to thing language), but of imagining it, i.e., creating a
model in our imagination which pictures for us what is going on. I think
that in fundamental physical theory one just has to give up the quest for
adequate imaginative models. Some models are adequate for some limited
purposes; but no model is adequate for all purposes. Which brings me to
Heisenberg's interpretive model, and that is all that it is; a particular
way to interpret imaginatively what equations tell us is going on. Even
when Heisenberg was alive (he has been dead for twenty five years), there
was not universal acceptance among quantum physicists of the model he used
(I believe it is called the Copenhagen model?). But in any case it is only
a model, an interpretation in imaginative terms of what the equations mean.
And of course there are a number of competing models at this time (and also
a number of competing theories which is a separate matter) for imaginatively
grasping what is going on. It appears to me that, looking at the
development of Physics as a whole, and not just concentrating on one part,
the movement of modern Physics has been toward regarding energy as the
fundamental reality, with particles being the way energy shows itself under
certain conditions. A fundamental particle is a stream of concentrated or
congealed energy. PLEASE NOTE: I am now indulging myself in imaginative
interpretation. I am not talking Physics, but trying to create images which
may help us Physcis ignoramuses understand what is going on.
But I will go back to what I have stated regularly: the fundmental reality
is what Physics (notice not "the Physicists" - both because they are still
arguing about it and because with the devlopment of Physics the views of
Physicists tell to be quickly outmoded) tells us it is; I call the
fundamental reality material in the sense that it is extended substance; it
may or may not be spatio-temporal in a strict sense; but is is dimensionally
extended, even in the interpretive models to which you refer (is it 9 or 11
dimensions? I have no time to check). But if Physics ends up eventually
telling us with sound theory and corroborating evidence with most Physicists
accepting that interpretation that the fundamental reality is NOT
dimensionally extended then I would be quite happy to change from being a
materialist to whatever label should be properly chosen to apply. It is far
more important to me that I fall under the label Scientism (as you label
it), than Scientific Materialist, which is a contradicition in terms if in
fact the fundamental reality is not dimensionally extended.
Bill Snyder
Bill Snyder
I want to go back to a matter which sort of slipped by a few posts ago. It
is strictly speaking not a reply to the preceeding post. You made a few
remarks which led me to believe that you want to posit that materialism in a
strict sense involves some type of "reductionism", so that if certain
processes in the world can be shown to be wholly "material" in nature then
they are really "illusory" and only the underlying components are real. I
think such "reductionism" is silly and anti-scientific since (1) it says
that every science, except for a few parts of Physics, is dealing only with
illusion and (2) it completely ignores the importance of structure
(traditionally "form") both in reality and in science. A hydrogen atom is a
complex structure involving at least 7 elementary particles, I say at least
7 because some people want to talk about gluons, and things like that, while
other people just see the quarks as changing places with one another. But
that does NOT mean that it is not truly real and only the quarks and the
electron are. The structure is what makes it a hydrogen atom. It is clear
(I hope) that I would say the same thing about consciousness, and the
contents thereof. If you are going to say that consciousness is an illusion
because it can be shown to be a particularly complex structure of material
processess, then logic would require you to say that the hydrogen atom is
also an illusion.
It also may very well establish that even Physics itself is illusory, since
it deal with structure and not just with component parts. Indeed one
interesting way of interpreting some of the results of Physics, when they
are viewed from the standpoint of pure mathematics, is that there is only
structure; there are no components which are structured; the components are
merely abstractions from the structure and have no being outside the
structure. To ignore structure or to regard it as illusory is simply to be
anti-scientific.
Bill Snyder
Keynes
<Lda...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>Completely in agreement. This story of the mysterious substratum that
>underlies the physical is just another example of how metaphysics tries
>to impose old-fashioned labels on things, failing to take on board
>scientific knowledge.
>
>regards
>leo
>
Forget substratums.
What is the scientific explanation for the evolution of
energy to matter to life to homo sapiens.
(This may be a trivial queation.)
Bill Lewis Clark
> To ignore structure or to regard it as illusory is simply to be
> anti-scientific.
I don't think it is. I'm reminded of what Nagarjuna wrote in his
Mulamadhyamakakarika (MMK:)
"Without a foundation in the conventional truth,
The significance of the ultimate cannot be taught.
Without understanding the significance of the ultimate,
Liberation is not achieved." (MMK, 24:9)
The Madhyamika view conventional truth as a sort of illusion, akin to
how you describe structure. Nonetheless, appreciation for it is a
vital part of their doctrine, as it is considered cruicial to
attaining nirvana. We need to make use of the illusion, to see past
it. Science can help us do that.
My own views are similar, in that I think our concept of structure
derives from facts about our nature, and not from the world at large.
Humans are made to see the world through structure-colored glasses, so
to speak. If we could identify which features of our perception of
the world owe their existence to our psychological and physiological
makeup, it would assist us greatly in surpassing those limitations.
I view science as ultimately a rationality-neutral process, not
dependent upon ours or any other notions of structure, except inasmuch
as it happens to be applied in particular cases. I think structure is
an illusion of sorts, but a useful one, and in any event, I don't hold
it against science, at all.
-Bill Lewis Clark
Keynes
<wsn...@direcpc.com> wrote:
Matter is the interrelated behaviors of massless energy over time.
(Excepting quantum events which leap to defy-deny time and space.)
The behavior of a single lattice of energy over time is more mind-like
than matter-like (as matter is commonly understood).
Keynes
wrote:
>
>
>andy-k wrote:
>
>> Constructive comments on the following descriptions would be
>> appreciated:
>>
>> 1. Science entails the investigation of order prevalent in the contents
>> of consciousness, with a view to increasing ones ability to make
>> accurate predictions about that order.
>
>Would it not be more correct to make this assertion about the cognitive
>development of individuals (especially at a young age when causality in the
>cognitive sense is being formulated)? Science entails a formalization of
>this process as a social activity. It is, however, not an arbitrary social
>activity since the ability to effect environmental change according to
>stated priorities seems to have attracted a certain political capital
>through the ages.
>
Perception of causality seems to be instinctive.
Experiments on babies less than a year old have
shown that they have expectations of causality.
A ball is rolled behind a curtain. The curtain comes
up and the baby is amazed that the ball is not there.
(and other experiments of the like.) I'm sure that
animals act from an instinct of causality, whether
they are aware of it or not. Living in space-time,
how could they not?
Bill Lewis Clark
> This seems like a form of substance dualism to me Bill -- taking the
> brain, its sensory inputs, and the processing of those inputs to be part
> of the world outside the mind, how does any of that processed data
> become the contents of mind?
I wouldn't draw the line there, between the processing of inputs and
mind. In fact, I'd prefer not to draw a line at all. I'm a monist,
not a substance dualist -- although I do believe in an *epistemic*
gap, if not an ontological one.
I think our perception of mind and matter as two different types of
substance is a result of the way we happen to look at the world, and
not an actual difference in the world itself.
That said, I'm going to take the coward's way out, and admit I don't
know how goings-on in the world become contents of mind -- yet still
insist that it's a perfectly natural process involving just one kind
of substance.
> And if the contents of mind have nothing more to do with the world
> outside the mind,
I only think *some* contents of mind have nothing more to do with the
world outside the mind. I simply think that some contents (or aspects
of contents) owe their existence to features of the mind itself (or
the underlying processes which give rise to it.)
Consider an image on my computer screen, of a video feed from a live
webcam. Some features of the image (such as the fact that it depicts
a woman sitting at a desk) derive from the outside world. Other
features (such as the fact that the image consists of a grid of
colored pixels 640 across by 480 down) derive from features of the
hardware and software used to create the image.
So then some subjective phenomenon might be causally impotent, whereas
others are not.
> I have to confess to being a little perplexed at the claim that "the
> contents of mind have nothing more to do with the world outside that
> mind" is a rejection of realism --
Be careful here; my claim was that "The order we perceive is a result
of the way our brains happen to be structured, and [...] has nothing
more to do with the world at large."
To reiterate, I'm making a claim about perceptions of order, and not
about the contents of consciousness in general. Also, I'm rejecting
your notion of 'Scientific Realism' with that claim, and not of
philosophical realism in general.
> if the order prevalent in the mind has nothing to do with the order
> prevalent in the world, then don't we have two mutually exclusive
> domains?
Not in the way I meant it, though I can see why you'd say that. I
don't think that there is one order in the mind, and another in the
world -- I think the whole notion of order itself is only in the mind.
In the world, there is just the way the world is. We pick a certain
(ultimately arbitrary, but endogenous) subset of features of the
world, and call them 'order'.
So, in that sense, the order prevalent in the mind *is* in the world
-- but it's not really significant or important in any way, other than
to us. Nothing in the world really demands that our notion of order
be the way it is (at least, I don't think so.) That's what I mean
when I say that it has "nothing to do with the world at large."
> And if so, then why do we need to postulate the existence of the
> world outside the mind?
Linguistic convenience.
> Surely we just end up with solipsism?
If you like, sure. You'll render a good portion of language
incomprehensible by doing so, however.
