Thread: An Empirical View of Science Dogma

This post concerns Linzeldas latest post (#99).

You are accusing me rather a lot of conceptualising my world view, but I really don't. From my perspective the ultimate reality is far beyond human reasoning, and I do not have even the faintest idea, what it is. I merely believe that it is.

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

You stated before that you believe in the premise of reality being objective, and had an extreme attachment to it.

No. I claimed to be an exponent of an extreme objectivist view, not to have an extreme attachement to an objectivist view. I see a range of different views going from extreme subjectivist to extreme objectivist.

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

If that’s not you uttering anything about what his philosophy/reasoning presumably is, then I guess you’re just making up your own definitions and distinctions of what philosophy is.

You're the one who keeps bringing up philosophy; I talk about world views.



Let's get to the main point:

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

How can you hold an objectivist worldview if you don’t believe in either objectivism in the general philosophy, nor the objectivism based from Ayn Rand?

It was not me exhibiting fascination of philosophy as a major interest in my life, it was me trying to see what type of objectivist view you hold (either the dogmatic view from Ayn Rand that’s been debunked, or the central and neutral view that fails to decently distinguish between sense and reference). But seeing how you don’t have any philosophical aspirations using that word, I’m wondering why you even used the word “objectivist” in the first place.

and

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

That’s all I’m trying to get at with you. I’m not trying to have an intellectual enthusiasm with big words or anything of that nature, I'm concerned on why you used "objectivist" for any reason (i.e. counter-position) if you don't subscribe to any of the types of objectivism there is.

You either have suffered from the delusion that I was talking about an formally recognised philosophy named Objectivism, or you still do. May I just offer this bit of advice:

Most people have little to no interest in formal philosophy, and they have little to no knowledge of it. Therefore, the average person making use of words, that have specific meaning in the philosophical literature, is likely not making reference to these specific meanings.

In the present context I have been writing as a perplexed physicist, trying to understand a world view completely alien to him. I can assure you, that making reference to formal philosophies has not been on my mind. It would have been completely out of context for me to do so.

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

No, not always.

Okay, fair enough.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

I'm afraid I don't really know what you mean. Which conclusions are you referring to?

There were a couple of statements you talked about in your post,

"observations are reality", and
"reality causes observations".

By conclusions, I mean deciding the truth or falsity of these statements. Your conclusions in particular were that the first was false and the second was true.

Yes absolutely. But that's also what I wrote ..? At least it looks that way on my monitor.

You said from your perspective the two models aren't equivalent at all. But it shouldn't really depend on perspective if we're talking about the same thing. Did you mean "for my definition of equivalent, the two models aren't equivalent at all"..? If so this seems like a bit of an empty statement... definitions aren't really substantive opinions, they're just means of communicating the same idea.

I don't think I can phrase it more precisely than I did, but maybe this analogy can help: Imagine a set containing everything available to mathematics (numbers, theorems, definitions and such). Call this set "Reality". Now imagine the set not containing everything available to mathematics, but everything available to the universe instead.

I think it'd be best to focus on the two statements above first, and then come back to this one if necessary. I only added it as an elaboration.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

You are accusing me rather a lot of conceptualising my world view, but I really don't. From my perspective the ultimate reality is far beyond human reasoning, and I do not have even the faintest idea, what it is. I merely believe that it is.

Then if that's the case:

Originally Posted by Voldmer

Whereas I hold an extreme objectivist world view: reality is the ultimate cause of all observations (which includes the observations themselves).

Originally Posted by Voldmer

So you appear to have an extreme subjectivist world view: the observations constitute reality.

Along with this:

Originally Posted by Voldmer

I see a range of different views going from extreme subjectivist to extreme objectivist.

If you see a range of different views, you can’t be jumping from one extreme to the next. You never stated in that post that you subscribed to various ranges of views. You literally put yourself in the the extreme objectivist worldview, and Xei in the extreme subjectivist worldview (when you presumed he firmly held that view). Even if you’re using that for a circumstantial case based on what was being argued between you and him before, how you go about making categorical black and white dichotomies is going to confuse people on how you presume what you thought another person meant, or what their disposition or view was.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

You're the one who keeps bringing up philosophy; I talk about world views.

Originally Posted by Oxford Dictionary

1. world•view
ˈwərldˌvyo͞o/
noun
noun: world view; plural noun: world views; noun: world picture; plural noun: world pictures; noun: worldview; plural noun: worldviews; noun: world-view; plural noun: world-views
1. 1.
a particular philosophy of life or conception of the world.
"I have broadened my worldview by experiencing a whole new culture"

Originally Posted by thefreedictionary wrote

world•view (wûrld′vyo̅o̅′)
n. In both senses also called Weltanschauung.
1. The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world.
2. A collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group.

