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Are Objectivists victims to the Psychology of the common-sensical?

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a point 'having' no extension is valid as long as the context of mathematics is recognized.

 

Hi tadmjones!

 

I'd like to respond but I don't adequately understand the full context you intend for your statement and I would rather not misinterpret its meaning.

 

Questions/comments:

1. If we are speaking of individual existent particles such as electrons... what you mean by "context of mathematics"? 

2. We have not fully defined "extension" for the purposes of this discussion.  I note we likely will need to agree on an objective definition for purposes of a meaningful discussion (so we do not talk past one another).

 

SL

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 Well first of all, I never have understood why [if A then B; not B so not A] isn't considered logically valid; there's no need to justify that bit.  =]  And I actually know exactly what the problem is!

 

So free will is usually taken to mean self-control; right?  You control your own actions and you have the power to do whatever you choose to ergo volition is causeless and arbitrary; this idea is everywhere nowadays.

But let's examine that empirically, shall we?

 

Free will is a something more fundamental than self-control.  What is urgent in the discussion of free will is the apparent deterministic behaviour of all physical nonquantum mechanical external entities, and the arbitrary (within certain particular limits) behaviour of all physical quantum systems (if you believe in the interpretation of modern physics). NEITHER of these behaviors, typifying the possible known constitutive elements of a non-supernatural human being, sits well with the idea we are BOTH not determined, and not random.

 

I currently know of no rigorous science which can show any system (even a simulated information system) of any kind, which can combine these elements, deterministic, and random, such that the end result is not simply a mixture of random and deterministic processes performed one after another or in tandem, but something completely new and from an artificial systems point of view... such would scarcely even be definable.  I've heard vague handwavy type arguments that "some" combination of determinism and randomness (with no clue as to how and in what manner) gives rise to FREE WILL ...its like saying throwing Pie and Salt together might just result in Purple... might just, for no reason... mash em' up and hope.  Thumbs up!

 

 

 

Therefore (and this is where it gets vague again)- the fact that we are human beings with human minds necessitates that ALL things can be understood (conversely, NOTHING is arbitrary), not for any physical law or fact, but because if this were not so then we could not learn anything and, accordingly, couldn't survive.

 

And since everything can be understood, we cannot accept anything as truly random- if for nothing other than psychological self-preservation.

 

This seems a little overstated.  Acceptance is irrelevant to the nature of reality.  It metaphysically is.  Our way of understanding and our capability of understanding is relevant to our knowledge of reality.

 

Hypothetically: Imagine IF in FACT, only photons passing through a polarized film exhibited "arbitrary" probabilistic behaviour, while ALL other physical processes were deterministic, could we deal with the universe (mostly), could we survive? 

Would we need to ignore this fact for psychological self-preservation?  If we did wouldn't this be evasion?

 

 

We should likely start a separate "free-will" thread.. or one likely already has been started.

 

From my understanding of Objectivists holdings with regard to causality, entities act in accordance with their nature, and the reasoning proceeds as follows: because an entity's nature is single valued, the act, or what is caused must also be single valued.  E.g. An entity A in a context 1 (the entirety of the external universe to A or everything other than A) acts according to that single nature of A (at the time) and the single nature of Context 1 to proceed (cause, act) in a single valued manner.  i.e. determinism.  By single valued I mean there is only one course of action taken, one outcome. From my understanding of Objectivism, the belief is that this single valued causation is a LOGICAL necessity flowing from the law of identity and therefore must be a universal law.

 

Where my understanding of Objectivism loses purchase is why this principle of single valued causality does not apply to EVERY kind of A, no matter what its form or its level of complexity.  Of course, we know objectivists have an exclusion for any natural system A which comprises a human being, which as we know has volitional consciousness.  This to me seems at worst like a contradiction... or at least a bait and switch.

 

 

I am forced to accept one or more of the following:

 

1.  The single valuedness of the law of causation (the one "demanded" by logic) is NOT universal for all natural systems, which begs the question why the single valued principle "as a matter of LOGIC" must be true of only SOME systems... I would assume matters of logic would be independent of seeming irrelevancies.. The conclusion thus is that the "single valuedness" part of the law of causation does not of necessity logically flow from the law of identity, it has been chosen.

2.  Humans are not natural systems and are hence supernatural

3.  Causation, whether it is a single valued process or a multiple valued process, is a matter of metaphysical reality not a matter solely of logic. and it works differently for different natural systems, and we have yet to understand why

 

 

Have any thoughts regarding the law of causality and the whether or not a single valued version (versus a multi valued version) is necessitated by the law of identity?

 

SL

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I'm not sure what you mean by values of causality. But I was faced with a dilemma much like that a few months ago, and this is what sense I've been able to make of it:

-Human beings exist in a state of partial knowledge. We have some information (senses+ axiomatic concepts) but not all, because that would be omniscience.