A long time ago I decided that I didn't really care whether there was
a world outside my mind, or whether some radical form of solipsism
were true. Either way, I don't think the thoughts of others, don't
feel the things they do, don't see the world through their eyes.
Since I still choose to interact with them, it just wouldn't do to go
around denying that others thought, felt, or perceived.
So I talk like there is an outside world.
-Bill Lewis Clark
Bill Snyder
anti-scientific; I stand by that and at the end you sort of agree. I did
not say that the relegation of structure to illusion is anti-Madhyamika.
Science is most centrally concerned with structure and function and with how
structure orders function. Science MAY be concerned with illusion, but it
is just plain wrong to say it is not concerned with structure and function.
(2) You really should not quote Nagarjuna out of context to make a point
which is not really his. Later on in the same section he says (verse 36),
"You deny all mundane and customary activities when you deny emptiness." (It
is a different translation, but the only one I have available - it is
Streng's translation). And the point of that whole karika is that affirming
the truth of emptiness AFFIRMS mundane and customary activities. And at the
end of the Mulamadhyamakakarikas he gets at the point of the whole treatise:
"To him, possessing compassion, who taught the real dharma for the
destruction of all views - to him, Gautama, I humbly offer reverence." Note
the destruction of ALL views, including the view which distinguishes between
ultimate and conventional truth. Liberation lies beyond ALL
conceptualization including the concept of ultimate truth. One way to put
Nagarjuna's central point is to understand his equation of the "truth of
emptiness" with the "truth of dependent co-origination", both incidentally
are conventional truths, as is shown elsewhere in the karikas.
Conceptualization carves elements out of the being in flux that is the world
and to that extent falsifies that being in flux. Thus to say that all
concepts (including the concept of emptiness) are empty is the same as
saying that all things arise in dependent co-origination. Since nirvana and
samsara cannot be distinguished (Karikas 25, 19-20), except conceptually and
those concepts are empty, liberation requires passage beyond ALL
conceptualization.
Bill Snyder
andy-k
> "andy-k" <spam....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:Qfsoa.300$WH4...@newsfep1-gui.server.ntli.net...
[1]
> > I think his meaning is clear -- matter reduces to the possibility of
> > certain qualities rather than their actuality. Furthermore, the
> > breakdown of the distributive law in quantum logic gives us strong
> > grounds for believing that those qualities themselves are
> > inseparable at their most fundamental level, bringing into question
> > the whole notion of separativity. This is supported by the
> > EPR/Bell/Aspect developments on non-locality at the quantum level.
> > And the inseparability of the observer from the quantum system under
> > observation brings into question the whole notion of an
> > observer-independent reality, of a "view from nowhere" as Nagel put
> > it. Isn't quantum physics pulling the rug from under the whole
> > edifice of scientific materialism?
> > > As for the stuff about matter, matter is that which exists as
> > > extended in the spatio-temporal continuum, whatever that may be
> > > (if there are more than 4 dimensions, this clearly would have to
> > > be modified to embrace that view). There are no non-spatial,
> > > non-temporal realities.
> >
[2]
As science is the study of the prevalent order, it seems implicit that
dimensional extendedness should be fundamental to that order (how can we
have a charge distribution, or a gravitational field, if not as
dimensional functions? Without dimensions there can be no science.) So
my question is how your description of scientific materialism differs
from plain old science, because if it doesn't then it still leaves me
perplexed as to what the qualifier "materialism" specifies, other than
to imply the existence of some kind of "stuff" within the theater of
space-time (including any additional dimensions of space as suggested by
string theory) and through which that order is manifest.
Regarding our inability to imagine what is going on at the quantum
level, I think this is simply a result of the fact that we have evolved
to cognize events on the everyday level so our faculty of imagination
does not equip us to picture what is going on down there. The math,
however, does provide a tool for working in that domain, and so the
breakdown of the distributive law at that level still indicates an
underlying wholeness even if we can't imagine it.
Consequently I'm still perplexed by the claim that there is no
non-spatial and non-temporal aspects to reality, given the developments
in quantum physics over the last century. I don't think that these
developments undermine the scientific enterprise (which is simply the
investigation of the prevalent order without committing to any
substance-based ontology), but they certainly do seem to undermine any
interpretation that insists on the above claim.
Finally, regarding the scientistic claim that the scientific method
(with its aspiration to an observer-independent "view from nowhere") is
the only means to real knowledge ... given that science herself is
leading us to conclude that there is an underlying wholeness (within
which the subject-object distinction itself must also be forfeit), how
can that claim be made to stick?
andy-k
> Andy,
>
> I want to go back to a matter which sort of slipped by a few posts
> ago. It is strictly speaking not a reply to the preceeding post. You
> made a few remarks which led me to believe that you want to posit that
> materialism in a strict sense involves some type of "reductionism", so
> that if certain processes in the world can be shown to be wholly
> "material" in nature then they are really "illusory" and only the
> underlying components are real. I think such "reductionism" is silly
> and anti-scientific since (1) it says that every science, except for a
> few parts of Physics, is dealing only with illusion and (2) it
> completely ignores the importance of structure (traditionally "form")
> both in reality and in science. A hydrogen atom is a complex
> structure involving at least 7 elementary particles, I say at least
> 7 because some people want to talk about gluons, and things like that,
> while other people just see the quarks as changing places with one
> another. But that does NOT mean that it is not truly real and only the
> quarks and the electron are. The structure is what makes it a
> hydrogen atom. It is clear (I hope) that I would say the same thing
> about consciousness, and the contents thereof. If you are going to
> say that consciousness is an illusion because it can be shown to be a
> particularly complex structure of material processess, then logic
> would require you to say that the hydrogen atom is also an illusion.
I didn't intend that criticism Bill -- I fully accept the emergence of
new levels of order that impose constraints on the lower levels
retrospectively as it were, and that contribute little to any
prospective understanding of the emergent levels, like for instance the
way that knowledge of the water molecule tells us little about the laws
of hydrodynamics. The notion of emergent downward causation is not a
problem for me (though I can't yet see how consciousness can be regarded
as an emergent phenomenon, except in terms of scientistic wishful
thinking.)
> It also may very well establish that even Physics itself is illusory,
> since it deal with structure and not just with component parts.
> Indeed one interesting way of interpreting some of the results of
> Physics, when they are viewed from the standpoint of pure mathematics,
> is that there is only structure; there are no components which are
> structured; the components are merely abstractions from the structure
> and have no being outside the structure. To ignore structure or to
> regard it as illusory is simply to be anti-scientific.
This takes me back to my question about the source of order that you
declined to address. That the contents of consciousness exhibit order is
a certainty whether or not that order is an illusion, since the
existence of illusions also presupposes a source of order. I don't know
whether we can say any more than that there is an "ordering principle"
in operation. And since science is the study of that very orderliness,
then to ignore it is certainly anti-scientific.
Bill Snyder
necessity dimensionally extended. That is ALL that I mean by materialism.
There is only extended substance. And, I clearly do not mean that there is
a "stuff" which underlies the functional structure of the dimensionally
extended. There is only the functioning structure; but it is dimensionally
extended.
> Regarding our inability to imagine what is going on at the quantum
> level, I think this is simply a result of the fact that we have evolved
> to cognize events on the everyday level so our faculty of imagination
> does not equip us to picture what is going on down there. The math,
> however, does provide a tool for working in that domain, and so the
> breakdown of the distributive law at that level still indicates an
> underlying wholeness even if we can't imagine it.
>
> Consequently I'm still perplexed by the claim that there is no
> non-spatial and non-temporal aspects to reality, given the developments
> in quantum physics over the last century. I don't think that these
> developments undermine the scientific enterprise (which is simply the
> investigation of the prevalent order without committing to any
> substance-based ontology), but they certainly do seem to undermine any
> interpretation that insists on the above claim.
>
Now we are at first principles and I can only enunciate as clearly as I can
what mine are: nothing exists (in the sense that it has any conceivable
detectible influence on the development of things) that is not dimensionally
extened. I do not believe in minds, spirit, transcendent forms, gods (i.e.,
prime movers, pure actualitiies, or such). It is a fundamental metaphysical
error to maintain that actuality is prior in being to potentiality. They
are each presupposed by the other. Prime matter is a myth; so also is pure
actuality. There is only the moving, transforming, ordered flux through
which functional form is the ordering principle. But there is no reality
apart from, behind, or above the flux itself. Aristotle would have regarded
me as a materialist; that is good enough for me. But as I go on to say: I
really do not care about the labels. I think that it is just more honest to
stand up and say, "I do not believe in all of that non-dimensionally
extended crap." If some other label than "materialist" would better fit my
view, then tell me what it is.
> Finally, regarding the scientistic claim that the scientific method
> (with its aspiration to an observer-independent "view from nowhere") is
> the only means to real knowledge ... given that science herself is
> leading us to conclude that there is an underlying wholeness (within
> which the subject-object distinction itself must also be forfeit), how
> can that claim be made to stick?
