Theists Equivocating the Empirical with the Transcendental

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bobmax
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Re: Theists Equivocating the Empirical with the Transcendental

Post by bobmax »

godelian wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 2:04 am I personally think that the intuitionist ontology is not particularly helpful. Computing devices can mechanically verify the correctness of a proof, and sometimes even discover proof. These machines do not have intuition.
bobmax wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 8:29 am I would say that his heart is the same principle of identity.
Without respecting this principle, no rational thought would be possible.
Restrictions to the law of identity actually do appear in certain types of logic:
Wikipedia on "Schrodinger logics" wrote: Schrödinger logics are a kind of non-classical logic in which the law of identity is restricted. These logics are motivated by the consideration that in quantum mechanics, elementary particles may be indistinguishable, even in principle, on the basis of any measurement. This in turn suggests that such particles cannot be considered as self-identical objects in the way that such things are usually treated within formal logic and set theory.
I do not think there is a need for Schrödinger to ascertain the insufficiency of the principle of identity.
Everything in the world can provide us with the opportunity to find ourselves facing the limit of indistinguishability.
Zeno's paradoxes themselves show that nothing is ever distinct from all the rest.

However, the questioning of the validity of the identity principle must also use this principle.
Rational thinking necessarily requires it.

Apart from this principle, no definite thought is possible.
But we can intuit its insufficiency, without however demonstrating it rationally.
How could we?
We sense it when we reach the limit of the understandable.

Certainly the computer can prove the validity of a law.
And it can even come up with new laws.
Simply because it processes data rationally. And the more data you process, the easier it is to grasp new relationships between them.
But always in any case in the context of the principle of identity.

The principle of identity seems unsurpassable.
But love knows it is.
Skepdick
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Joined: Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:16 am

Re: Theists Equivocating the Empirical with the Transcendental

Post by Skepdick »

bobmax wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 8:50 am
godelian wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 2:04 am I personally think that the intuitionist ontology is not particularly helpful. Computing devices can mechanically verify the correctness of a proof, and sometimes even discover proof. These machines do not have intuition.
bobmax wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 8:29 am I would say that his heart is the same principle of identity.
Without respecting this principle, no rational thought would be possible.
Restrictions to the law of identity actually do appear in certain types of logic:
Wikipedia on "Schrodinger logics" wrote: Schrödinger logics are a kind of non-classical logic in which the law of identity is restricted. These logics are motivated by the consideration that in quantum mechanics, elementary particles may be indistinguishable, even in principle, on the basis of any measurement. This in turn suggests that such particles cannot be considered as self-identical objects in the way that such things are usually treated within formal logic and set theory.
I do not think there is a need for Schrödinger to ascertain the insufficiency of the principle of identity.
Everything in the world can provide us with the opportunity to find ourselves facing the limit of indistinguishability.
Zeno's paradoxes themselves show that nothing is ever distinct from all the rest.

However, the questioning of the validity of the identity principle must also use this principle.
Rational thinking necessarily requires it.

Apart from this principle, no definite thought is possible.
But we can intuit its insufficiency, without however demonstrating it rationally.
How could we?
We sense it when we reach the limit of the understandable.

Certainly the computer can prove the validity of a law.
And it can even come up with new laws.
Simply because it processes data rationally. And the more data you process, the easier it is to grasp new relationships between them.
But always in any case in the context of the principle of identity.

The principle of identity seems unsurpassable.
But love knows it is.
This has nothing to do with rationality. It has to do with the flow of time.

Classical logic fails to account for the fact that time passes between now and now - Classical logic pretends that the world pauses while we talk about it.

A = A fails to take into account that the A on the left and the A on the right have different coordinates in spacetime.

So how could they be "the same" ?!?
bobmax
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Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2022 7:38 am

Re: Theists Equivocating the Empirical with the Transcendental

Post by bobmax »

Skepdick wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 9:41 am This has nothing to do with rationality. It has to do with the flow of time.

Classical logic fails to account for the fact that time passes between now and now - Classical logic pretends that the world pauses while we talk about it.

A = A fails to take into account that the A on the left and the A on the right have different coordinates in spacetime.

So how could they be "the same" ?!?
You are right about time.

But that A remains the same is a necessity of rational thinking.

In fact, thought is a continuous flow where nothing is ever identical to itself.

But reason arbitrarily wants to believe that A remains A even afterwards.

Without this belief, thinking would be indeterminate.
And therefore of no use.
Skepdick
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Joined: Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:16 am

Re: Theists Equivocating the Empirical with the Transcendental

Post by Skepdick »

bobmax wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 10:29 am Without this belief, thinking would be indeterminate.
And therefore of no use.
I don't think indeterminacy is relevant to utility.

Whether you are the same bobmax or a different bobmax to the one I started talking to a week ago has absolutely no bearing on the utility of the conversation. For all I know there are 20 of you behind the keyboard.