-All things in the universe depend upon and eternally interact with all other things in a deterministic process of A to B to C. Though this process is deterministic, it is also chaotic (Butterfly Effect).

-Since our method of survival is to infer true knowledge about the information we don't have (and cannot directly have; atoms and galaxies), we must understand these interactions and contingencies in order to make accurate deductions.

Accordingly, human beings require knowledge to survive and functional knowledge (the sort we need to survive) IS deterministic, but chaotic (unpredictable UNLESS you know ALL of the variables).

Predictably deterministic knowledge, such as the Classical Physics' clockwork-universe, would require omniscience in order to be known.

-Therefore, although the universe is metaphysically deterministic, human beings can never fully describe it.

We fix this problem by abstraction (deliberately isolating an attribute, dynamic, etc. in order to remove the particulars and generalize it across the universe) and the formation of concepts, which allow us to INDUCE the state of unknown-variables from the known ones.

This functions exactly like algebra. The constants are our direct sensory perceptions and axiomatic (instinctively hardwired) knowledge, the variables are everything that we don't know and all of the permutations and rearrangements- those are thoughts.

Since we have partial knowledge, Chaos theory dictates that we may be wrong in any given prediction- because of any number of deterministic but UNKNOWN processes. We quantify and deal with this phenomenon of our own minds with the concept "probability".

Applied to causality, it is clear that the universe IS deterministic- but probability is synonymous with hidden variables, in order to serve the cognitive function that it does. The function of the concept 'probability', by the way, is to remind us that we may be wrong in any prediction and to act accordingly- it may be an axiomatic concept (?) because it serves to temper other, derivative concepts and prevent us from declaring ourselves infallible about anything, at any time.

Applied to free will, this would mean that human beings are metaphysically deterministic (we are, after all, physical processes- it is scientific common-knowledge) but epistemologically chaotic.

By metaphysically deterministic, epistemologically chaotic, what I mean is "predetermined, but fated to a sequence of actions which cannot be predicted in advance- because such relevant variables [the important ones, with the biggest impact] would, in terms of sheer complexity, fill at least a human brain's worth of memory."

Actually deterministic- but functionally probabilistic (and necessarily so).

And these factors and variables which dictate the fate of a human being cannot contradict their thoughts and actions (it is impossible to defy fate) because such variables ARE their thoughts and actions.

You are fated- and you will CHOOSE your own fate, by the time you reach it!

Anyway. So that's what I've been able to make of it; criticism is welcomed.

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

 

To clarify about fate:

I mean that all of space and time is constant; the past occurred a certain way which necessarily had to be so, and so will the future.  But, although you or I may be fated to become rich and famous, or not, or to contract a terminal disease, or not, we still have free will; whatever lives we end up leading, in the end, it is we alone who will have chosen to live them.

 

Fate is nothing more, and nothing less than causality- which does not make exceptions.  But fate cannot trap you into anything which you didn't choose for yourself, in the first place; in the vast sum of variables and interactions which dictate the course of your life, the most important variable (which makes the most differences) will be the choices that YOU make.

 

So free will and determinism aren't exclusive; they're two sides of the same coin.

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

 

To clarify about fate:

I mean that all of space and time is constant; the past occurred a certain way which necessarily had to be so, and so will the future.  But, although you or I may be fated to become rich and famous, or not, or to contract a terminal disease, or not, we still have free will; whatever lives we end up leading, in the end, it is we alone who will have chosen to live them.

 

Fate is nothing more, and nothing less than causality- which does not make exceptions.  But fate cannot trap you into anything which you didn't choose for yourself, in the first place; in the vast sum of variables and interactions which dictate the course of your life, the most important variable (which makes the most differences) will be the choices that YOU make.

 

So free will and determinism aren't exclusive; they're two sides of the same coin.

 

I studied Chaos, strange attractors, ergodic sequences, etc. during my time in Physics.  We agree that Chaos arises in completely deterministic systems... and that well...it's still deterministic.

 

I take from your previous two posts that you believe in "determinism", i.e. single valued causation for everything in nature. 

Thus:

You don't believe in free will if it is defined as "Given any choice you really COULD have chosen otherwise", but you believe in something like free will which is essentially the statement that you act unfettered by external forces/effects according to your nature but in a deterministic manner; and

You don't believe in "true randomness" (what I am calling multivalued causation) and hence don't believe in objective QM probabilities in nature and instead believe the measurements of QM represent simply statistical probabilities in respect of what are really hidden variables in nature which are deterministic.

 

This is logically consistent but seems to go against both the experience of "free will" and modern QM experiments.  These are different kinds of non-determinism but still observed phenomena.  Why believe in determinism when the scales of observation seems to weigh against it? 