>
I have no objection to the "underlying wholeness"; indeed I would proclaim
it, especially if you forfeit the "subject-object distinction"; I just
believe that that wholeness is dimensionally extended. And forfeiting the
subject-object distinction is to forfeit all yammer about "minds" as opposed
to the "material". There is only what is, and I look to science to tell me
about that. And right now I find the various "string" theories far more
enticing than the rather old hat bother about the quantum theory's
pseudo-paradoxes; I say "pseudo" because they are "paradoxes" only from the
standpoint of "common sense" and the human imagination. I am convinced that
whatever it is that is, it is what it is independently of anything we think
about it (and that includes what we think about our thinking). It is not so
much that the "world" is "there"; no, the "world" is and it includes me and
my thinking; there is no "out-there" as opposed to the "in-here"; that is
ego-centric delusion (I would not use the word "illusion" here, because it
is essentially a SICKNESS of the soul - and please don't play eristic games
with that way of putting it; my views are quite clear; and I have no
objection to metaphor clearly understood as metaphor). There is no
object-subject distinction simply because whatever it is that is functions
quite independently of our ego-centered, rather silly distinctions; we do
have a tendency to think that our observational capacities, and our science,
and our philosophy have some significance in the total scheme of things.
But that is childish; we need to put childish things away; let us look
directly at the brute universe of which we are a minor, rather insignificant
part, and not view things as through a glass darkly. I could go on about
this last point, but it is really irrelevant to this discussion (though,
perhaps, it is the point).
Bill Snyder.
Bill Lewis Clark
> (1) I said that the relegation of structure to illusion is
> anti-scientific;
I'll take that as: "I said that P."
> I stand by that and at the end you sort of agree.
If you took something I said as agreeing in any way with P, then what
you meant by P is different than what I thought you meant.
Could you expand upon P somewhat, and also tell me which part of what
I said you saw as sort of agreeing with it?
> Science is most centrally concerned with structure and function and with
> how structure orders function.
I view science as a method of reducing doubt (or fixing belief.) It
consists of a hypothesis-forming phase, a theory clarification and
prediction-deriving phase, and a testing phase.
Science is far superior to other methods of fixing belief, in large
part because it is a self-corrective process. It may not always get
the right answer, but it does tend to provide *better* answers on
subsequent applications and refinements of theory. It can even be
applied to itself, to take on more specific forms.
This is basically Peirce's depiction of science, which I find very
useful. I think it's not too radically different from other
methodological approaches, such as Popper's.
On this view of science, it seems that structure and function aren't
necessarily the central concern. Peirce's own "suggestions" for how
to apply the method of science *efficiently* do emphasize structure,
function, intuitiveness, etc. However, it's also possible to have
applications of the method that don't bring structure or function into
play at all, and I think at least some of those should still count as
applications of *science*.
> Science MAY be concerned with illusion, but it is just plain wrong to
> say it is not concerned with structure and function.
I think nearly all (known) past applications of the scientific method
have been concerned with structure and function on some level, but
that not all applications must be.
I think that notions like structure, order, function, complexity, etc.
are illusions in the sense that they're arbitrary side-effects of the
way human organisms happen to perceive and represent the world. As
such, they're going to color every hypothesis we form about the world,
every theory we develop, every experiment we observe.
They're going to *seem* very important to us -- but in fact they might
have no real significance in the world, whatsoever. They might even
be purely illusory, just a glitch in the way our minds work.
I think I lean more toward the first option (insignifant reality, as
opposed to pure illusion.) In either case, I'd still call the belief
that structure *mattered* an illusion.
> (2) You really should not quote Nagarjuna out of context to make a
> point which is not really his.
I had thought his point there *was* similar to my own, but perhaps I'm
simply misunderstanding. My familiarity with Nagarjuna's work stems
mainly from an interest in the debate between Buddhapalita/Candrakirti
and Bhavaviveka on the nature and utility of logical dialectic. As
such, I'm more familiar with texts and analyses of later commentators
in the Prasangika and Svatantrika tradition, than with Nagarjuna's
original texts.
I tend to interpret those portions of the MMK I *have* read within the
scope of my particular little sub-discipline of interest, and often
think of 'conventional truth/reality' solely in terms of how it
relates to reasoning.
That's not to say I wouldn't enjoy picking your brain somewhat on
Madhyamaka in general, of course. :)
> Later on in the same section he says (verse 36),
> "You deny all mundane and customary activities when you deny emptiness."
But isn't this because mundane and customary activities are ultimately
empty, and devoid of inherent existence? So when you deny emptiness,
you're also denying everything that is empty, including mundane and
customary activities?
> And the point of that whole karika is that affirming the truth of
> emptiness AFFIRMS mundane and customary activities.
Isn't that because mundane and customary activities, like all things,
are ultimately empty?
> And at the end of the Mulamadhyamakakarikas he gets at the point
> of the whole treatise:
> "To him, possessing compassion, who taught the real dharma for the
> destruction of all views - to him, Gautama, I humbly offer reverence."
My take on the treatise was that it was about the two truths, and it
was the quotation I cited (MMK 24:9) that summed it up best. Again,
that's probably due to my sources (those writing with an eye toward
the Svatantrika/Prasangika dispute, in which the proper understanding
of the two truths figures greatly.)
> Note the destruction of ALL views, including the view which distinguishes
> between ultimate and conventional truth.
Yes, but that's much later on down the line. I'm still in the stage
where I'm trying to understand conventional truth, for the moment. :)
> Liberation lies beyond ALL conceptualization including the concept of
> ultimate truth.
Yes, because something about conceptualization results in the illusion
we perceive instead of the way the world actually is. Correct?
> One way to put Nagarjuna's central point is to understand his equation
> of the "truth of emptiness" with the "truth of dependent co-origination",
> both incidentally are conventional truths, as is shown elsewhere in the
> karikas.
Conventional truths? I thought the truth of emptiness *was* the
ultimate truth. Or is this one of those cases where it (or some
aspect of it) is both?
> Conceptualization carves elements out of the being in flux that is
> the world and to that extent falsifies that being in flux.
Umm.... huh? :)
What do you mean by 'falsifies' here, for starters? I'm not quite
following you. The 'being in flux' is santana?
> Thus to say that all concepts (including the concept of emptiness) are
> empty is the same as saying that all things arise in dependent co-
> origination.
Okay.
> Since nirvana and samsara cannot be distinguished (Karikas 25, 19-20),
> except conceptually and those concepts are empty, liberation requires
> passage beyond ALL conceptualization.
Right, but I still don't see how that relates to what's going on in
the earlier stages. I'm not sure about you, but *I'm* still
conceptualizing, and probably will be for some time to come.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that I'm focused more on the
process of reaching enlightenment, than on enlightenment itself. In
particular, I'm interested in understanding more about the nature of
samsara as illusion, the 'trap' of our attachment to
conceptualization. I see that as being in the domain of conventional
truth (as well as at the source of it,) and I see science as being
connected to the whole thing.
-Bill Lewis Clark
Bill Snyder
I am not going to respond in detail to your post, and I apologize because
it merits a response. I should not have started it because I know that I
know longer have the inclination or patience for textually based discussions
of issues relating to Buddhism, enlightenment, the path, etc. I would
suggest that you examine the complete text of the MMK (and I do have another
translation in addition to the Streng, and would recommend it; it is Kenneth
K. Inada's; the edition which I have was published by Hokuseido Press,
Tokyo, in 1970). Nagarjuna systematically goes through Buddhist teachings
as they are made manifest in the Prajnaparamita Sutras and shows ALL of the
central teaching to be sunya (which I would understand as empty of any
revelation of ultimate truth). E.g., there is a section on "going" (Streng)
or "passage" (Inada) which relates directly to the mantra: "Gate, gate,
parasamgate." There is no going or passage because there is no place from
which passage begins nor any place to which it takes us; all are sunya;
which is to say that they participate in conventional truth, NOT ultimate
truth. He does the same for the Four Holy Truths, for Tathagata, for
dependent origination, Nirvana, etc. Another way to get at the point is to
reflect on the mantra in the Heart Sutra: form is emptiness, emptiness is
form, emptiness is emptiness, form is form. It strikes me that your
approach ignores the last three portions. Ultimately form is form;
conventional truth is just that: a form of truth which is free to do its job
if we do not persistently mistake it for anything more; but it IS a form of
truth. And emptiness is empty, thus it cannot be taken as capturing
ultimate truth; taken as provisional or conventional truth ALL things are
empty, including emptiness.
Liberation is a transformation of oneself (a conventional truth); but you
are freed from nothing, and ultimately you remain the same person which you
were. As for how to get to the nowhere which you are attempting to go, my
recommendation is: forget the intellectual understanding, it will come as
you progressively liberate yourself; instead: meditate, meditate, meditate,
and the MEDITATE again. My form of "meditation" (damned poor word for the
practice) has been Zazen; but I do not really think that it matters which
form one uses, except that it should be the form which does the job for you.
And everything which I am saying is conventional truth, in so far as it
partakes of the truth at all.
Bill Snyder
"Bill Lewis Clark" <wcl...@eden.rutgers.edu> wrote in message
news:29b75758.03042...@posting.google.com...
Bill Snyder
had to recite to myself it in Japanese to get it right); it should be form
is emptiness, emptiness is form, form is form, and emptiness is emptiness.
