What Kind of Metaphysician Are You?

[charlatan]

Do you mean that physical science uncovers only some of said stuff's properties, but those liberal physicalists still commit to the view that the uncovered properties are physical all the same?

Yeah, basically think of it as an incomplete description of nature. Some say the rest can become accessible later, others will say we'll maybe never know the full nature.

The idea is, e.g., that 'charge' may refer to some property that involves mathematical facets but is not exhausted by those facets. The idea is there may be more to charge than our mathematical equations tell us, even if they're saying something correct.

But basically the idea is whatever properties like charge, mass, spin, etc are in our final physical theory, those ultimately constitute all the properties there are. But we may not understand every facet of those properties.

And obviously this is addressing the idea that nobody can imagine how equations can yield consciousness -- either you deflate consciousness or you accept it's weird.
So to really account for it, the idea is perhaps, as successful as the equations are at making predictions, there is more to be learned about what they're describing...

 

[Ren]

Yeah, basically think of it as an incomplete description of nature. Some say the rest can become accessible later, others will say we'll maybe never know the full nature.

The idea is, e.g., that 'charge' may refer to some property that involves mathematical facets but is not exhausted by those facets. The idea is there may be more to charge than our mathematical equations tell us, even if they're saying something correct.

But basically the idea is whatever properties like charge, mass, spin, etc are in our final physical theory, those ultimately constitute all the properties there are. But we may not understand every facet of those properties.

And obviously this is addressing the idea that nobody can imagine how equations can yield consciousness -- either you deflate consciousness or you accept it's weird.
So to really account for it, the idea is perhaps, as successful as the equations are at making predictions, there is more to be learned about what they're describing...

Ok, thanks for clarifying!

The thing about consciousness though, is that it seems to be weird in a slightly different sense than the weirdness of quantum physics. I could see how a liberal physicalist could accommodate the discoveries of quantum physics within their model, by shifting the 'unknown area' from properties to their facets. The thing about consciousness is that it's not clear that it's just a facet of a physical property/set of physical properties. What are your thoughts on the philosophical zombie argument? I feel like if the argument is plausible, then by Occam's Razor, consciousness must be a further fact, not just a weird/inaccessible facet of the physical.

 

[John K]

beethoven an hitler are equal in human value, but different in social value. responsibility is a useful concept that fits into my equation under past experiences. seeming responsibility works.

as evangelist john bradshaw wisely intoned, "there but for the grace of god, go i." none of us are any better than anyone else. given certain circumstances, we would do the same odious things. if there is a heaven, everyone goes. hitler included, though, he might spend the first six million years washing jewish feet and loving doing so.

also, my philosophy is based on reality whether or not that takes me into unpleasant territory.

i hate trump as president, but feel sorry for him as a human being. narcissists experience severe emotional neglect in childhood and spend the rest of their lives trying to fill an unfillable void.

my response to my realization is to try to love everyone. some folks, out of a need for my personal safety, have to be loved from afar. that may involve anything up to imprisonment for people with histories of repeat violence. no death penalty, though. no one deserves it. 90% of criminal justice PhDs say it's not a deterrent. it's expensive (more than life in prison). and it's carried out more on black people that commit the same crimes as white people who get lesser sentences - it's racist.

I understand what you are saying here but isn't it incompatible with a determined world without free will? In such a world, I would have no choice in whether or not there is a death penalty, or whether to love everyone even, because as @Ren implied our attitudes to these would be ruled by the laws of physics rather than by our deciding them - our sensation of freedom would be an illusion, and our path through life unavoidable. That's not a world that I'd like to live in because it would be an utter fraud - of course that doesn't mean it isn't true, but as long as it is undecideable I will make an existential choice to accept that we have free will and accept the burden of responsibility for my attitudes and actions that it implies

 

[cathylynn]

our illusion of free will (which i much enjoy), our efforts for love and social justice, etc., are all part of what's predetermined. responsibility and assigning responsibility are important parts of the interconnected web of existence. every person that ever lived did the very best that they could. my mom slapped me across the face a few times. i think her actions were harmful to our relationship. me holding her responsible for that harm is part of what is predetermined. i understand, however, that her father beat her with a yardstick and his father beat him with a tree branch. it doesn't absolve mom of responsibility, but it makes her understandable and able to be empathized with, accepted, and loved.

i don't think evil exists except as shorthand for stuff we don't like. calling something evil is also a way of condemning actions that are just all too human.

