Philosophy Now Forum

Scott Mayers wrote:

A_Seagull wrote:It is not a matter of "models versus reality"; what we have is models OF reality.

And even the concept of reality is itself a model.

This is the underlying thing I'm trying to relate to others here. I don't think their is a conflict between models and reality.

It's not a conflict so much as a confusion.

The model will always be wrong and this is proven by its inability to make prediction. Once we mistake the model for reality we delude ourselves into believing we know the reality.

How can mechanical models even exist in a chaotic universe?

cladking wrote:
First off there isn't that much agreement between peoples' perceptions of what they're looking at. You can tell this by their descriptions and the fact the agreement can't be reached by a third party who reads or hears these descriptions no matter how detailed. The major differences won't be between those who speak different languages but between those who are electricians and those who are chemists or between biologists and botonists. Or between priests and paupers.

Sure, but I don't think anyone will deliberately step in front of a moving bus no matter what their background (unless they want to commit suicide).

Yes, we see essentially the same thing from our perspective because ALL perspective today is a derivation of modern language, experimental science and the wiring of the human brain. Just as all rabbits run from foxes, and all mosquitos becom flat when swatted, all people see beauty in the sunset. If perception of reality hadn't been excluded from science we'd all see things almost exactly alike and our descriptions would be identical. An electrician would describe things like a zoologist. But instead we each understand the world in terms of models and each person sees different models while no one even seems to realize there's actually an underlying reality. We don't see it because we can't model it and we can't model it because it is many quadrillions of times more complex than what we, even in aggregate, do understand. We are mistaking our models for reality and then pronouncing ourselves virtually omniscient.

What is the seat of our respective perspectives? That's where the problem lies.

It is language that is deluding us by defining a perspective from which we only see what we know. Reality is hidden from us in its entirety but logic, experiment, and observation can help obtain tiny glimpses of it.

I agree.

Scott Mayers wrote:

The Inglorious One wrote:Hegel lays out a withering criticism of the notion of knowing reality without ideas.

I will definitely read this but already agree. Hegel's logic was something I believed got overlooked. I don't know if it was just due to any of his potential other beliefs or if it was due to a purposeful distaste against Karl Marx's use of his ideas relating to politics and history. A rule of contradiction that acts to compel change is key to my own theories. Hegel was the first I knew who raised this.

There is plenty of room for disagreement, but as I see it, Hegel's ideas are not fundamentally different than those of Plotinus.

Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit is incredibly difficult to understand. The video I linked to is one of a series that takes it a paragraph at a time. It takes time, but it gets easier (though by no means easy) as you get used to the way he uses words.

I keep finding that I can relate to almost everyone here when I place myself in their 'shoes', their perspective. I tried responding to a few of the responses to me only to find that to relate to each person's perspective requires distinctly different means to prove my points using their thinking. I was reading "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" and appreciated how the author, Douglas R. Hofstadter, used various different sensory subjects to relate his ideas. With Bach, it is music and so relates to hearing; With Escher, it was art and relates to how we see things; With an extension to include Zeno's Achilles and Tortoise, the author ends each chapter with his own story using these characters to emphasize the relationship to the problems that Godel's "Incompleteness Theorem" could be understood. I like this and often use this to relate to others. But it takes a lot of effort to have to contend with all various initial perspectives and their languages.

I think that we have a problem here regarding what many already agree relates to language and perspectives. I'm wondering if my concern to convince anyone of the acceptance of ideas, math, or general abstractions, as the foundational realities may be too much to bother with because it seems that it would take too much effort to get past our differences? I'm thinking that I might have to simply default to proposing my physics theory with axioms that require one to simply accept the reality of ideas. That is, I'll have to accept that many will simply not be able to bother going past this first necessary understanding and will not bother reading what I'd have to prove. But there will certainly be those who will accept this and can thus have the advantage of the proofs.

Example:
AXIOM 1: Assume information, 'forms', laws, logic, and math as absolute truth prior to reality.
AXIOM 2: Accept your own existence as you read.
AXIOM 3: Default to assume all things "possible" to totality, whether they are consistent or inconsistent, real or not real, existing or not existing, etc.
AXIOM 4: Assume a logic that allows Contradiction to be the functioning component within the system.
...