 

 

In mathematics a multifunction or multivalued relation maps one input to one or more outputs. In the case of causation, what I mean by multivalued is that the starting case is single valued but the possible result (the potential, the outcome, what is caused) is many valued.

 

This is what I mean when I talk about the concept of single valued versus many valued causation:

 

 

post-5033-0-06923000-1372303124_thumb.pn

 

post-5033-0-66784900-1372303143_thumb.pn

 

 

You may notice that causation itself is like a black box.  Point taken.  However, I personally cannot address questions such as "What causes the causation" nor am I certain such a question is in any way coherent or meaningful.

 

SL

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I take from your previous two posts that you believe in "determinism", i.e. single valued causation for everything in nature. 

Thus:

You don't believe in free will if it is defined as "Given any choice you really COULD have chosen otherwise", but you believe in something like free will which is essentially the statement that you act unfettered by external forces/effects according to your nature but in a deterministic manner; and

You don't believe in "true randomness" (what I am calling multivalued causation) and hence don't believe in objective QM probabilities in nature and instead believe the measurements of QM represent simply statistical probabilities in respect of what are really hidden variables in nature which are deterministic.

Yep; if that's what single-valued causality is then yeah, that's exactly it.

 

This is logically consistent but seems to go against both the experience of "free will" and modern QM experiments.  These are different kinds of non-determinism but still observed phenomena.  Why believe in determinism when the scales of observation seems to weigh against it? 

 Well, it's simple.  I don't accept that there is anything, in the entire universe, which is beyond our comprehension.  Everything else logically follows from that.

 

If you think that there are some things which we can never understand then something entirely different would follow.

 

All technical jargon and botched attempts at some philosophy (sorry) aside, I don't accept anything as unknowable because I do not and cannot consider Newton and Einstein to be metaphysically trivial; I think that figuring these things out, logically, is the proper state of all human beings.

 

 

 

Anything causeless is closed to man's mind, and I don't want to live in a mindless world.

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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SL, I havent forgotten about your questions. Im currently devouring and dissecting the new book Concepts and their Role in Knowledge. It is highly relevant to our discussion and I want to wait to go any further while I develop my position further with its context.

Edited by Plasmatic
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Hi tadmjones!

 

I'd like to respond but I don't adequately understand the full context you intend for your statement and I would rather not misinterpret its meaning.

 

Questions/comments:

1. If we are speaking of individual existent particles such as electrons... what you mean by "context of mathematics"? 

2. We have not fully defined "extension" for the purposes of this discussion.  I note we likely will need to agree on an objective definition for purposes of a meaningful discussion (so we do not talk past one another).

 

SL

I meant that within the context of plenum, the idea of a point without extension is valid, as long as it  (an extension-less enitity) is considered within the context of mathematics.

A 'point' can be considered extensionless as long as the concept is confined to a concept of method.

There can be no existential entity(entities) without extension or perhaps 'force' or 'charge', but those qualifiers are beyond my layman pervue.

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I meant that within the context of plenum, the idea of a point without extension is valid, as long as it  (an extension-less enitity) is considered within the context of mathematics.

A 'point' can be considered extensionless as long as the concept is confined to a concept of method.

There can be no existential entity(entities) without extension or perhaps 'force' or 'charge', but those qualifiers are beyond my layman pervue.

 

It is possible we are in agreement.  Any entity with no interaction with another whatever, no fields forces, etc. would be incomprehensible as it would play no part whatever in nature. 

 

One step further is perhaps a "point" particle which only interacts with another when they overlap at a point in space, momentarily at the same position and they exchange some physical quantity. This would likely not give rise to much in a deterministic universe (i.e. if it was not also subject to some probability distribution).  Going farther we have a point like particle where ALL of the properties are localised, its mass and charge for example are not spread out nor do they appear at different places from each other or in different distributions... they are at a same point in space.  This point particle would of course have electromagnetic and gravitational interactions at a distance to other particles having mass and charge.  In that sense these point particles "extend" ... in terms of interaction and causation.  The next step is an entity whose mass and charge is somehow "distributed" in a QM probabilistic sense in which case we are talking about a point particle kind of in a sort of extension.  Lastly in this classification is the distributed mass and charge distribution of a deterministic entity.  This is an example of what I would call true extension... the thing itself (the thing which has the properties) occupies more than a single point in space.

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SL, I havent forgotten about your questions. Im currently devouring and dissecting the new book Concepts and their Role in Knowledge. It is highly relevant to our discussion and I want to wait to go any further while I develop my position further with its context.

 

Plasmatic:

 

Although originally the intent of my questions were to understand what you WERE thinking and what you HAD thought, I am sure it will be just as, if not more, illuminating to understand what you WILL think once you have had a chance to finish devouring and digesting that new book. 