 

[charlatan]

The thing about consciousness is that it's not clear that it's just a facet of a physical property/set of physical properties.

I'm pretty sure what's going on here though is I may not be making clear just how out there these liberal physicalism varieties are -- they're basically continuous with neutral monism. They're basically saying that what our physical science is describing really is a world of stuff that is weird enough that it can give rise to all the properties we see -- conscious, mathematical, etc, and that the physical sciences are mostly revealing the latter.

The way you're using 'physical' is probably closer to varieties that are significantly less liberal and out there than ones that are more or less a neutral monism. But there are views that literally go all the way -- in other words, views like Galen Strawson's physicalism acknowledge the wildness of consciousness and its distance from what physical science reveals, and it leads him to panpsychism, that you can't really reduce consciousness to anything like that, and thus it must go all the way down.


As for quantum: there are two ways in which quantum is weird. One is the ho-hum way that it just predicts probabilistically, not deterministically. But the other is deeper: it suggests that there may be this thing,, the wavefunction, which is behind physical reality, and whose nature is radically weird and unknown to us -- our theories do predict the right outcomes, but it does seem quite mysterious which interpretation (philosophically) is right as to the ontology of quantum mechanics.

This does seem to suggest the 'physical' may be much deeper and weirder in a sense quite different from what our physical science captures, i.e. beyond the mathematical properties.
That's the interesting sense in which I think it opens some plausibility for very liberal varieties of physicalism.


The reason that such liberal types even call it physicalism still is they believe the physical sciences really are describing these wild entities, but incompletely. It's a matter of the ontological vs epistemic notions of physical -- sure for now, for all we know, physical stuff might seem it could just be mathematical the way we seem to work with in physics.

 

[wolly.green]

I see where you are getting at, but how about a pluralist that distinguishes existence from "ontological basic-ness"? They might say: gravity exists, but is not ontologically basic. Similarly, natural selection exists -- it is the case -- but is not ontologically basic. In that way, they would not go against the best explanations of reality, but simply suggest that gravity, natural selection, etc. are "grounded" in more fundamental substances.

I'm not a pluralist but I'm guessing this would be a possible pluralist answer. That being said, a reductionist pluralist would indeed run the risk of committing to a framework that is perpetually in danger of being challenged by new scientific explanations that cannot be reduced to its basic elements, I agree with you on that.

Ontological basic-ness is also problematic. What problem does that idea solve, what does it explain? Pluralism is meant to explain reality, yet is not clear which part?

Does it explain all of reality? If so, then it must be immune to criticism since any evidence to the contrary can be summarily rejected. A theory or explanation that explains everything must also explain contrary evidence. Therefore all criticism can be dismissed.

The reason we aught to reject a theory that is immune to criticism is because then we have no way of comparing it to it's competitors.

Pluralists must reveal what part of reality their theory explains because then we cannot possibly know where to look for evidence. And thus we cannot know how criticize it. Thus it is immune to criticism once again.

 

[Ren]

Ontological basic-ness is also problematic. What problem does that idea solve, what does it explain? Pluralism is meant to explain reality, yet is not clear which part?

Does it explain all of reality? If so, then it must be immune to criticism since any evidence to the contrary can be summarily rejected. A theory or explanation that explains everything must also explain contrary evidence. Therefore all criticism can be dismissed.

The reason we aught to reject a theory that is immune to criticism is because then we have no way of comparing it to it's competitors.

Pluralists must reveal what part of reality their theory explains because then we cannot possibly know where to look for evidence. And thus we cannot know how criticize it. Thus it is immune to criticism once again.