Then, if one cannot accept this up front, then they aren't relevant to the proof.
I'm not trying to sound defeated here but I have a strong POSITive argument that can definitively prove precisely what our underlying physics is that fits with our observations without dislodging the effectiveness of how the sciences dealing with Relativity and QM operate in practice. It's either that or I'd have to waste an unnecessary investment of eight or more years just to find the accepted language and perspectives necessary to even begin my proof. And I'd likely be dead long before I could get to first base!

cladking wrote: It's not a conflict so much as a confusion.

The model will always be wrong and this is proven by its inability to make prediction. Once we mistake the model for reality we delude ourselves into believing we know the reality.

I agree.

How can mechanical models even exist in a chaotic universe?

That's the crux of the problem. As far as science can tell, the ground of things and beings is chaotic, but the idea that chaos can self-organize into something that can comprehend and be comprehended presumes preexisting or inherent rules to order. This incongruity leads many scientists to all kinds of wild speculations that slap William of Occam in the face.

Just note, Scott, that AXIOM 4 implies an AXIOM 5: there are no true axioms.

The Inglorious One wrote: Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit is incredibly difficult to understand. The video I linked to is one of a series that takes it a paragraph at a time. It takes time, but it gets easier (though by no means easy) as you get used to the way he uses words.

I remembered Hegel being difficult to read and is why I preferred secondary references to his overall philosophy to learn of his ideas using "contradiction". I opted for Marx's interpretation of political or social history as he related to Hegel's logic. Thesis, Anti-thesis, to Synthesis, were the terms used by Marx/Hegel to demonstrate how we begin with some posited idea, find another to negate this such that both are equally true. This leads to its contradiction which requires solving by forcing a synthesis of the two contradictions to a place where they are only contraries.

I understood this and so don't need to bother with Hegel's other thoughts. At least, with respect to my interest in Hegel, the value of him is only about the above. I believe the hesitation by the Western world to embrace this wisdom was only due to the fact that this reasoning in politics is what helped amplify the problems that lead to WWI and II. Particularly, by Marx's demonstration to show that revolution was an important necessity in political evolution, this lead to Communism, Nationalism, and other persuasions that believed AND ACTED in extreme overthrows of governments. Although I believe these could be resolvable problems, this logic if taken up by the population sends shivers down the spines of those who fear Nihilism and Anarchy.

The Inglorious One wrote:Just note, Scott, that AXIOM 4 implies an AXIOM 5: there are no true axioms.

I was only giving an example and would likely require sitting down to consider them in more depth. I don't know if I agree or not with your own addition if only because by one interpretation, this might still defeat any following proof regardless. Your interpretation that it follows AXIOM 4, however, is not clear. To me, regular "contradiction" applies within one argument given a particular 'dimension'. But this should not be interpreted as an end to further reasoning. Rather, it should act as a 'function' to require finding a 'place' or "dimension" that allows both to exist in a larger universal (logic universe).

Example,

Given a number line, if it should be found in some argument that something exists at point X AND non-existing at X at the same time, this implies a 'perpendicular' dimension at that point of contradiction that contains its own number line where they meet at X. This means that all other points in the perpendicular line from that point are 'true' with respect to the additional dimension. For instance, if one were to say that their coordinates are at (x,y) = (0,3), with regards to the x-axis, x = 0 and somehow also x does not = 0. To someone stuck in only the first x-axis line, the point (0,3) is perceived as (x) = (0 AND -0) [at zero and not at zero]. Do you follow?

EDIT as addition: That is, assuming one demonstrate an apparent contradiction from some given or understood dimension or set of dimensions, no matter how they are defined or map to reality, a solution to contradiction is to find a place where they do exist. In the above example, if you are trapped in a world that only perceives that something cannot both be x and not-x, label a place where they CAN exist, even if untrue, such that it defines another line, the y-axis, where an infinite possible solutions exist except at the point of intersection of the x-axis.

