Is time an illusion? Exploring the concept of time as a constant state of change

[Doctordick]

Yeah. My argument is that we can never know if the foundations are true for they are a set of assumptions supporting each others.

You are correct, “we can never know”; however, we must admit of the possibility that a true foundation exists: i.e., that a given attempt to communicate a specific ontology might be based upon a true foundation. After all, it seems everyone believes their personal ontology is valid; one of them (the billions which exist) could be right. In fact, one could take the position that they could all be right and that you simply misunderstand them. Think about things from that perspective once.

The only criticism against that argument seems to be that if the argument is true, then I cannot know if it's true.

Again, you cannot know that it is true; however, you can certainly determine if it is false. Any specific ontology exists because it explains reality to the person who believes in it. It should be clear to you that it is the explanation of reality which is the rasion d’etre of any ontology. The very essence of science is the examination of explanations.

That is why I made such an effort to define exactly what I meant by http://home.jam.rr.com/dicksfiles/Explain/Explain.htm . The first requirement of an explanation is that it must be consistent and failure to be consistent is sufficient reason to discard any explanation. Some people will invariably come up with, “well, what if reality is inconsistent”. That issue can be discarded via the simple assertion that an inconsistent explanation yields different answers for the same question and thus fails to serve its purpose: to provide one with expectations for the future. This is the essence of science: being able to produce trustworthy estimates of future events. In the final analysis, your explanation could be wrong but, if it produces trustworthy expectations of the future, does it really make an difference? In fact, it may very well be that there exists many ontologies and many explanations which are equally valid. Why is it that I never hear speculation on such a possibility? Has anyone proved that only one “valid” ontology exists? Come, let us look at this problem with an open mind.

I was also wondering if he made that assumption or not.

I am presently in Denver on “?vacation?” and don’t have the document with me; however, I think I can pretty well assure you that he made the assumption.

Regardless of if he did, here is yet another way to put my point, and I think you agree; There is no such thing as a-priori intuition, and the "source of all knowledge" is a set of assumptions which cannot be known to be true. Just like the way we first learned language by assuming some meaning on things.

I would only argue with your statement that the “source of all knowledge” is a set of assumptions. The source of all knowledge is simply unknown and unknowable it is the “true ontology” of reality. Those assumptions are part and parcel of our explanation though some of our assumptions might well be true, there certainly exists no way of separating valid assumptions from free assumptions (free assumptions being assumptions necessary to an explanation but not necessary to explaining reality. The important aspect of “free assumptions” is that they might well vanish with a better explanation (just as phlogiston vanished from the scientific lexion).

This assertion obviously includes such knowledge as knowing what some heard sound is, and knowing what some seen pattern is. I.e. all conscious experience is a case of interpretation of sensory data. The cortex does not know anything fundamentally!

The problem with this statement is that the cortex itself is a speculative edifice. It’s existence is part and parcel of your personal explanation of reality. Now I am not saying such a thing is not a valuable artifact of our suppositions but rather that the volume of assumption underlying that concept are already so extensive as to be incomprehensible on a logical level. Let us begin at a more comprehensible level.

This seems to be one of the hardest things to explain to people even though at this day and age it should be as clear as a day to anyone dabbling in philosophy of the mind.

There are a lot of things which I feel should be obvious to anyone capable of serious thought. You seem to get farther than most. Perhaps we could establish a little communication.

Have fun -- Dick

 

[AnssiH]

You are correct, “we can never know”; however, we must admit of the possibility that a true foundation exists: i.e., that a given attempt to communicate a specific ontology might be based upon a true foundation. After all, it seems everyone believes their personal ontology is valid; one of them (the billions which exist) could be right. In fact, one could take the position that they could all be right and that you simply misunderstand them. Think about things from that perspective once.

I agree of course. There could be one true ontology, but this comes with many questions, including "if we can never tell, should we assume one to ever be true?" This is not a simple philosophical question, and probably unanswerable all by itself too.

The specific flavour of my ontology is the one saying many of them, while they seem radically different, are in fact just different semantical ways to understand the same system, and that there are no such things as "the correct" semantical components, only ones that give good predictions. One good example of this comes in metaphysical questions regarding space. What is this framework we call space; should it be thought of just part of matter, or as an entity all by itself? At some point the question turns into "does it matter?". Both views are just views, and both are doomed to be - to an extent - incorrect anyway. It appears we play the 21 questions not with nature, but all by ourselves.

I would only argue with your statement that the “source of all knowledge” is a set of assumptions.

I worded that badly. I should have said that the source of all knowledge can be a set of self-supporting assumptions without any a-priori intuition existing at all. This is in response to people (incl. Kant?) feeling that there must pre-exist some base of knowledge before any knowledge can exist at all.

The reason why it is attractive to think knowledge does not include a single "explicit truth" (except the ones it decided to be so all by itself, like rules of chess or math) but only a set of self-supporting beliefs (a self-coherent worldview) is that it makes it possible for a mechanical learning machine to perform what can be described semantical reasoning (for all intents and purposes). This is because meanings of things become loose and wholly dependent on each others, since not a single concept has independent meaning to itself (if it did, it would solidify the meanings of all associated concepts also).

The problem with this statement is that the cortex itself is a speculative edifice. It’s existence is part and parcel of your personal explanation of reality. Now I am not saying such a thing is not a valuable artifact of our suppositions but rather that the volume of assumption underlying that concept are already so extensive as to be incomprehensible on a logical level. Let us begin at a more comprehensible level.

They sure are, and I haven't been able to get to a comprehensive level. My materialistic worldview says the "comprehensible connection" cannot really be made here. But while I cannot show, say, that cortex is where reasoning occurs in a materialistic sense, I have chosen this path of ontology because it seems to produce the best answers so far, including why I can never hope to be able to show it or any other ontology to be true in any explicit sense. My worldview is, as it says, a self-supporting set of beliefs, and there's nothing I can do about it. :(

-Anssi

 

[Doctordick]

I agree of course. There could be one true ontology, but this comes with many questions, including "if we can never tell, should we assume one to ever be true?" This is not a simple philosophical question, and probably unanswerable all by itself too.

In my opinion (and the difference between “exact science” and “common beliefs” is quite analogous to the difference between “facts” and “opinion”) the fact that a question is “unanswerable” is not a rational reason to ignore it. The real question is, can one set up a representation of an ontology which explicitly takes into account this very serious difficulty.

The specific flavour of my ontology is the one saying many of them, while they seem radically different, are in fact just different semantical ways to understand the same system, and that there are no such things as "the correct" semantical components, only ones that give good predictions.

That is an opinion. If one wishes to make the subject into an exact science, one must come up with a way of dealing with the facts of ontology and lay aside the opinions as immaterial to the discussion. In actual fact, the philosophical community has managed to come up with no mechanism for dealing with this problem and that is exactly why the subject is not a science. Now let me say that, though what you have said is most definitely an opinion, I can show that it is indeed a fact. That is to say I can prove that there exists a valid ontology where that statement is a fact; however, what you must understand is that, knowing that such an ontology exists, is not the same as knowing that ontology.

One good example of this comes in metaphysical questions regarding space. What is this framework we call space; should it be thought of just part of matter, or as an entity all by itself? At some point the question turns into "does it matter?". Both views are just views, and both are doomed to be - to an extent - incorrect anyway. It appears we play the 21 questions not with nature, but all by ourselves.

This comment is a total waste of words as it is no more than the consequence of an invalid attack on the problem. Please do not take my opinion as an insult; what you say is no more than a statement of a fact observed by every intelligent philosopher and, over hundreds of years, shown itself to be a worthless element to build a science on.

I worded that badly. I should have said that the source of all knowledge can be a set of self-supporting assumptions without any a-priori intuition existing at all. This is in response to people (incl. Kant?) feeling that there must pre-exist some base of knowledge before any knowledge can exist at all.

No, I don’t think you really worded it badly; I suspect I had a pretty good understanding of what you meant. What I was trying to point out was that the truth is “all knowledge is based on something” we just have to make sure that our thoughts explicitly take the that issue (that we don't know what that something is) into account. I am afraid philosophers appear to have utterly no comprehension of the idea of “working with unknowns”.

But, in metaphysics; the subject matter “IS” a speculative issue; therefore, as soon as the subject is anything but “undefined” you are no longer studying the subject, you are studying a particular ontology (a particular speculation). This is exactly where the common error made by everyone exists. The same error is made in every science (as studied by mankind): however, in all sciences, the associated ontology is presumed to be valid. It is only when you go to study ontology itself that this presumption can absolutely not be made.

The reason why it is attractive to think knowledge does not include a single "explicit truth" (except the ones it decided to be so all by itself, like rules of chess or math) but only a set of self-supporting beliefs (a self-coherent worldview) is that it makes it possible for a mechanical learning machine to perform what can be described semantical reasoning (for all intents and purposes). This is because meanings of things become loose and wholly dependent on each others, since not a single concept has independent meaning to itself (if it did, it would solidify the meanings of all associated concepts also).

Again you state a fact. But you bring it up from the perspective that it could possibly be a foundation from which to build something; which it most definitely is not. What is important is that this fact be embedded in the foundation; a different matter entirely. If the valid ontology is held explicitly to be an unknown, this fact is inherently included.

But while I cannot show, say, that cortex is where reasoning occurs in a materialistic sense, I have chosen this path of ontology because it seems to produce the best answers so far, including why I can never hope to be able to show it or any other ontology to be true in any explicit sense. My worldview is, as it says, a self-supporting set of beliefs, and there's nothing I can do about it. :(

I won’t argue with you on that issue. We all have “world views” and our survival depends upon them; however, they certainly cannot be categorized as science (even if a lot of people like to pretend their world views are “scientific”). Our world views are constructed of a combination of intuition and rational thought. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses and neither, by itself, is capable of truly understanding the universe we find ourselves in.

The power of intuition is that it can bring together vast amounts of information and discover apparent connections utterly inconceivable on a conscious level. The weakness of intuition lies with the same fact; the vastness of the information handled guarantees that no finite effort exists which can assure the validity of its conclusions. The power of rational thought is that it can examine the relations used to reach its conclusion and assure the validity of those conclusions. The weakness of rational thought is that only extremely small volumes of information can be handled. However, working together, they make human beings the most successful entity on the Earth today. Success is of course measured by themselves and I won’t make any effort to define it. It certainly isn’t survival as I think cockroaches have us beat there.

The validity of our intuitive conclusions is attested to by our survival for millions of years (in my world view) while the power of our rational thought is attested to by our current technology. This leads me to the conclusion that rational thought is a worthwhile pursuit but I certainly would leave survival issues to my intuition. In my long life, I have met a great number of very successful people who have never had a rational thought in their lifetime. I think that is why science is avoided by most people: a life based entirely on intuition is easier and more productive (from their perspective). I have often thought that “hard science” is called “hard” because it’s not easy. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Have fun -- Dick

 

[Tournesol]

The question is rather, is "time" a proper concept to understand the metaphysical nature of motion. I.e, is it fair to say that there needs to exist some sort of invisible entity called "time", before anything can move.
What do you think?

I think it does. Probably

Why? Why does it seem to you that it is impossible for motion to exist without a backdrop which is more fundamental and defines motion?

