When you say that "1+1=2 exists," what exactly is the nonphysical thing that you're claiming exists?
I am claiming that the correlation between adding those two values to obtain the third value is what exists independent of time and space.
Whoa there, I may be rusty on this, but as far as I know, you haven't demonstrated that these "values" of "one and one together is called two" exist even within space-time. The different numbers are just words to describe something else that does exist. Labeling something with a "value" only makes it easier for someone like me decipher; it does not mean numbers exist in any physical or non-physical way.
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I am claiming that the correlation between adding those two values to obtain the third value is what exists independent of time and space.
But are you asserting the existence of an actual thing, or merely saying that a particular statement is true? "1+1=2" is just a true statement of number theory. What good does it do you to attempt to introduce some ephemeral thing that represents the truth of that statement and endow that thing with metaphysical existence? What more are you saying, what additional inquiries do you open up, what do you add to the quest for truth by adding this seemingly unnecessary metaphysics? Why not simply say that the statement is true and leave it at that?[/QUOTE]
Because why is such a correlation so good at approximating the processes we observe in reality? Is it because reality follows those patterns? But, how can matter act according to something that doesn't exist? Well maybe it exists, just in a different way that isn't dependent on the properties of reality we like to apply to most other things.
Whoa there, I may be rusty on this, but as far as I know, you haven't demonstrated that these "values" of "one and one together is called two" exist even within space-time. The different numbers are just words to describe something else that does exist. Labeling something with a "value" only makes it easier for someone like me decipher; it does not mean numbers exist in any physical or non-physical way.
A correlation is basically showing pattern between numbers and/or variables, that in the instance 1 is added to 1, you will always see a 2 (in a non-modular system). You are saying that the patterns that we see matter following don't exist, which means matter can't be following those patterns that we observe matter following which is a contradiction. If those patterns don't in any way exist, how can matter follow them or act according to them? If those patterns didn't exist, then matter would be incapable of acting according to them. They have to exist in some way if it is in fact true that matter is acting according to those patterns.
Whoa there, I may be rusty on this, but as far as I know, you haven't demonstrated that these "values" of "one and one together is called two" exist even within space-time. The different numbers are just words to describe something else that does exist. Labeling something with a "value" only makes it easier for someone like me decipher; it does not mean numbers exist in any physical or non-physical way.
A correlation is basically showing pattern between numbers and/or variables, that in the instance 1 is added to 1, you will always see a 2 (in a non-modular system). You are saying that the pattern that we see matter following doesn't exist, which means matter can't be following those patterns that we observe matter following which is a contradiction.
Or a coincidence. Let's see what you wrote schematized:
1. A correlation is a pattern shown between numbers and variables.
2.There is the pattern of one and one is marked as two.
3. Mockingbird claims this pattern does not exist.
4. Matter has the pattern of one with one more makes two.
______________________
C. Mockingbird cannot believe the pattern exists within matter.
While crude on my end (feel free to correct me, I'm rusty here), I fail to see the contradiction.
If those patterns didn't exist, then matter would be incapable of acting according to them. They have to exist in some way if it is in fact true that matter is acting according to those patterns.
Are you sure?
If an apple drops next to another apple, then sure, I see 1+1=2, but that does not mean necessitate that numbers exist. There is an apple, then there is another apple. I invent the number two so that I can have a concept to wrap my brain around the idea that such a thing exists, but I have not invented two as a existing thing, but merely a label to act as a crutch as I hobble through this strange world.
Then, I propose what you're looking for simply doesn't exist.
Not physically, which is exactly what I was saying. And in addition, if those things only exist in your thoughts, what does that say about your thoughts? How can you think of something that doesn't exist if thoughts are purely physical? If it doesn't exist at all, there should be no way to think of it. And, if you cannot use your own interpretation of your brain as any basis of what physically exists, i.e. you chose that thoughts and conceptions are only representations of what the thought is about and what is being perceived, then you cannot trust that anything else physically exists, you have no reason to assume that the electrical impulses are in any way reflective of actual reality and so have no basis for physicalism.
You appear to be saying that "1+1=2" is not physical, but it exists, and therefore physicalism is false.
One move is to just deny that 1+1=2 exists, and tell you that descriptions and math are not up for existing, they're just true or false. This seems to motivate your second point.
In the first place though, this does not follow, for the reason that physicalism, if I can trust the SEP, is a bit more sophisticated than that. Physicalism might take the form of supervenience physicalism, which might claim something like "All there is to reality is settled by its physical description", so, more exactly, "Any two possible states may differ in some way only if they differ in a physical way." "1+1=2"'s existence requires only that it be immutable in all physically identical universes. Considering it is mathematically immutable as a theorem, I don't see that status in jeopardy.
Your second reach into argument is to me quite fancy-looking, where you seem to be saying that:
1. I think of a phelddagriff
2. >I have a thought about a phelddagriff
3. My thought is physical (because Physicalism)
4. My thought is about something
5. That something must exist (because 4 and some unspecified rule of inference)
6. My thought is about something physical (because Physicalism)
7. The pheldagriff is physical (because of some kind of affirmation of the consequent fallacy)
But 5 has no basis. It just misunderstands the meaning of 'about', and again presupposes some kind of constraint on intentionality and the realm of description that none of us are bothered to dismiss. "aboutness" is not a relationship between things that exist, it is some kind of qualifier of things that do exist (the special intentionality-bearing things) in respect of other descriptions/math, just like I can make a plain descriptive or mathematical statement.
And last, even your jump to supposing that the thought's content would have to be physical, in your logic, is not an inference, it's just some crummy wordplay, no different from me saying my car has front-wheel drive , my car has a full tank of gas, therefore front-wheel drive is a full tank of gas.
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Because why is such a correlation so good at approximating the processes we observe in reality? Is it because reality follows those patterns? But, how can matter act according to something that doesn't exist?
Your argument here appears to rely on an implicit claim that the real universe doesn't have any of its own properties or isn't the ontological source of anything -- that any pattern the universe exhibits must have been imprinted on it from without by an anterior existence.
Well, why should we believe that? Why can't the real universe be the ontological prior of the patterns within it? (Note: I'm not here arguing that it actually is -- only that in order for this argument to run, you bear the burden of showing that it isn't -- a burden you have not so much as engaged with, much less discharged.)
Well maybe it exists, just in a different way that isn't dependent on the properties of reality we like to apply to most other things.
It doesn't make any difference to say that it exists. By saying it exists, you only place a bizarre and irrelevant metaphysical burden of proof on yourself. Identify a rationally effective or meaningful difference between the following two statements:
Or a coincidence. Let's see what you wrote schematized:
1. A correlation is a pattern shown between numbers and variables.
2.There is the pattern of one and one is marked as two.
3. Mockingbird claims this pattern does not exist.
4. Matter has the pattern of one with one more makes two.
______________________
C. Mockingbird cannot believe the pattern exists within matter.
While crude on my end (feel free to correct me, I'm rusty here), I fail to see the contradiction.
If a pattern doesn't at all exist, then matter can't follow it, logically. Imagine the mathematical principal of a triangle couldn't possible exist. If that were true, we would never see what we could call trigonometric patterns in matter and we wouldn't even have a concept of a triangle, just as we have no concept of a ahioethsiuthseiukrthnvsenk. A purple unicorn you imagine might not exist, but the patterns that define it's shape exist and that's why you can imagine those patterns to form the shape of a unicorn. Regardless, even if we'll never know the exact answer, our observations seem to show there are clear patterns. There is also a correlation to data itself that tries to determine how much of a coincidence a certain set of data which was invented by a psychiatrist more than a hundred years ago.
If an apple drops next to another apple, then sure, I see 1+1=2, but that does not mean necessitate that numbers exist. There is an apple, then there is another apple. I invent the number two so that I can have a concept to wrap my brain around the idea that such a thing exists, but I have not invented two as a existing thing, but merely a label to act as a crutch as I hobble through this strange world.
It doesn't mean they "physically" exist, but if you're saying observations don't reflect what exists, then you must accept that you have no reason to believe that any other particular thing should exist because everything you observe is only based on your observations that are the result of interpretations of your brain. We may not be observing "1+1=2", but we can observe matter following that pattern, so the pattern must exist. As I said before, if the pattern didn't exist, it couldn't be followed. Whether you decide it's a marble, space-time or a number, it is all perceived and conceived in one's mind. The thing about things that exist appears to be that they can be observed by more than one mind in some manner.
Your argument here appears to rely on an implicit claim that the real universe doesn't have any of its own properties or isn't the ontological source of anything -- that any pattern the universe exhibits must have been imprinted on it from without by an anterior existence.