It has been a long time since I have even bothered to THINK about this
stuff. Daily zazen suffices.
Bill Snyder
andy-k
> "andy-k" <spam....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:y6Yoa.3424$Jf1....@newsfep1-gui.server.ntli.net...
> >
> > that dimensional extendedness should be fundamental to that order
> > (how can we have a charge distribution, or a gravitational field, if
> > not as dimensional functions? Without dimensions there can be no
> > science.) So my question is how your description of scientific
> > materialism differs from plain old science, because if it doesn't
> > then it still leaves me perplexed as to what the qualifier
> > "materialism" specifies, other than to imply the existence of some
> > kind of "stuff" within the theater of space-time (including any
> > additional dimensions of space as suggested by string theory) and
> > through which that order is manifest.
>
> There may be no difference between materialism and science if reality
> is by necessity dimensionally extended. That is ALL that I mean by
> materialism. There is only extended substance. And, I clearly do not
> mean that there is a "stuff" which underlies the functional structure
> of the dimensionally extended. There is only the functioning
> structure; but it is dimensionally extended.
Yes, you have already made it clear that you reject the "stuff" stuff.
All I meant was that whatever "reality" really is, it is the
dimensionally extended aspect of reality that science deals with, and so
I couldn't see the need for the "materialism" qualifier. I understand
now that you do indeed mean it to imply something more than plain old
science -- you intend the qualifier "materialism" to imply the
metaphysical postulate that there is no aspect of reality that is not
dimensionally extended. I think we are now clear on that issue.
My aim is to understand your position so that I may refine my
descriptions, rather than to change your descriptions.
Thanks Bill.
andy-k
> "andy-k" <spam....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:<%Zjoa.3346$9P....@newsfep1-gui.server.ntli.net>...
>
> > This seems like a form of substance dualism to me Bill -- taking the
> > brain, its sensory inputs, and the processing of those inputs to be
> > part of the world outside the mind, how does any of that processed
> > data become the contents of mind?
>
> I wouldn't draw the line there, between the processing of inputs and
> mind. In fact, I'd prefer not to draw a line at all. I'm a monist,
> not a substance dualist -- although I do believe in an *epistemic*
> gap, if not an ontological one.
>
> I think our perception of mind and matter as two different types of
> substance is a result of the way we happen to look at the world, and
> not an actual difference in the world itself.
>
> That said, I'm going to take the coward's way out, and admit I don't
> know how goings-on in the world become contents of mind -- yet still
> insist that it's a perfectly natural process involving just one kind
> of substance.
Thanks Bill -- it was reference to a material world outside the mind
that I mistook for substance dualism.
It may take me some time to work out where my blindspots are before I'm
able to reply to these comments.
> > And if so, then why do we need to postulate the existence of the
> > world outside the mind?
>
> Linguistic convenience.
>
>
> > Surely we just end up with solipsism?
>
> If you like, sure. You'll render a good portion of language
> incomprehensible by doing so, however.
I don't like -- it still leaves me with no way of accounting for the one
and only prevalent order. At least pluralism admits the possibility that
all kinds of order may exist (e.g. in the MWI).
Jeff Relf
" I don't like [ Solipsism ] -- it still leaves me with
At least pluralism admits the possibility that
all kinds of order may exist (e.g. in the MWI). "
Each " Mind " defines what " Order " is.
Even the U.S. has a " Mind ".
Each Mind defines what " Randomness " is.
Each Mind defines what " Death " is.
I'm sure that Determinism is the Reality,
Which has no mind, No order, No randomness, No death.
andy-k
> news:29b75758.03042...@posting.google.com...
> > "andy-k" <spam....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:<%Zjoa.3346$9P....@newsfep1-gui.server.ntli.net>...
>
It sounds like you're saying that the world does indeed exhibit order,
but our brains select only that subset of order that is relevant to us.
Furthermore, that the brain processes that give rise to the mind
(selecting out the subset of order that is relevant to us) are part of
the order in the world, and also make a contribution to the order in the
mind in and of themselves. And finally, that the order we perceive is in
no way significant to the world from which it was derived -- it is only
significant to us (and that's why we perceive it), so because the order
we perceive is contingent upon the way our brains are structured, the
description of Scientific Realism I gave is inadequate.
I'm still not clear on the last bit -- wouldn't the description of
Scientific Realism I gave apply to those objects that we do perceive
whilst accepting that there may be objects that we don't perceive? And
to those aspects of the objects that we do perceive whilst accepting
that there may be aspects that we don't perceive?
Regarding your acceptance of Scientific Materialism, I'm not clear how
you mean the word "material" to be understood when you speak of a
"material world" -- are you using my stipulated definition of the world
being non-conscious at its fundamental level?
Bill Lewis Clark
> It sounds like you're saying that the world does indeed exhibit order,
> but our brains select only that subset of order that is relevant to us.
Close, but not quite. I think the world simply is how it is, with a
certain set of features. Our minds select certain subsets of those
features, and apply labels such as 'ordered', 'obvious', 'simple' and
so forth to them. I think at least some of these labels don't
actually refer to anything in the world, other than certain processes
of mind. 'Order', for instance, just refers to a sort of illusion
produced by our minds.
> Furthermore, that the brain processes that give rise to the mind
> (selecting out the subset of order that is relevant to us) are part of
> the order in the world, and also make a contribution to the order in the
> mind in and of themselves.
I don't believe there is an "order in the world" (beyond what I
describe above.) I do, however, think some natural process in the
world gives rise to the order perceived by mind (which I also think is
part of the natural world.)
> And finally, that the order we perceive is in no way significant to
> the world from which it was derived -- it is only significant to us
> (and that's why we perceive it),
Although the features from which we abstract 'order' are features of
the world, those features aren't important or significant in any sense
other than for the fact that they happen to play a part in the human
game of 'order'. They're not "key features" or anything like that, is
what I'm trying to get at.
Put another way, if you knew everything there was to know about the
order present in our perceptions, you would only really mainly know
facts about how our minds work, and not much about the world at large,
at all.
> so because the order we perceive is contingent upon the way our
> brains are structured, the description of Scientific Realism I
> gave is inadequate.
Actually, on re-reading, I find your definition more acceptible than I
originally thought.
You wrote:
"2. Scientific Realism is the metaphysical postulate that the order
prevalent in the contents of consciousness is grounded in realities
that
exist independently of that consciousness, and that we can have
increasingly accurate knowledge about."
On first reading, I took "grounded" to mean that the order in the
contents of consciousness corresponded to (and arose from) an order in
the world of independent reality. Since I don't believe there *is* an
order in the world, I rejected your "Scientific Realism."
However, now I see that "grounded" might instead be taken as meaning
that the order in our minds is simply the result of *some* process in
the natural world, not necessarily an "ordered" one. That's something
I could agree with.
Although -- now I'm confused about the last part. What are we
supposed to have increasingly accurate knowledge about? The order in
our minds, the natural process by which we perceive order in the first
place, or the world itself?
When I thought "grounding" implied an order in the world, these three
options collapsed into one, and there was no ambiguity. Now, if I'm
to accept "Scientific Realism" I need the ambiguity cleared up.
> wouldn't the description of Scientific Realism I gave apply to those
> objects that we do perceive whilst accepting that there may be objects
> that we don't perceive?
It's not that I think there are a good number of objects we don't
perceive, it's that our perception only selects a deficient subset of
features. I see no reason to think that the features we perceive are
ones on which we could develop an increasingly accurate system of
knowledge about the world -- *any* part of the world.
> Regarding your acceptance of Scientific Materialism, I'm not clear how
> you mean the word "material" to be understood when you speak of a
> "material world" -- are you using my stipulated definition of the world
> being non-conscious at its fundamental level?
No, and I should have clarified that. The "something like" Scientific
Materialism I had in mind is a sort of neutral monism, akin to
Peirce's. I consider materialism closer to monism than either is to
dualism. So, I saw your clause that matter be non-conscious as
dispensible.
You wrote:
"3. Scientific Materialism is the metaphysical postulate that the
reality
underpinning Scientific Realism is material as opposed to mental (i.e.
non-conscious at its fundamental level)."
Ignoring the parenthetical comment, I took this as being just as much
a definition for "material" as anything else. It's like a monist
saying "There is only one type of 'stuff' in the world -- and we're
going to label it 'matter'."
This is different than eliminative materialism, because this monist
would simply argue that qualia consisted of matter, and would in fact
use the label 'matter' to describe *everything* in the world.
Personally, I think the restriction to monism is sufficient, since
this includes all the eliminative materialists, as well as other types
of monists, while still excluding dualists and certain kinds of
idealists. If you really mean to exclude everything except
eliminative materialism, then I'll have to say I reject Scientific
Materialsm.
-Bill Lewis Clark
Bill Lewis Clark
> "Bill Lewis Clark" <wcl...@eden.rutgers.edu> wrote in message
> news:29b75758.03042...@posting.google.com...
> Thanks Bill -- it was reference to a material world outside the mind
> that I mistook for substance dualism.