Given a world with only a line, if it can be found that somewhere on that line a real contraction exists, this is resolved by the process of creating dimensions.

Scott Mayers wrote:
I remembered Hegel being difficult to read and is why I preferred secondary references to his overall philosophy to learn of his ideas using "contradiction". I opted for Marx's interpretation of political or social history as he related to Hegel's logic. Thesis, Anti-thesis, to Synthesis, were the terms used by Marx/Hegel to demonstrate how we begin with some posited idea, find another to negate this such that both are equally true. This leads to its contradiction which requires solving by forcing a synthesis of the two contradictions to a place where they are only contraries.

I understood this and so don't need to bother with Hegel's other thoughts. At least, with respect to my interest in Hegel, the value of him is only about the above. I believe the hesitation by the Western world to embrace this wisdom was only due to the fact that this reasoning in politics is what helped amplify the problems that lead to WWI and II. Particularly, by Marx's demonstration to show that revolution was an important necessity in political evolution, this lead to Communism, Nationalism, and other persuasions that believed AND ACTED in extreme overthrows of governments. Although I believe these could be resolvable problems, this logic if taken up by the population sends shivers down the spines of those who fear Nihilism and Anarchy.

Hegel's Thesis, Anti-thesis, to Synthesis isn't really that straightforward, it seems to me. The Synthesis is the new Thesis, but every Thesis contains within itself an Anti-Thesis, and sometimes, as new information comes along, you have to go back and reevaluate the prior thesis.

Hegel called his philosophy "absolute idealism"; Marx, it seems, took Hegel's ideas and turned them upside down and inside out.

As to the Axioms, I'll defer to Holophany: The Loop of Creation. (I'll link to the book again if you didn't get it.)

The Inglorious One wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote:
I remembered Hegel being difficult to read and is why I preferred secondary references to his overall philosophy to learn of his ideas using "contradiction". I opted for Marx's interpretation of political or social history as he related to Hegel's logic. Thesis, Anti-thesis, to Synthesis, were the terms used by Marx/Hegel to demonstrate how we begin with some posited idea, find another to negate this such that both are equally true. This leads to its contradiction which requires solving by forcing a synthesis of the two contradictions to a place where they are only contraries.

I understood this and so don't need to bother with Hegel's other thoughts. At least, with respect to my interest in Hegel, the value of him is only about the above. I believe the hesitation by the Western world to embrace this wisdom was only due to the fact that this reasoning in politics is what helped amplify the problems that lead to WWI and II. Particularly, by Marx's demonstration to show that revolution was an important necessity in political evolution, this lead to Communism, Nationalism, and other persuasions that believed AND ACTED in extreme overthrows of governments. Although I believe these could be resolvable problems, this logic if taken up by the population sends shivers down the spines of those who fear Nihilism and Anarchy.

Hegel's Thesis, Anti-thesis, to Synthesis isn't really that straightforward, it seems to me. The Synthesis is the new Thesis, but every Thesis contains within itself an Anti-Thesis, and sometimes, as new information comes along, you have to go back and reevaluate the prior thesis.

Hegel called his philosophy "absolute idealism"; Marx, it seems, took Hegel's ideas and turned them upside down and inside out.

As to the Axioms, I'll defer to Holophany: The Loop of Creation. (I'll link to the book again if you didn't get it.)

Yes, I will keep the book in mind. But I know that if it happens to agree with me, its only going to beg that I'd have to accept the author's point of view as reference. I already know my interpretation works.
Thesis is any state, theory, or idea posited to advance society whether politically or scientifically. At first, these appear to show improvement of the last era. But in fact, they are cyclic adaptations that often only re-define ideas, thoughts, and theories of another past era. When such a 'paradigm' of advancement is accepted, this eventually leads to problems as generations lose the original meanings (or realities, as in politics). Thus this becomes an "antithesis" of the last. For instance, with regards to politics, Democracy seems to have been a type of solution at many points in the past. Yet, as some such governments advance, the latter authorities find some means to resort to becoming authoritarian, controlling, or destructive to the very people that original "democracy" meant. Then, because it resists change without working within the present paradigm, it requires an abrupt reconstruction of the system to adapt to the present societies understanding. To politics, this usually means overthrowing the present governments because the depth to which the present processes operate, they prevent realistic changes, some not even ever possible to do again.