I didn't use the term "backdrop". The concept of motion is complex. It analyses in being in different places at different times.
That seems to require time to exist in some way.

...on the basis that it is unnecessary component; motion can be metaphysical directly.

How?

How can anything be fundamental?

If the concept cannot be analysed into simpler concepts, that helps.

Is it not fair to say that "something exists fundamentally, for otherwise there would be nothing?"

That doesn't justify claimig that any old thing is fundamental. We can hardly say that water
is fundamental when we know it is composed of hydrgoen and oxygen.

So just like one can claim something like "energy" (or "information") is of fundamental existence (or rather more fundamental than the "heat" it causes), cannot one claim that motion is fundamental?

it analyses into other concepts.

If one asserts motion cannot possible be fundamental, how is our subjective experience in motion?

It isn't fundamental, I suppose.

You cannot allow fundamental motion to "consciousness"-entity either, or if you do, why shouldn't you allow motion to reality directly since it makes things simpler here?

I don't have to allow that either is fundamental.

Of course nothing is certain, but I must wonder why do people insist time must be more fundamental than motion when it complicates the
philosophy of the mind so much, and it is an issue that is even in principle beyond the observational capabilities of any natural observer. It's all topology of spacetime is what it is.

You are mixing together a bunch of different claims. For instance, the claim that time is fundamental doesn't make
change or motion illusory.

Assumptions may be objective.

Assumptions are by definition not objective.

Nope.

That is why I use to word; to point out one cannot make any "objective" declarations, only reasonable assumptions,

You are confusing objectivty with certainty.

and they are based on other assumptions.

Assumptions which can be withdrawn in the face of countervailing evidence.

You didn't learn language by someone explaining you how it works; you made reasonable assumptions. That's how all learning works (at a high level). This is why we understand any semantics at all.

I guess it is somewhat different issue whether all this assuming and worldview building can lead to objective knowledge of reality (although I definitely cannot conceive how it could)

You don't have argument to the effect that it cannot.

"It just notes that the intrinsic nature of reality is not found by classifying the stable behaviour around us into entities which have such and such properties".

why not? It might be right.

I said "...intrinsic nature of reality is not found..."
That something "might be right" doesn't prove it true.

No. But it *might* be right. You cannot say it is definitely false because it is not
definitely true.

i.e. we do not find the intrinsic nature of reality by classifying the stable behaviour around us into... etc.

You are confusing the idea of being able to say anything at all
about reality with being able to same something with certainty.

Arriving at a simple, predictive map is the
best guide we have to what reality really is

Yeah, and it isn't an answer to ontology.

Saying what reality really is, however tentatively,
is ontology.

Yeah, and it isn't an answer to ontology. Strictly speaking, there are no explicit answers. Only questions and assumptions.

It isn't a final answer, but it is an answer.

(QM) Just works differently? We perform assumptions when we try to explain QM behaviour to ourselves.

Or anything else.

Just to take two set of assumptions on the table, how could we decide whether there exists multiple invisible universes which serve as the routes to the photons, or whether information exists in advanced & retarded form (moving forwards and backwards in time in some sense)

Experiments have been proposed to test those ideas.

And all these tell you that if you are measuring the phenomenon which we call, say, "photons", you will find them to behave in such and such ways in such and such conditions. Just like we could say that if you measure the phenomenon which we call, say, a tsunami, you will find it to behave in such and such ways.

Neither of these tells you what is the ontological reality of either of these things. Just that we find them to behave in such and such ways. All the rest is extra words and basically philosophy. Your mental model of these behaviours includes some ideas of time and space which cannot be proven.

They are still ideas about the reality beyond observable phenomena, even if they can't
be proven.

You are confusing the idea of being able to say anything at all
about reality with being able to same something with certainty.

Well to be precise, I guess I should say there is no reason to assume nature does it since we can never find out.

Except by building good models.

I am basically saying that nature doesn't point a finger on a tsunami and say "that's a tsunami". We do. Nor does nature point its finger and say "That's water". We do. Nor does it say "These are atoms". We do. I guess you can always ask "how do I know", but I can only wonder why, oh why would anyone assume nature does this.

People would assume nature works that way because assuming that it does leads to good theories.

I'm not saying it because of "QM fuzzyness", but because it is impossible to show that some boundary we draw is more than something we have drawn for convenience.

The fact that it works predictively, if it
does, is "something more".

When a sat-nav system gives you directions, and a child assumes there is someone following you and giving you orders via the radio, this is basically an assumption made to the worldview, and it yields the correct prediction that orders will be hard when appropriate street junctions are approached. It doesn't make it "something more".


When you see a wave and assume it is an object moving underneath the surface at a steady rate, it gives you correct predictions but nothing more.

When you model the trajectory of a photon as a static "bundle of trajectories" into a relativistic spacetime, it gives you correct predictions but nothing more.

Other theories are better. The playing-field is not level. Not havig a final theory is not he
same as being in complete ignorance.

Just like the boundaries between countries are not metaphysically real, the boundary between an atom and a space cannot be said to be more than a convention.
That's not remotely analogous. Hydrogen atoms are so small
that hey can pass through the molecular structure of rubber, If I redefeine
them as being 1cm across--they still pass through rubber.
My claims is therefore falsified.

You are missing the point altogether. You could well claim they are 1 cm across (or much larger) but their residual electromagnetism, which causes the function which we call "solidity", only reaches to much less distance.

Such a claim would be vacuous. It leads to no testable predictions. But there are testable
facts about the sizes of atoms in a way that there aren't about the borders of countries.

Also there is no such thing as a metaphysical rubber. The rubber too is made of same "functions" as the hydrogen atom. The rubber cannot falsify anything without you having first made some assumptions about how it works. You can do this only by trying to build a coherent worldview.

Just because its an assumotion doesn't mean it is false.
The playing field is not level.

Basically you are making many tacit assumptions here that people make far too often. Atoms are most certainly NOT little balls with a metaphysical walls to them. "Wall" is meaningless concept without us having first observed one which was MADE OF ATOMS. Please read the latter part of this post again:

I am not adopting a naive picture of atoms. Notheless, there are objective
methods to assign sizes to them.

The worldview is always circular.

False. Theories can be disproven.

It would make false predicitions as in the hydrogen atom example.

And of course it would not, it would just be a different but also coherent worldview.

So no theory has ever been disproven? But many have.

You can disporve its concepts only by mixing the two.

False

There is a reason why they are called models.

Models are models *of* something.

 

[Time is Unreal]

I will tell you this. I believe all things are "constant", and "present". In saying that, "all things" meaning matter, gravity, motion, energy, universe, anything you can fit in there. They and all things maybe, God exist in our present state. I think the whole perception of "time" throws us off when we are looking at how things came to be "present". I believe the only way is to stick with the facts. Deal with what is present, and try not too allow "time" to "confuse" us with what is real , and what is not. Perception of things plays a big part of what exists ,and what does not, and time could be looked at as just a mental measuring tool rather than actual one. Like a ruler for instance.
After saying that I will also give you my personal rather then scientific view is that, since you were throwing what if's; "What if" since all things are "present", and "constant" , and energy can not be created, nor destroyed then they always have been always will be, and thus is connected too eterninty meaning there is an association with God however your mind perceives him. If there is only a constant present it might be eternity, whether we can percieve in our mind or not. Long after this world is gone if ever, God forbid by the way, I think there will be a constant present no matter what type of life can, or cannot percieve the laws of physics.

Time could be holding us back in our minds. Could it not? Can something be simualtaneous, and in the past at the same time? I don't think so . Yesterday, if you like calling it that is the past. I don't think so. Ithink it is just a simualtaneous motion in or at a point of space where when at that point all things are present . When you move into the future if you like to call it that. Same thing. How can a point that is always present, just because it changes distance from one point to another be called time?
It could just be eternity we are in. Always present and constant. This is just some ideas I wonder if they could ever be proven? Maybe time does exist, but hard to imagine it for me.

 

[AnssiH]

The specific flavour of my ontology is the one saying many of them, while they seem radically different, are in fact just different semantical ways to understand the same system, and that there are no such things as "the correct" semantical components, only ones that give good predictions.

That is an opinion. If one wishes to make the subject into an exact science, one must come up with a way of dealing with the facts of ontology and lay aside the opinions as immaterial to the discussion. In actual fact, the philosophical community has managed to come up with no mechanism for dealing with this problem and that is exactly why the subject is not a science. Now let me say that, though what you have said is most definitely an opinion, I can show that it is indeed a fact. That is to say I can prove that there exists a valid ontology where that statement is a fact; however, what you must understand is that, knowing that such an ontology exists, is not the same as knowing that ontology.

By "valid ontology" you mean it is possible to construct such a self-coherent philosophy where the beforementioned statement is a fact?

One good example of this comes in metaphysical questions regarding space. What is this framework we call space; should it be thought of just part of matter, or as an entity all by itself? At some point the question turns into "does it matter?". Both views are just views, and both are doomed to be - to an extent - incorrect anyway. It appears we play the 21 questions not with nature, but all by ourselves.

This comment is a total waste of words as it is no more than the consequence of an invalid attack on the problem. Please do not take my opinion as an insult; what you say is no more than a statement of a fact observed by every intelligent philosopher and, over hundreds of years, shown itself to be a worthless element to build a science on.

Actually I don't think it is completely worthless in the sense that it reminds us about the exact role of science. That science is different from ontology, i.e. scientific models are models of reality instead of reality itself, and that no such thing as "objective experiment" exist in the sense that every experiment is always interpreted according to a model that is always based on assumptions etc... Basically the same stuff that people like Thomas Kuhn, Martin Heidegger, John Gribbin, Andrew Pickering, William Poundstone and Martin Krieger (and what have you) have noted before.

To me this means that science is about building predictive models, and trying to answer ontological questions (based on those models) is philosophy. Unfortunately statements like these, especially since I guess I don't express them that well, are often taken as if I'm trying to downplay the role of science, as if I'm saying we don't need to care about what the experiments tell us. Which is obviously not what I'm saying at all.

No, I don’t think you really worded it badly; I suspect I had a pretty good understanding of what you meant. What I was trying to point out was that the truth is “all knowledge is based on something” we just have to make sure that our thoughts explicitly take the that issue (that we don't know what that something is) into account.

Ok, well then I must wonder how do you arrive at the assumption that all knowledge is based on something, or rather what do you exactly mean by this statement.

It appears to me we may be thinking of a similar scheme but use different concepts to understand them (and consequently miscommunicate to each others), so let me try to rephrase my position on this. I think I should take a few steps back, just to be safe. (I'll try to be brief so bear with the crude approximations, and no need to point out my assertions are just assumptions too; I know :)

My first ideas towards this scheme were based on Dawkins' description (In "Selfish Gene") about the animal-branch of survival machines having come to adopt a new kind of survival method in a dynamic environment. Plainly put, animals (living in highly complex and dynamic environment) became able to react to stimulus in the environment rapidly (instead of merely through natural selection of the genes). In other words, animals became able to avoid dangers as they perceived them. I.e. sensory systems and nervous systems evolved.