Ahh yes, sorry. I simply meant it in a grouping sense. I guess I
should have said something like "the world other than the mind."
> I don't like [solipsism] -- it still leaves me with no way of
> accounting for the one and only prevalent order.
How would you account for an order in the world, in any event? From
what I understood you to mean, you're trying to explain the order in
our minds as the result of an order in the rest of the world -- but
you're still not explaining where order comes from, over all.
-Bill Lewis Clark
Bill Lewis Clark
> I am not going to respond in detail to your post, and I apologize because
> it merits a response. I should not have started it because I know that I
> know longer have the inclination or patience for textually based discussions
> of issues relating to Buddhism, enlightenment, the path, etc.
That's quite alright; I know how it feels to just not want to get into
something. :)
If you're ever interested in getting into the textual debates, and how
some of the issues connect up with problems in the philosophy of
buddhist logic, Peter Della Santina's "Madhyamaka Schools in India" is
a fantastic summary.
Cheers,
-Bill Lewis Clark
mitch
Bill Lewis Clark wrote:
<snip>
> Actually, on re-reading, I find your definition more acceptible than I
> originally thought.
>
> You wrote:
>
> "2. Scientific Realism is the metaphysical postulate that the order
> prevalent in the contents of consciousness is grounded in realities
> that
> exist independently of that consciousness, and that we can have
> increasingly accurate knowledge about."
>
> On first reading, I took "grounded" to mean that the order in the
> contents of consciousness corresponded to (and arose from) an order in
> the world of independent reality. Since I don't believe there *is* an
> order in the world, I rejected your "Scientific Realism."
>
> However, now I see that "grounded" might instead be taken as meaning
> that the order in our minds is simply the result of *some* process in
> the natural world, not necessarily an "ordered" one. That's something
> I could agree with.
>
> Although -- now I'm confused about the last part. What are we
> supposed to have increasingly accurate knowledge about? The order in
> our minds, the natural process by which we perceive order in the first
> place, or the world itself?
>
> When I thought "grounding" implied an order in the world, these three
> options collapsed into one, and there was no ambiguity. Now, if I'm
> to accept "Scientific Realism" I need the ambiguity cleared up.
>
There may be a cybernetic issue of self-reference that constrains a delineation of those issues.
With regard to the question of increasingly accurate knowledge perhaps a consideration of the scientific method
in the context of game theory might help. That is, if our ability to know the world does have limitations of
which we must be unaware, then the conclusions we draw from scientific experiments are correct in the sense of a
first move being a chance move in game theory. That is, some of our scientific facts reflect actual
correspondence while others do not. Moreover, our decision process does not really know which is which.
Ok. Truisms are unappreciated. My knack for such things is the reason I have mostly been observing this
thread. But, that is not my point.
Our perception that we can have increasingly accurate knowledge may derive from a self-interpretation that more
comprehensive bodies of consistent knowledge reflect greater knowledge. To the degree that all three of your
options are topics of investigation, the extent to which they are subsumed within a comprehensive context may
collapse them together once again. So, while Andy's description of Scientific Realism maintains the needed
differentiation, it also associates the pragmatic assumption that the strategy for minimizing errors of
inference is effective.
:-)
mitch
andy-k
news:29b75758.03042...@posting.google.com...
news:<fm4qa.10$1p5....@newsfep1-win.server.ntli.net>...
>
> > It sounds like you're saying that the world does indeed exhibit
> > order, but our brains select only that subset of order that is
> > relevant to us.
>
> Close, but not quite. I think the world simply is how it is, with a
> certain set of features. Our minds select certain subsets of those
> features, and apply labels such as 'ordered', 'obvious', 'simple' and
> so forth to them. I think at least some of these labels don't
> actually refer to anything in the world, other than certain processes
> of mind. 'Order', for instance, just refers to a sort of illusion
> produced by our minds.
That "certain set of features" is what I was referring to as "order",
otherwise don't we have featureless disorder?
> > Furthermore, that the brain processes that give rise to the mind
> > (selecting out the subset of order that is relevant to us) are part
> > of the order in the world, and also make a contribution to the order
> > in the mind in and of themselves.
>
> I don't believe there is an "order in the world" (beyond what I
> describe above.) I do, however, think some natural process in the
> world gives rise to the order perceived by mind (which I also think is
> part of the natural world.)
That "natural process in the world" is what I was referring to as
"order".
> > And finally, that the order we perceive is in no way significant to
> > the world from which it was derived -- it is only significant to us
> > (and that's why we perceive it),
>
> Although the features from which we abstract 'order' are features of
> the world, those features aren't important or significant in any sense
> other than for the fact that they happen to play a part in the human
> game of 'order'. They're not "key features" or anything like that, is
> what I'm trying to get at.
>
> Put another way, if you knew everything there was to know about the
> order present in our perceptions, you would only really mainly know
> facts about how our minds work, and not much about the world at large,
> at all.
The problem I'm hitting up against here is that if there really is no
order in the world, then it is uniformly disordered. If the world is
uniformly disordered, but the contents of the mind are filtered out of
that disorder to yield the order prevalent in the mind, then some kind
of filtering device must be prevalent as part of the world. If some kind
of filtering device is prevalent as part of the world, then the world
cannot be uniformly disordered. Am I missing something?
The Ancient Greeks held the belief that the earth was disk shaped, and
their later hypotheses had it as cylindrical, and eventually spheroidal.
We now have overwhelming evidence that the earth is spheroidal. Are we
gaining increasingly accurate knowledge about a real earth?
Yes -- that clears the issue up Bill, though I prefer the term "neutral
monism" to "materialism" because of the legacy of Descartes.
andy-k
news:29b75758.03042...@posting.google.com...
> "andy-k" <spam....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:<xfrpa.111$o01...@newsfep1-gui.server.ntli.net>...
>
> > accounting for the one and only prevalent order.
>
> How would you account for an order in the world, in any event? From
> what I understood you to mean, you're trying to explain the order in
> our minds as the result of an order in the rest of the world -- but
> you're still not explaining where order comes from, over all.
Not quite -- I don't see how the existence of order in the mind can be
explained by postulating that it is a representation of some aspect of
order in an extra-mental material world -- that just demands an
explanation for the existence of order in the world, getting us no
further, whilst at the same time adding an entity. The postulation of an
intelligent designer does the same thing. One alternative is to
postulate the existence of an infinite plurality of centers of
experience, each experiencing a different manifestation of order
(similar to Everett's "Many Worlds Interpretation" of the quantum
theory -- perhaps the greatest violation of Occam's Razor ever?)
Finally, we could postulate the existence of a single "possibility of
all manifestation of order" out of which different actualities
precipitate. I may be wrong about this but this last option is the way I
interpret Plotinus' cosmology -- the One engenders all possible aspects
of multiplicity as Nous, each actual instantiation of Nous engenders all
possible aspects of temporal order as Universal Soul, and each actual
instantiation of Universal Soul engenders all possible aspects of
spatio-temporal order as Nature (encompassing all "individual souls", or
centers of subjective experience, though he also claims that the
Universal Soul and individual souls are siblings rather than progenitor
and progeny.)
Bill Lewis Clark
dropping posts for some reason, and this one only just today
re-appeared for me.]
"andy-k" <spam....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message news:<goKqa.6$bf7....@newsfep2-win.server.ntli.net>...
> That "certain set of features" is what I was referring to as "order",
> otherwise don't we have featureless disorder?
Order and disorder are inter-related concepts. If one is illusory, so
is the other. I believe things just *are* -- no order, no disorder.
We add the rest ourselves.
> That "natural process in the world" is what I was referring to as
> "order".
I doubt that. All I meant by that phrase was that it happens in the
same way everything else in the world happens (i.e. no Cartesian
split, with a different set of rules for the physical vs. the mental.)
Using the term "process" was probably a bad idea, since it likely
implies some sense of order to most people.
It's really very difficult to clearly express some of the ideas I
have, since I do think that our notion of order pervades (nearly)
everything in our experience. Everything in our language is geared
toward expressions of order.
> The problem I'm hitting up against here is that if there really is no
> order in the world, then it is uniformly disordered.
What I'm suggesting is that the concepts of order *and* disorder don't
really apply to the world, at least not in the way we typically think
they do. Very roughly, I'm saying that order is something like a
secondary quality.
The world just is the way it is. We see order (and disorder) in it --
but that's just a result of the way we perceive the world (which is a
result of the way our minds work.)
The best analogy I can think of at the moment is of a dual-image
optical illusion, something like Wittgenstein's duck-rabbit. You look
at a line drawing, and at first it looks like a rabbit. You *see* a
rabbit. But then you look another time, and it looks like a duck. In
fact, there are just a collection of lines, and what you see depends
on how you look at it. I think our perception of order (or disorder)
in the world is something like that.
If you're unfamiliar with the duck-rabbit, here is a picture:
http://home.clara.net/rodneysaunders/illusions/duck.htm
> The Ancient Greeks held the belief that the earth was disk shaped, and
> their later hypotheses had it as cylindrical, and eventually spheroidal.
> We now have overwhelming evidence that the earth is spheroidal. Are we
> gaining increasingly accurate knowledge about a real earth?