I think your position is consistent, but seems to indicate that you reject not only pluralism, but the metaphysical enterprise itself. Would that be correct? Or would you accept a certain kind of emergentism?

Even so, it's not clear to me what metaphysical emergentism would bring you, versus just doing away with metaphysics altogether.

 

[wolly.green]

I think your position is consistent, but seems to indicate that you reject not only pluralism, but the metaphysical enterprise itself. Would that be correct? Or would you accept a certain kind of emergentism?

No I don't. Metaphysics is just a label after all. Im really curious, why would I reject it?

 

[John K]

I'm pretty sure what's going on here though is I may not be making clear just how out there these liberal physicalism varieties are -- they're basically continuous with neutral monism. They're basically saying that what our physical science is describing really is a world of stuff that is weird enough that it can give rise to all the properties we see -- conscious, mathematical, etc, and that the physical sciences are mostly revealing the latter.

The way you're using 'physical' is probably closer to varieties that are significantly less liberal and out there than ones that are more or less a neutral monism. But there are views that literally go all the way -- in other words, views like Galen Strawson's physicalism acknowledge the wildness of consciousness and its distance from what physical science reveals, and it leads him to panpsychism, that you can't really reduce consciousness to anything like that, and thus it must go all the way down.


As for quantum: there are two ways in which quantum is weird. One is the ho-hum way that it just predicts probabilistically, not deterministically. But the other is deeper: it suggests that there may be this thing,, the wavefunction, which is behind physical reality, and whose nature is radically weird and unknown to us -- our theories do predict the right outcomes, but it does seem quite mysterious which interpretation (philosophically) is right as to the ontology of quantum mechanics.

This does seem to suggest the 'physical' may be much deeper and weirder in a sense quite different from what our physical science captures, i.e. beyond the mathematical properties.
That's the interesting sense in which I think it opens some plausibility for very liberal varieties of physicalism.


The reason that such liberal types even call it physicalism still is they believe the physical sciences really are describing these wild entities, but incompletely. It's a matter of the ontological vs epistemic notions of physical -- sure for now, for all we know, physical stuff might seem it could just be mathematical the way we seem to work with in physics.

I’m very much on this wavelength myself. For example, it seems silly to me to put minds and matter into different categories of being then get into a tangle philosophically about it. Makes much more sense to assume they both stem from the same order of things and are part of the way the world manifests. Scientific theory is basically a modelling process but it's easy to assume the rules defined in the more successful models are actually the fundamentals of reality, but they certainly aren't that at the moment, though they do perhaps give some flavour of it. It's clear from a combination of theory and observation that matter is quite intangible - even something as everyday as touch and contact is actually an experience of electromagnetic repulsion rather than a real encounter between hard 'stuff'. I'm even more impressed by how intangible matter is when examined closely - atoms are mostly empty space, and the particles that make them up seem to be bundles of trapped energy with fuzzy definitions rather than anything really substantial.

 

[Ren]

every person that ever lived did the very best that they could.

I understand your position. I cannot accept its conclusions, such as this one, but I get and respect where you are coming from. Are you familiar with the philosophy of Spinoza?

I think it would speak to you.

 

[Ren]

This does seem to suggest the 'physical' may be much deeper and weirder in a sense quite different from what our physical science captures, i.e. beyond the mathematical properties.
That's the interesting sense in which I think it opens some plausibility for very liberal varieties of physicalism.

The reason that such liberal types even call it physicalism still is they believe the physical sciences really are describing these wild entities, but incompletely. It's a matter of the ontological vs epistemic notions of physical -- sure for now, for all we know, physical stuff might seem it could just be mathematical the way we seem to work with in physics.

I gotcha I was going to ask precisely this question: "But why do these liberal physicalists still insist on calling themselves physicalists?" -- but you answered it right there. It does seem almost like a new label might be in order so as to prevent confusion, like post-physicalists or something like that. I bet you're going to tell me it already exists!

As an aside: what are your thoughts regarding the deflating of consciousness? Do you find that approach appealing? I flirt with it quite a bit in my notebook.