From the way we define mathematics, numbers can simply possess a wide range of specific properties independent of time and space that have logical bound, unlike non-existent objects that are not subject to any limitation of existence. They can't exist outside of existence itself, that doesn't mean anything. If you say you have a better model than science, then you are essentially jettisoning the extrapolating of a logical pattern from data and thus you arrive at a point where there is no reason to believe any given theory, even your own.
Because scientific observations can be modeled very accurately according to specific patterns and we can see properties of independence from time and space in different experiments and theoretical physics.
Why can't the real universe be the ontological prior of the patterns within it?
Because there is no "prior" if you're outside of time. You define physical as "residing within time and space", but some things don't need to be put into terms of time and space in order to extrapolate their properties or to behave in certain ways, like for instance mathematics which we seem to observe matter acting in accordance to. For all we know, the dimensions of time and space don't exist, but you assume physical reality is based around them because we have a lot of properties and tested physics based around those dimensions, so in order for those standards to be upheld, you must also consider the existence of patterns.
A: "1+1=2" is true.
B: The truth of "1+1=2" exists.
I don't see a difference, and that's the point of my argument. If something isn't logically the case and logically isn't existent, then we will never physically observe matter following that pattern. For instance, any atom has a certain probability of existing in it's measured location. Why don't we frequently observe things like a table spontaneously teleporting everywhere? According to our current models, tables mathematically just do not have an uncertainty in their position that is great enough to allow us to frequently measuring them doing so; it is extremely extremely unlikely. It suggests that if a table mathematically was in fact more delocalized, then we would actually see random things teleporting everywhere.
As much of a burden of proof there is for me, there is also at least the same for hard physicalists trying to figure out a way to boil everything down into a simple parameters of existence. I already referenced real phenomena in which we can more accurately see the bizarre relationship between less physical properties like mathematics and what you call physical reality. Does anyone have any evidence that every conceivable thing that exists must only reside within time and space simultaneously? Because we have some things that say otherwise.
I'm feeling Chenjesu is saying. My interpretation of things are a bit more wild, so I won't divulge too much again. I feel like when we understand more about sub-atomic particles, particularly the Higgs Boson, and the Higgs field, more can be inferred, but it will still be difficult to come to any conclusions.
Remember everyone, the Higgs boson has mass hundreds of times greater than the protons they are part of. That's freaking amazing an practically proves the existence of extra-dimensions. Am I wrong about that, no one else seems as amazed?
Sub-atomic particles oscillate between dimensions, bringing all matter through time at a certain pace. A an atom moves through space-time, the qualities of the sub-atomic particles change in each direction. They behave a lot like imaginary numbers, being two things at once. This is how things moving in one direction act like they have greater mass than the side opposite the force vector.
These contractions and expansions of the sub-atomic particles also account for how time 'slows down' and 'speeds up' depending on how fast an object is moving. If an object moves at the rate that sub-atomic particles move, light speed, time stops because the subatomic particle is no longer oscillating - it has become a sphere.
In turn, consciousness is tied to sub-atomic processes. The ability of brained-life to retain it's identity from one moment to the next exhibits a mastery of time that out idea of atoms and energy do not express. Our ability to analyze and imagine change in reality also takes something greater than chemical reactions. Consciousness is firmly integrated into the highest levels of reality, the expression of dimensions greater than Euclidean physics.
All these extra dimensions are probably kind of boring rules-governing dimensions that just make our reality what it is. I don't believe in 4-D, 5-D people, other than the possibility that we are those people because 3-D people are impossible.
My non-professional opinion. Take care!
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That's freaking amazing an practically proves the existence of extra-dimensions.
Extra dimensions were already inferred in earlier models. There's no way to really "prove" the physical existence of a dimension because a dimensions is an abstraction of mathematics, we see things doing what we call "moving" in a certain pattern, there's even a theory that all 3 dimensional objects are actually 2 dimensional, that 3-D space is merely a complex extension of our observations of 2-D surfaces projected in different shapes. It's not proven either way, but we can most accurately model the interactions of particles with 6 dimensions or infinite dimensions in vector space.
These contractions and expansions of the sub-atomic particles also account for how time 'slows down' and 'speeds up' depending on how fast an object is moving.
No they were predicted 10s of years ago to explain why "mass" exists, and as a consequence in an imperfect theory they can model an increase in velocity as increasing the coupling rate with bosons in a higg's field which in turn causes a relativistic rotation in the observed coordinate system as modeled by Loretnz's transformations by increasing the mass of the object that travels faster.
If an object moves at the rate that sub-atomic particles move, light speed, time stops because the subatomic particle is no longer oscillating - it has become a sphere.
Really really does not reflect the current standard model. At the speed of light we get a division by zero which means we don't know what happens.
The ability of brained-life to retain it's identity from one moment to the next exhibits a mastery of time that out idea of atoms and energy do not express.
All these extra dimensions are probably kind of boring rules-governing dimensions that just make our reality what it is. I don't believe in 4-D, 5-D people, other than the possibility that we are those people because 3-D people are impossible.
I thought you said those extra dimensions were "amazing"...anyway, if the atoms in our bodies can be accurately modeled as interacting with more than 3 dimensions, than we could be anywhere from 3 to 11 to infinite dimensional people.
From the way we define mathematics, numbers can simply possess a wide range of specific properties independent of time and space that have logical bound, unlike non-existent objects that are not subject to any limitation of existence. They can't exist outside of existence itself, that doesn't mean anything.
I don't know who "we" is; my knowledge in this area is not inconsiderable and I can promise you that you haven't articulated any kind of coherent definition of mathematics here. There is, in fact, a perfectly coherent and widely held metamathematical philosophical position called conditionalism, which holds that mathematics makes no assertions of existence whatsoever -- rather, all of its statements are conditional: if the things specified by the axioms exist, then so do those existences which follow from the axioms, but no bare, independent, Platonic existence is asserted. On this account, mathematics does not assert that numbers or the relations between them exist; rather, it asserts that if you find that the axioms for e.g. number theory are borne out by extant entities, then you will likewise find the consequences to be so.
This position is consistent with the notion of physicalism, since the observation of a pattern in the universe may be regarded as the reification of one or more of the axioms of some mathematical theory, yielding something like an isomorphism between the theory and some portion of real space that the theory models. The existential conclusions, then, are underwritten by the universe itself, or rather, the existence of those particular things in the universe which verify the axioms.
Now, intellectual honesty requires me to say that this is not the only philosophical position one may hold, even though my saying so will likely give you ammunition for further gibberish. However, I urge you to at least consider the truth, which is that the positions you are espousing here, even when charitably read as coherent, do not represent necessary truths that we are obliged to accept.
If you say you have a better model than science, then you are essentially jettisoning the extrapolating of a logical pattern from data and thus you arrive at a point where there is no reason to believe any given theory, even your own.
When did I ever say I had a better model than science? Gibberish.
Because there is no "prior" if you're outside of time.
...I said ontologically prior, not temporally prior. In order to say that any pattern we see in the universe must have existed (ontologically) prior to it, you must show that the universe can't itself be a generator of patterns.
You define physical as "residing within time and space"
Show me by direct quotation where I said this.
but some things don't need to be put into terms of time and space in order to extrapolate their properties or to behave in certain ways, like for instance mathematics which we seem to observe matter acting in accordance to. For all we know, the dimensions of time and space don't exist, but you assume physical reality is based around them because we have a lot of properties and tested physics based around those dimensions, so in order for those standards to be upheld, you must also consider the existence of patterns.
Gibberish.
I don't see a difference, and that's the point of my argument. If something isn't logically the case and logically isn't existent, then we will never physically observe matter following that pattern.
Epistemology isn't metaphysics. Whatever exists exists, regardless of the extent to which we fail or succeed at mathematizing it.
According to our current models, tables mathematically just do not have an uncertainty in their position that is great enough to allow us to frequently measuring them doing so; it is extremely extremely unlikely. It suggests that if a table mathematically was in fact more delocalized, then we would actually see random things teleporting everywhere.
Tables don't mathematically have anything. There is no mathematical theory of tables (and if there were, it would be a theory of tables, which is not itself a table -- any mathematical properties the theory has do not necessarily inhere to the actual table.) There are theories of Hilbert spaces and operator calculi and variational methods that allow us to establish a mathematical model that we believe maps onto reality. We can then recover the part of this model that seems to correspond with a table, calculate, and see that our theory predicts that it's unlikely to teleport around.
If, despite our predictions, the table does teleport around -- and make no mistake, surprises precisely like this have actually happened in the history of science -- then we have to revise our theory. It would then turn out that the part of our theory we thought was referring to a table didn't refer to anything extant after all. But of course we don't then conclude that the table doesn't itself exist. So much, then, for these independent existences?
Epistemology is not metaphysics. The map is not the territory. The word is not the object. Et cetera.
Does anyone have any evidence that every conceivable thing that exists must only reside within time and space simultaneously? Because we have some things that say otherwise.