If it's okay, I'd rather hold off on this question until we have some
better mutual understanding of the other points.
-Bill Lewis Clark
Bill Lewis Clark
> I don't see how the existence of order in the mind can be explained
> by postulating that it is a representation of some aspect of order
> in an extra-mental material world -- that just demands an explanation
> for the existence of order in the world, getting us no further,
> whilst at the same time adding an entity.
Okay, that's the same point I was trying to make (obvious erroneously)
about your position, so we're in agreement here.
> One alternative is to postulate the existence of an infinite plurality
> of centers of experience, each experiencing a different manifestation
> of order
I don't quite follow your meaning here. Could you elaborate?
It's been a while since I studied the classics, so if you could put it
in terms other than those of the ancient Greeks, or provide some
additional interpretation of contentious terms like "nous", it would
help me tremendously.
-Bill Lewis Clark
andy-k
> [Note: Apologies for responding to this so late... Google keeps
> dropping posts for some reason, and this one only just today
> re-appeared for me.]
The grade of service through my ISP's newsgroup servers is poor too -- I
think it may have something to do with the traffic load on Usenet now
that people are sending large files like software, music, and video
clips. I have a window between around midnight and around 8 AM through
which I can send and receive over Usenet, which does nothing for
spontaneity!
(Wasn't that one of Wittgenstein's?)
Yes -- you clearly have a grasp of my problem: I can't "think beyond"
the contents of experience exhibiting some level of order on a spectrum
that ranges from uniform disorder through to uniform order. Even in
organisms that have no conception of order, their own existence would be
questionable if the world exhibited no degree of order (even simple
phototropism and goetropism are essentially the exploitation of order in
the environment, without which flora and fauna of any complexity simply
wouldn't exist.)
Even simpler than the duck-rabbit picture, the wire-frame cube picture
can be seen in two different configurations, but if you view it as a 2D
drawing (instead of the 3D object that the brain "forces upon you") then
there is a third view as just a collection of lines on paper -- but a
*disordered* collection of lines on paper doesn't make the brain force
the same interpretation upon us. It is the presence of order that
characterizes the world in which we find ourselves, else we wouldn't
find ourselves in it.
> > The Ancient Greeks held the belief that the earth was disk shaped,
> > and their later hypotheses had it as cylindrical, and eventually
> > spheroidal. We now have overwhelming evidence that the earth is
> > spheroidal. Are we gaining increasingly accurate knowledge about a
> > real earth?
>
> If it's okay, I'd rather hold off on this question until we have some
> better mutual understanding of the other points.
No problem Bill.
"Bill Lewis Clark" <wcl...@eden.rutgers.edu> wrote in message
news:29b75758.03043...@posting.google.com...
> "andy-k" <spam....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
With solipsism there is only one center of experience exhibiting only
one sequence of order, so the question arises as to "why this particular
sequence?"
With pluralism there may be as many centers of experience as there are
different configurations of contents, so the question no longer arises.
The best explanation I've seen of this latter position is given by
Julian Barbour in his book "The End of Time", where he begins by
positing the domain of all triplets (objects identified by three pure
numbers.) These can be represented as points in a 3D phase-space, and
the triplet that identifies any particular point is given simply by its
coordinates on the three orthogonal phase-space axes.
Now as soon as we impose some kind of lawful constraint upon these
triplets, we restrict the phase-space to a subspace of the whole space.
Take his example of insisting that each triplet represent a triangle --
we are now imposing the triangle law which excludes triplets like 1,0,1;
1,2,3; 1,1,2; etc. (he calls this "triangle space", and it fits within
"triplet space" but is not co-extensive with it.) Constraints "carve
out" a subspace. And a world-line drawn through triangle space would be
a representation of a triangle of continuously changing parameters.
He moves on to consider a phase-space wherein all possible
configurations of the cosmos are represented (he still regards the
cosmos as objective rather than a subjective perception) and calls this
domain "Platonia" (emphasizing his Platonist position.) The way our
cosmos evolved is now represented by a world-line through Platonia. All
possible cosmoi are represented in Platonia, so there's no question of
why this particular one "exists" (though there remains a question as to
why this particular one is experienced.)
Immortalist
> "Bill Lewis Clark" <wcl...@eden.rutgers.edu> wrote in message
> news:29b75758.03043...@posting.google.com...
> > [Note: Apologies for responding to this so late... Google keeps
> > dropping posts for some reason, and this one only just today
> > re-appeared for me.]
>
> The grade of service through my ISP's newsgroup servers is poor too -- I
> think it may have something to do with the traffic load on Usenet now
> that people are sending large files like software, music, and video
> clips. I have a window between around midnight and around 8 AM through
> which I can send and receive over Usenet, which does nothing for
> spontaneity!
>
If you have a newsreader installed carefully click on this to get a free
news server which has alt.philosophy. Works even with aol as server. Beware,
it will ask if you want to download all the newsgroup names but once you
click the process hass begun!.
http://tinyurl.com/ass0
But if you want to be cautious read this first but the above link is to the
free server with the most newsgroups:
http://freenews.maxbaud.net/
Used to be able to fool library computers before google and altavista.
Immortalist
"Immortalist" <Reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:vb439mb...@corp.supernews.com...
>
> "andy-k" <spam....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:FFnsa.190$qK6...@newsfep1-gui.server.ntli.net...
> > "Bill Lewis Clark" <wcl...@eden.rutgers.edu> wrote in message
> > news:29b75758.03043...@posting.google.com...
> > > [Note: Apologies for responding to this so late... Google keeps
> > > dropping posts for some reason, and this one only just today
> > > re-appeared for me.]
> >
> > The grade of service through my ISP's newsgroup servers is poor too -- I
> > think it may have something to do with the traffic load on Usenet now
> > that people are sending large files like software, music, and video
> > clips. I have a window between around midnight and around 8 AM through
> > which I can send and receive over Usenet, which does nothing for
> > spontaneity!
> >
>
> If you have a newsreader installed carefully click on this to get a free
> news server which has alt.philosophy. Works even with aol as server.
Beware,
> it will ask if you want to download all the newsgroup names but once you
> click the process hass begun!.
> http://tinyurl.com/ass0
>
> But if you want to be cautious read this first but the above link is to
the
> free server with the most newsgroups:
> http://freenews.maxbaud.net/
>
> Used to be able to fool library computers before google and altavista.
>
A wider perspective on "free news servers"
http://www.newzbot.com/
http://tinyurl.com/asse
andy-k
free
> news server which has alt.philosophy. Works even with aol as server.
Beware,
> it will ask if you want to download all the newsgroup names but once
you
> click the process hass begun!.
> http://tinyurl.com/ass0
>
> But if you want to be cautious read this first but the above link is
to the
> free server with the most newsgroups:
> http://freenews.maxbaud.net/
>
> Used to be able to fool library computers before google and altavista.
Immortalist you never cease to amaze me! Was Turtle0 right? (I enjoyed
your reply to his post!)
Outlook Express complains that it can't send to this server so I may
have to make some adjustments.
Thanks.
Immortalist
Go to tools, acounts, news tab
click on the one that has "gwdg" in it
click properties
click on "server" tab
Put one of these three below until one lets you post to groups.
news.gwdg.de
gwdu112.gwdg.de
news.gwdu112.gwdg.de
One of those should work if not come back.
.....................
http://www.gwdg.de/
>
andy-k
>
> Go to tools, acounts, news tab
> click on the one that has "gwdg" in it
> click properties
> click on "server" tab
> Put one of these three below until one lets you post to groups.
>
> news.gwdg.de
No Server Error: 440
No Server Error: 440
Socket Error: 11001
Immortalist
I will check it out further. Are you trying it with AOL?
>
Jeff Relf
Using that NNTP server , gwdu112.GWDG.DE ,
I can read , but not post to Alt.Philosophy .
Do I have to register ?
It's no big deal , I have other servers.
I mostly use News.CIS.DFN.DE , It's free ,
and it works perfectly .
I think it takes a long time to register with them .
The Immortalist wrote :
" Used to be able to fool library computers before
Google and AltaVista . "
That was a long time ago ,
I'm sure that you've since moved on from there.
andy-k
>
> I will check it out further. Are you trying it with AOL?
No, ntl.
Immortalist
this one might help
http://freenews.maxbaud.net/faq.html
>
Bill Lewis Clark
of free time on my hands, but these past couple weeks I've been
spending more time than usual teaching math to elementary school kids,
and this weekend I was moonlighting as a limo driver. (And here I
thought my job description was "Philosopher." :)
That never stops me from doing philosophy, however, and while I was
sitting in the limo waiting for my passengers to return from the
'Sixers playoff game, I watched "The Matrix" (again) and did some
thinking.
So anyway, back to the thread...
"andy-k" <spam....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message news:<FFnsa.190$qK6...@newsfep1-gui.server.ntli.net>...
> Yes -- you clearly have a grasp of my problem: I can't "think beyond"
> the contents of experience exhibiting some level of order on a spectrum
> that ranges from uniform disorder through to uniform order.