Skipping few steps ahead; equipped with the nervous systems the animals can predict the environment around them. To predict something you "simulate" it. It is possible for a nervous system to simulate reality by building a model of reality; by conceptualizing reality into objects like "rocks" and "hills" and assuming a behaviour to such objects, like "rocks go down, balloons go up".

Indeed, such prediction is what we do when we imagine a tennis ball jumping down the stairs; the conscious image is based on our conception of reality and how things work in it. And likewise, all technical inventions can be seen as cases of someone having made a good prediction about how some system should work.

Mind you though, not all prediction is conscious at all. Just walking along an uneven (or flat) surface is a case of predicting how to move the muscles so to stay upright, but you do not consciously think about which muscles to move. When a nervous system becomes trained enough to a task (any task), it falls below conscious awareness. But it can still be called prediction (For more thoughts on such a scheme, look "On Intelligence" by Jeff Hawkins).

Needless to say, the better you can predict reality, the more "intelligent" your behaviour is, and the better you are equipped to survive in a complex and dynamic environment. Prediction really is the keyword here.

And here we get to what people call "intuition".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuition_(knowledge)
Intuition is an immediate form of knowledge in which the knower is directly acquainted with the object of knowledge. Intuition differs from all forms of mediated knowledge, which generally involve conceptualizing the object of knowledge by means of rational/analytical thought processes

This, I feel, is false view and the source of much confusion. I mentioned "conceptualizing reality" before, and here we must ask, what is being conceptualized from the point of view of the cortex? Well, if we understand the cortex as a single system, then we can say it is in some sense conceptualizing "patterns". A rock in our visual view is first just a pattern that is found stably from the sensory data. It doesn't appear as a rock in a subjective experience unless an assumption has been made about there existing such things as "rock" (and consequently the pattern being recognized as one).

In other words, I assume cortex is a system that does not initially know anything about reality at all, and it forms a conception of reality by making assumptions about what are "things that exist", based on those patterns. But it is not possible to even build a concept of thing "X" without any priori knowledge about "properties" or whatnot, unless you form concepts in juxtaposition in some sense; "matter is what space is not".

This sort of conceptualizing is evident in any model we build, in how we cannot understand what a single concept IS without also understanding what it is NOT, or how it associates to other concepts. I.e. no conception has any meaning to itself independently.

In approximated view we could say the cortex is making a set of assumptions and if these assumptions don't give sensical interpretation for the sensory data, the assumptions are changed. I.e. cortex is building what could be called a semantical worldview. This has obvious consequences to Searle's assumption about "semantics" being something that no algorithmic/mechanical approach can achieve (i.e. his assumption appears false).

Also this can be seen as analogous to how we first learn language. We understand new words by someone explaining their meaning to us by using other words. But it wasn't like this for the first word we ever learned. We made certain assumptions and if they gave sensical results, we kept the assumptions. We did not have a priori intuition to language (notice how difficult this would be to understand if there was only one language in the world).

Now, our subjective experience is not bunch of patterns in the cortex. It consists exclusively of these conceptualized things. There exists an awareness about these things the cortex EXPRESSES, not of "how things in the cortex ARE". There is no sense of "visual qualia" (for example) to the patterns until an appropriate worldview has been built. This is the part that people find hard to believe, but when you really look into it, there are plenty of indications that point this way. Our subjective experience really is, by this defininition, just an interpretation of sensory data. An interpretation that the cortex performs quite mechanically. When the cortex is familiar enough in interpreting something, it does this without conscious effort. This is what people refer to as "intuition", but really the only difference with intuition and reasoning here would be that the latter is "less direct" because the brain is not too familiar with it.

It is important here to understand in what sense "identity" is something the cortex attaches on the patterns because it makes it possible to say there ARE objects in reality, and consequently to say how these objects behave, and consequently to make any predictions at all. (And obviously in this description "patterns" are also semantically understood things like anything else. I can still say stable patterns are in such and such ways a better description than "objects")

A shadow cannot be said to have "real" identity from one moment to the next, but when we think about shadows, we tack identity to them in our minds. Most people tend to tack metaphysical identity to atoms, but taking all the above into account, it really becomes questionable. When you account for quantum mechanics, and for the fact that matter is in a very real sense made out of what we call "energy", in the sense that it can be converted to energy and vice versa, it starts to seem more reasonable to see atoms just as stable systems, more like an interaction loop of some sort, which have got the functions that we observe.

And since (by this model) all our conception of the world is about classifying reality around us into "things" or "objects" (including our "selves"), and all ontological questions are basically about what might be the "correct" way to tack identity to the things we see. I.e. what is the correct way to understand the "border" of an atom, or what is the correct way to draw the boundaries around the stable patterns we see. (spatial and temporal, keeping in mind that "space" and "time" are also semantical concepts that are used as components to build a conception of reality)

I think we can establish that we (and other animals) draw these patterns because that is how the cortex can make reasonable predictions about reality. But just because we do this, and just because our conscious experience is about such "semantical objects", it doesn't follow that reality is really made of objects in any similar sense. There is no way to point at a border of an atom, except by building a *model* where a border exists by some completely semantical criteria.

A more succint way to put it would be;

To experience is to classify reality into semantical components, hence it does not follow that reality is really made of components with any "real identity" (spatially nor temporally); i.e. it cannot be said that reality draws boundaries within itself just because we do.

This is NOT to be confused of idealism. Reality does exist in objective form, but subjective experience of reality is really just that by its very definition, a subjective form. No such thing as "intuition" or "direct experience" can exist in this view.

Well, I'm not perfectly happy with the wording above but I guess I'd need to use days to shape it and explain things better before it really could make sense as a whole. Nevertheless I suspect your view is so close to mine that you can at least pick up what I am claiming about (inexistence of) identity and intuition, even if you don't necessarily agree.

-Anssi

 

[Doctordick]

By "valid ontology" you mean it is possible to construct such a self-coherent philosophy where the beforementioned statement is a fact?

In a nutshell, yes! However, I repeat, knowing such a construction is possible is not equivalent to knowing how to do it. What is important here is understanding some simple yet profound concepts. You have written a substantially long post expressing many ideas; many of which bear quite strongly on my thoughts; however, I don’t think it would be of benefit to discus each of them sequentially. Such a response would be far too long to benefit anyone. So, please don’t take offence if I seem to be ignoring your comments. I am only trying to keep this post relevant to what I see as the most important issues.

First, let us examine the issue of intuition carefully. You went to the dictionary and then disagreed with the perspective presented:

And here we get to what people call "intuition".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuition_(knowledge)
Intuition is an immediate form of knowledge in which the knower is directly acquainted with the object of knowledge. Intuition differs from all forms of mediated knowledge, which generally involve conceptualizing the object of knowledge by means of rational/analytical thought processes

This, I feel, is false view and the source of much confusion. I mentioned "conceptualizing reality" before, and here we must ask, what is being conceptualized from the point of view of the cortex?

The problem with bringing up “the cortex” is that, by doing so, you presume “the cortex” is an essential part of any possible ontology. I am not saying it is not; what I am saying is that a scientific analysis of ontology can not begin by assuming answers: i.e., everyone, including yourself, has a bad habit of trying to construct ontologies in order to have something to examine (as Kant says, “It is indeed a very common fate of human reason first of all to finish its speculative edifice as soon as possible, and then only inquire whether the foundations be sure”).

Our world views are constructed of a combination of intuition and rational thought. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses and neither, by itself, is capable of truly understanding the universe we find ourselves in.

The power of intuition is that it can bring together vast amounts of information and discover apparent connections utterly inconceivable on a conscious level. The weakness of intuition lies with the same fact; the vastness of the information handled guarantees that no finite effort exists which can assure the validity of its conclusions. The power of rational thought is that it can examine the relations used to reach its conclusion and assure the validity of those conclusions. The weakness of rational thought is that only extremely small volumes of information can be handled.

The central concern of the wikipedia definition is the fact that intuition yields knowledge without conscious mediation: i.e., we honestly cannot describe exactly how we came to these conclusions (those intuitive things we know, or think we know). Essentially, the definition ignores the issue of how this comes about and so do I; but I center my perspective on the fact that we cannot examine the issue as to how this is accomplished (that would be speculation and not hard science). You try to define it by how it is achieved which clearly requires you to speculate about how it is achieved; an issue which, in the final analysis, you know you cannot prove.

I only bring intuition into the discussion of the hard science of ontology because I know that it is an extremely important issue as, without intuition (i.e., thinking we know things without knowing how we achieved it), we could never achieve any workable ontology of anything. If it can be done in the absolute absence of intuition (i.e., with nothing but rational analytical analysis) it would be nothing more than a mere mechanical problem. It follows that a hard scientific analysis of ontology must include intuition without making a presumption as to what the elements of the ontology are. All I am doing is dividing my (or your) thought processes (the mechanism by which any ontology is achieved) into two components: those I can analytically examine in detail, and those which I cannot.

Ok, well then I must wonder how do you arrive at the assumption that all knowledge is based on something, or rather what do you exactly mean by this statement.

I think you are looking for too much in the word “something”. I am using it to imply the total lack of knowledge as to what knowledge is based upon. “All knowledge is based on nothing”, seems to me to be a rather empty assertion; it pretty well implies the supposed “valid ontology” is an empty set and “a hard science of “empty sets” strikes me as an oxymoron. Let me just say that the “something” I am referring to is the “minimal underlying valid ontology” whatever that happens to be. If no such thing exists then I guess you are just a figment of my imagination.

So then to get to the next most important issue, prediction:

Mind you though, not all prediction is conscious at all.

No, some of it is intuitive! It seems to me that you are right on track towards the most basic concept of all possible speculation. The whole central issue of ontology itself is, “exactly what do we have to think of as existing in order to logically defend our apparently (at least to us) successful predictions”. This basic ontology is the foundation of one’s world view and thinking their world view is valid is about the strongest prejudice held by any human being; it has been the major block to scientific advance for centuries. It is exactly the success of those predictions essential to survival which establish a successful ontology (notice that I said “successful” and not “valid” as they are quite different concepts).

Needless to say, the better you can predict reality, the more "intelligent" your behavior is, and the better you are equipped to survive in a complex and dynamic environment. Prediction really is the keyword here.

Yes, I agree with you one hundred percent; however, intuitive prediction is, for all practical purposes, unexaminable so there is little benefit worrying about the ontological implications of speculative considerations. Besides, there are plenty of people speculating on that aspect of things (who, to paraphrase Kant, only inquire whether their foundations are sure after coming up with what they “intuitively” feel are reasonable expectations).

But, when it comes to conscious rational analysis, prediction is a much more approachable issue. In that case, prediction flows directly from our detailed analysis of our understanding of what is going on and we even already have a name for the process of obtaining predictions from our analytical understanding of what is going on: we call that process “an explanation”. That is how I came to define “an explanation” as a method of obtaining expectations from known information. In my opinion, the concept of an explanation is fundamental to rational thought itself; furthermore, `without such a concept, the concept of ontology serves no purpose. Who cares what exists or doesn’t exist if its existence explains nothing.

To experience is to classify reality into semantical components, hence it does not follow that reality is really made of components with any "real identity" (spatially nor temporally); i.e. it cannot be said that reality draws boundaries within itself just because we do.