None of the examples you are giving actually redound to that point.
I don't know who "we" is; my knowledge in this area is not inconsiderable and I can promise you that you haven't articulated any kind of coherent definition of mathematics here.
Sorry I just assumed you defined mathematics in much the same way as the rest of the mathematical community. But, I've ran into mathematicians who've giving me strange looks when I tell them "math doesn't exist" myself.
There is, in fact, a perfectly coherent and widely held metamathematical philosophical position called conditionalism, which holds that mathematics makes no assertions of existence whatsoever --
And yet I get the feeling you accept that gravity exists. It coheres with the accepted standards of science, as science claims what we observed, not "what is REALLY happening". But, I wouldn't think you're using the exact definition anyway because if it mathematics didn't in any way exist, then we simply wouldn't have mathematics.
rather, all of its statements are conditional: if the things specified by the axioms exist, then so do some other things, but no independent existence is asserted.
Which is why I said math =/= physical objects. IF you have 1+1, you will always get two. However, the point I am making is that the statement 1+1=2 is true regardless of time and space, which is an accurate statement according to the definitions of those words whether you want it to be or not, not much different than saying "drinking tea is not part of the definition of ostentatious".
On this account, mathematics does not assert that numbers or the relations between them exist; rather, it asserts that if you find that the axioms for e.g. number theory are borne out by extant entities, then you will likewise find the consequences to be so.
But, we can still use those patterns to very accurately model scientifically tested phenomena, so if you don't want to forgo science, you must acknowledged that we have evidence of relationships between different variables to form specific patterns.
This position is consistent with the notion of physicalism, since the observation of a pattern in the universe may be regarded as the reification of one or more of the axioms of some mathematical theory, yielding something like an isomorphism between the theory and some portion of real space that the theory models.
Which is fine if evidence =/= we know everything. But if you care about science, you must acknowledged that we have evidence of relationships between different variables to form specific patterns.
...I said ontologically prior, not temporally prior. In order to say that any pattern we see in the universe must have existed prior to it, you must show that the universe can't itself be a generator of patterns.
So did the universe "create" the true-ness of the correlation of 1+1=2? Because I don't see anything about physical existence 1+1=2, which I'm pretty sure you yourself already acknowledged.As you yourself claimed,
You define physical as "residing within time and space"
According to your own parameters, it's 100% valid. As you yourself said, having a mathematically accurate model doesn't mean reality = that model. The same is true of the dimensions; we like to model our reality based around them, but really they are just mathematical lines to identify points.
Tables don't mathematically have anything. There is no mathematical theory of tables. There are theories of Hilbert spaces and operator calculi and variational methods that allow us to establish a mathematical model that we believe maps onto reality. We can then recover the part of this model that corresponds with a table, calculate, and see that our theory predicts that it's unlikely to teleport around.
Which is an extension of what I said. "Have" in that context can, based on my repeated explanation, mean "follows the patterns of". Ironic that you argue so much for the "truth" when you keep trying to say we can't know it.
If you disagree that all existent things reside in space-time, you're free to do so. But by doing so, you render your stance invalid because my argument is that some things can exist without or independent of time and space and thus space-time does not define the existence of all that exists.
Sorry I just assumed you defined mathematics in much the same way as the rest of the mathematical community.
Well, I do. I am not sure the same can be said for you...
Which is why I said math =/= physical objects. IF you have 1+1, you will always get two. However, the point I am making is that the statement 1+1=2 is true regardless of time and space, which is a accurate according to the definitions of those words whether you want it to be or not.
1+1=2 is epistemology. Time and space is metaphysics. So on one hand, you're right: 1+1=2 is true (in Peano arithmetic) regardless of time and space. On the other hand, the reason that's so is precisely what undermines the entire edifice of your argument: epistemological notions don't (necessarily) have metaphysical existence.
But, we can still use those patterns to very accurately model scientifically tested phenomena, so if you don't want to forgo science, you must acknowledged that we have evidence of relationships between different variables to form specific patterns.
This is getting a little obnoxious. When has anyone in the thread ever denied the observation of patterns in nature? You are putting people on positions they're not taking.
Did I use the word "if"?
For what purpose other than scummy rhetorical trickery would you conditionalize on a position every one of your opponents believes to be false anyway? Nobody believes that, so everything you wrote that is conditional on people believing that was a waste of character count.
So did the universe "create" the true-ness of the correlation of 1+1=2?
Every instance in which the universe behaves in such a way as to verify the statement "1+1=2" is ontologically posterior to the universe, yes. How could it be otherwise?
Because I don't see anything about physical existence 1+1=2, which I'm pretty sure you yourself already acknowledged.
Kindly refrain from making assertions about my position that don't refer to direct quotations from me. You simply cannot be trusted to paraphrase me.
You should know better, I said "if".
Actually, this time, you didn't! Better in that it's not a dirty rhetorical trick. Worse in that it's an actual straw man this time around.
Which is essentially what I said, have in that context can mean based on my repeated explanation to mean "follows the patterns of".
I refer you to the germane part of what I said (in fairness, I edited some of this after originally making the post, so maybe you didn't see it the first time) -- I don't think it's at all the same as what you've been saying:
Quote from Crashing00 »
If, despite our predictions, the table does teleport around -- and make no mistake, surprises precisely like this have actually happened in the history of science -- then we have to revise our theory. It would then turn out that the part of our theory we thought was referring to a table didn't refer to anything extant after all. But of course we don't then conclude that the table doesn't itself exist. So much, then, for these independent existences?
Epistemology is not metaphysics. The map is not the territory. The word is not the object. Et cetera.
Ironic that you argue so much for the "truth" when you keep trying to say we can't know it.
What?
If you disagree that physical objects reside in space-time, you're free to do so. In fact, I'd welcome it.
Well, spacetime itself is physical, and "spacetime resides in spacetime" is circular, soo... game over? Careful what you wish for, I guess.
EDIT: I see you went back and changed the preceding part. Unfortunately, I'm not sure you've helped matters...
If you disagree that all existent things reside in space-time, you're free to do so. But by doing so, you render your stance invalid because my argument is that some things can exist without or independent of time and space and thus space-time does not define the existence of all that exists.
But you haven't actually shown the metaphysical existence of anything outside of spacetime. You've asked us to identify the epistemological truth of statements like "1+1=2" with some kind of metaphysical existence, but you've provided no actual argument that would compel one to do so. In fact, you agreed with me in the prior post that the non-existential version of the truth claim is, from the standpoint of practical reasoning, no different from the existential one, which is rather an anti-argument, conflating as it does your position with its negation.
Time and space is metaphysics. So on one hand, you're right: 1+1=2 is true (in Peano arithmetic) regardless of time and space. On the other hand, the reason that's so is precisely what undermines the entire edifice of your argument:
According to our current models, time and space is anything except meta-physics or psuedo-science or unreal. Being epistemology doesn't by nature mean it can't be right or accurate or approximate or exist.
For what purpose other than scummy rhetorical trickery would you conditionalize on a position every one of your opponents believes to be false anyway?
For what purpose other than blatant trolling would one call something scummy and a trick just because they don't like it? (not actually calling anyone a troll, just asking a question as you did).
Flame infraction. - Blinking Spirit
The reason I do that is much the same reasons why it's done for math which is that you use different axioms indifferent situations. I'm not sure of you're exact stance, but if you believe a certain set of things simultaneously, then logically you must also believe a certain set of other things in order for those previous statements to hold true, which is true regardless of whether or not you actually hold a given stance.
This is getting a little obnoxious. When has anyone in the thread ever denied the observation of patterns in nature? You are putting people on positions they're not taking.
If you do not disagree, then you have absolutely no reason to be debating with me because if patterns have according to you, been scientifically observed, then that would show they exist; as stated before, if a pattern like a triangle never existed and was incapable of existing in any way, we would not see trigonometric patterns and have any comprehension of that pattern so I am not going to address the rest of your argument until you decide what you're actually doing here and what your stance is, what your view is on the separation between physical and non-physical or outside of space-time.
Is acceleration (not the accelerating ball but acceleration itself) a physical thing? If it is where does it exist?
We are kinda throwing terms around. When we say "physical" we mean in the materialism/physicalism sense. "In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that all things are composed of material, and that all emergent phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material properties and interactions. In other words, the theory claims that our reality consists entirely of physical matter that is the sole cause of every possible occurrence, including human thought, feeling, and action.
Materialism is typically considered to be closely related to physicalism; although, to some philosophers, materialism is synonymous with physicalism.
Contrasting philosophies include idealism and other forms of monism, dualism, and pluralism."[1]
So, acceleration is a physical property, and thus is physical and within the realm of physicalism.
Everything but your thoughts exists outside your thoughts.