For things like science, this is represented in physics by the prerequisite to require an eight-year degree to at least get your foot in the door to present new ideas. And they have to follow the latest evolution that doesn't threaten past authorities, especially when those authorities reach the status of a prophet or hero of the present paradigm. As such, we are no longer allowed to question those like Einstein or the Big Bang Theory, for instance, even if there are real problems with them. Instead, we require expedient tricks in language to make the new theories appear to follow from the last ones. It is at the point that it destroys the very concept of "tentativeness" that is supposed to exist because the present authorities represented by the educational institutes and publishers who benefit by keeping their past heroes alive, make them a new type of 'religion'.

We need a means to go back and question old hypothesis and interpretations of theories. But this effort may require dismantling the power of the present authorities who gain advantage by conserving their status.

Another example:

Euclid based his theorems founded on postulates that no longer get used today.

One of the first was to define a point as that which occupies no space, then postulate its existence. Then it defines a line as any consecutive set of points. Only later does it define a "straight line" because it doesn't presume a plane's existence up front.

Yet modern Euclidean High School geometry skipped these and only leaves a "point" undefined and goes immediately to defaulting any "line" as straight: "the shortest distance between two points." Thus it presumes the student already defaults with at least two dimensions without proof. This is intended to short-cut the education since most students have to struggle hard without the philosophy and logic of the traditional methods. It is also intended to encourage others to progress past the details in order to be practically effective in the already expanded educational curriculum needed to qualify individuals for real jobs. Thus this expedient gains to favor certain contemporary objectives at the loss of understanding the sincere logic those past theories were built upon. Only until they've proven mastery over their chosen profession are they allowed to go back. But this mere investment in the education that qualified them biases them to favor the very process that accredited them. And so they favor the more authoritative approach whereby the theories of the past are begged upon students to accept and remember prior to learning how or if they are proven sound.

As such, these new found authorities only advance upon the latest authorities in their present fields and must build upon them rather than to destroy past authorities. QM and String Theory, for instance, have recreated the rationale for an aether but evade speaking in these terms because it risks the past authorities credibility by approaching them this way. So they opt to redefine new terms that though imply fault with old ideas. But then things get only more confusing when we see the various theories appear to contradict through time.

Scott Mayers wrote:I keep finding that I can relate to almost everyone here when I place myself in their 'shoes', their perspective. I tried responding to a few of the responses to me only to find that to relate to each person's perspective requires distinctly different means to prove my points using their thinking. I was reading "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" and appreciated how the author, Douglas R. Hofstadter, used various different sensory subjects to relate his ideas. With Bach, it is music and so relates to hearing; With Escher, it was art and relates to how we see things; With an extension to include Zeno's Achilles and Tortoise, the author ends each chapter with his own story using these characters to emphasize the relationship to the problems that Godel's "Incompleteness Theorem" could be understood. I like this and often use this to relate to others. But it takes a lot of effort to have to contend with all various initial perspectives and their languages.

I think that we have a problem here regarding what many already agree relates to language and perspectives. I'm wondering if my concern to convince anyone of the acceptance of ideas, math, or general abstractions, as the foundational realities may be too much to bother with because it seems that it would take too much effort to get past our differences? I'm thinking that I might have to simply default to proposing my physics theory with axioms that require one to simply accept the reality of ideas. That is, I'll have to accept that many will simply not be able to bother going past this first necessary understanding and will not bother reading what I'd have to prove. But there will certainly be those who will accept this and can thus have the advantage of the proofs.

Example:
AXIOM 1: Assume information, 'forms', laws, logic, and math as absolute truth prior to reality.
AXIOM 2: Accept your own existence as you read.
AXIOM 3: Default to assume all things "possible" to totality, whether they are consistent or inconsistent, real or not real, existing or not existing, etc.
AXIOM 4: Assume a logic that allows Contradiction to be the functioning component within the system.
...

