Metaphysics: Things we can know to be true about reality without the scientific method

[IWantGod]

They don’t exist yet we can abstract them.

They don’t exist outside of our minds, but they certainly have a kind of existence in our heads while we think them; they have an abstract existence. And my qeustion was why do they exist if only physical things exist?

 

[STT]

They don’t exist outside of our minds, but they certainly have a kind of existence in our heads while we think them; they have an abstract existence. And my qeustion was why do they exist if only physical things exist?

I think that Qualia, what we experience in general, is byproduct of brain activity. Mind then perceives Qualia.

 

[Sophia]

Physical objects are the stuff in different forms.

Stuff? Is “stuff” a scientific term? You take a silly putty and shape it into different forms… so what?

I am afraid that that is not correct. Mind as something which is byproduct of brain activity cannot perceive and cause something.

Any evidence for that?

If concepts are not physical objects then why do they exist, since everything is physical.

You need to learn what “physical” means.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

I’m not sure what strawman @Damian is referring to, here

Here. You only wrote two sentences, so not sure how you missed this. You’re pointing out that I appear to be creating a strawman but start off with not being sure if I am doing this. So that is poisoning the well. You are trying to argue that I am making a fallacy, but can’t point out that I am or not. That is just trying to place doubt where you can’t demonstrate doubt is founded. IE: poisoning the well. “he’s being a stupid head but I don’t know if he actually is or not.”

You talked a lot about cults and postulating what was before the big bang, which is just a huge non-sequitur.

 

[AlNg]

We make reasoned conclusions about the nature of reality based on our experience with it.

How would that fit in with our experience with the first law of thermodynamics that energy can neither be created nor destroyed.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

We’ll remain in disagreement then, because I do not take it as rational to consider something such as “purpose” or “ends” as being subjectively imposed on all things in the same way we make value judgments about taste.

And that is the problem. What is the “purpose” of a scythe? In agriculture, it is to cut grass, in a fight it is to kill others. Neither is intrinsic, both are imposed.

For a scythe, yes. But I’d disagree that a heart has an imposed end of pumping blood, or an eye an imposed end of seeing, or an animal an imposed end reproduction, etc… These ends are intrinsic to what it is to be a heart, or an eye, or an animal.

Wesrock:

What of the law of identity?

The three laws of LOGIC are applicable to propositions. The correct way to state it is: “A proposition cannot be both true and not true at the same time in the same context”.

See, again, rather than just accept that there’s no scientific epistemological grounds to come to any firm conclusions about this, you’re firmly stating an anti-realist position as if there’s no other option. You have inherent biases and views that popular culture has shaped in you, but I don’t feel as if you’ve actually stepped back and questioned them. Maybe you’d still be an anti-realist, but at this time there just seems to be a lack of awareness here.

Wesrock:

As for the PSR, you’re right in concluding that an infinite regress is irrational, but you’re just begging the question by ruling out the possibility of a starting point that is intrinsically explicable and not just a brute fact.

A brute fact needs no explanation. I have no idea what you mean by “intrinsically explicable”. If you use it as “it explains itself”, then you have a linguistic nonsense. Explanation is a set of propositions, which reduce a complex phenomenon to an already understood simple one.

Rather, a brute fact is inexplicable. I deny the notion that it doesn’t need an explanation. What you’ve rejected, in order to avoid an infinite regress, is the possibility that there is something which is explicable without appealing to anything outside itself. And again, I’d like to highlight here that while I disagree with this position, my issue is your lack of consistency in applying the epistemology you demand of everyone else. “A brute fact needs no explanation.” I’ll believe it when you adhere to your own epistemological demands.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

We make reasoned conclusions about the nature of reality based on our experience with it.

How would that fit in with our experience with the first law of thermodynamics that energy can neither be created nor destroyed.

You’re talking about a physical system, and in particular, a closed physical system. As to whether there’s anything else, there’s obviously debate, but the laws of thermodynamics specifically describe physical systems.