So your thoughts don't exist then which conflicts with your point on neurology, or you are accepting there's more than one way to exist which defies your physicalist stance. If something is in my thoughts, it doesn't exist, so how is it that my thoughts exists if my thoughts are inside my thoughts?
Re-read what I said here please.
Thoughts exist as physical things, just like everything else. Tautologically, things not your thoughts exist as things not your thoughts, and your thoughts exist as your thoughts.
Technically a triangle doesn't physically exist, it's a mathematical abstraction just as a line doesn't physically exist. So you're saying triangle in no way can exist in any way shape or form at all? So you'd accept science uses models based off of a system that doesn't exist?
I'm not sure if you're willfully being ignorant on this point or not.
Lines exist as lines. You can make a shape we call a 'triangle" with those lines. Your brain can relate that shape to other things, correctly or incorrectly.
However, if done incorrectly, it doesn't mean something additional--and non-physical--is being created. It just means your lines on paper doesn't accurately represent anything.
So what doesn't exist can exist as a thought since you assume thoughts are physical, and thoughts physically exist, therefore what doesn't exist does exist?
It can exist as electrochemical signals in your brain. Just like a photoshopped image can exist as electrons and pixels. Looking at a photoshpped image doesn't suddenly create something non-physical; it just causes electrochemical signals to occur in your brain.
Right, cuz it's the brain not the word that makes the connection to the physical thing, like I said before.
Then you accept that the brain makes connections of things that aren't physical, and therefore cannot trust that what you define as existent actually exists.
No. Re-read what I said.
And remember, just because the brain makes a mistake in relating symbology to something else, it doesn't mean an immaterial object exist; it means the brain is wrong.
So, explain to me how they'd exercise this right, or otherwise demonstrate they have this right.
The ability to exercise it is not what was pointed out, it was the state of possessing it, the state, not the moment.
If you can't get married without time, then how does the right to marry exist outside of time? Time is clearly a necessarily part of the right to marry, since it's--literally--impossible to preform the action without it.
If you think adding extra assumptions makes things easier, then you have absolutely no idea what Occam's razor is or what it explains.
If you think making even more assumptions to compensate for making everything fit into your parameters of physical existence, I could say the same of you.
"Occam's razor is a principle of parsimony, economy, or succinctness used in logic and problem-solving. It states that among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected.
To quote Isaac Newton, "We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances. Therefore, to the same natural effects we must, so far as possible, assign the same causes."
Bertrand Russell offers a particular version of Occam's Razor: "Whenever possible, substitute constructions out of known entities for inferences to unknown entities.""[1]
Each assumption you use must be justified in science. We must--in science--assume the something exists, or we can't do science. To assume the non-physical exists in addition to the physical adds extra complications, especially since the non-physical is not empirically observed, while the physical is.
Then it has a physical effect and--therefore--is physical.
But, the equation is not what has any effect, it is matter following a pattern that can be approximated by an equation that is what we observe as physical.
So?
If it has a physical effect, then it's physical.
No physical phenomena effects the correlation of the statement a^2+b^2=c^2, so according to you, since you say material and immaterial not interacting = non-existence of the immaterial, math doesn't in any way exist.
AS I KEEP SAYING it exists as symbology, letters on paper, pixels on a screen, charcoal on a wall....
And if you brain can tell you something exists without it existing, then you have no basis to trust that reality physically exists.
Then you're still not a "dualist" because you're only assuming one kind of reality exists, the immaterial. To be a dualist you have to assume both the immaterial and the material exists.
Which I already stated as my case. I get the impression you're not reading my posts which makes it hard to communicate with you.
Are you claiming you already said you believe in the material and the immaterial? Or that you already said "you have no basis to trust that reality physically exists."
If you are claiming we have no basis to trust reality, then you're not a dualist, you're a Solipsist.
So--in that case--I AM reading your posts, you're just mislabeling your position.
Anyway, that making what comes next even more relevant, since its a realist objection to Solipsism.
"An objection, raised by David Deutsch, among others, is that since the solipsist has no control over the "universe" she is creating for herself, there must be some part of her mind, of which she is not conscious, that is doing the creating. If the solipsist makes her unconscious mind the object of scientific study (e.g., by conducting experiments), she will find that it behaves with the same complexity as the universe offered by realism; therefore, the distinction between realism and solipsism collapses. What realism calls "the universe", solipsism calls "one's unconscious mind." But these are just different names for the same thing. Both are massively complex processes other than the solipsist's conscious mind, and the cause of all the solipsist's experiences—possibly merely a labeling distinction. Application of Occam's Razor might then suggest that postulating the existence of 'reality' may be a better solution than a massive unconscious mind, since a reality would fit all the data we have seen without needing to propose any complicating and unfounded predictions about a super-subconscious."[1]
I'm fine with a reality existing, what I'm not fine with is that you're trying to boil things down into terms of a more limited scope of existence that cannot account for the properties that define those things.
Expect that's also what the Solipsist does. He just "boils everything down" into the immaterial instead of the material.
So....
But, honestly, you might be a monist, I really don't know. You seem to keep slipping your position around.
yeah....
So, according to him, thoughts cannot in any way interact with the immaterial without not-existing which means there is no way to have a thought of something that is non-existent and create something that is non-existent from your physical thoughts. But as you clearly believe, there does in fact seem to be a way we can imagine things that don't exist, so his argument shouldn't be valid according to you or himself.
That both a non sequitur and isn't what I said.
I tried very hard to not strawman you in the OP, Chenjesu. I also reframed from using loaded terms when describing your position (and I very much wanted to throw in "magical, crazy, made-up" when describing the immaterial).
I expect the same courtesy. Don't tell others what my position is unless its a direct quote or you are VERY VERY certain its something I would say. We both know you're characterization of my position is an outright fabrication, and not something I would say.
Quote from Chenjesu »
If a pattern doesn't at all exist, then matter can't follow it, logically.
The pattern exists as Physical laws, which are also--as the name implies--physical.
Quote from Chenjesu »
My bad, I did not realize that mathematics is in no way the relationships between figures and quantities expressed symbolically.
Except, isn't that what you keep claiming? That what these symbols represent doesn't exist physically?
Isn't that the very essence of your objection to physicalism?
I am not going to address the rest of your argument until you decide what you're actually doing here and what your stance is, what your view is on the separation between physical and non-physical or outside of space-time.
Even though you got yourself banned, I'm going to answer this anyway, since our discussion did become very rambling and fragmented because of all the straw men and tangents. Hopefully summarizing will help clarify my position for anyone attempting to follow the fragmented arguments.
My objective hasn't been to establish any particular metaphysics and I don't (for the moment) take any position on the question of physicalism -- rather, I am here to instruct a confused soul. My position, therefore, is "Chenjesu's arguments for non-physicalism are unsound" and my hope is that, in the course of establishing this position, I will get you to adjust your arguments toward soundness or drop them altogether.
Your primary supporting argument has, on my reading, the following form:
1 (premise): Nature can be observed to bear out apparent mathematical patterns.
2 (premise): If nature bears out a particular pattern, that pattern must necessarily have a metaphysical existence independent of nature itself.
3: From 1 and 2 it follows that the mathematical patterns borne out by nature have a metaphysical existence independent of nature.
4: That which has a metaphysical existence independent of nature is nonphysical.
5: From 3 and 4 it follows that a nonphysical thing exists metaphysically.
Therefore, 6: Physicalism is false.
I object to the second premise, and here are just a few of my specific objections:
You haven't actually argued for the premise. In fact multiple people have disagreed with this premise over the past couple of pages and you have simply treated them like idiots that are missing something obvious, or straw manned them as if they were objecting to the first premise rather than the second. Well, obviously there is some controversy here that requires more effort on your part to dispel than mere dismissal -- and if your position is correct on obvious grounds, it should be easy for you to argue for it. Which makes your not having done so all the more questionable.
The articulation of a coherent philosophical position that does not assert the metaphysical existence of patterns undermines the premise. It so happens that I took the trouble to describe one such position: Hilary Putnam's conditionalism, which holds that the patterns in fact do not exist independent of nature; rather, the behavior of nature and the ability to isomorphically map the model onto already-extant natural entities is a necessary ontological prior to any existential inference a model allows us to make. You lodged no objection against this position, but if this position is coherent, then anyone on this position will justifiably deny premise #2.
Epistemological/metaphysical distictions (map/territory differences) undermine this premise. The premise fails to make the distinction between a mathematical model of nature (the epistemology) and actual features of nature itself (the metaphysics) and is therefore incoherent. In fact, if we translate into a map/territory analogy, the premise reads "In order for the territory to exist, a map of the territory must also exist." That's certainly prima facie absurd.