Then, if one cannot accept this up front, then they aren't relevant to the proof.
I'm not trying to sound defeated here but I have a strong POSITive argument that can definitively prove precisely what our underlying physics is that fits with our observations without dislodging the effectiveness of how the sciences dealing with Relativity and QM operate in practice. It's either that or I'd have to waste an unnecessary investment of eight or more years just to find the accepted language and perspectives necessary to even begin my proof. And I'd likely be dead long before I could get to first base!

Interesting.

I can see things from multiple angles so different axioms wouldn't necessarily be problematic for me. However, I don't really believe in "contradictions" per se. I believe that contradictions are only apparent and usually the result of misunderstanding, language, perspective, etc. I can't believe that something both exists and doesn't or that effect preceeds cause. It sounds like I might have a hard time following the argument but this isn't unusual for me. I believe all logic and math are "natural" in character but that language butchers it and then math is misapplied.

cladking wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote:I keep finding that I can relate to almost everyone here when I place myself in their 'shoes', their perspective. I tried responding to a few of the responses to me only to find that to relate to each person's perspective requires distinctly different means to prove my points using their thinking. I was reading "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" and appreciated how the author, Douglas R. Hofstadter, used various different sensory subjects to relate his ideas. With Bach, it is music and so relates to hearing; With Escher, it was art and relates to how we see things; With an extension to include Zeno's Achilles and Tortoise, the author ends each chapter with his own story using these characters to emphasize the relationship to the problems that Godel's "Incompleteness Theorem" could be understood. I like this and often use this to relate to others. But it takes a lot of effort to have to contend with all various initial perspectives and their languages.

I think that we have a problem here regarding what many already agree relates to language and perspectives. I'm wondering if my concern to convince anyone of the acceptance of ideas, math, or general abstractions, as the foundational realities may be too much to bother with because it seems that it would take too much effort to get past our differences? I'm thinking that I might have to simply default to proposing my physics theory with axioms that require one to simply accept the reality of ideas. That is, I'll have to accept that many will simply not be able to bother going past this first necessary understanding and will not bother reading what I'd have to prove. But there will certainly be those who will accept this and can thus have the advantage of the proofs.

Example:
AXIOM 1: Assume information, 'forms', laws, logic, and math as absolute truth prior to reality.
AXIOM 2: Accept your own existence as you read.
AXIOM 3: Default to assume all things "possible" to totality, whether they are consistent or inconsistent, real or not real, existing or not existing, etc.
AXIOM 4: Assume a logic that allows Contradiction to be the functioning component within the system.
...

Then, if one cannot accept this up front, then they aren't relevant to the proof.
I'm not trying to sound defeated here but I have a strong POSITive argument that can definitively prove precisely what our underlying physics is that fits with our observations without dislodging the effectiveness of how the sciences dealing with Relativity and QM operate in practice. It's either that or I'd have to waste an unnecessary investment of eight or more years just to find the accepted language and perspectives necessary to even begin my proof. And I'd likely be dead long before I could get to first base!

Interesting.

I can see things from multiple angles so different axioms wouldn't necessarily be problematic for me. However, I don't really believe in "contradictions" per se. I believe that contradictions are only apparent and usually the result of misunderstanding, language, perspective, etc. I can't believe that something both exists and doesn't or that effect preceeds cause. It sounds like I might have a hard time following the argument but this isn't unusual for me. I believe all logic and math are "natural" in character but that language butchers it and then math is misapplied.

You get my point almost. "Contradictions" just as "parodoxes" really only exist based upon some given construct of reality. But when or where we discover them, a solution really does exist in nature by extending our universal to include another dimension where both are true of a more complete picture.