 

[STT]

Stuff? Is “stuff” a scientific term?

Stuff to me is whatever that physical things are made of it.

You take a silly putty and shape it into different forms… so what?

Then you have a world that you could live within. We cannot live in perfect vacuum.

Any evidence for that?

I have two arguments against that.

First argument: 1) Mind is byproduct of brain activity, 2) Brain activity is the result of Mind, 3) From (1) and (2) we can deduce that mind should exist not and exist at the same moment which this is contradictory. You believe that (1) is correct then you should give up (2). This means that mind cannot cause anything.

Second argument: 1) Mind which is a mental state is byproduct of brain activity , 2) Qualia which is a mental state is byproduct of brain activity, 3) To tell that mind experiences Qualia is then equivalent to say that a mental state experiences another mental state which is absurd. This means that mind cannot experience anything.

 

[IWantGod]

You need to learn what “physical” means.

I honestly don’t think there is much to learn from you because you said this…

Forms are concepts, not physical objects.

If concepts are not physical, then by your materialistic standards they shouldn’t exist. I’m just responding to what you said. If i’m wrong then i’m wrong, but don’t just assert that i need to learn something.

 

[IWantGod]

If all that I can be certain of, is that I perceive change

How can you perceive change if there is absolutely no change at all in existence including your mind? You wouldn’t have a concept for it if you had no experiences to draw from. How can we do science if there are no processes to measure. How can we even think for that matter. It’s a contradiction, and for that reason alone i have to reject your senseless argument.

Intelligent people shouldn’t be debating whether or not there is any change.

 

[Wesrock]

IWantGod:

How can you perceive change if there is absolutely no change at all in existence including your mind? You wouldn’t have a concept for it if you had no experiences to draw from. How can we do science if there are no processes to measure. How can we even think for that matter. It’s contradiction, and for that reason alone i have to reject your senseless argument.

Just because you can’t understand it doesn’t make it senseless. It’s based upon logic, reason, and evidence. And in your case, that’s probably enough to make it senseless.

It’s evident that at least from the mind’s own perspective, it changes. And it’s entirely possible that it’s the mind itself that’s the cause of that change.

It’s what’s known as a feedback loop. And it’s possible that it’s this continuous feedback loop that the mind perceives as time.

If there’s feedback, there’s change, though. So either there is change, or there could be no such thing as a feedback loop.

 

[Sophia]

Rather, a brute fact is inexplicable. I deny the notion that it doesn’t need an explanation. What you’ve rejected, in order to avoid an infinite regress, is the possibility that there is something which is explicable without appealing to anything outside itself.

How can one “explain” something without referring to an outside “explanatory” factor? That is sheer oxymoron.

Of course we have the expression of “self-explanatory” or “self-evident”, but that merely means that it is basic, and cannot be reduced to anything more fundamental. For example the laws of logic cannot be reduced into anything more fundamental, even their denial would require their acceptance.

As for being a realist, I am a realist - in the correct sense of the word. Reality is what can be experienced, the rest is just a concept - which may or may not have a referent in reality.

 

[Sophia]

If concepts are not physical, then by your materialistic standards they shouldn’t exist. I’m just responding to what you said. If i’m wrong then i’m wrong, but don’t just assert that i need to learn something.

Actually you don’t understand what “physical” means. Physical objects are comprised of “STEM” (space, time, energy/matter), but there are non-physical attributes to them. Distance, for example is not a physical object, it is not comprised of “matter”. It is truly non-physical. Concepts, like “near”, “far”, “heavy”, “easy / light” all exist as our thoughts, reflecting the non-physical aspects of the physical reality.

You should learn that “physical” does NOT mean: “comprised of matter/energy”.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

Rather, a brute fact is inexplicable. I deny the notion that it doesn’t need an explanation. What you’ve rejected, in order to avoid an infinite regress, is the possibility that there is something which is explicable without appealing to anything outside itself.