No, it cannot; but we can certainly define reality to be that valid set of ontological elements which we desire to know. Now a lot of philosophers seem to baulk at setting a goal which might not be achievable; however, it seems to me that “understanding the universe” is a very common “scientific” goal in the total absence of any proof that the goal is actually achievable. Having an explicit goal certainly gives direction to our efforts.

In approximated view we could say the cortex is making a set of assumptions and if these assumptions don't give sensical interpretation for the sensory data, the assumptions are changed. I.e. cortex is building what could be called a semantical worldview.

Aside from the assumption of the existence of the cortex, which I have already mentioned, there is another very important oversight here. Your senses are themselves an aspect of your world view. There is a “which came first” issue here which everyone seems to ignore. How can you have senses (as ontological concepts) in the absence of a world view; and, likewise, how is it possible to construct a world view via interpretation of your senses if you have no information on your senses until after you have established your world view. The answer to this dilemma is actually quite straight forward: the ontological construction of your senses is a free parameter in the construction of your ontology. I am, at this point, firmly convinced that this fact is central to solving the problem of setting up a functioning ontology. If it weren’t true, I strongly suspect that it would be impossible to achieve a functional world view.

Also this can be seen as analogous to how we first learn language. We understand new words by someone explaining their meaning to us by using other words. But it wasn't like this for the first word we ever learned. We made certain assumptions and if they gave [sensible] results, we kept the assumptions. We did not have a priori intuition to language (notice how difficult this would be to understand if there was only one language in the world).

This issue is much deeper than realized (or at least expressed) by anyone I have ever talked to. Understanding a language is a specific example of establishing an ontology from totally unknown information. As you said, we make assumptions which we consider to be correct unless the resultant “translation” into our experiences doesn’t make sense. This possibility still exists even when learning a new word from someone’s explanation as we never even consider the possibility that we misunderstand the words being used to explain that new word. This kind of possibility constitutes an open issue seemingly never considered by anyone. I know you have heard the question, “how do I know you are having the same experience when you say you are seeing green as I have when I say I am seeing green?” The question should be much broader than that; one should rather ask, “how do I know you are having the same experience I am having when your description of the experience is the same as mine?”

The correct answer to that question is, “I do not, and can not, know!” I assume we are communicating when that assumption makes sense within my world view!” If, as I said above, your senses (in your perspective, that would be the translations of nerve impulses by the cortex) is actually a free parameter of your solution to understanding the universe you find yourself in, then, so long as your interpretation of the universe is an analog model of mine, the issue of differents is insignificant. If the two views are analogs of one another, then all predictions for any experiment will be virtual analogs of one another and no experiment can be performed by anyone which will differentiate between the two interpretations.

However, another very important possibility exists. Suppose for example that the two world views are quite different from one another and that the presumed identification of ontological elements do not include the existence of a perfect analog. If neither party has closed their world view to absolute consistency (which one can be assumed to be a valid expectation), the possibility exists that relationships seen as quite obvious to one may lead to conclusions different to the other in spite of the fact that they may agree explicitly on the internal relationships of the relevant concepts: i.e., they are speaking of fundamentally different ontological elements in spite of their belief that they are speaking of the same phenomena: i.e., such a circumstance could lead to deep and significant but nonetheless unrecognized misunderstanding.

… and for the fact that matter is in a very real sense made out of what we call "energy"…

Comments like this always drive me up the wall as they make no sense. Energy is defined to be “the ability to do work”. Under such a definition it cannot be a fundamental element of your ontology as you have to define work first. (Sorry about that comment, but I just had to spout off.)

This is NOT to be confused of idealism. Reality does exist in objective form, but subjective experience of reality is really just that by its very definition, a subjective form. No such thing as "intuition" or "direct experience" can exist in this view.

I would agree that there is no such thing as “direct experience” but my position is that we are only in intellectual contact with illusions created by our intuitive understanding. I would set our intuitive understanding in direct contact with reality as, if the mechanism behind intuition and our senses is indeed a open parameter of our understanding, it should accommodate everything not included in conscious analytical thought.

I suspect you and I have a very similar view of things; however, I think we have to talk a little more to verify that! How do you feel about a little “hard” analysis?

Have fun -- Dick

 

[AnssiH]

The problem with bringing up “the cortex” is that, by doing so, you presume “the cortex” is an essential part of any possible ontology.

Yeah I understand this very well, and I tried to warn you that the text will include many crude approximations and blatant assumptions. And most of all, that it is the view I happen to hold, and I do recognize it is possible to construct other kinds of coherent worldviews. Idealistic worldview is unproblematic with another set of fundamental or "metaphysical" assumptions.

That is also to say that I believe there can exist an arbitrary number of "valid" ontologies, i.e. self-coherent but radically different from each others. And sure enough, this belief is also based on set of assumptions :)

So, at this point, I'm sure you understand, I'd be completely stuck unless I just follow some ontology and see how far it gets me. Basically I make blatant assertions while knowing perfectly well I could be wrong, because no one can understand a text where every word comes with a disclaimer or a condition :)

But perhaps we can get onwards with intuition, so on to it...

[I only bring intuition into the discussion of the hard science of ontology because I know that it is an extremely important issue as, without intuition (i.e., thinking we know things without knowing how we achieved it), we could never achieve any workable ontology of anything. If it can be done in the absolute absence of intuition (i.e., with nothing but rational analytical analysis) it would be nothing more than a mere mechanical problem.

I agree that intuition is important concept to discuss, in particular I agree with this because my view of it appears to be so radically different from the common conception, but it looks like we use the concept little bit differently.

Ok, well then I must wonder how do you arrive at the assumption that all knowledge is based on something, or rather what do you exactly mean by this statement.

I think you are looking for too much in the word “something”. I am using it to imply the total lack of knowledge as to what knowledge is based upon. “All knowledge is based on nothing”, seems to me to be a rather empty assertion; it pretty well implies the supposed “valid ontology” is an empty set and “a hard science of “empty sets” strikes me as an oxymoron.

Ok, I think I see where the miscommunication is. I must be clearer about what I mean by "knowledge" and "based on".

Some people point at a rock rolling down a hill and say the rock has knowledge about the hill. And in the same that a neuron has knowledge about electric impulses that are affecting it. I refer to these cases as "reactions", and when I talk about knowledge I refer to some conception/belief about reality that I might have.

When I talk about what some knowledge is "based on", I am referring to the way I know something because of knowing something else. That a belief X is based on belief Y and belief Z (often in numerous ways).

So when you say all knowledge is based on something, it sounds like you are suggesting that when we dig down to the bottom-most belief, we find it is attached to some explicit knowledge about reality; i.e. there is something we explicitly know to be true.

What I believe to be the case (for numerous reasons) is rather that we do not find any root, we only find a set of assumptions that hold each others together. This is evident in how the arguments for and against certain ideas are always, when you dig deep enough, circles of beliefs.

In other words, I seriously investigate the possibility that knowledge is never fundamentally based on explicit knowledge about anything. To avoid saying "knowledge is based on nothing" I could say knowledge is based on "itself", or I could say knowledge is based on mechanical learning system that builds and expresses a model of reality by building this sort of self-supporting worldview.

A related note about hard science, since we are talking about the nature of human knowledge, I think we should ask whether "ideal hard science" exists at all. There is proper and inproper way to understand the role of hard science regarding ontology.

Wikipedia offers an example of how "a physicist may determine that the velocity of an object falling towards the Earth due to gravity is equal to g*t, where t is time of falling and g is a gravitational constant. He reports this not as an opinion or viewpoint, but as a fact about the nature of the universe"

This can be called "hard science" in that it offers you ways to make very accurate predictions about the behaviour of apples. But it is not "ideal hard science" in that it does not tell you what is the nature of apples or what gravity means or whether it is the apple falling towards Earth or Earth falling towards the apple. To consciously comprehend the set of events in terms of apples, earth, and falling is to hold certain assumptions about space, time, matter, objects (identity of)... We come to hold these assumptions as we try to build a coherent worldview, and just because it is coherent doesn't mean it is true. As you probably are well aware, it is possible to explain such a simple phenomena as an apple falling in numerous different ways physically, when you really get into different views about time and space. And you can look at any phenomena we know of and explain them in number of different ways. You can take any scientific model that exists and produce all its observable behaviour in number of different ways.

Another related example, after seeing how light is reflected by a mirror, one might call the "law of reflection" as a case of hard science.
http://www.glenbrook.k12.il.us/gbssci/phys/Class/refln/u13l1c.html

But as an ontological view this is very much false, and we actually have to describe very different set of mechanics to explain the phenomenon more accurately (as is done with QED). But QED is obviously not unambiguous ontologically. The end result is that we do not know how or why mirrors work, but we can imagine their behaviour in very predictable manner in our heads, and we can mechanically describle their behaviour very accurately, but in many different, yet self-coherent ways.

Incidentally, I am glad to find the following from Wikipedia since I whole-heartedly agree;
Much work by modern historians of science, starting with the work done by Thomas Kuhn, has focused on the ways in which the "hard sciences" have functioned in ways which were less "hard" than previously assumed, emphasizing that decisions over the veracity of a given theory owed much more to "subjective" influences than the "hard" label would emphasize (and begin to question whether there are any real distinctions between "hard" and "soft" science).

Whether or not there is a distiction is, I'm sure you can see, up pretty much up to semantics.

So then to get to the next most important issue, prediction:
No, some of it is intuitive! It seems to me that you are right on track towards the most basic concept of all possible speculation. The whole central issue of ontology itself is, “exactly what do we have to think of as existing in order to logically defend our apparently (at least to us) successful predictions”. This basic ontology is the foundation of one’s world view and thinking their world view is valid is about the strongest prejudice held by any human being; it has been the major block to scientific advance for centuries. It is exactly the success of those predictions essential to survival which establish a successful ontology (notice that I said “successful” and not “valid” as they are quite different concepts).

Yeah, that's how I view it these days, that there are just more or less "succesfull" worldviews. I've been coming increasingly convinced that one can adopt many (radically) different sorts of models to correctly predict some observed behaviour of any system (just try to think about unambiguous system, especially keeping different QM and relativistic views in mind), and these "mind models" always work with semantical elements, and thus they cannot describe reality as it is. This is also the basis of subjective experience to understand reality around you in terms of concepts you have come to adopt in your worldview because they are useful (3D-space, matter, gravity, time & simultaneity). (And this has to do with my view of "intuition")

I suspect the reason why many people find this hard to believe is also the fact that our subjective experience is intrinsically all about semantical notions and conceptions. It is made of such notions, and thus it is also absolutely impossible to conceive anything about reality without using such notions. It seems as if there can be no reality if it's not made of objects.

But, when it comes to conscious rational analysis, prediction is a much more approachable issue. In that case, prediction flows directly from our detailed analysis of our understanding of what is going on and we even already have a name for the process of obtaining predictions from our analytical understanding of what is going on: we call that process “an explanation”. That is how I came to define “an explanation” as a method of obtaining expectations from known information. In my opinion, the concept of an explanation is fundamental to rational thought itself; furthermore, `without such a concept, the concept of ontology serves no purpose. Who cares what exists or doesn’t exist if its existence explains nothing.