Here's another way I try to think about order/disorder and what
actually exists in the world:
Consider an encrypted file on a computer. This is a special type of
file that, if de-encrypted with one program will reveal a boring text
file of a grocery list, but if de-encrypted with a different program
will reveal a beautiful image of a Picasso painting.
What's "in" the encrypted file depends on which program is used to
interpret it. I think this is similar to the situation with our
perceptions of order/disorder. A certain state of affairs in the
world is ordered (or disordered) only in relation to our perception
(interpretation) of it. To a different mind, perceiving in a
different way, the concepts of order and disorder simply don't appear.
The bits in the file (the state of affairs in the world) are very much
real. To one program (the human mind) the file (world) contains a
grocery list (order or disorder.) To another program (an alien mind)
the file (world) contains an image of a Picasso (something other than
order/disorder.)
Certain purely mechanical transformations are possible, with regards
to the bits themselves. This is analogous to actual natural processes
happening in the real world, which give rise to our laws of physics,
change, etc.
Those transformations that preserve or respect certain features of the
"order/disorder" decoding of the file will correspond to ordered
(lawlike) rearrangements of the world as perceived by the human mind.
However -- and this is why I say that the concepts of order/disorder
aren't "important" in the world itself -- I think the full range of
natural transformations includes ones that *don't* correspond to
anything the human mind would perceive as ordered or lawlike.
Some rearrangements of the bits will just swap entries in the grocery
list when the file is decrypted, but others will corrupt the file
beyond repair so that the end result looks completely nonsensical.
However, those corrupting rearrangements may also be ones that make
perfect sense, in the context of the *other* decryption program (maybe
they change the hues in the Picasso slightly.)
I realize that my analogies all contain some appeal to a sense of
order or disorder, in order to make their points. Unfortunately,
there doesn't seem to be any way to escape that, since I concede that
the concept of order/disorder *is* so deeply ingrained into the way we
conceive of the world. Indeed, that's my whole point, that the
concept of order colors *everything* in our (rational) experience --
but that this all-importance doesn't extend any further, into the rest
of the world itself.
> It is the presence of order that characterizes the world in which
> we find ourselves, else we wouldn't find ourselves in it.
This isn't too far off from what I'm trying to say, although our
interpretations of what it means seem to be completely at odds. I'd
paraphrase it: It is the presense of order that characterizes our
perception of the world, else we wouldn't be able to perceive it.
> With solipsism there is only one center of experience exhibiting only
> one sequence of order, so the question arises as to "why this particular
> sequence?"
> With pluralism there may be as many centers of experience as there are
> different configurations of contents, so the question no longer arises.
Your talk of "centers of experience" reminds me of what Chalmers'
calls "centered worlds." The world as each of us experiences is isn't
just a collection of objects arranged in a certain way, and changing
in a certain way with time -- it's all that *plus* a designated
"center", where the observer exists. The world (as we understand it)
always includes a point of view.
Each of these centered worlds *exists*, even if only as models in
individual brains. However, if we take a more realist stance on
subjectivity and consciousness (as Chalmers himself seems to) then the
multitude of centered worlds exist in a much stronger sense, and I
think this corresponds to what you're describing with your reference
to "Platonia."
> The best explanation I've seen of this latter position is given by
> Julian Barbour in his book "The End of Time",
His concept of time seems a bit confused, from what little I've
gathered on his ideas (and admittedly, that's very little so far.) In
particular, consider the following quote from his website:
"But physics had been developed under the assumption that time exists
and flows independently of the objects in the world. I felt this was
quite wrong and that physics must be recast on a new timeless
foundation." (From http://www.platonia.com/about.html )
That's very much *not* the case, if we're to take the orthodox view of
the "flow" of time as being a part of the A-series. McTaggart
introduced the notions of A-series and B-series interpretations of
time, and suggested that the unreality of the A-series implied the
unreality of the B-series -- but this conclusion is far from accepted.
Scientists, in particular, make frequent use of the B-series (akin to
time-as-dimension) while basically rejecting the A-series
(time-as-flow.)
Barbour seems to equate "time" with only the A-series, and thinks that
this is what other physicists are doing as well. He then suggests we
view "time" as describing something like the B-series -- which is what
most other scientists are doing already! So far as I know, few (if
any) contemporary physicists take the A-series seriously. Only (some)
philosophers still think of time as "flowing."
A good explanation of all of this A-series/B-series stuff, and how it
relates to modern physics, can be found in Palle Yourgrau's book
"Goedel Meets Einstein: Time Travel in the Goedel Universe."
> He moves on to consider a phase-space wherein all possible
> configurations of the cosmos are represented (he still regards the
> cosmos as objective rather than a subjective perception) and calls this
> domain "Platonia" (emphasizing his Platonist position.) The way our
> cosmos evolved is now represented by a world-line through Platonia. All
> possible cosmoi are represented in Platonia, so there's no question of
> why this particular one "exists" (though there remains a question as to
> why this particular one is experienced.)
That last question, which arises in a different form in the Many-World
Interpretation of QM, is basically the same as the one you raised
regarding solipsism. That's the big, inescapable "Why?" that's
present in any attempt to describe the world. The form of the
question changes, depending on how you describe the situation, but it
will always reassert itself, one way or the other.
-Bill Lewis Clark
--
"Whether you suffer from Glaucoma, or you just rented The Matrix,
medical marijuana can make things fabulous... medically!" -- Homer J.
Simpson
andy-k
I think I "sort of" understand what you're saying here, but the problem
I have is that I don't think that order needs to be perceived for it to
be order. A set of numbers may *appear* random, but in fact be only
pseudo-random.
The way I would view your example of the file that can be decrypted as
either a grocery list or as a Picasso painting is that the file has an
element of order from which two (almost orthogonal) subsets of order may
be filtered. It would also be possible to filter many other subsets of
data that are incapable of generating any experienced order at all. None
of this precludes the existence of a file for which no filtered subsets
give rise to any kind of experienced order, and I would call such a file
"uniformly disordered".
I guess you're going to argue that I'm stuck in a closed conceptual
system that prevents me "seeing outside the box", which is why I said
that I "sort of" understand what you're saying.
> > It is the presence of order that characterizes the world in which
> > we find ourselves, else we wouldn't find ourselves in it.
>
> This isn't too far off from what I'm trying to say, although our
> interpretations of what it means seem to be completely at odds. I'd
> paraphrase it: It is the presense of order that characterizes our
> perception of the world, else we wouldn't be able to perceive it.
I'm still stuck inside the box here -- the way I see this is that the
"real" world encompasses many possible kinds of order, but that the
human mind perceives (filters out) only a very limited subset of those
kinds of order.
> > With solipsism there is only one center of experience exhibiting
> > only one sequence of order, so the question arises as to "why this
> > particular sequence?"
>
> > With pluralism there may be as many centers of experience as there
> > different configurations of contents, so the question no longer
> > arises.
>
> Your talk of "centers of experience" reminds me of what Chalmers'
> calls "centered worlds." The world as each of us experiences is isn't
> just a collection of objects arranged in a certain way, and changing
> in a certain way with time -- it's all that *plus* a designated
> "center", where the observer exists. The world (as we understand it)
> always includes a point of view.
>
> Each of these centered worlds *exists*, even if only as models in
> individual brains. However, if we take a more realist stance on
> subjectivity and consciousness (as Chalmers himself seems to) then the
> multitude of centered worlds exist in a much stronger sense, and I
> think this corresponds to what you're describing with your reference
> to "Platonia."
In Chalmer's original work (I've not read much of his recent stuff) he
ascribes conscious experience to the fundamental units of the physical
cosmos as if it were an extra attribute in addition to such things as
mass, charge, spin, etc. But once we have introduced conscious
experience I don't see why we need to hang on to the postulate of
anything that *isn't* experiential (i.e. predicate it upon some
non-experiential substrate), which now (devoid of any such substrate)
kind of harks back to Leibniz' monadology.
Barbour proposes an entirely objective Platonia that encompasses all
possible configurations of the physical cosmos, and fails to explain why
there is any experience of it. I took the same approach, but proposed an
entirely experiential Platonia that encompasses all possible
configurations of the experienced cosmos. I think this is consistent
with Whitehead's process ontology, and with James' radical empiricism
(and possibly with Bergson's intuitionism and Husserl's phenomenology).
Barbours attempt is worthy of a read, but I feel he ultimately falls
victim to the mire he set out to extricate himself from. But that
subject's a whole 'nother thread.
> > He moves on to consider a phase-space wherein all possible
> > configurations of the cosmos are represented (he still regards the
> > cosmos as objective rather than a subjective perception) and calls
> > this domain "Platonia" (emphasizing his Platonist position.) The way
> > our cosmos evolved is now represented by a world-line through
> > Platonia. All possible cosmoi are represented in Platonia, so
> > there's no question of why this particular one "exists" (though
> > there remains a question as to why this particular one is
> > experienced.)
>
> That last question, which arises in a different form in the Many-World
> Interpretation of QM, is basically the same as the one you raised
> regarding solipsism. That's the big, inescapable "Why?" that's
> present in any attempt to describe the world. The form of the
> question changes, depending on how you describe the situation, but it
> will always reassert itself, one way or the other.