Every time something like this comes up it becomes inherently clear that far too many people do not understand what Science is. It is actually pretty simple to know what science should interest itself with by asking one question: Can it be shown to be by way of the scientific method? If it can be proven or disproven by the scientific method then it is the purview of science. Since, by definition, a metaphysical entity cannot be proven or disproven by way of the scientific method it is not within the purview of science. Science is defined by this method in which results are objective and can be reproduced. The immaterial cannot be measured objectively, and thus cannot be a part of science.
I think the problem comes when people take the extreme view that science is the only way to personally experience reality, and people try and use those defined scientific criteria to show how there is something beyond science and that is an inherently flawed methodology. Science does not preclude the metaphysical, nor does the metaphysical expose some flaw in science. The two are simply separate in the same way the parallel lines on a plane will always be separate.
For reference, here are the steps in the scientific method by name. If you want to comment on the steps please look up their meaning so as to have a foot to stand on. Note- objective measurable data must be used to form a conclusion.
Formulate a question
Hypothesis
Prediction
Testing
Analysis
Formal scientific methodology also includes repetition, peer review, and data recording and sharing. This is not a one direction linear method either, as looping and returning to a previous step is often required for honest scientific inquiry.
DrWorm, we appreciate your input, but (however inexpertly some may have been arguing here) this actually is a live issue in the philosophy of science that is discussed back and forth by very smart people who know full well how the scientific method works. Simply restating the method is not going to resolve it. In fact, the issue pervades the method. Hypotheses and theories feature prominently among the abstract and otherwise nonphysical things the nature of which is in question. In short: Do Newton's Laws of Motion "exist"? If so, how? If not, how is it that physical objects can abide by them?
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
DrWorm, we appreciate your input, but (however inexpertly some may have been arguing here) this actually is a live issue in the philosophy of science that is discussed back and forth by very smart people who know full well how the scientific method works. Simply restating the method is not going to resolve it. In fact, the issue pervades the method. Hypotheses and theories feature prominently among the abstract and otherwise nonphysical things the nature of which is in question. In short: Do Newton's Laws of Motion "exist"? If so, how? If not, how is it that physical objects can abide by them?
I agree. To expand on Blinking Spirit's point, this issue goes back all the way to Plato who proposed what is known as the theory of forms whose positives and problems can be summarized in the Plato's Parmenides, which I am a little surprised hasn't come up yet (just a little) because in terms of "immaterial" existence, the Forms were amongst the first proposition, although that was mainly because (if I remember correctly) the observable world was not considered all that trustworthy in the Greek tradition until Aristotle revolutionized the field and laid the basis for scientific empiricism.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
To expand on Blinking Spirit's point, this issue goes back all the way to Plato who proposed what is known as the theory of forms whose positives and problems can be summarized in the Plato's Parmenides, which I am a little surprised hasn't come up yet (just a little)
It has come up! Well, not Parmenides per se, but the idea of Platonism. Didn't seem to get much traction back then, but now we're chest deep in it.
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A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
DrWorm, we appreciate your input, but (however inexpertly some may have been arguing here) this actually is a live issue in the philosophy of science that is discussed back and forth by very smart people who know full well how the scientific method works. Simply restating the method is not going to resolve it. In fact, the issue pervades the method. Hypotheses and theories feature prominently among the abstract and otherwise nonphysical things the nature of which is in question. In short: Do Newton's Laws of Motion "exist"? If so, how? If not, how is it that physical objects can abide by them?
I think it is pretty simple. It is measurable and repeatable therefor it exists. The very second that Newton's law of motion ceases to be provide the same answer under the same circumstances, and this answer is measurable objectively, then it ceases to exist in science. How? Not sure, but it is still observable, measurable, and repeatable so it is scientifically true. Not knowing the mechanic or "why" of a thing does not make it unscientific. For example, scientific studies have shown a couple of times that people that engage in spiritual practices such as prayer or meditation are statistically more healthy and live longer than those that do not. The why is not well understood, but it is still just as scientific and is not a case of science proving the power of a deity.
A hypothesis is intangible, but it is simply a starting point and must be based in science. A Scientific Theory is a very physical thing in that it "is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on knowledge that has been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experimentation."*
The real answer is that science is not concerned with "the real", it is concerned with objective, measurable, and repeatable which it then calls scientific reality. Reality, as a larger concept, has nothing to do with it, since reality is a philosophical concept and is entirely subjective.
People are simply expecting too much of science.
I have read a lot of Stephen J. Gould and always appreciated his acceptance of science and metaphysics as separate disciplines that cannot properly be merged, but the book that really solidified this for me was "Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time" by Michael Shermer. Now, I personally cannot stand Shermer's utter disdain for spiritual pursuits as he typifies a certain kind of athiest that gets under my skin. This book however is very small in it's scope in that it simple seeks to define what is science and what is not. For example he lambasts people that seek to prove ESP scientifically, but fail to conduct experiments under the same criteria that science uses for all other physical phenomena. Is he saying that ESP does not exist? No, he is saying that it has not been proven scientifically, which is his criteria for whether something exists or is "real". My criteria is very different from his so I have not ruled it out, but I am still pretty confidant that ESP has not been scientifically proven.
To expand on Blinking Spirit's point, this issue goes back all the way to Plato who proposed what is known as the theory of forms whose positives and problems can be summarized in the Plato's Parmenides, which I am a little surprised hasn't come up yet (just a little)
It has come up! Well, not Parmenides per se, but the idea of Platonism. Didn't seem to get much traction back then, but now we're chest deep in it.
The sad thing is I remember reading your post as soon as I clicked the link, so my ignorance is forgetfulness, not from not reading the thread.
But now that we've come back full circle, as far as I know the two driving forces is that it helps us have a coherent definition of existence, and dualism tends to be important to the nature and existence of supernatural beings.
Is acceleration (not the accelerating ball but acceleration itself) a physical thing? If it is where does it exist?
We are kinda throwing terms around. When we say "physical" we mean in the materialism/physicalism sense. "In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that all things are composed of material, and that all emergent phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material properties and interactions. In other words, the theory claims that our reality consists entirely of physical matter that is the sole cause of every possible occurrence, including human thought, feeling, and action.
Materialism is typically considered to be closely related to physicalism; although, to some philosophers, materialism is synonymous with physicalism.
Contrasting philosophies include idealism and other forms of monism, dualism, and pluralism."[1]
So, acceleration is a physical property, and thus is physical and within the realm of physicalism.
Wouldn't that definition require us to treat the laws of physics as coincidence? That is rather than being rules that matter must follow they are simply a description of what matter does.
Wouldn't that definition require us to treat the laws of physics as coincidence? That is rather than being rules that matter must follow they are simply a description of what matter does.
Not necessarily. There could be an underlying physical structure to the physical universe, and likely is.
Wouldn't that definition require us to treat the laws of physics as coincidence? That is rather than being rules that matter must follow they are simply a description of what matter does.
Not necessarily. There could be an underlying physical structure to the physical universe, and likely is.
So electrons are moved about on little strings? What defines the motion of the strings then? I assume you're not comfortable with a primum mobil.
If you mean instead that the laws of physics count as physical then that is inconsistent with the definition your provided of physicalism. Laws that define the behavior of things are neither made of matter/energy or an emergent property of matter/energy. To make such behavior purely physical you have to abandon the notion of the laws of physics and propose that the universe just to happens to act as though there are such laws.
That's perfectly consistent, of course, just an unhelpful view of the universe.
If you mean instead that the laws of physics count as physical then that is inconsistent with the definition your provided of physicalism. Laws that define the behavior of things are neither made of matter/energy or an emergent property of matter/energy. To make such behavior purely physical you have to abandon the notion of the laws of physics and propose that the universe just to happens to act as though there are such laws.
The pattern exists as Physical laws, which are also--as the name implies--physical.
Yes, I do mean to imply that physical laws are part of physicalism. If you read the wiki page where the quote comes from that I first used to define the physicalist's definition of 'the physical,' you will see it also defines physical laws as such.
But, maybe wiki isn't your cup of tea: "Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical, or as contemporary philosophers sometimes put it, that everything supervenes on, or is necessitated by, the physical... The general idea is that the nature of the actual world (i.e. the universe and everything in it) conforms to a certain condition, the condition of being physical. Of course, physicalists don't deny that the world might contain many items that at first glance don't seem physical — items of a biological, or psychological, or moral, or social nature. But they insist nevertheless that at the end of the day such items are either physical or supervene on the physical." http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/
.