Yeah, and so it is reasonable to say that we try to explain the world because the explanations yield useful predictions. It doesn't matter if the explanations are metaphysically correct, just that they give good results.

To experience is to classify reality into semantical components, hence it does not follow that reality is really made of components with any "real identity" (spatially nor temporally); i.e. it cannot be said that reality draws boundaries within itself just because we do.

No, it cannot; but we can certainly define reality to be that valid set of ontological elements which we desire to know. Now a lot of philosophers seem to baulk at setting a goal which might not be achievable; however, it seems to me that “understanding the universe” is a very common “scientific” goal in the total absence of any proof that the goal is actually achievable. Having an explicit goal certainly gives direction to our efforts.

Yeah, but also this can be seen as having achieved a goal in a sense. It is an ontological assertion to say that our conception of reality is such and such and thus here is where we find the limit of our understanding in such and such sense. It doesn't say anything about how accurate predictions we will be able to make about reality, and it still leaves many philosophical questions completely unanswered.

Aside from the assumption of the existence of the cortex, which I have already mentioned, there is another very important oversight here. Your senses are themselves an aspect of your world view. There is a “which came first” issue here which everyone seems to ignore. How can you have senses (as ontological concepts) in the absence of a world view; and, likewise, how is it possible to construct a world view via interpretation of your senses if you have no information on your senses until after you have established your world view. The answer to this dilemma is actually quite straight forward: the ontological construction of your senses is a free parameter in the construction of your ontology.

This is essentially what I'm trying to say. We build our worldviews out of assumptions, and this includes any single thing we could possibly be conscious of. So I agree and this part is very much central to my views and to what I said about intuition. There cannot be said to be a subjective experience or anything of that sort until an appropriate worldview has been built. The interpretation is based on worldview which is based on assumptions that support each others.

Here is one reason I opted to use the word "cortex" btw, because I don't feel it is appropriate here to refer to a person having sensory experience, but it's more like there is a system that builds a worldview in the attempt to make sensical interpretation of the "sensory data", which in its raw form bears no meaning to itself. I don't know if there's a system like that but I must assume it or I cannot even talk about this view. The system/brain ends up picking whatever meaning is sensical to infer from the data, and when you are conscious of looking at an apple, it is a case of having picked up that meaning from the data, so to speak. The root of the worldview with which to pick up the meaning is still a set of self-supporting views.

And with little extrapolation, this also leads to my view of subjective experience. I would be surprised if there wasn't infant amnesia, since the infant brain at first is just receiving alien data with no meaning to it, and no assumption about identity of self or anything of that sort has been made. It is not possible to have any memories of one's own past when the brain has not assumed that such a thing as "self" exists at all (and this intuitive assumption can also shown to be false in many ways as far as the particular identity of "self" goes). So the hypothesis is that there exists such a thing as a subjective experience, when a system builds a worldview in this fashion and consequently interprets sensory data according to this loosely built worldview, through which the data is interpreted in form of "I am experiencing".

Here again I would like to refer to the experiences of Helen Keller, in how she felt she first became conscious when she realized there is a reality behind her sensations (and consequently there is such a thing as self)

I am, at this point, firmly convinced that this fact is central to solving the problem of setting up a functioning ontology. If it weren’t true, I strongly suspect that it would be impossible to achieve a functional world view.

Likewise.

I know you have heard the question, “how do I know you are having the same experience when you say you are seeing green as I have when I say I am seeing green?” The question should be much broader than that; one should rather ask, “how do I know you are having the same experience I am having when your description of the experience is the same as mine?”

The correct answer to that question is, “I do not, and can not, know!” I assume we are communicating when that assumption makes sense within my world view!” If, as I said above, your senses (in your perspective, that would be the translations of nerve impulses by the cortex) is actually a free parameter of your solution to understanding the universe you find yourself in, then, so long as your interpretation of the universe is an analog model of mine, the issue of differents is insignificant.

Also to note one thing about how I view subjective experience as always "indirect". Suppose you lived in a world where there doesn't exist any other colours but "green". You would have never seen what other colours are, and thus you would not have any comprehension about such concept as colours, not even of green. Basically you could never come to interpret certain wavelengths as a case of "green".

In this case you would not be consciously aware of green; you would not have a subjective qualia about seeing green at all. Perhaps it's a bit hard to imagine what world would look like to us, but to me it doesn't seem that different from not being able to understand a foreign language. The way you experience the same data is very different between you and someone who understands the language effortlessly.

… and for the fact that matter is in a very real sense made out of what we call "energy"…

Comments like this always drive me up the wall as they make no sense. Energy is defined to be “the ability to do work”. Under such a definition it cannot be a fundamental element of your ontology as you have to define work first. (Sorry about that comment, but I just had to spout off.)

Yeah I know why it jumps that way at you. It jumps as non-sensical to me as well without appropriate disclaimers. The information content of the argument was simply to point out that matter is not "solid stuff" in some naive realistic way, but that there are different ways to look at matter, none of which can be proven to be "true way" (including the assertion that it is energy).

Basically we choose a set of fundamentals and work with them to discuss and understand phenomena. This is the case when when we imagine a world where pieces of matter communicate with each others by "energy" or "information", or a world where matter and space exist in dualistic sense (where does that matter end and that space begin?)

There are no good answers here, only good questions :)

I would agree that there is no such thing as “direct experience” but my position is that we are only in intellectual contact with illusions created by our intuitive understanding. I would set our intuitive understanding in direct contact with reality as, if the mechanism behind intuition and our senses is indeed a open parameter of our understanding, it should accommodate everything not included in conscious analytical thought.

I think I wouldn't want to use the concept of intuition at all because to me it always starts to sound like something is having an experience in some naive realistic sense.

So basically what we refer to as intuition in an everyday sense would be to me just assumptions that are found so deep in our worldviews that they go unquestioned by the learning system that - I assume - is our brain. That there is no conscious awareness of this part of the interpretation doesn't seem problematic since just about any activity falls underneath conscious awareness when we are good enough at it. If you first try to play some video game, you have to very consciously think about what buttons to press. But after a while you stop being conscious of the buttons and it is as if you are directly controlling whatever is going on in the screen.

Likewise we are not conscious aware of interpreting/experiencing the visual view in "correct" orientation even though it can be interpreted that way only by having made certain assumptions about reality based on information from other senses (how do you know you are seeing in correct orientation otherwise?). And this of course also refers to the experiments made with mirror goggles that flip the image upside down for a person. It doesn't surprise me that after a while the image is consciously experienced "correctly" anyway; this is because that is the "sensical" interpretation of the image and the person becomes so good at "flipping the image in his mind" that he stops being conscious of this process. Some might now call it "intuition". I just call it interpretation that is not experienced consciously.

I suspect you and I have a very similar view of things

Indeed...

EDIT: Changed "idealistic hard science" to "ideal hard science" to avoid confusion. i.e. "ideal" as in "standard of perfection"

-Anssi

 

[mosassam]

back to the illusion

A question for AnissH. Earlier, when this thread was about the illusory nature of Time, you were really helpful concerning my various queries. You made me aware of certain models of reality involving spacetime and the lorentz-transformation. I was wondering if you were aware of any mathematical models of reality in which Time was not a factor?

 

[tonyjames]

Maybe when you start work and get a mortgage you will once again remember what time is..

 

[mosassam]

Thanks for that insightful comment Tonyjames. I'm a music teacher and I pay a mortgage but I think I know what you mean - deadlines, worrying about the future - that sort of thing. As a musician I have no background in science or philosophy but I have recently had my own "revelation" concerning Time. As a layman I've always been aware of the passing of Time from past to future through the present. I have memories of the past and I can worry about the future. However, I am now deeply aware that my experience of "reality" is as an ever-changing present, I find it is always Now. I can see that Time on a clock or as the rotation of the Earth is an artificial and arbitrary measurement. The only other "place" time exists is in my mind, as memories, worries, predictions, concepts etc. This is leading me to the conclusion that time only exists in an abstract sense. I'm sure this is no big news to most people on this site but it is to me.
I can look at the first word in this thread and say "I wrote that a couple of minutes ago", and I can remember writing it a couple of minutes ago so it makes perfect sense to see time in action, to see that that was one Now and that this is a different Now. The problem is that this remembering and rationalising are things that happen in my mind, and it is these things, more than anything, that give me the impression of an 'objective' Time.
I doubt I've explained myself very well but there are some questions I would like to ask that I'm having difficulty with, any help would be greatly appreciated:
1) Does Time exist only in the mind?
2) Is my Now the same Now as everyone else?
3) Is there a scientific or mathematical model of reality in which Time is not a factor?

 

[AnssiH]

A question for AnissH. Earlier, when this thread was about the illusory nature of Time, you were really helpful concerning my various queries. You made me aware of certain models of reality involving spacetime and the lorentz-transformation. I was wondering if you were aware of any mathematical models of reality in which Time was not a factor?

Well, mathematical models are basically descriptions of systems, and you can obviously describe the same phenomenon in many different ways. For example you can describe an accelerating car by describing where the car is found at different discrete moments, or you can assign an acceleration value to it that says how much speed it gains in certain period of time, and so on.

When we are describing reality, we are necessarily describing a system that evolves over time, and as such I cannot conceive how one could mathematically describe this without describing motion or time-wise evolution in some sense.

However, this is not actually your concern, because no matter how one chooses to describe a system, it is always just a description, and it does not say what is the ontological/metaphysical reality of the system. For example, when we say that lifting a rock causes it to "store gravitational potential energy", it doesn't mean energy is actually stored into a little vault, and it doesn't even mean that "energy is stored into the gravitational field of earth". This is just a description and should not be understood as an ontological description of what really happens (i.e. there are many different ways to understand the same phenomena and I can assure you "little vaults" is not the most likely candidate :)

That is to say, you can take one description, and find one person seeing it as time evolution and another seeing it as a description of motion.

And the whole conundrum about time vs. motion has been accentuated by the way relativity describes systems in form of spacetime where different objects don't share the notion of simultaneity, making it seem like time is more fundamental than motion. Which just leads right back to what we were talking about before; that it is unnecessary to see things this way; physical objects can still share simultaneity and as such reality can really be in motion, and there are clear benefits in assuming that it is.

-Anssi

 

[mosassam]

When we are describing reality, we are necessarily describing a system that evolves over time, and as such I cannot conceive how one could mathematically describe this without describing motion or time-wise evolution in some sense.