A point of non-existence contradicts itself when we simply presume that it is 'true'. How can absolute nothing be assumed 'true' without recognizing that its pretense of being 'true' is a value greater than nothingness itself. Therefore, the solution is to 'fix' this by finding another 'dimension', a line, whereby such other 'points' exist infinitely that don't deny the original point. You can't be at that same original point and be able to make sense of other possibilities without accepting that there are other places you can go to. So this method works by proving how contradictions/paradoxes can be sensible using new dimensions (akin to the synthesis of Hegel). But when there, we find new similar contradictions/paradoxes to which we apply the process repeatedly giving us a more complete picture of our reality. Note that this reasoning is also closed if you consider the process of this infinitely being true itself.

Scott Mayers wrote:
For things like science, this is represented in physics by the prerequisite to require an eight-year degree to at least get your foot in the door to present new ideas. And they have to follow the latest evolution that doesn't threaten past authorities, especially when those authorities reach the status of a prophet or hero of the present paradigm. As such, we are no longer allowed to question those like Einstein or the Big Bang Theory, for instance, even if there are real problems with them. Instead, we require expedient tricks in language to make the new theories appear to follow from the last ones. It is at the point that it destroys the very concept of "tentativeness" that is supposed to exist because the present authorities represented by the educational institutes and publishers who benefit by keeping their past heroes alive, make them a new type of 'religion'.

We need a means to go back and question old hypothesis and interpretations of theories. But this effort may require dismantling the power of the present authorities who gain advantage by conserving their status.

As bad as it is in physics it's a thousand times worse in the humanities and Egyptology. Physics has been bogged down for 100 years but Egyptology has been virtually mummified for 150. New ideas simply aren't considered no matter the source and unless you espouse the four big assumptions (pyramids are tombs dragged up ramps by superstitious people) you can't even get a degree in the field. This is despite the fact the word "ramp" is unattested from the great pyramid building age and there's no direct evidence of any sort that a king was ever buried in a great pyramid or was intended to be buried.

All modern society is founded on beliefs that aren't supported by the actual evidence.

Philosophy bounces around over the centuries from idea to idea because there is no anchor in language. No matter how well a concept is expressed each listener will deconstruct it differently. We never really know exactly what someone means so there is no progress. Progress can only result from thinking that spans generations because none of us is all that smart. If we were then it wouldn't have taken humans 40,000 years to reach our current state of confusion. We could have done it in a single generation. It is language that creates progress, not intelligence. Science and technology have their own language which is less deconstructible. Computers use only a handful of words but look how powerful they are! We have 150,000 words and no two people seem to agree on exactly what any one of them means. How can we progress in ideas if they can't be communicated?

Cladking,

At least we aren't doomed. A lot of the problem deals with the fact that we've advanced intellectually beyond our actual capacity to make certain realities true until the general infrastructure could advance enough to materialize these ideas.

Take a simple thing like a cell phone. Intellectually, many of the underlying intelligence needed to make them can realistically come from as far back as Egypt. Yet the particular technology in a cell phone requires realistic infrastructures that require many people and lots of time to enable. For instance, even if the ancients may have logically understood the use of iron, realistically, they required making it popular enough to make some be able to encourage others to invest in the next metallurgical creation to make iron more productive. It is the limitations of the contemporary technologies and industries that prevent the ideal advancements we desire.

If we could go into a time machine for instance to send back a group of our most intelligent minds to Egypt, history would still have to play out similarly because no amount of intelligence is sufficient to create realities without the phases of infrastructural developments similar to the way they've already unfolded. The cell phone requires the infrastructures like printing (circuit boards), creating crystals of silicon in very sanitary conditions, how to make plastics, etc, etc. These all required an Industrial age before it to create the infrastructures the more modern tech relies on. The Industrial age requires the large and expensive mining and prefabrication of metals needed before hand. Each new tool requires at least two or more previous tools to create them.

Natural evolution can't keep up with Intellectual evolution. Take a simple human problem, for instance. In order for one to be realistically competent to be a basketball player often requires that you meet a minimum height. But intellectually, we want to presume that anyone should be allowed to participate. This conflict is only real because we have yet to be able to assure that everyone born could qualify to play realistically by making everyone equally as tall. Yet once we could, this only raises other problems again in a forever set of contradictions we must keep competing to resolve.