Whoa there, I may be rusty on this, but as far as I know, you haven't demonstrated that these "values" of "one and one together is called two" exist even within space-time. The different numbers are just words to describe something else that does exist. Labeling something with a "value" only makes it easier for someone like me decipher; it does not mean numbers exist in any physical or non-physical way.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
But are you asserting the existence of an actual thing, or merely saying that a particular statement is true? "1+1=2" is just a true statement of number theory. What good does it do you to attempt to introduce some ephemeral thing that represents the truth of that statement and endow that thing with metaphysical existence? What more are you saying, what additional inquiries do you open up, what do you add to the quest for truth by adding this seemingly unnecessary metaphysics? Why not simply say that the statement is true and leave it at that?[/QUOTE]
Because why is such a correlation so good at approximating the processes we observe in reality? Is it because reality follows those patterns? But, how can matter act according to something that doesn't exist? Well maybe it exists, just in a different way that isn't dependent on the properties of reality we like to apply to most other things.
A correlation is basically showing pattern between numbers and/or variables, that in the instance 1 is added to 1, you will always see a 2 (in a non-modular system). You are saying that the patterns that we see matter following don't exist, which means matter can't be following those patterns that we observe matter following which is a contradiction. If those patterns don't in any way exist, how can matter follow them or act according to them? If those patterns didn't exist, then matter would be incapable of acting according to them. They have to exist in some way if it is in fact true that matter is acting according to those patterns.
Or a coincidence. Let's see what you wrote schematized:
1. A correlation is a pattern shown between numbers and variables.
2.There is the pattern of one and one is marked as two.
3. Mockingbird claims this pattern does not exist.
4. Matter has the pattern of one with one more makes two.
______________________
C. Mockingbird cannot believe the pattern exists within matter.
While crude on my end (feel free to correct me, I'm rusty here), I fail to see the contradiction.
Are you sure?
If an apple drops next to another apple, then sure, I see 1+1=2, but that does not mean necessitate that numbers exist. There is an apple, then there is another apple. I invent the number two so that I can have a concept to wrap my brain around the idea that such a thing exists, but I have not invented two as a existing thing, but merely a label to act as a crutch as I hobble through this strange world.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
You appear to be saying that "1+1=2" is not physical, but it exists, and therefore physicalism is false.
One move is to just deny that 1+1=2 exists, and tell you that descriptions and math are not up for existing, they're just true or false. This seems to motivate your second point.
In the first place though, this does not follow, for the reason that physicalism, if I can trust the SEP, is a bit more sophisticated than that. Physicalism might take the form of supervenience physicalism, which might claim something like "All there is to reality is settled by its physical description", so, more exactly, "Any two possible states may differ in some way only if they differ in a physical way." "1+1=2"'s existence requires only that it be immutable in all physically identical universes. Considering it is mathematically immutable as a theorem, I don't see that status in jeopardy.
Your second reach into argument is to me quite fancy-looking, where you seem to be saying that:
1. I think of a phelddagriff
2. >I have a thought about a phelddagriff
3. My thought is physical (because Physicalism)
4. My thought is about something
5. That something must exist (because 4 and some unspecified rule of inference)
6. My thought is about something physical (because Physicalism)
7. The pheldagriff is physical (because of some kind of affirmation of the consequent fallacy)
But 5 has no basis. It just misunderstands the meaning of 'about', and again presupposes some kind of constraint on intentionality and the realm of description that none of us are bothered to dismiss. "aboutness" is not a relationship between things that exist, it is some kind of qualifier of things that do exist (the special intentionality-bearing things) in respect of other descriptions/math, just like I can make a plain descriptive or mathematical statement.
And last, even your jump to supposing that the thought's content would have to be physical, in your logic, is not an inference, it's just some crummy wordplay, no different from me saying my car has front-wheel drive , my car has a full tank of gas, therefore front-wheel drive is a full tank of gas.
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Your argument here appears to rely on an implicit claim that the real universe doesn't have any of its own properties or isn't the ontological source of anything -- that any pattern the universe exhibits must have been imprinted on it from without by an anterior existence.
Well, why should we believe that? Why can't the real universe be the ontological prior of the patterns within it? (Note: I'm not here arguing that it actually is -- only that in order for this argument to run, you bear the burden of showing that it isn't -- a burden you have not so much as engaged with, much less discharged.)
It doesn't make any difference to say that it exists. By saying it exists, you only place a bizarre and irrelevant metaphysical burden of proof on yourself. Identify a rationally effective or meaningful difference between the following two statements:
A: "1+1=2" is true.
B: The truth of "1+1=2" exists.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
If a pattern doesn't at all exist, then matter can't follow it, logically. Imagine the mathematical principal of a triangle couldn't possible exist. If that were true, we would never see what we could call trigonometric patterns in matter and we wouldn't even have a concept of a triangle, just as we have no concept of a ahioethsiuthseiukrthnvsenk. A purple unicorn you imagine might not exist, but the patterns that define it's shape exist and that's why you can imagine those patterns to form the shape of a unicorn. Regardless, even if we'll never know the exact answer, our observations seem to show there are clear patterns. There is also a correlation to data itself that tries to determine how much of a coincidence a certain set of data which was invented by a psychiatrist more than a hundred years ago.
It doesn't mean they "physically" exist, but if you're saying observations don't reflect what exists, then you must accept that you have no reason to believe that any other particular thing should exist because everything you observe is only based on your observations that are the result of interpretations of your brain. We may not be observing "1+1=2", but we can observe matter following that pattern, so the pattern must exist. As I said before, if the pattern didn't exist, it couldn't be followed. Whether you decide it's a marble, space-time or a number, it is all perceived and conceived in one's mind. The thing about things that exist appears to be that they can be observed by more than one mind in some manner.
From the way we define mathematics, numbers can simply possess a wide range of specific properties independent of time and space that have logical bound, unlike non-existent objects that are not subject to any limitation of existence. They can't exist outside of existence itself, that doesn't mean anything. If you say you have a better model than science, then you are essentially jettisoning the extrapolating of a logical pattern from data and thus you arrive at a point where there is no reason to believe any given theory, even your own.
Because scientific observations can be modeled very accurately according to specific patterns and we can see properties of independence from time and space in different experiments and theoretical physics.
Because there is no "prior" if you're outside of time. You define physical as "residing within time and space", but some things don't need to be put into terms of time and space in order to extrapolate their properties or to behave in certain ways, like for instance mathematics which we seem to observe matter acting in accordance to. For all we know, the dimensions of time and space don't exist, but you assume physical reality is based around them because we have a lot of properties and tested physics based around those dimensions, so in order for those standards to be upheld, you must also consider the existence of patterns.
I don't see a difference, and that's the point of my argument. If something isn't logically the case and logically isn't existent, then we will never physically observe matter following that pattern. For instance, any atom has a certain probability of existing in it's measured location. Why don't we frequently observe things like a table spontaneously teleporting everywhere? According to our current models, tables mathematically just do not have an uncertainty in their position that is great enough to allow us to frequently measuring them doing so; it is extremely extremely unlikely. It suggests that if a table mathematically was in fact more delocalized, then we would actually see random things teleporting everywhere.
As much of a burden of proof there is for me, there is also at least the same for hard physicalists trying to figure out a way to boil everything down into a simple parameters of existence. I already referenced real phenomena in which we can more accurately see the bizarre relationship between less physical properties like mathematics and what you call physical reality. Does anyone have any evidence that every conceivable thing that exists must only reside within time and space simultaneously? Because we have some things that say otherwise.
Remember everyone, the Higgs boson has mass hundreds of times greater than the protons they are part of. That's freaking amazing an practically proves the existence of extra-dimensions. Am I wrong about that, no one else seems as amazed?
Sub-atomic particles oscillate between dimensions, bringing all matter through time at a certain pace. A an atom moves through space-time, the qualities of the sub-atomic particles change in each direction. They behave a lot like imaginary numbers, being two things at once. This is how things moving in one direction act like they have greater mass than the side opposite the force vector.
These contractions and expansions of the sub-atomic particles also account for how time 'slows down' and 'speeds up' depending on how fast an object is moving. If an object moves at the rate that sub-atomic particles move, light speed, time stops because the subatomic particle is no longer oscillating - it has become a sphere.
In turn, consciousness is tied to sub-atomic processes. The ability of brained-life to retain it's identity from one moment to the next exhibits a mastery of time that out idea of atoms and energy do not express. Our ability to analyze and imagine change in reality also takes something greater than chemical reactions. Consciousness is firmly integrated into the highest levels of reality, the expression of dimensions greater than Euclidean physics.
All these extra dimensions are probably kind of boring rules-governing dimensions that just make our reality what it is. I don't believe in 4-D, 5-D people, other than the possibility that we are those people because 3-D people are impossible.
My non-professional opinion. Take care!
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Extra dimensions were already inferred in earlier models. There's no way to really "prove" the physical existence of a dimension because a dimensions is an abstraction of mathematics, we see things doing what we call "moving" in a certain pattern, there's even a theory that all 3 dimensional objects are actually 2 dimensional, that 3-D space is merely a complex extension of our observations of 2-D surfaces projected in different shapes. It's not proven either way, but we can most accurately model the interactions of particles with 6 dimensions or infinite dimensions in vector space.