 

Any new and useful information which ends up contributing to the upkeep (including any modification, strengthening, deletion, or addition) to the structure which is the integrated unity of my knowledge will be very much appreciated.  I await selfishly to hear your thoughts!! 

 

-SL

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It is possible we are in agreement.  Any entity with no interaction with another whatever, no fields forces, etc. would be incomprehensible as it would play no part whatever in nature. 

 

One step further is perhaps a "point" particle which only interacts with another when they overlap at a point in space, momentarily at the same position and they exchange some physical quantity. This would likely not give rise to much in a deterministic universe (i.e. if it was not also subject to some probability distribution).  Going farther we have a point like particle where ALL of the properties are localised, its mass and charge for example are not spread out nor do they appear at different places from each other or in different distributions... they are at a same point in space.  This point particle would of course have electromagnetic and gravitational interactions at a distance to other particles having mass and charge.  In that sense these point particles "extend" ... in terms of interaction and causation.  The next step is an entity whose mass and charge is somehow "distributed" in a QM probabilistic sense in which case we are talking about a point particle kind of in a sort of extension.  Lastly in this classification is the distributed mass and charge distribution of a deterministic entity.  This is an example of what I would call true extension... the thing itself (the thing which has the properties) occupies more than a single point in space.

I would agree, as long as we stipulate that there are no 'points' in space, only entities. "Points" being strictly a concept that denotes precise mathematic constructs.

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I would agree, as long as we stipulate that there are no 'points' in space, only entities. "Points" being strictly a concept that denotes precise mathematic constructs.

 

Agreed.. in fact the concept of "space" itself may only be relational between entities.  Space then becomes merely a relational place holder.. "points" in space being the mathematical values entities "could" and have had in the space of relationships, but which not currently "occupied" i.e. no entity currently has the relational values corresponding to that "location". 

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About points in space. . .

 

Just a thought but, if the smallest particles known to man have some spatial extent then they could be further subdivided.  Half of a foot is six inches, half of that is three inches, half again is one-point-five inches, point seven-five, point three-seven-five. . .

Any nonzero number can be broken into smaller parts and, by extension, any nonzero distance consists of smaller distances.

 

So if the fundamental particles have some spatial extent then what's inside of them?  It would lead to an infinite regress because there would always be something smaller than your smallest particle; therefore no truly fundamental particle could have any size.

 

This, of course, assumes that there ARE fundamental particles, at some point.  But I'll stand by that arbitrary assumption.

 

So the smallest units of matter would either have to be point-particles without any size or field potentials with infinite (but vanishingly faint) size.  Personally I think it would be the latter; fields are simply more precise and predictable than particles.

But on that 'point' it would appear that particle physicists disagree with me.  Either way, though, some exception to size/locality would be perfectly logical.

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About points in space. . .

 

Just a thought but, if the smallest particles known to man have some spatial extent then they could be further subdivided.  Half of a foot is six inches, half of that is three inches, half again is one-point-five inches, point seven-five, point three-seven-five. . .

Any nonzero number can be broken into smaller parts and, by extension, any nonzero distance consists of smaller distances.

 

So if the fundamental particles have some spatial extent then what's inside of them?  It would lead to an infinite regress because there would always be something smaller than your smallest particle; therefore no truly fundamental particle could have any size.

 

This, of course, assumes that there ARE fundamental particles, at some point.  But I'll stand by that arbitrary assumption.

 

So the smallest units of matter would either have to be point-particles without any size or field potentials with infinite (but vanishingly faint) size.  Personally I think it would be the latter; fields are simply more precise and predictable than particles.

But on that 'point' it would appear that particle physicists disagree with me.  Either way, though, some exception to size/locality would be perfectly logical.

This is the kind of thinking , that I think is too prevalent in some aspects of 'modern' physics.

 

'Numbers' or perhaps 'integers' can be halved what like infinately , but this reasoning doesn't exactly to the properties of enities, does it? Can one half a proton and be left with two halves of a proton? I doubt it. Mathematics deals with quantities, a highly abstract field. But that does not mean that just because one can express some ratio or relation between quantities says anything whatever about the identity of entities as such. 

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On what basis do you designate an 'inside'?

Between its outer surfaces.

 

It's really not something I care to debate.  I simply think that the smallest thing in the universe can't obey the usual rules for size and location; it wouldn't make sense.

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  • 2 years later...
On 7/3/2013 at 8:26 PM, StrictlyLogical said:

 

Agreed.. in fact the concept of "space" itself may only be relational between entities.  Space then becomes merely a relational place holder.. "points" in space being the mathematical values entities "could" and have had in the space of relationships, but which not currently "occupied" i.e. no entity currently has the relational values corresponding to that "location". 

 

Can someone explian this "relational" idea of space? I simply cannot conceive of space as being anything but an existent.

So much so, that I am starting to think that philosophical disagreements are due to neurological differences.

 

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