No I don't. Metaphysics is just a label after all. Im really curious, why would I reject it?

Primarily because you say this:

Does it explain all of reality? If so, then it must be immune to criticism since any evidence to the contrary can be summarily rejected. A theory or explanation that explains everything must also explain contrary evidence. Therefore all criticism can be dismissed.

The reason we aught to reject a theory that is immune to criticism is because then we have no way of comparing it to it's competitors.

In my definition, metaphysics deals with first principles / the study of the fundamental nature of reality. So it is, in a sense, universal in scope - it aims to specify the fundamental nature of "reality as a whole". I don't think any metaphysical system is immune to criticism, but the criticism won't really be "evidential" in an empirical sense. I mean, just so that I have a better idea of your stance on metaphysics, could you just give me an example of a metaphysics that you like?

It's definitely possible to compare pluralism's merits to those of monism, dualism, etc. Just not directly from an empirical viewpoint (except insofar as metaphysical frameworks must not contradict the findings of science, obviously).

 

[charlatan]

I gotcha I was going to ask precisely this question: "But why do these liberal physicalists still insist on calling themselves physicalists?" -- but you answered it right there. It does seem almost like a new label might be in order so as to prevent confusion, like post-physicalists or something like that. I bet you're going to tell me it already exists!

As an aside: what are your thoughts regarding the deflating of consciousness? Do you find that approach appealing? I flirt with it quite a bit in my notebook.

Yeah, I knew you were going to ask
And it's a good question -- I think it's reasonable to say, e.g. when we talk about 'the guy who murdered my friend,' that we're really talking about the guy, the cause of the murder, not just the property we know about. Similarly we may be talking of wild things when we do physics, just we may describe only the surface properties we know.


As for the deflating of consciousness, it really depends how one does it. I think the option by brute-scientists who say "our physics is real consciousness is a useful fiction" seems very much motivated by a kind of brute-force conservatism and I'm very skeptical of that. It's the sort of thing that wants progress in science and thus will try to push mystery to the side a little too dogmatically.

Thoughtful ways of saying we should not blindly accept common sense views of consciousness are different. Those, I take seriously.

The main thing I am very skeptical of in attempts to deflate consciousness, though, is that the thing they replace it with is usually either just as fancy or seems not to do the job. There's a standard view that all of mind is conceptual, and that phenomenal non-conceptual properties simply don't exist. I don't see why one would be any more willing to accept that our minds 'grasp logical propositions directly' than to accept they have phenomenal properties.

 

[wolly.green]

In my definition, metaphysics deals with first principles / the study of the fundamental nature of reality. So it is, in a sense, universal in scope - it aims to specify the fundamental nature of "reality as a whole". I don't think any metaphysical system is immune to criticism, but the criticism won't really be "evidential" in an empirical sense. I mean, just so that I have a better idea of your stance on metaphysics, could you just give me an example of a metaphysics that you like?

Oh I see. I do reject it in that case. But not because its immune to criticism. Rather I have no reason to believe that asking "what is the nature of reality" is even a real question.

When Karl Popper devised his criterion of demarcation, he was answering a real question that plagued the scientific community. Pseudo Science was a real problem. Although it was very clear that there is a difference between non science and real science, nobody really knew what it was until Karl Popper came along.

There was an abundance of evidence the problem of demarcation was a REAL problem. It affected the lives and work of scientists all around the world. In fact, without a solution, scientists may still be plagued with trivialities that can inhibit progress.

With Metaphysics, I see not corresponding controversy. There is no visceral indication that "what is the nature of reality" is really a problem. No clear indication that there is a controversy that must be settled. Does that make sense?

 

[cathylynn]

to those who disagree with me, i invite you to "take the red pill." -lol.

 

[charlatan]

. I'm even more impressed by how intangible matter is when examined closely - atoms are mostly empty space, and the particles that make them up seem to be bundles of trapped energy with fuzzy definitions rather than anything really substantial.