Semi-nonsensical
Half-true, half-seminonsensical
That really really doesn't make sense. A quantity can be represented as a number, but objects are objects and numbers are numbers.
No they were predicted 10s of years ago to explain why "mass" exists, and as a consequence in an imperfect theory they can model an increase in velocity as increasing the coupling rate with bosons in a higg's field which in turn causes a relativistic rotation in the observed coordinate system as modeled by Loretnz's transformations by increasing the mass of the object that travels faster.
Really really does not reflect the current standard model. At the speed of light we get a division by zero which means we don't know what happens.
Well the pattern that we define as consciousness can arise from the arrangement of matter to form that pattern...
That seems nonsensical to me.
I thought you said those extra dimensions were "amazing"...anyway, if the atoms in our bodies can be accurately modeled as interacting with more than 3 dimensions, than we could be anywhere from 3 to 11 to infinite dimensional people.
I don't know who "we" is; my knowledge in this area is not inconsiderable and I can promise you that you haven't articulated any kind of coherent definition of mathematics here. There is, in fact, a perfectly coherent and widely held metamathematical philosophical position called conditionalism, which holds that mathematics makes no assertions of existence whatsoever -- rather, all of its statements are conditional: if the things specified by the axioms exist, then so do those existences which follow from the axioms, but no bare, independent, Platonic existence is asserted. On this account, mathematics does not assert that numbers or the relations between them exist; rather, it asserts that if you find that the axioms for e.g. number theory are borne out by extant entities, then you will likewise find the consequences to be so.
This position is consistent with the notion of physicalism, since the observation of a pattern in the universe may be regarded as the reification of one or more of the axioms of some mathematical theory, yielding something like an isomorphism between the theory and some portion of real space that the theory models. The existential conclusions, then, are underwritten by the universe itself, or rather, the existence of those particular things in the universe which verify the axioms.
Now, intellectual honesty requires me to say that this is not the only philosophical position one may hold, even though my saying so will likely give you ammunition for further gibberish. However, I urge you to at least consider the truth, which is that the positions you are espousing here, even when charitably read as coherent, do not represent necessary truths that we are obliged to accept.
When did I ever say I had a better model than science? Gibberish.
...I said ontologically prior, not temporally prior. In order to say that any pattern we see in the universe must have existed (ontologically) prior to it, you must show that the universe can't itself be a generator of patterns.
Show me by direct quotation where I said this.
Gibberish.
Epistemology isn't metaphysics. Whatever exists exists, regardless of the extent to which we fail or succeed at mathematizing it.
Tables don't mathematically have anything. There is no mathematical theory of tables (and if there were, it would be a theory of tables, which is not itself a table -- any mathematical properties the theory has do not necessarily inhere to the actual table.) There are theories of Hilbert spaces and operator calculi and variational methods that allow us to establish a mathematical model that we believe maps onto reality. We can then recover the part of this model that seems to correspond with a table, calculate, and see that our theory predicts that it's unlikely to teleport around.
If, despite our predictions, the table does teleport around -- and make no mistake, surprises precisely like this have actually happened in the history of science -- then we have to revise our theory. It would then turn out that the part of our theory we thought was referring to a table didn't refer to anything extant after all. But of course we don't then conclude that the table doesn't itself exist. So much, then, for these independent existences?
Epistemology is not metaphysics. The map is not the territory. The word is not the object. Et cetera.
None of the examples you are giving actually redound to that point.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
Sorry I just assumed you defined mathematics in much the same way as the rest of the mathematical community. But, I've ran into mathematicians who've giving me strange looks when I tell them "math doesn't exist" myself.
And yet I get the feeling you accept that gravity exists. It coheres with the accepted standards of science, as science claims what we observed, not "what is REALLY happening". But, I wouldn't think you're using the exact definition anyway because if it mathematics didn't in any way exist, then we simply wouldn't have mathematics.
Which is why I said math =/= physical objects. IF you have 1+1, you will always get two. However, the point I am making is that the statement 1+1=2 is true regardless of time and space, which is an accurate statement according to the definitions of those words whether you want it to be or not, not much different than saying "drinking tea is not part of the definition of ostentatious".
But, we can still use those patterns to very accurately model scientifically tested phenomena, so if you don't want to forgo science, you must acknowledged that we have evidence of relationships between different variables to form specific patterns.
Which is fine if evidence =/= we know everything. But if you care about science, you must acknowledged that we have evidence of relationships between different variables to form specific patterns.
Did I use the word "if"?
So did the universe "create" the true-ness of the correlation of 1+1=2? Because I don't see anything about physical existence 1+1=2, which I'm pretty sure you yourself already acknowledged.As you yourself claimed,
You should know better, I said "if".
According to your own parameters, it's 100% valid. As you yourself said, having a mathematically accurate model doesn't mean reality = that model. The same is true of the dimensions; we like to model our reality based around them, but really they are just mathematical lines to identify points.
Which is an extension of what I said. "Have" in that context can, based on my repeated explanation, mean "follows the patterns of". Ironic that you argue so much for the "truth" when you keep trying to say we can't know it.
If you disagree that all existent things reside in space-time, you're free to do so. But by doing so, you render your stance invalid because my argument is that some things can exist without or independent of time and space and thus space-time does not define the existence of all that exists.
Well, I do. I am not sure the same can be said for you...
1+1=2 is epistemology. Time and space is metaphysics. So on one hand, you're right: 1+1=2 is true (in Peano arithmetic) regardless of time and space. On the other hand, the reason that's so is precisely what undermines the entire edifice of your argument: epistemological notions don't (necessarily) have metaphysical existence.
This is getting a little obnoxious. When has anyone in the thread ever denied the observation of patterns in nature? You are putting people on positions they're not taking.
For what purpose other than scummy rhetorical trickery would you conditionalize on a position every one of your opponents believes to be false anyway? Nobody believes that, so everything you wrote that is conditional on people believing that was a waste of character count.
Every instance in which the universe behaves in such a way as to verify the statement "1+1=2" is ontologically posterior to the universe, yes. How could it be otherwise?
Kindly refrain from making assertions about my position that don't refer to direct quotations from me. You simply cannot be trusted to paraphrase me.
Actually, this time, you didn't! Better in that it's not a dirty rhetorical trick. Worse in that it's an actual straw man this time around.
I refer you to the germane part of what I said (in fairness, I edited some of this after originally making the post, so maybe you didn't see it the first time) -- I don't think it's at all the same as what you've been saying:
What?
Well, spacetime itself is physical, and "spacetime resides in spacetime" is circular, soo... game over? Careful what you wish for, I guess.
EDIT: I see you went back and changed the preceding part. Unfortunately, I'm not sure you've helped matters...
But you haven't actually shown the metaphysical existence of anything outside of spacetime. You've asked us to identify the epistemological truth of statements like "1+1=2" with some kind of metaphysical existence, but you've provided no actual argument that would compel one to do so. In fact, you agreed with me in the prior post that the non-existential version of the truth claim is, from the standpoint of practical reasoning, no different from the existential one, which is rather an anti-argument, conflating as it does your position with its negation.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
My bad, I did not realize that mathematics is in no way the relationships between figures and quantities expressed symbolically.
According to our current models, time and space is anything except meta-physics or psuedo-science or unreal. Being epistemology doesn't by nature mean it can't be right or accurate or approximate or exist.
For what purpose other than blatant trolling would one call something scummy and a trick just because they don't like it? (not actually calling anyone a troll, just asking a question as you did).
Flame infraction. - Blinking Spirit
The reason I do that is much the same reasons why it's done for math which is that you use different axioms indifferent situations. I'm not sure of you're exact stance, but if you believe a certain set of things simultaneously, then logically you must also believe a certain set of other things in order for those previous statements to hold true, which is true regardless of whether or not you actually hold a given stance.
Unlike you I apparently read my post and also found that I began the sentence with "if".
If you do not disagree, then you have absolutely no reason to be debating with me because if patterns have according to you, been scientifically observed, then that would show they exist; as stated before, if a pattern like a triangle never existed and was incapable of existing in any way, we would not see trigonometric patterns and have any comprehension of that pattern so I am not going to address the rest of your argument until you decide what you're actually doing here and what your stance is, what your view is on the separation between physical and non-physical or outside of space-time.
We are kinda throwing terms around. When we say "physical" we mean in the materialism/physicalism sense.
"In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that all things are composed of material, and that all emergent phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material properties and interactions. In other words, the theory claims that our reality consists entirely of physical matter that is the sole cause of every possible occurrence, including human thought, feeling, and action.
Materialism is typically considered to be closely related to physicalism; although, to some philosophers, materialism is synonymous with physicalism.