Once again, many thanks for your time AnissH. This quote strikes at the heart of the quandary I'm having at the moment. I perfectly understand when you say that in describing reality we are describing a system that evolves over time. This is how I have naturally experienced reality - as things changing, growing, or in motion over time. However, what I am experiencing at the moment, and the way it's got me thinking is, somehow, not in agreement with this. (What I'm about to say will sound as outlandish to you as it does to me, and I've thought a lot about how to phrase it but I'm just going to wade in.)
Firstly, I am quite convinced that time exists nowhere except in the mind.
I am also convinced that it is always Now. Always has been, always will be.
The impression I am starting to get is that (don't switch off) all moments are actually the same moment.
Mt rational mind is now screaming at me and providing a host of examples of how this cannot be so. But that's just in my head.
For laughs could you try and conceive of a model in which time is not a factor? Even if you find the notion preposterous.
As for ontology and descriptions not being the things they describe, I feel that this is important when two or more people are trying to communicate various concepts. I am not doing this (I hope). I am trying to glean information from this site to inform my personal experience. It is necessary for me to communicate various concepts but I do this to direct the information I am looking for - I am not offering up concepts for discussion or explanation, they are a signpost and nothing more. (even as I type these words I feel myself getting bogged down in ontology, epistemology and semantics)
My own personal experience is not subject to ontology as it is the thing that is being described It's only when I try to communicate it that things go ontologically pear-shaped.
As against the grain as it might be can you mull over the possibility of reality having no time aspect?
(hopefully it's just a phase I'm going through!)

 

[mosassam]

Just thought of something that seems important. Science measures things and the actual act of measuring certain things IMPOSES a time aspect on them. Time is in the mind of the scientist and in measuring, this aspect of the mind is projected onto physical reality giving us things like speed or motion! Perhaps.

 

[AnssiH]

Firstly, I am quite convinced that time exists nowhere except in the mind.
I am also convinced that it is always Now. Always has been, always will be.
The impression I am starting to get is that (don't switch off) all moments are actually the same moment.

I'm struggling to understand how is this different from saying "things are really in motion". I.e. that entails that "past" doesn't exist somewhere nor does "future", but rather past and future are concepts that we use to discuss and understand reality.

This also means it is valid to say there is just one "now" moment in which the whole of reality is in motion. Which is the way I also tend to think about this.

But I can interpret you in many different ways, so perhaps it helps if you try and describe what is the "dynamic component" of reality. I.e. our subjective experience is in motion without a doubt, so what is it that is causing this experience. In my view it is provided by reality being in motion (including the brain whose state correlates to the subjective experience), and existing only in one state "at a time".

 

[tonyjames]

Sorry for being flippant moassam, i was'nt being very helpful in contributing to your thoughts, i was really just emphasising that the human mind just doesn't seem to be capable of pondering time and infinity because life has always forced more pressing situations upon us.
In my view it seems we must concentrate our thoughts on developing machines and computers powerful enough to calculate the true nature of our universe.By doing this one day we may have a glimpse of the truth.
Our machines are the next step in our evolution and we can look through those. (did you see the map of the universe recently in the news?) How funny if one day we recognise the shape of the known universe as some organic structure already known to us on Earth but on a completely different scale of time, like the galaxies are single atoms in a strand of DNA...

 

[mosassam]

I can interpret you in many different ways, so perhaps it helps if you try and describe what is the "dynamic component" of reality.

Every subjective fibre in my being is telling me I'm talking balderdash (Occum's Razor springs to mind), but I would like to propose some kind of thought experiment, just to explore this particular dark alley.
Motion, or the "dynamic component of reality" is obviously the main stumbling block here. Time is an innate part of motion.
I have to assume then that Time is 'out there', in the physical world, as Motion obviously is. Surely this means Time is an objective quality of reality? (Doesn't it?)
But, if every moment is a Now moment there can neither be Time nor Motion, regardless of what our senses tell us. If Time does not exist as an objective entity then, by definition, neither does Motion.
How, then, can the obvious 'fact' of Motion be explained?
Also, what duration is a Now moment? If it has none this implies something so weird I can't even begin to get my head round it!
Hopefully the above babbling can be used as some kind of springboard into discussing reality without Time and, possibly, without Motion. Simply as a mindgame, just to see where it leads.

 

[HallsofIvy]

I can no longer see time. All I recognize is the morphing and changing of energies/masses/matters. This concept of time we have is slowly deteriorating from my mind. There is no time, all things are just constantly changing? Nothing ever really leaves us... and nothing is ever really born new in terms of energy. So all that we have is all that we have and it never goes anywhere except for changing into differenent physical, dimensional, and material states? So everything is not really passing... only changing. Time will never leave us, we must learn to leave time.

You can probably be treated for that!

 

[Doctordick]

Hi AnssiH, I am presently back at home and have decent access to the inter-net. Seriously, I am very pleased with your response and have only a couple of comments.

That is also to say that I believe there can exist an arbitrary number of "valid" ontologies, i.e. self-coherent but radically different from each others. And sure enough, this belief is also based on set of assumptions :)

From a "hard scientific" perspective, I would prefer to avoid "belief" as best as I can.

So, at this point, I'm sure you understand, I'd be completely stuck unless I just follow some ontology and see how far it gets me. Basically I make blatant assertions while knowing perfectly well I could be wrong, because no one can understand a text where every word comes with a disclaimer or a condition :)

The issue of "exact science" is making statements which can be defended (statements where the assumptions are as specifically recognized as possible). For example, the statement that mathematics can be regarded as the most well understood and internally self consistent language available to us. Do you think that is a belief or do you consider that a defendable statement? When I describe a mathematical procedure, the probability of misunderstanding is pretty much lower than when I use English to describe a social procedure (think "well understood") and self consistency is the central driving force of the field of mathematics itself. All I am saying is that, when we communicate via mathematics, we can be a lot more confident we understand what one another is trying to say and "belief" need not play as large a role as needs be in English.

When I talk about what some knowledge is "based on", I am referring to the way I know something because of knowing something else. That a belief X is based on belief Y and belief Z (often in numerous ways).

Again, you are concerning yourself with the analysis of speculative issues here and are assuming the same thing is driving my thoughts.

So when you say all knowledge is based on something, it sounds like you are suggesting that when we dig down to the bottom-most belief, we find it is attached to some explicit knowledge about reality; i.e. there is something we explicitly know to be true.

No, all I am saying is that "something" lies beneath our knowledge and part of our problem is to figure out what that something is; at least some way of scientifically expressing it which does not make assumptions about what it is.

What I believe to be the case (for numerous reasons) is rather that we do not find any root, we only find a set of assumptions that hold each others together. This is evident in how the arguments for and against certain ideas are always, when you dig deep enough, circles of beliefs.

What you are in fact saying is that you don't believe the problem which is to be solved here is soluble. That mock fights are the absolute limit of what is possible. Personally, that strikes me as an "I give up" philosophy.

But it is not "ideal hard science" in that it does not tell you what is the nature of apples or what gravity means or whether it is the apple falling towards Earth or Earth falling towards the apple. To consciously comprehend the set of events in terms of apples, earth, and falling is to hold certain assumptions about space, time, matter, objects (identity of)... We come to hold these assumptions as we try to build a coherent worldview, and just because it is coherent doesn't mean it is true. As you probably are well aware, it is possible to explain such a simple phenomena as an apple falling in numerous different ways physically, when you really get into different views about time and space. And you can look at any phenomena we know of and explain them in number of different ways. You can take any scientific model that exists and produce all its observable behavior in number of different ways.

I think you ask too much of "ideal hard science". Isn't it the essence of hard science that, given that a particular ontology is valid (call it a belief if you want but, in hard scientific analysis, you ought to be able to work with a hypothesis without believing it), the following consequences are inevitable? You seem to want "hard science" to yield absolute "truth" without conditions of any kind. In my opinion, it is an exact science if you can clearly express those limiting conditions (i.e., eliminate the necessity of belief).

Yeah, but also this can be seen as having achieved a goal in a sense. It is an ontological assertion to say that our conception of reality is such and such and thus here is where we find the limit of our understanding in such and such sense. It doesn't say anything about how accurate predictions we will be able to make about reality, and it still leaves many philosophical questions completely unanswered.

Is it now? I think you are making an unsupported assertion. Oh, it may be supported by your beliefs but I don't think you can use it as a rational reason for not attacking ontology scientifically. I personally think that you simply have no idea as to how to attack the problem.

There are no good answers here, only good questions :)

Sounds to me like the position of someone who prefers "mock battles" to serious thought.

I would agree that there is no such thing as “direct experience” but my position is that we are only in intellectual contact with illusions created by our intuitive understanding. I would set our intuitive understanding in direct contact with reality as, if the mechanism behind intuition and our senses is indeed a open parameter of our understanding, it should accommodate everything not included in conscious analytical thought.

I think I wouldn't want to use the concept of intuition at all because to me it always starts to sound like something is having an experience in some naive realistic sense.

So basically what we refer to as intuition in an everyday sense would be to me just assumptions that are found so deep in our worldviews that they go unquestioned by the learning system that - I assume - is our brain. That there is no conscious awareness of this part of the interpretation doesn't seem problematic since just about any activity falls underneath conscious awareness when we are good enough at it. If you first try to play some video game, you have to very consciously think about what buttons to press. But after a while you stop being conscious of the buttons and it is as if you are directly controlling whatever is going on in the screen.

Again, you are always working with speculative structures; not at all talking about the underlying structure of ontology. As I said above, "you ought to be able to work with a hypothesis without believing it". When it comes to conscious analysis, we can present that analysis in its entirety and discuss the logic of the construct; however, in the fabrication of any specific ontology, that conscious analysis leaves out an awful lot of phenomena about which we are ignorant. I have chosen to call that component "intuition". It is utterly clear, from your arguments, that we have no disagreements whatsoever concerning what we call the outcome of that phenomena of which we are both ignorant (we call the outcome "intuition"); however, you baulk at calling the phenomena "intuition" because it does not fall in line with your idea as to how intuition operates: i.e., the concept conflicts with the speculative edifice you have constructed around the word "intuition". I don't wish to have any speculative edifices here to confuse us and my use of this term implies no speculative edifice; it is no more than a mere label for that which is not acquired by analytical analysis.

But I can interpret you in many different ways, so perhaps it helps if you try and describe what is the "dynamic component" of reality. I.e. our subjective experience is in motion without a doubt, so what is it that is causing this experience. In my view it is provided by reality being in motion (including the brain whose state correlates to the subjective experience), and existing only in one state "at a time".

This is a perfect example of a mock fight. "What is causing this experience?", is an ontological question but all the proposed solutions laid out are epistemological in nature: i.e., explanations. Before any of these kinds of things can be discussed, one needs to develop a serious science of ontology.

Have fun -- Dick

 

[mosassam]

This is a perfect example of a mock fight. "What is causing this experience?", is an ontological question but all the proposed solutions laid out are epistemological in nature: i.e., explanations. Before any of these kinds of things can be discussed, one needs to develop a serious science of ontology

.

Dr.Dick, I've tried with all my might to get to the heart of what you say but it is beyond me. In the above quote you say that 'all the proposed solutions ... are epistemological in nature", can you give an example where the proposed solutions to the question "What is causing this experience?" are ontological in nature. Or are you saying that no questions can be asked because any answer constitutes a solution/explanation and is therefore epistemological in nature?

 

[mosassam]

=AnssiH;1211658

In my view it is provided by reality being in motion (including the brain whose state correlates to the subjective experience), and existing only in one state "at a time".

Are you saying here that the Now moment has a duration. If so, can it be measured? What would it mean if the Now moment had no duration?