How can one “explain” something without referring to an outside “explanatory” factor? That is sheer oxymoron.

Can you explain why you believe this to be true?

Of course we have the expression of “self-explanatory” or “self-evident”, but that merely means that it is basic, and cannot be reduced to anything more fundamental.

I do not mean it in the “basic” sense.

As for being a realist, I am a realist - in the correct sense of the word. Reality is what can be experienced, the rest is just a concept - which may or may not have a referent in reality.

It depends on the field we’re talking about. Certainly political realism is different than philosophical realism, which is a position on the reality of abstract objects (or in the broader sense, universals). Not to confuse the idea with physical objects or to imply any spatialtemporality or causal power. More so just the sense of objective truths.

 

[IWantGod]

Actually you don’t understand what “physical” means. Physical objects are comprised of “STEM” (space, time, energy/matter), but there are non-physical attributes to them. Distance, for example is not a physical object, it is not comprised of “matter”. It is truly non-physical. Concepts, like “near”, “far”, “heavy”, “easy / light” all exist as our thoughts, reflecting the non-physical aspects of the physical reality.

You should learn that “physical” does NOT mean: “comprised of matter/energy”.

To have a concept in your mind is not the same thing as measuring the distance between two points. And while there is a quantifiable distance between 2 points it does not follow that distance is a non-physical attribute of physical reality. If something in objective reality has length, then it is physically that length. You can’t say that it has the non-physical attribute of length. For a materialist that would be a meaningless thing to say.

A concept is an abstract idea. And if ideas are not physical then materialism is wrong

 

[Sophia]

Can you explain why you believe this to be true?

Well, the word “explanation” is simply a line of argument which reduces something complex unto something simpler.

I do not mean it in the “basic” sense.

And that is the problem.

It depends on the field we’re talking about. Certainly political realism is different than philosophical realism, which is a position on the reality of abstract objects (or in the broader sense, universals). Not to confuse the idea with physical objects or to imply any spatialtemporality or causal power. More so just the sense of objective truths.

This is the underlying problem. you use the words in a special way, which I do not accept. Too bad.

 

[Damian]

if it is possible then any inference to a cause is just a subjective opinion

No sir,
Saying “We don’t know” means that we are not open to everything being a possible cause for the affect we observe. You are making the positive claim that there was “nothing” before the big bang and then think it’s absurd that something can come from nothing. Well you haven’t demonstrated that there was a “nothing” before the big bang at all. You are just asserting that to be the case because how could your logic be wrong right? Every hypothesis about reality was always logically correct to the person presenting their case. So does that mean their logical hypothesis were always found to be correct when they ran their experiments to test what reality actually is verse what they logically believed it to be? No, that is exactly what every religion is doing. They believe their logical conclusions actually makes that conclusion bend reality to match it. Sorry, but reality doesn’t care about your logical conclusions. The results of studying reality is what is logically correct, not your word games.

 

[IWantGod]

You are making the positive claim that there was “nothing” before the big bang

No i did not. Are you trolling?

 

[Damian]

The point is if you really believe that it is possible for something to pop out of nothing then we can no-longer have an intelligible discussion

Then i guess for you it’s possible that things can really pop out of absolutely nothing without a cause since we cannot apply reason to the world.

Fair minded readers: do I really have to point out those two exact references that she/he didn’t bother to look back and see what they actually wrote?

@IWantGod: I am reacting to these two points here you made about something from nothing. If this is not what you are talking about then please restate what you are talking about because I don’t know why you think you didn’t point this out twice.

 

[IWantGod]

Fair minded readers: do I really have to point out those two exact references that she/he didn’t bother to look back and see what they actually wrote?

I made it clear that i was not talking about the bigbang, which you have clearly left out. The big bang is irrelevant. I was talking about whether or not it was possible for something to pop out of nothing without a cause, and i further explained the epistemological consequences of it being possible.

I’m done for the day.