Contrasting philosophies include idealism and other forms of monism, dualism, and pluralism."[1]
So, acceleration is a physical property, and thus is physical and within the realm of physicalism.
Re-read what I said here please.
Thoughts exist as physical things, just like everything else. Tautologically, things not your thoughts exist as things not your thoughts, and your thoughts exist as your thoughts.
I'm not sure if you're willfully being ignorant on this point or not.
Lines exist as lines. You can make a shape we call a 'triangle" with those lines. Your brain can relate that shape to other things, correctly or incorrectly.
However, if done incorrectly, it doesn't mean something additional--and non-physical--is being created. It just means your lines on paper doesn't accurately represent anything.
It can exist as electrochemical signals in your brain. Just like a photoshopped image can exist as electrons and pixels. Looking at a photoshpped image doesn't suddenly create something non-physical; it just causes electrochemical signals to occur in your brain.
No. Re-read what I said.
And remember, just because the brain makes a mistake in relating symbology to something else, it doesn't mean an immaterial object exist; it means the brain is wrong.
If you can't get married without time, then how does the right to marry exist outside of time? Time is clearly a necessarily part of the right to marry, since it's--literally--impossible to preform the action without it.
"Occam's razor is a principle of parsimony, economy, or succinctness used in logic and problem-solving. It states that among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected.
To quote Isaac Newton, "We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances. Therefore, to the same natural effects we must, so far as possible, assign the same causes."
Bertrand Russell offers a particular version of Occam's Razor: "Whenever possible, substitute constructions out of known entities for inferences to unknown entities.""[1]
Each assumption you use must be justified in science. We must--in science--assume the something exists, or we can't do science. To assume the non-physical exists in addition to the physical adds extra complications, especially since the non-physical is not empirically observed, while the physical is.
So?
If it has a physical effect, then it's physical.
AS I KEEP SAYING it exists as symbology, letters on paper, pixels on a screen, charcoal on a wall....
Are you claiming you already said you believe in the material and the immaterial? Or that you already said "you have no basis to trust that reality physically exists."
If you are claiming we have no basis to trust reality, then you're not a dualist, you're a Solipsist.
So--in that case--I AM reading your posts, you're just mislabeling your position.
Anyway, that making what comes next even more relevant, since its a realist objection to Solipsism.
Expect that's also what the Solipsist does. He just "boils everything down" into the immaterial instead of the material.
So....
But, honestly, you might be a monist, I really don't know. You seem to keep slipping your position around.
yeah....
That both a non sequitur and isn't what I said.
I tried very hard to not strawman you in the OP, Chenjesu. I also reframed from using loaded terms when describing your position (and I very much wanted to throw in "magical, crazy, made-up" when describing the immaterial).
I expect the same courtesy. Don't tell others what my position is unless its a direct quote or you are VERY VERY certain its something I would say. We both know you're characterization of my position is an outright fabrication, and not something I would say.
The pattern exists as Physical laws, which are also--as the name implies--physical.
Except, isn't that what you keep claiming? That what these symbols represent doesn't exist physically?
Isn't that the very essence of your objection to physicalism?
Even though you got yourself banned, I'm going to answer this anyway, since our discussion did become very rambling and fragmented because of all the straw men and tangents. Hopefully summarizing will help clarify my position for anyone attempting to follow the fragmented arguments.
My objective hasn't been to establish any particular metaphysics and I don't (for the moment) take any position on the question of physicalism -- rather, I am here to instruct a confused soul. My position, therefore, is "Chenjesu's arguments for non-physicalism are unsound" and my hope is that, in the course of establishing this position, I will get you to adjust your arguments toward soundness or drop them altogether.
Your primary supporting argument has, on my reading, the following form:
1 (premise): Nature can be observed to bear out apparent mathematical patterns.
2 (premise): If nature bears out a particular pattern, that pattern must necessarily have a metaphysical existence independent of nature itself.
3: From 1 and 2 it follows that the mathematical patterns borne out by nature have a metaphysical existence independent of nature.
4: That which has a metaphysical existence independent of nature is nonphysical.
5: From 3 and 4 it follows that a nonphysical thing exists metaphysically.
Therefore, 6: Physicalism is false.
I object to the second premise, and here are just a few of my specific objections:
I hope that clarifies things.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
I think the problem comes when people take the extreme view that science is the only way to personally experience reality, and people try and use those defined scientific criteria to show how there is something beyond science and that is an inherently flawed methodology. Science does not preclude the metaphysical, nor does the metaphysical expose some flaw in science. The two are simply separate in the same way the parallel lines on a plane will always be separate.
For reference, here are the steps in the scientific method by name. If you want to comment on the steps please look up their meaning so as to have a foot to stand on. Note- objective measurable data must be used to form a conclusion.
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I agree. To expand on Blinking Spirit's point, this issue goes back all the way to Plato who proposed what is known as the theory of forms whose positives and problems can be summarized in the Plato's Parmenides, which I am a little surprised hasn't come up yet (just a little) because in terms of "immaterial" existence, the Forms were amongst the first proposition, although that was mainly because (if I remember correctly) the observable world was not considered all that trustworthy in the Greek tradition until Aristotle revolutionized the field and laid the basis for scientific empiricism.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
It has come up! Well, not Parmenides per se, but the idea of Platonism. Didn't seem to get much traction back then, but now we're chest deep in it.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
I think it is pretty simple. It is measurable and repeatable therefor it exists. The very second that Newton's law of motion ceases to be provide the same answer under the same circumstances, and this answer is measurable objectively, then it ceases to exist in science. How? Not sure, but it is still observable, measurable, and repeatable so it is scientifically true. Not knowing the mechanic or "why" of a thing does not make it unscientific. For example, scientific studies have shown a couple of times that people that engage in spiritual practices such as prayer or meditation are statistically more healthy and live longer than those that do not. The why is not well understood, but it is still just as scientific and is not a case of science proving the power of a deity.
A hypothesis is intangible, but it is simply a starting point and must be based in science. A Scientific Theory is a very physical thing in that it "is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on knowledge that has been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experimentation."*
The real answer is that science is not concerned with "the real", it is concerned with objective, measurable, and repeatable which it then calls scientific reality. Reality, as a larger concept, has nothing to do with it, since reality is a philosophical concept and is entirely subjective.
People are simply expecting too much of science.
I have read a lot of Stephen J. Gould and always appreciated his acceptance of science and metaphysics as separate disciplines that cannot properly be merged, but the book that really solidified this for me was "Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time" by Michael Shermer. Now, I personally cannot stand Shermer's utter disdain for spiritual pursuits as he typifies a certain kind of athiest that gets under my skin. This book however is very small in it's scope in that it simple seeks to define what is science and what is not. For example he lambasts people that seek to prove ESP scientifically, but fail to conduct experiments under the same criteria that science uses for all other physical phenomena. Is he saying that ESP does not exist? No, he is saying that it has not been proven scientifically, which is his criteria for whether something exists or is "real". My criteria is very different from his so I have not ruled it out, but I am still pretty confidant that ESP has not been scientifically proven.
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!
However, proving Chenjesu's worldview incoherent...
The sad thing is I remember reading your post as soon as I clicked the link, so my ignorance is forgetfulness, not from not reading the thread.
But now that we've come back full circle, as far as I know the two driving forces is that it helps us have a coherent definition of existence, and dualism tends to be important to the nature and existence of supernatural beings.
I pulled this information from a more... even... discussion of this topic back 2_1/2 years ago I remember as well: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=340580&highlight=concepts+exist
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
Wouldn't that definition require us to treat the laws of physics as coincidence? That is rather than being rules that matter must follow they are simply a description of what matter does.
So electrons are moved about on little strings? What defines the motion of the strings then? I assume you're not comfortable with a primum mobil.
If you mean instead that the laws of physics count as physical then that is inconsistent with the definition your provided of physicalism. Laws that define the behavior of things are neither made of matter/energy or an emergent property of matter/energy. To make such behavior purely physical you have to abandon the notion of the laws of physics and propose that the universe just to happens to act as though there are such laws.
That's perfectly consistent, of course, just an unhelpful view of the universe.
Yes, I do mean to imply that physical laws are part of physicalism. If you read the wiki page where the quote comes from that I first used to define the physicalist's definition of 'the physical,' you will see it also defines physical laws as such.
But, maybe wiki isn't your cup of tea:
"Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical, or as contemporary philosophers sometimes put it, that everything supervenes on, or is necessitated by, the physical... The general idea is that the nature of the actual world (i.e. the universe and everything in it) conforms to a certain condition, the condition of being physical. Of course, physicalists don't deny that the world might contain many items that at first glance don't seem physical — items of a biological, or psychological, or moral, or social nature. But they insist nevertheless that at the end of the day such items are either physical or supervene on the physical."
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/
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