 

[AnssiH]

Every subjective fibre in my being is telling me I'm talking balderdash (Occum's Razor springs to mind), but I would like to propose some kind of thought experiment, just to explore this particular dark alley.
Motion, or the "dynamic component of reality" is obviously the main stumbling block here. Time is an innate part of motion.
I have to assume then that Time is 'out there', in the physical world, as Motion obviously is. Surely this means Time is an objective quality of reality? (Doesn't it?)

No no, it doesn't, this is my point. There is no reason to assume "time" is like an entity that gives rise to motion, but instead motion can be seen as "more fundamental" than time, so to speak. I.e. that time is just a semantical notion that we use to describe motion.

So what I'm saying is that I think our views are basically in agreement, but whereas you say "it is always now", I say time does not exist but rather motion does. This is the same argument, is it not?

The reason I put it that way is that there is this popular view where spacetime exists, and hence motion does not, apart from our subjective experience making it seem as if motion exists. This leads to a form of dualism and probably naive realism.

And if I said "it is always now", to some it may seem like I claimed reality is actually completely static but that we observe motion in some idealistic sense.

There are many mixed views here and it's kind of hard to interpret people, and I'm certain that applies to people trying to figure out what I mean with my assertions as well... :I

Also, what duration is a Now moment? If it has none this implies something so weird I can't even begin to get my head round it!

Yeah, it's a difficulty of the view that "time" is a "real entity" of a sort. If you assume things are "really" in motion instead, it becomes nonsensical to ask what is the temporal length of "now".

 

[AnssiH]

Hi AnssiH, I am presently back at home and have decent access to the inter-net. Seriously, I am very pleased with your response and have only a couple of comments.

Glad you liked it :)

The issue of "exact science" is making statements which can be defended (statements where the assumptions are as specifically recognized as possible). For example, the statement that mathematics can be regarded as the most well understood and internally self consistent language available to us. Do you think that is a belief or do you consider that a defendable statement? When I describe a mathematical procedure, the probability of misunderstanding is pretty much lower than when I use English to describe a social procedure (think "well understood") and self consistency is the central driving force of the field of mathematics itself. All I am saying is that, when we communicate via mathematics, we can be a lot more confident we understand what one another is trying to say and "belief" need not play as large a role as needs be in English.

We have to notice here that math is basically a set of rules that we made up. It can be compared to the rules of chess. For example, I cannot refute the fact that "white moves first" or the following fact that "black does not move first" etc. In a sense, the rules of chess can be seen as a set of "axioms" from which other rules follow. But at all times we are only describing an abstract system whose relationship with reality is unknown.

And such is the case with math. I view it as a method or as a tool to describe systems, and while it describes things in more explicit sense than "natural language", it still must be interpreted semantically how it correlates to reality. Even describing a number of apples getting multiplied is a description that assumes identity to apples.

Reading this from an "exact science" point of view this may seem like a rather fuzzy argumentation, but the simple point I want to make is that if you have a system that can build its own conception of reality out of mere assumptions, it can also adopt a method like math and axioms of logic to describe / understand / predict reality, and in that sense call such concepts "explicit knowledge". Yet the way these concepts tie to reality is up to non-explicit interpretation.

So I still hold it true that for such a system only "believing" is possible but rather than actually "knowing" something (about reality or nature), only this assertion must be understood properly and certainly abstract systems that we made up (like math or rules of chess) are something that can considerably confuse the argument.

(Note that a similar semantical confusion arises when you ask whether it can be considered as a certain knowledge that we can only believe into facts rather than know them :)

What you are in fact saying is that you don't believe the problem which is to be solved here is soluble. That mock fights are the absolute limit of what is possible. Personally, that strikes me as an "I give up" philosophy.

Yeah, I claim the problem is insoluble, but this would be so only in so far that my assumptions happen to be correct... ...something I don't think I can find out in any explicit sense. -> I haven't completely closed the doors to other possibilites.

It can be seen as a "give up" philosophy, but personally I see it as an answer, albeit perhaps not as a very satisfactory one (at least to some).

I think you ask too much of "ideal hard science". Isn't it the essence of hard science that, given that a particular ontology is valid (call it a belief if you want but, in hard scientific analysis, you ought to be able to work with a hypothesis without believing it), the following consequences are inevitable?

That is correct.
I don't ask for more of "hard science", I'm just noting that hard science doesn't answer to ontological questions. It just suggests valid models. In that sense the line between "soft" and "hard" sciences is little bit fuzzy.

Yeah, but also this can be seen as having achieved a goal in a sense. It is an ontological assertion to say that our conception of reality is such and such and thus here is where we find the limit of our understanding in such and such sense. It doesn't say anything about how accurate predictions we will be able to make about reality, and it still leaves many philosophical questions completely unanswered.

Is it now? I think you are making an unsupported assertion. Oh, it may be supported by your beliefs but I don't think you can use it as a rational reason for not attacking ontology scientifically.

Yeah that's right. And I should have emphasized "achieved a goal". Meaning, having chose this path of ontology I have come to meet its conclusion. This doesn't prove it's true to reality, obviously.

-Anssi

 

[mosassam]

So what I'm saying is that I think our views are basically in agreement, but whereas you say "it is always now", I say time does not exist but rather motion does. This is the same argument, is it not?

We are most certainly in agreement concerning Time but it has taken me a great deal of contemplation to reconcile the idea of Motion without Time. I would like to propose a simple model of 'reality', if I may, and I would greatly appreciate any comments you may have.
Imagine an egg timer. The constriction is the Now moment (even though 'moment' implies duration, there is none). The constriction/Now moment is the dimension our universe inhabits. The bulbs of the egg timer are different dimensions. Something, possibly energy (I'm not sure about this point), flows from one bulb to the other passing through the constriction. As the Now moment/constriction has no duration there is no Time but there is Flow, from one bulb to the other, which accounts for the 'dynamic component' of reality.
Hey Presto! Motion without Time.
I don't think the bulbs are to be confused with Past and Future but as different dimensions (not that I know anything about dimensions).
Once again AnissH, thanks for your time and clarity.

 

[mosassam]

One more thought. It is not energy that flows through the constriction, all the energy the universe will ever have is contained in the Now moment/constriction.
The 'thing' that is flowing through the constriction is, possibly, some kind of organising principle akin to the so-called "laws of nature" or scientific laws, whatever they are. It is these laws (or organising principle), that guide or govern the behavior of the universal 'matter' that exists in the Now moment/constriction.

 

[AnssiH]

As a reply to the past two posts, I have nothing against such models per se, but I would still like to stress that we can always build many sorts of mental models about time, so to try and understand reality, and while a certain way of "thinking about it" can be useful for further considerations (for example considering the philosophy of the mind), we cannot really say that any such mental model is "the way reality is". Why and how this is so has basically been the subject of this thread for a while.

The obvious follow-up question, also voiced many times already in this thread, is why then suppose motion is more fundamental than time? The answer is precisely that it is useful for further considerations about the philosophy of the mind. It may not be more useful for all of us, but still it is worthwhile to understand that time should not be considered as an absoutely necessary "real entity" and a prerequisite of motion.

I won't get to that now, but about a "mental model of motion without time", it seems enough if you simply think of motion as a fundamental property of reality. Just look at a flag waving in the wind, and think whatever state or shape it was in a moment ago does not exist anymore, and whatever shape it is heading to does not exist yet, and still it may or may not be inevitably heading to a certain shape due to some dynamics that really exist one way or another. (And in particular imagine your brain undergoing a real physical process the same way)

Your idea of motion doesn't need to be more complex than this, but it should not be forgotten how this is also a mental model.

Ps, it's "Anssi", not Aniss :)

 

[mosassam]

Obviously, an abstract mental model of reality is not "the way reality is" and I'm sure that there can be any number of mental models. But surely some models must be more successful than others. The simple model I proposed above incorporates motion without time, whilst allowing for the flow, or dynamic component, of reality. I just wondered what you thought about it in terms of "success".

 

[Doctordick]

We have to notice here that math is basically a set of rules that we made up.

I think it is a tad more than "a set of rules"; the field of math also includes a great number of constructs which follow from those rules. As I have said elsewhere, it is my opinion that the field of mathematics can be defined as the "invention and study of self consistent systems". The reason self consistency is so significant an issue is the fact that "answers to questions" are what most all logical thought is concerned with and "self consistency" means that the answers to questions (within a self consistent system) are the same independent of the logical path followed within the system. That is, any system which is not internally self consistent fails in its central purpose (it fails to provide answers to questions).

That is a constraint far in excess of: "basically a set of rules that we made up".

But at all times we are only describing an abstract system whose relationship with reality is unknown.

Quite true; but otherwise a rather worthless piece of information. As you have already pointed out yourself,

Both views are just views, and both are doomed to be - to an extent - incorrect anyway. It appears we play the 21 questions not with nature, but all by ourselves. ... My worldview is, as it says, a self-supporting set of beliefs, and there's nothing I can do about it.

everything you presume is essentially an abstract system whose relationship with reality is unknown. And yet, there are a lot of very rational people who put a lot of faith in their personal abstract construct (their world view) is that world view no more than a random act or is there something more subtle going on here? It seems to me that, to ignore such a question, is to preach ignorance as a preferred world view and I really don't think that is your intention.

Yet the way these concepts tie to reality is up to non-explicit interpretation.

Does that have to be true? I think not! I think, if one is careful about how one puts things, considerably more can be deduced. In fact, I am prepared to show you how; that is, if I can get you to back off the idea that such a thing is impossible.

Yeah, I claim the problem is insoluble, but this would be so only in so far that my assumptions happen to be correct... ...something I don't think I can find out in any explicit sense. -> I haven't completely closed the doors to other possibilities.

If that is true, then perhaps we might consider some alternate possibilities. Possibilities which simply haven't occurred to you.

I'm just noting that hard science doesn't answer to ontological questions.

Oh, I have noticed that. It seems to be an issue no one wants to look at carefully. I was trained as a physicist and, by the time I received my Ph.D. I was pretty disappointed with physics because they had no interest in examining their ontological assumptions. Of course, I didn't know that was my problem at the time because I hadn't any experience with philosophical issues; all I knew was that their conclusions were based on very mushy foundations. I ended up looking at things which were of no interest to the physics community at all. Over the years, I discovered a rather humorous fact: physicists I approached said I was doing philosophy (which was outside their interest), philosophers told me I was doing mathematics (which was outside their interest) and mathematicians said I was doing physics (which was outside their interest). So certainly whatever I was doing was clearly outside everyone's interest. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

It just suggests valid models. In that sense the line between "soft" and "hard" sciences is little bit fuzzy.

Now, in my mind, there is a lot more to "hard science" than suggesting models. The fundamental issue of a "hard science" is the fact that their conclusions can be solidly defended (at least until you get down to the foundations; when they seem to become rather indifferent to the issue of defending their beliefs).

Yeah that's right. And I should have emphasized "achieved a goal". Meaning, having chose this path of ontology I have come to meet its conclusion. This doesn't prove it's true to reality, obviously.

Picking an ontology is not studying the subject of ontology.

What you are talking about here is the fact that the philosophic academy (if such a thing exists) has made it quite clear that their definitions do not lead to solid foundations of any kind. In my opinion, that is a direct consequence of the inadequacy of their definitions. If you want to follow my thoughts, you need to use my definitions; not argue about them not being your definitions.