Yeah, exactly how I feel. I always emphasize the weirdness of quantum stuff isn't the probabilistic part, as that's just a different kind of mathematics. Why expect nature to be otherwise anyway??

The weird part is that we can do the mathematics perfectly but how much seems to be mysterious behind the scenes as to the nature of the thing being described.

 

[John K]

Does anyone else find that sometimes the very analytical processes of philosophy seem to only handle things at arms length? They sometimes seem to be drained of the vitality that sparks off the fire of what really matters to us as human beings. That has to be the case with objective ~ologies, but metaphysics can’t rest comfortably in that perspective because it has to account for the subjective too - and with that all hopes and fears and aspirations, love and hate, existential restlessness, even metaphysics itself - our very complex drive to understand the world and our place in it, and the gnawing hunger for completeness that can lie at the heart of that drive.

Spoiler: Whispers of Immortality

Whispers of Immortality
BY T. S. ELIOT
Webster was much possessed by death
And saw the skull beneath the skin;
And breastless creatures under ground
Leaned backward with a lipless grin.

Daffodil bulbs instead of balls
Stared from the sockets of the eyes!
He knew that thought clings round dead limbs
Tightening its lusts and luxuries.

Donne, I suppose, was such another
Who found no substitute for sense,
To seize and clutch and penetrate;
Expert beyond experience,

He knew the anguish of the marrow
The ague of the skeleton;
No contact possible to flesh
Allayed the fever of the bone.

. . . . .

Grishkin is nice: her Russian eye
Is underlined for emphasis;
Uncorseted, her friendly bust
Gives promise of pneumatic bliss.

The couched Brazilian jaguar
Compels the scampering marmoset
With subtle effluence of cat;
Grishkin has a maisonnette;

The sleek Brazilian jaguar
Does not in its arboreal gloom
Distil so rank a feline smell
As Grishkin in a drawing-room.

And even the Abstract Entities
Circumambulate her charm;
But our lot crawls between dry ribs
To keep our metaphysics warm.

 

[John K]

Yeah, exactly how I feel. I always emphasize the weirdness of quantum stuff isn't the probabilistic part, as that's just a different kind of mathematics. Why expect nature to be otherwise anyway??

The weird part is that we can do the mathematics perfectly but how much seems to be mysterious behind the scenes as to the nature of the thing being described.

Yes - we have ever increasing accuracy in the predictive power of the scientific models, but they contradict each other wildly in their world views - the notions of time and space are completely different between QM and relativity aren’t they? It’s probably saying something important about reality that this can be the case.

 

[Ren]

With Metaphysics, I see not corresponding controversy. There is no visceral indication that "what is the nature of reality" is really a problem. No clear indication that there is a controversy that must be settled. Does that make sense?

Yep, I do think your position is consistent. I am not sure that there is a "problem" with regards to the nature of reality, in the way in which you understand it (i.e. through a scientific lens).

I do think there are rules for the discussion of metaphysics, like logical consistency etc., but to me metaphysics is mostly speculative and descriptive. I would not call it "scientific" in the strict sense.

 

[wolly.green]

Yep, I do think your position is consistent. I am not sure that there is a "problem" with regards to the nature of reality, in the way in which you understand it (i.e. through a scientific lens).

I do think there are rules for the discussion of metaphysics, like logical consistency etc., but to me metaphysics is mostly speculative and descriptive. I would not call it "scientific" in the strict sense.

Falsification isn't science either, its philosophy. It is a perfect example of why philosophy must be tethered to real problems in science. What other way can I determine whether it is a real issue worth solving? Suppose I were to ask "What is the humidity of love?". It might be a real question worth solving, but without knowing where the problem came from, we can't possibly know. In fact, since I can't point you to any real controversy, it can be summarily rejected.

It doesn't matter how many rules of reason meta-physicians follow, if you cant point to the controversy, why should I accept "what is the nature of reality" as a meaningful question?

 

[charlatan]

sometimes the very analytical processes of philosophy

There's continental philosophy -- have you tried that? Analytic philosophy tends to emphasize logic/language, and the continental types think this limits what can be captured