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Identical situations create identical outcomes?

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Kjetil

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I took "irreducible" in the sense of an explanation; like vision itself, which is an "irreducible primary" because there is nothing more concrete with which to explain or define it. Applied to consciousness in the first-person, introspective perspective (as Don used it), something like 'happiness, itself' is irreducible. We can explain it in third-person terms but there is nothing more basic, inside of our own minds, by which to explain it.

While I've held for many years that there must be a reason for everything, as an absolute, something like 'happiness itself' cannot be explained introspectively; it is a direct analogue to something like vision, extrospectively.

This does raise some challenging questions; at least for my beliefs.

Furthermore, one of the things I've realized about this topic is that everybody agrees that there is uncertainty involved; that we are fallible; but those arguing for multiple metaphysical possibilities have effectively attributed this to the nature of existence, and those arguing against them have attributed it to the nature of consciousness. Are these uncertainties part of a thing-in-itself or part of our perception of it? I've recently realized that THIS question ITSELF is premised on Kant's noumenal distinction, which we all know to be invalid. This in turn implies that the terms in which we have ALL framed this question are invalid; that the question itself is invalid.

I do not yet know what the truly Objective way to look at it is and I do not believe I've encountered it yet. I do not have any answers for the questions implied by Don's most recent posts.

I do know that they are the right questions to ask.

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