As I have said before, if our purpose is to "understand", the first concept we must have in our mind is "an explanation". Without a concept of "an explanation", how can we possibly understand anything? My definition of "an explanation" is quite simple: I define "an explanation" to be a method of obtaining expectations from given known information. Can you work with that definition?

Looking for your answer -- Dick

 

[Rade]

I define "an explanation" to be a method of obtaining expectations from given known information. Can you work with that definition?

But, Doctordick, to say we "explain" something must be more than a method of "obtaining expectations". Suppose the following "set" of statements of "known information", an example I picked up from the internet:
L All males who take birth control pills fail to get pregnant
K Mr. Jones is a male who has been taking birth control pills
E Mr. Jones fails to get pregnant
Now, from Salmon (1989) we read that "nomic expectability" is the essence of scientific explanation and must result from lawful connections between units of a set. And, we see that each of the statements above (L,K,E) form a logical sequence of truth statement units and thus combined meet the criterion of having nomic expectability.
But, have we "explained" anything about the association of males, becoming pregnant, and birth control pills by application of nomic expectability alone to our set of known information? Of course not. What is missing in your definition of explanation is a new factor, that we can call (X), which is independent of "a method of obtaining expectation" and accounts for directional features that add "relevance". Thus I conclude that:
An "explanation" of known information = nomic expectability + (X),
for an explanation (E) can provide information (I) about anything (A) iff (E) reduces uncertainty about aspects of (A) in a manner that is relevant.

 

[mosassam]

L

All males who take birth control pills fail to get pregnant

All badgers that own a rifle fail their driving tests
All pigs that take flying lessons smell of fish
All elephants can never ryhme with relevance
Am I missing something?

 

[AnssiH]

Obviously, an abstract mental model of reality is not "the way reality is" and I'm sure that there can be any number of mental models. But surely some models must be more successful than others. The simple model I proposed above incorporates motion without time, whilst allowing for the flow, or dynamic component, of reality. I just wondered what you thought about it in terms of "success".

Well it's ok if you find it helpful to think in those terms, but it doesn't yet suffice as an explanation for the observed (timewise) topology of events. I.e. it doesn't address what causes the observed "time dilation" effects. (If the success is measured by its prediction capabilities, it comes off short here)

In this view it might not be appropriate to call the effect "time dilation" though, but rather think of it as a slowdown to the physical processes/motion.

 

[AnssiH]

I think it is a tad more than "a set of rules"; the field of math also includes a great number of constructs which follow from those rules. As I have said elsewhere, it is my opinion that the field of mathematics can be defined as the "invention and study of self consistent systems". The reason self consistency is so significant an issue is the fact that "answers to questions" are what most all logical thought is concerned with and "self consistency" means that the answers to questions (within a self consistent system) are the same independent of the logical path followed within the system. That is, any system which is not internally self consistent fails in its central purpose (it fails to provide answers to questions).

That is a constraint far in excess of: "basically a set of rules that we made up".

That's true, certainly.

Quite true; but otherwise a rather worthless piece of information. As you have already pointed out yourself,
everything you presume is essentially an abstract system whose relationship with reality is unknown. And yet, there are a lot of very rational people who put a lot of faith in their personal abstract construct (their world view) is that world view no more than a random act or is there something more subtle going on here? It seems to me that, to ignore such a question, is to preach ignorance as a preferred world view and I really don't think that is your intention.

No it's not. If I have an intention here, I think it is similar to that of Kuhn, to point out to those rational people that their "rational beliefs" are not exclusively based on objective knowledge, to shake their convictions to their views. As a concrete example I would like to point towards the mock battles between different QM interpretations. I would expect all those views to be very far from reality. I could say they are all sitting at an equal distance from the truth, but of course there's no objective way to measure such a thing ;)

Does that have to be true? I think not! I think, if one is careful about how one puts things, considerably more can be deduced. In fact, I am prepared to show you how; that is, if I can get you to back off the idea that such a thing is impossible.

Ok, I'll try it for a fit. How much is "considerably more" though?

Oh, I have noticed that. It seems to be an issue no one wants to look at carefully. I was trained as a physicist and, by the time I received my Ph.D. I was pretty disappointed with physics because they had no interest in examining their ontological assumptions. Of course, I didn't know that was my problem at the time because I hadn't any experience with philosophical issues; all I knew was that their conclusions were based on very mushy foundations. I ended up looking at things which were of no interest to the physics community at all. Over the years, I discovered a rather humorous fact: physicists I approached said I was doing philosophy (which was outside their interest), philosophers told me I was doing mathematics (which was outside their interest) and mathematicians said I was doing physics (which was outside their interest). So certainly whatever I was doing was clearly outside everyone's interest. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Yeah, I have noticed similar thing, and it is kind of unfortunate. Most physicists don't understand philosophy and go on the record saying rather silly things (like regarding how they view relativity or quantum behaviour), and most philosophers don't understand enough about physics to be able to say much of anything about these matters. I would think quite a few philosophers would have a thing or two to say about the reality of spacetime for example, if they actually understood relativity enough to say something about it. Most of them just know few little factoids about relativity, but might not have even heard of relativity of simultaneity.

As I have said before, if our purpose is to "understand", the first concept we must have in our mind is "an explanation". Without a concept of "an explanation", how can we possibly understand anything? My definition of "an explanation" is quite simple: I define "an explanation" to be a method of obtaining expectations from given known information. Can you work with that definition?

Yeah, that sounds like a definition I would also tack on "explanation".

Although then I also look at it as the same thing as making a prediction based on a model of something, or revising the model. I.e. "obtaining expectations" is "making prediction" and that is done based on a model which is basically the "known information". Am I jumping too far ahead with this?

-Anssi

 

[Doctordick]

Rade, I don't know if you are just trying to throw miscellaneous roadblocks into rational thought or are truly as unaware of what I have said as you appear.

Suppose the following "set" of statements of "known information", an example I picked up from the internet:
L All males who take birth control pills fail to get pregnant
K Mr. Jones is a male who has been taking birth control pills
E Mr. Jones fails to get pregnant
Now, from Salmon (1989) we read that "nomic expectability" is the essence of scientific explanation and must result from lawful connections between units of a set. And, we see that each of the statements above (L,K,E) form a logical sequence of truth statement units and thus combined meet the criterion of having nomic expectability.
But, have we "explained" anything about the association of males, becoming pregnant, and birth control pills by application of nomic expectability alone to our set of known information? Of course not.

This is a complete misrepresentation of the problem of creating an explanation. You give three English statements as the whole of your "known information" omitting all the information necessary to understand what those symbolic representations mean. An explanation is, the method of obtaining expectations given "ALL" the known information (no knowledge outside the "known information" is to be omitted). Think of giving the symbolic known information to an alien who has no knowledge of the symbols whatsoever. It is fundamentally a decoding problem: making presumptions as to what the symbols mean and then trying to find intepretations which are consistent with all known information. Not a trivial process.

What is missing in your definition of explanation is a new factor, that we can call (X), which is independent of "a method of obtaining expectation" and accounts for directional features that add "relevance".

And why is that not part of the method of "obtaining expectations".

If I have an intention here, I think it is similar to that of Kuhn, to point out to those rational people that their "rational beliefs" are not exclusively based on objective knowledge, to shake their convictions to their views.

Certainly what you say is true; however, people have been saying that for hundreds of years with little impact. My position is that there is another much more important issue here. There is very strong evidence that their "rational beliefs" are indeed based on something verging on objective knowledge or how do you explain the accomplishments of the hard sciences. My original purpose, some fifty years ago, was to understand what that agreement was really based upon. How do we manage to come up with these "rational beliefs", it being quite evident that millions upon millions of fertilized eggs of human beings come into existence every year who possesses not the first idea of what reality is and yet within a few short years reach overwhelming agreement about unbelievable volumes of this supposedly "objective knowledge". All the philosophers say, "you can't do that!" Somebody is wrong here.

How much is "considerably more" though?

More than you would ever be interested in examining (to look at the whole of it, you would need a good education in mathematics). But, for the time being, let's just take a peek at what I am talking about.

Although then I also look at it as the same thing as making a prediction based on a model of something, or revising the model. I.e. "obtaining expectations" is "making prediction" and that is done based on a model which is basically the "known information". Am I jumping too far ahead with this?

Not at all; I find you seeming to think very much along the same lines with which I approached this problem those many years ago. The only comment I am moved to make is that I make it a point to differentiate between "an ontology" and "a valid ontology". Models are essentially based on "an ontology", not necessarily "a valid ontology". Since ontology is the subject of existence itself and reality is "what exists", I use the adjective "valid" to indicate that I am talking about "what really exists": what reality is (even if I do not know what that is).

Rade started a thread, "Creating an Exact Science" supposedly to facilitate my desire to transform ontology into an exact science. After a few posts on that thread, I got disgusted with what seemed to me to be a desire on his part to develop a mock battle for the shear fun of it; however, I may have misjudged him. At the moment, from my perspective, the two threads have quite the same purpose. I would rather post to one or the other. Or at least ask that interested parties read both threads as sometimes issues will come up which have already been covered in the other thread and I hate to put things down twice.

But, to get started here, I will state my first supposedly exact assertions in the field of ontology (which have already been posted on the other thread). You might find it worthwhile to read that post as I think I make a few comments quite germane to some philosophical aspects of my approach.

There are at least three things which I think I can correctly say about that unknown "valid ontology" I would like to talk about. First, it fulfills the definition of "a set"; the Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia says that "a set" can be thought of as any collection of distinct things considered as a whole. Those things can be anything, from objects, thoughts, ideas, concepts ..., so one certainly cannot deny the usefulness of the label. Second, any reasonable understanding of "the universe" must be based in some way upon that "valid ontology"; that is no more than saying that any reasonable understanding of the universe should be based on the universe (at least partially if that understanding is not to be a total fabrication). And finally, it is quite reasonable to presume there are elements of that "valid ontology" of which we are ignorant and which would most probably be destructive to our most well thought out speculative edifices.

If you can accept these three statements as representing a "correct" foundation for the study of ontology, I will present my first revelation consistent with that foundation.

Looking forward to your response -- Dick

 

[Exitsign]

I think time is an illusion and since time has such an intimate relationship with space, I believe space is an illusion as well. Time, as we measure it is just a measurement of movement so I believe motion is an illusion as well.

There is a religion that thinks that way. Hinduism or Buddhism, not sure. They believe that life is and illusion as well and when you die you become One with god (small g)

 

[sd01g]

.

Just like in a universe with just one object there is no "speed" for the object to measure, so there is no "time" for it to measure. There is no backdrop called "empty space", this is a figment of imagination. Similarly, we cannot measure time itself. That's right, time cannot be measured. We cannot claim that "time" moves at certain speed at all. If you feel the need to reply "I measure time with my wristwatch all the time", think more.

QUOTE]

You were making sense until you stated that 'time can not be measured.' Empirically, time is what is measured by a clock (hour glass, sun dial, calender, etc). If there are no time measuring devices, there is no empirical time, only movement. Rational time, to which you are probably refering, is imaginary, as is a universe with just one object. Whether or not empty space exists is not known.