If numbers were just concepts:Aren't numbers just concepts?
It is scientists, not philosophers, who tend to believe in materialism, or physicalism.
Yes, something had to happen at the beginning, but this doesn't logically imply the "first and only" part... why does it make sense that all that has ever happened in the universe is derivative of a single event? I would tend to think that if a causal force arose from nothing once, there's nothing to keep it from happening again. This is why I call it a blind alley of philosophy of science... when you get to the heart of it most people believe in the "first and only cause", or can be made to believe it with a few simple arguments.But unless matter is eternal or arises uncaused from nothing then surely there must have been a first cause.
The fourth-dimensional or popular concept of time derives from the first-and-only-cause concept, basically that way back at the beginning of time an event happened which created the entirety of the "movie" of time. Now, we are advancing through the movie (they like to call this "moving in the fourth dimension", woo) watching frame by frame as the causal implications of that single event play out until the end. I think that this is a highly bankrupt concept of time and causality.I don't quite get what you mean about time.
What is moral evaluation if there are no rules then? I think this is what I'm trying to find out, since I agree that we seem to have different ideas about morality. So here goes:If all they're doing is following rules then there is no moral aspect to their behaviour, They are not capable of performing an act that can be morally evaluated.
I agree. Doesn't bother me too much. The details are all important on these kinds of topics.Originally posted by BigBlueHead
Canute: I hate to reply piecemeal, but there's so much stuff here... Sorry
I know the problem and as you say it's a tricky one. But I wonder if you haven't answered it here. 'Two' seems to be one of Plato's Forms, existing only in the realm of Forms, namely our minds.If numbers were just concepts:
There are two apples on the table.
All conscious observers who can conceive of the concept of numbers are removed from the universe.
Now there are not two apples on the table. There are apples, but there cannot be two... "two" only exists in the minds of conscious things.
This is a major problem in metaphysics... some concepts appear to be derived from physical properties. The symbols that REPRESENT numbers are concepts, but are the numbers themselves?
I agree there are exceptions but on the whole philosophers tend not to be physicalists. (Historically philosophers have overwhelmingly tended to be idealists of some sort).Not true... many philosophers follow the determinist stance (I think you mentioned Dennett yourself before... he is a determinist as far as I know) and many of those who don't are religious and view the universe as being operated by a single omnipotent being. (The religious types often believe that the entire universe is deterministic except for human beings...)
I agree. I'd rather think of it as a fundamental substrate rather than a first cause, with the physical as epiphenomenal on this substrate. Similar to M-theory but going beyond material superstrings.Yes, something had to happen at the beginning, but this doesn't logically imply the "first and only" part... why does it make sense that all that has ever happened in the universe is derivative of a single event? I would tend to think that if a causal force arose from nothing once, there's nothing to keep it from happening again.
Agree again. But there must be a 'substrate' of some sort.This is why I call it a blind alley of philosophy of science... when you get to the heart of it most people believe in the "first and only cause", or can be made to believe it with a few simple arguments.
Hmm. Your 'woo' made me think of non-dual Advaita master Wu Wu Wei (who was Irish by the way) with whom you seem to agree. (Me too).The fourth-dimensional or popular concept of time derives from the first-and-only-cause concept, basically that way back at the beginning of time an event happened which created the entirety of the "movie" of time. Now, we are advancing through the movie (they like to call this "moving in the fourth dimension", woo) watching frame by frame as the causal implications of that single event play out until the end. I think that this is a highly bankrupt concept of time and causality.
Roughly agree.I believe that morality is a series of rules in the tradition of what people call "common sense", that is, a series of postulates that we believe initially, and gather information on throughout our lives. I think they exist in human memory as a function of our own behaviour, although there are most likely some instinctual aspects to them.
Agree, if you mean we make choices based on remembered precepts.I also believe that they are as physical as memory because, for the most part, morality is represented in us by our memory.
That's hard to explain briefly. I'd say that behaving in a 'morally' correct way is acting in accord with one own idea of what is morally correct behaviour, whatever those ideas are.What do you believe? [/B]
Originally posted by BigBlueHead
If numbers were just concepts:
There are two apples on the table.
All conscious observers who can conceive of the concept of numbers are removed from the universe.
Now there are not two apples on the table. There are apples, but there cannot be two... "two" only exists in the minds of conscious things.