Physics is no less useful despite the indeterminacy of electrons' identity. The theory helps you make predictions - you take measurements and your predictions are vindicated. The end.

An epistemologist is not at all concerned whether the theory says something true; or false about The True Nature of Reality.
An ontologist is petrified about the possibliity that their theory doesn't correspond.
When you observe a particle of a certain type, say an electron, now
and here, this is to be regarded in principle as an isolated event.
Even if you observe a similar particle a very short time at a spot
very near to the first, and even if you have every reason to assume
a causal connection between the first and the second observation,
there is no true, unambiguous meaning in the assertion that it is the
same particle you have observed in the two cases. The circumstances
may be such that they render it highly convenient and desirable to
express oneself so, but it is only an abbreviation of speech; for there
are other cases where the ‘sameness’ becomes entirely meaningless;
and there is no sharp boundary, no clear-cut distinction between
them, there is a gradual transition over intermediate cases. And
I beg to emphasize this and I beg you to believe it: It is not a
question of being able to ascertain the identity in some instances
and not being able to do so in others. It is beyond doubt that the
question of ‘sameness’, of identity, really and truly has no meaning.

--Erwin Schrödinger, Science and Humanism (1952, 16-8)
bobmax
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Re: Theists Equivocating the Empirical with the Transcendental

Post by bobmax »

Skepdick wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 10:33 am
bobmax wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 10:29 am Without this belief, thinking would be indeterminate.
And therefore of no use.
I don't think indeterminacy is relevant to utility.

Whether you are the same bobmax or a different bobmax to the one I started talking to a week ago has absolutely no bearing on the utility of the conversation. For all I know there are 20 of you behind the keyboard.

Physics is no less useful despite the indeterminacy of electrons' identity. The theory helps you make predictions - you take measurements and your predictions are vindicated. The end.
The meaning of the words you use in these sentences of yours is kept the same from start to finish.

Maybe one day this meaning will eventually change.
But once you say a word, its meaning remains the same in you until the end of your speech.

This is the wonderful power of the mind!
But it is also its limit...

The particle may very well cease to be something stable, and be replaced by a probabilistic formula.
But the meaning of that formula still remains the same before and after using it.

The effective acceptance of the illusion of identity implies being in the presence of Chaos. Where nothing has any more meaning.
Skepdick
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Joined: Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:16 am

Re: Theists Equivocating the Empirical with the Transcendental

Post by Skepdick »

bobmax wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 1:10 pm The meaning of the words you use in these sentences of yours is kept the same from start to finish.
That's not true. I use the same symbols to express an approximately similar meaning.
bobmax wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 1:10 pm Maybe one day this meaning will eventually change.
But once you say a word, its meaning remains the same in you until the end of your speech.
It's changing as we speak. You and I are both equivocating "meaning".

In fact if that didn't happen - if meaning wasn't subject to slight entropy/variation language wouldn't work at all.

bobmax wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 1:10 pm This is the wonderful power of the mind!
But it is also its limit...
You are confusing the limits of language for the limits of the mind.

bobmax wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 1:10 pm The particle may very well cease to be something stable, and be replaced by a probabilistic formula.
But the meaning of that formula still remains the same before and after using it.

The effective acceptance of the illusion of identity implies being in the presence of Chaos. Where nothing has any more meaning.
Chaos. Entropy. It has a meaningful Mathematical formulation.
bobmax
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Re: Theists Equivocating the Empirical with the Transcendental

Post by bobmax »

Skepdick wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 1:29 pm Chaos. Entropy. It has a meaningful Mathematical formulation.
This is but another illusion.

Chaos cannot be described by anything.
No formula, no reasoning.

Because it is the annihilation of every possible thing, thought, concept.

And this is obviously not a definition that is the result of reasoning, but only raw experience.
Skepdick
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Joined: Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:16 am

Re: Theists Equivocating the Empirical with the Transcendental

Post by Skepdick »

bobmax wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 2:11 pm Because it is the annihilation of every possible thing, thought, concept.

And this is obviously not a definition that is the result of reasoning, but only raw experience.
So you experienced that which anihilates every possible thing, thought and concept and are now here to tell the tale?!?

I am skeptical.
bobmax
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Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2022 7:38 am

Re: Theists Equivocating the Empirical with the Transcendental

Post by bobmax »

Skepdick wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 2:48 pm
bobmax wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 2:11 pm Because it is the annihilation of every possible thing, thought, concept.

And this is obviously not a definition that is the result of reasoning, but only raw experience.
So you experienced that which anihilates every possible thing, thought and concept and are now here to tell the tale?!?

I am skeptical.
When I was about to die.

Maybe dead maybe alive, I was about to be sucked into the infinite possibilities.

It was Chaos.

Immediately afterwards hidden by the Nothing.

But I was aware that the Nothing was just a fog that hid the abyss.
A pitiful fog, to keep me from seeing what must not be seen.

Then the fog cleared, I was still alive.
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