Hence my recourse to the experiential philosophies (Leibniz, James,
Whitehead, Bergson, Husserl.)
Bill Lewis Clark
> I think I "sort of" understand what you're saying here, but the
> problem I have is that I don't think that order needs to be
> perceived for it to be order. A set of numbers may *appear*
> random, but in fact be only pseudo-random.
That's a different point than what I'm getting at. I'm not trying to
say that order is merely perceived in the sense that something isn't
ordered unless somebody happens to notice that it is -- I'm saying the
whole *concept* of order is something that exists only in our
perceptions.
We can still correctly or incorrectly apply that concept, however,
which I believe is more along the lines of what you're saying here.
> I guess you're going to argue that I'm stuck in a closed
> conceptual system that prevents me "seeing outside the box",
> which is why I said that I "sort of" understand what you're
> saying.
I'd say you're like the fly stuck in the bottle, yes -- but so am I.
Perhaps a good exercise would be to really think about how one might
go about explaining just what "order" means, to some alien mind that
has no concept of it. No fair appealing to mathematical models,
either, since they presuppose some level of familiarity with the
concept of order already.
I think that ultimately, any explanation of *order* is going to
involve an understanding of rules and rule-following. And there we
get into Wittgenstein, of course.
> I'm still stuck inside the box here -- the way I see this is that
> the "real" world encompasses many possible kinds of order, but that
> the human mind perceives (filters out) only a very limited subset
> of those kinds of order.
I worry that it might be misleading to use the label "order" here, but
other than that I think you've basically captured my point.
I think the "filtering" you talk about is related not only to order,
but also to simplicity, obviousness, and several other concepts that
all seem to be inter-related. I also think these concepts are at the
very foundation of logic and mathematics (and thus of rationality and
scientific thought in general.) In fact, thinking about the
foundations of mathematics is what got me into this whole line of
thought in the first place, years back.
> In Chalmer's original work (I've not read much of his recent stuff)
> he ascribes conscious experience to the fundamental units of the
> physical cosmos as if it were an extra attribute in addition to such
> things as mass, charge, spin, etc.
That's also in line with his recent work, as well. He seems to be
moving in the direction of some sort of neutral monism (what he calls
"Type-F Monism.")
> But once we have introduced conscious experience I don't see why
> we need to hang on to the postulate of anything that *isn't*
> experiential (i.e. predicate it upon some non-experiential
> substrate), which now (devoid of any such substrate) kind of
> harks back to Leibniz' monadology.
Well, there is a fine line between a neutral monism and an idealist
one. I think in Chalmers' case at least, the distinction is in what
type of laws apply to the substance in the world. If at least some of
the substance of our experience is bound by mathematical laws that
seem to operate independently of our will, then that would probably be
considered grounds for considering that substance "matter."
> Barbour proposes an entirely objective Platonia that encompasses
> all possible configurations of the physical cosmos, and fails to
> explain why there is any experience of it. I took the same approach,
> but proposed an entirely experiential Platonia that encompasses all
> possible configurations of the experienced cosmos. I think this is
> consistent with Whitehead's process ontology, and with James'
> radical empiricism (and possibly with Bergson's intuitionism and
> Husserl's phenomenology).
Whitehead and James were both heavily influenced by Charles Peirce,
who actually proposed a model for reality that isn't too different
from what you suggest. You might want to read "Science, Knowledge,
and Mind: A Study in the Philosophy of C.S. Peirce" by C.F. Delaney.
It includes a section on Peirce's ontology, as well as a detailed
study of his philosophy of science.
In short, Peirce thought reality went through a process of evolution.
Initially, it consisted of every type of experience and every
arrangement of substance that could possibly exist. Eventually,
through a process that exists outside our normal measure of time,
various possibilities within reality faded away, while others
reinforced themselves and became more real. The ones that remained
are those that make up the universe as we know it (past, present, and
future.)
Peirce also held to a sort of neutral monism, though in his case he
considered it more a form of idealism (although it would probably
still fall under the category of Chalmers' "Type-F Monism.")
-wclark
andy-k
> "andy-k" <spam....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:<aB%va.55$3E5...@newsfep1-gui.server.ntli.net>...
>
> > I think I "sort of" understand what you're saying here, but the
> > problem I have is that I don't think that order needs to be
> > perceived for it to be order. A set of numbers may *appear*
> > random, but in fact be only pseudo-random.
>
> That's a different point than what I'm getting at. I'm not trying to
> say that order is merely perceived in the sense that something isn't
> ordered unless somebody happens to notice that it is -- I'm saying the
> whole *concept* of order is something that exists only in our
> perceptions.
>
> We can still correctly or incorrectly apply that concept, however,
> which I believe is more along the lines of what you're saying here.
Sure, but it leaves me with a kind of bootstrap problem.
> > I guess you're going to argue that I'm stuck in a closed
> > conceptual system that prevents me "seeing outside the box",
> > which is why I said that I "sort of" understand what you're
> > saying.
>
> I'd say you're like the fly stuck in the bottle, yes -- but so am I.
>
> Perhaps a good exercise would be to really think about how one might
> go about explaining just what "order" means, to some alien mind that
> has no concept of it. No fair appealing to mathematical models,
> either, since they presuppose some level of familiarity with the
> concept of order already.
>
> I think that ultimately, any explanation of *order* is going to
> involve an understanding of rules and rule-following. And there we
> get into Wittgenstein, of course.
Any attempt to explain the meaning of order is, of course, grounded in
an ordered world, otherwise no such explanation would be possible -- if
there were no periodicity (in whatever kind of phase space we may wish
to envisage it) then there would be no order, no alien to question it,
and no "me" to attempt the explanation. I have a friend, a retired
industrial physicist, who defines order in terms of the amount of
information required to completely describe the system under
investigation, but here again we get into another semantic problem (the
problem of defining "information") that keeps us "inside the bottle".
It's a sticky one.
Thanks for the reference Bill -- I'll see if I can get hold of a copy of
Delaney's book.
Bill Lewis Clark
> Sure, but it leaves me with a kind of bootstrap problem.
Yes, and that bootstrap problem is ineliminable from any rational
understanding.
Rational understanding itself imposes the stamp of order (or disorder)
on everything it contains, so the process itself is never going to let
us grasp the entirety of its own operation. We'll never be able to
conceptualize the portion of it that takes "raw" experience (that to
which the concept of order hasn't yet been applied) and fits it to our
understanding.
Think of understanding (or maybe perception) as a function that takes
us from raw experience of the world, to concepts of it. Any artifacts
of operation are going to show up in *every* conception, they're going
to "color" *everything* we experience. Hegel discussed this at one
point, and concluded that the problem was ineliminable.
That doesn't mean the situation is hopeless, however. Just because we
can never *fully* (rationally) understand the process of rational
understanding, doesn't mean we can't get arbitrarily close.
> Any attempt to explain the meaning of order is, of course, grounded
> in an ordered world, otherwise no such explanation would be possible
Equivalently, any attempt to explain the meaning of order is, of
course, grounded in a process that by its very nature imposes a stamp
of "order" or "disorder" on everything it contains. So, no (rational)
explanation is possible except those that include a concept of order
from the very beginning.
My argument is that we shouldn't draw an ontological conclusion from
the epistemic one. The (non-circular) irreducibility of concepts like
"order" should be a huge warning sign that maybe we're dealing with an
artifact of our brain's operation, rather than something
(significantly) in the rest of the world.
> if there were no periodicity (in whatever kind of phase space we
> may wish to envisage it)
It's the act of envisioning it that gets us stuck.
> I have a friend, a retired industrial physicist, who defines order
> in terms of the amount of information required to completely describe
> the system under investigation, but here again we get into another
> semantic problem (the problem of defining "information") that keeps
> us "inside the bottle".
Precisely.
> It's a sticky one.
Indeed.
Cheers,
-Bill Lewis Clark
andy-k
Hmm... I find this approach rather unsatisfying.
Whitehead attempted to explain order as a tendency to maximize the
intensity of experience (subjective aim, or objectification, involves
the elimination of incompatibilities because incompatibilities conflict
and reduce intensity of experience.) Intensity is increased if the data
are compatible but also in contrast, giving rise to the experience of a
world of opposites. An actual entity and all interrelated actual
entities form a 'society' with a common conception of order, so order is
social -- it is created only by common assent. Thus a society becomes
self-sustaining: it is its own reason. Values are thus genetic (and not
merely contemporaneous and causally independent), giving rise to
endurance. It is societies that exhibit endurance, not actual entities.
Thus essential and accidental properties pertain not to actual entities
but to societies. Societies can react to changing circumstances, and so
have a history. Actual entities cannot; they simply become and perish.
All enduring entities are societies of actual entities, but not all
societies are enduring. A society is constituted by a group of actual
entities exhibiting a particular 'order', the shared defining
characteristics of that society. It is this order which takes a serial
form (i.e. endures) in an enduring entity.
I'm still struggling to understand Whitehead's ideas, since I find his
book "Process and Reality" far too heavy-going, and most secondary
sources far too superficial.