This is a major problem in metaphysics... some concepts appear to be derived from physical properties. The symbols that REPRESENT numbers are concepts, but are the numbers themselves?
Originally posted by BigBlueHead
Yes, something had to happen at the beginning, but this doesn't logically imply the "first and only" part... why does it make sense that all that has ever happened in the universe is derivative of a single event?
Originally posted by BigBlueHead
I would tend to think that if a causal force arose from nothing once, there's nothing to keep it from happening again.
Originally posted by BigBlueHead
This is why I call it a blind alley of philosophy of science... when you get to the heart of it most people believe in the "first and only cause", or can be made to believe it with a few simple arguments.
Originally posted by BigBlueHead
The fourth-dimensional or popular concept of time derives from the first-and-only-cause concept, basically that way back at the beginning of time an event happened which created the entirety of the "movie" of time.
Originally posted by BigBlueHead
Now, we are advancing through the movie (they like to call this "moving in the fourth dimension", woo) watching frame by frame as the causal implications of that single event play out until the end.
Originally posted by BigBlueHead
I think that this is a highly bankrupt concept of time and causality.
Originally posted by BigBlueHead
What is moral evaluation if there are no rules then?
I think morality is an abstraction resulting from the function of emotion. Emotions allow a "persistence in time" regarding events that have occured within a POV. In other words, if that bastard kicks me in da nuts, hate acts as a conceptual placeholder in my mind with allows me to survive in the sense than next time I encounter a situation similar to prior nut kickage, I can take action to avoid it, thus "surviving". If some chick allows me coitus, love might act as a conceptual placeholder to lead me back to more coitus. I think that fundamentally, morality is an abstraction of this basis in emotion expanded to the abstract reality of social survival.Originally posted by BigBlueHead
I think this is what I'm trying to find out, since I agree that we seem to have different ideas about morality. So here goes:
I believe that morality is a series of rules in the tradition of what people call "common sense", that is, a series of postulates that we believe initially, and gather information on throughout our lives. I think they exist in human memory as a function of our own behaviour, although there are most likely some instinctual aspects to them. I also believe that they are as physical as memory because, for the most part, morality is represented in us by our memory.
What do you believe?
Are you saying that processes are reversible but must happen at a different rate when reversed?It is quite interesting that the outcome is rarely reversible and then only under conditions where equilibration happens exceedingly slowly so events that happen on exceedingly slow timescales are allowed to equilibrate with those that occur on faster timescales.
Originally posted by scilosopher
As far as consciousness, mind, and matter - I think they can't be separated and speaking at the level of what we percieve vs the mechanical/physcial/calculation is simply a rift of information. We have perceptual information that is inaccessible scientifically so their seems to be something that we fundamentally can't explain physically which encourages saying there is a whole new aspect. While we can't explain it physically saying it is fundamentally different is the same as the now debunked concepts of vitality given to organic matter.
Originally posted by scilosopher
I didn't mean that something inaccessible to science didn't exist. I meant that the inaccessability to science makes it seem something that can't be explained scientifically and therefore encourages one to come up with non-scientific explanations.
Ok, but I don't find either view makes much sense.Personally, I think that the fact life can arise out of matter is a "proof of principle" demonstration that consciousness and other very amazing things could (and most likely do) have a material basis. Then again some people believe in intelligent design so it is possible they aren't completely satisfied with a solely material origin of life.
But doesn't science consider that information non-existent until it becomes meaningful, and non-causal even them. (I'm not very clear about science's view on the actual existence of information beyond its physical structure).Originally posted by scilosopher
Would you consider the information stored on a hard drive non-material? If so then science does not confine itself to material matters. If not then what exactly do you mean by non-material.
Briefly, I find it illogical to say that the Universe started with matter, unless it was eternal, and ditto for God. If they were eternal then all bets are off as to why anything exists (even God wouldn't be able to explain it). I feel that the correct explanation would show that the Universe (Cosmos) is inevitable and self-caused rather than inexplicable.What doesn't make sense about them? [/B]
It considers the patterns of pits on a CD causal, since the laser is affected by it. But it's very difficult to argue that the information contained in the pattern of the pits, (let's say it's an encoded dictionary) has any scientific existence.Originally posted by scilosopher
No. Science doesn't consider information such as that stored on the hard drive non-causal or non-existant.
But chemistry isn't equivalent. One can argue that for DNA all the information can be physically encoded and decoded, in other words that it has no meaning in itself, but is a physical structure which is phsyically causal. Information on a CD is not like that.Look at the causal role attributed to the information stored in DNA. Genetic pre-determinism actually goes too far in many cases.
I've never bothered with it much either, mostly because 'information' as Shannon defines it seems rather uninteresting unless you're a telehone engineer.I guess Turing machines and the theory related to them coupled with Shannon's information theory would constitute a macroscopic anologue that I would probably find more comprehensible, but I've never sought that out. Maybe I should.
I can't agree. You are starting with an assumption. Your chain of reasoning is bound to go wrong if you assume that matter gives rise to everything, but that matter wasn't the first thing there was.As far as it being illogical that the universe started with matter ... I didn't claim it started with matter. I said that matter is convincingly (at least to me) the basis of life and by analogy likely to be able to explain consciousness and other phenomena whether we understand the details. One doesn't need to have an answer to how matter came to exist or what else exists to accept or debate this issue.
I don't know your argument, but I would say that there has to be something non-material for the closed system to exist. Penrose argues something like this (from Goedel) on the basis that axiomatic systems must always exist inside an infinite regression of meta-systems.Personally I find it very strange to suggest that there is anything non-material for the closed system reason.
Good point. This is where I would get non-dual about it and say that the distinction between material and non-material (in this particular case) is a false one.Anything relevant to material existence that one posits is "non-material", clearly interacts with material systems. So I don't see why one would continue to classify it as non-material and assume it has non-material origins.
Perhaps matter and emptiness interconvert as, roughly speaking, Buddhists suggest.It turns out energy and matter interconvert, order and energy clearly interconvert, so there is pretty much nothing that can't be placed in the common currency of matter in my mind.
The reason is our consciousness of existing.Why suggest such a thing exists. There's no reason for it.
In view of the discussion so far I find it hard to believe that you don't see that this is an illogical position. If matter is not eternal, and matter is all there is, then nihilo ex nihilo is wrong in your view. (It's wrong in my view as well, but for what I like to think are better reasons).(Since I do think matter is all that exists explaining it's existence is all one needs to do to satisfy me as to how anything exists. I would note that this does perhaps put some sort of order to the fabric of the universe as possibly more primary to matter, but that order can be understood in a completely material/physical context so the distinction is specious in my mind.) [/B]
Books are a useful example. The words are physical, the photons hitting our retinas are physical (ish) and our brains are physical. But where does the meaning of the words come from? Without that the words are just squiggles and hardly likely to be causal.Originally posted by scilosopher
In the context of the information, I do agree that the direct coupling of genetic information to functional physical systems makes it somewhat different. But take certain books and the effects they evoke in changing the behavior of people that read them. Even though the coupling isn't so tight, there is still in my mind causal physical outcomes from the information in the book. It's simply that there is more contextual variation in the perspectives of the reader and therefore a weaker coupling between the information and it's meaning to the reader and therefore the outcome.
You're probably right, I just find it a bit uninteresting, and the whole concept of redundancy seems peculiar.Shannon's information is very important, it's simply that our understanding of computational processes and encodings is at a simple enough level that it can't be brought directly to bear on many topics of interest to humans in that we deal mainly deal with complex encodings and fuzzy computations.
Ok. Let's define 'matter' as anything a physicalist would admit might exist, anything 'scientific'. If there is nothing more than this then something must have come from nothing or matter is eternal. Is there another choice?I never said that matter gave rise to everything. Even if there are things more basic than matter, everything that interacts with matter (and therefore relevant to us as things with material existence) can be understood through it's effects and relation to the material world.
I would argue with that, depending on what you mean. We only understand the phenomenal world, the one inside out heads. Of the phenomena that we know of I suspect we know more about our feelings than the phsyical world, and can more certain of the knowledge.Since we understand the material world best ...
But if it turns out that it is illogical to theorise that that matter is fundamental then surely it's worth exploring the possibilities? It can't be just a coincidence that most (all?) philosophers who have explored this issue conclude that matter is not fundamental.As far as your last point, it is possible my wording was not what it could be. I meant given the material context one can put everything in, there is no need to adopt more speculative and less well defined perspectives for discussing such issues or make vague distinctions as to some non-material entity without defining it appropriately. [/B]