Unless you have a different definition of world views, bringing up philosophy would seem to be something we would have to agree on. But since you’re making constant equivocations from that, I guess you’re not cognizant that a thread like this that is bringing awareness to individuals who use their set of philosophies to influence dogmatic views in tandem with standpoints for Science. Seeing how you're completely intolerant towards trying to get what the person was getting at with asking for clarification, even though I'm trying to see what you meant by what you stated, and me finding fallacies in a few areas, you're only resorting to ad hominem and unintelligible equivocations as your response. Combined with the fact of me mentioning your grammatical errors with "objectivist" and you not seeing how that ties in with objectivism (and the links I showed as a examples of the variants to see if you were an exponent/advocate/supporter for something else besides what I presumed you were subscribing to), you seem very dogmatic in how people are giving a critique on this.

All you’ve been doing is stating the person either suffers from delusions, is arbitrary, ambiguous, etc. as your cop out from addressing that how you were using certain words was completely wrong and out of context. Either you’re having grammatical issues and aren’t admitting to it, or you’re so dogmatic to use ad hominem before being cognizant of those grammatical mistakes.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

Therefore, the average person making use of words, that have specific meaning in the philosophical literature, is likely not making reference to these specific meanings.

This isn't about philosophical literature, this is talking about your grammatical errors.

This is what you call an equivocation, and seeing how that was the case, I was wondering what you meant by objectivist. But seeing how you're not giving a clear definition on what you mean by that, despite of me offering a few links for examples, I can't understand what you're getting at. You're creating ambiguity, making your own definitions and grammatical errors, and wanting to give advice to someone on how the average person can make an equivocation towards certain words that have various meanings. If you can't address what you specifically meant by holding an extreme objectivist worldview, and stating something else to oppose that, only for it to support that you garner a favoritism towards it, it is unintelligible equivocation.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

In the present context I have been writing as a perplexed physicist, trying to understand a world view completely alien to him.

You used the presumptive context to arrive to the conclusion of what you presumed Xei's worldview was. I understand it was just a presumption on your end, and that you were aware that wasn't the case for Xei, but it still doesn't stop others from raising questions on whether or not you hold an extreme objectivist worldview. Whether you feel you're an exponent to the claim, you're still supporting it, advocating, having some interest in using it within your post, especially when you see reality as objective (i.e. observations being a consequence of reality, the tautologies with A=A). Then you're stating that you understand you can't have such a grandiose cognitive grasp of reality, so if you're wanting to side with this humble approach, try doing that instead of siding/being an exponent with the extreme objectivist worldview that would be solely fixated on seeing things with objectivity.

You still claim to be an exponent of the extreme objectivist worldview, it's going to be interesting on how you would apply objectivist epistemology towards things like Consciousness that Sheldrake seems to play a major role in researching. Especially since you hold an extreme objectivist worldview, you may also deem there is only a material reality (which would raise many questions on how you go about defining what you feel consciousness is that can fit into the list of dogmas catered to those who may use materialistic ontology and other standpoints in Science). If you utilize that view with other views, stop saying you hold an extreme objectivist view. Just state that when it comes to certain circumstances, you subscribe to a certain view (loosely) as a means to be a supplement towards getting your point across.

It's as simple as that, and nobody will take you seriously on wondering whether or not you're militantly following extreme sides, and jumping from one side to the next.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

I now fully accept the logical flow in your line of arguing (but your world view is just about the most alien thing I have ever come across in my life! I'm a physicist, and my main interest has always been to understand the cause of everything; to view the observations as the main feature has never in my life occurred to me).

No way was that formatted in you “trying to understand a world view completely alien to him.” You were formatting it to how you felt his presumed world view is “just about the most alien thing I have ever come across in my life!” If you seriously think it wasn’t the latter, this is you not using decent syntax and grammar. Whether it was meant to be presumptive, a circumstantial case to get your point across, or whatever, the end result clearly doesn’t seem to be so.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

You either have suffered from the delusion that I was talking about an formally recognised philosophy named Objectivism, or you still do. May I just offer this bit of advice:

A tautological statement that’s just an ad hominem. There are no delusions, this is mostly you making constant equivocations towards certain words. I understand you stated that you don’t subscribe to the “formally” recognized philosophy called Objectivism (even though it's not even recognized with positive intentions in the first place), though I’m wondering what you really meant by that when you contradicted yourself by stating you claimed to be an exponent of said worldview. There’s the general philosophy of Objectivism, and the other interpretation from Rand and others, if you can’t understand that claiming to be an exponent (advocate/support/defender) of Objectivism is the same as being attached/favored to an extreme objectivist worldview, it’s just an ad hominem for you to presume I’m suffering from delusions.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

I can assure you, that making reference to formal philosophies has not been on my mind. It would have been completely out of context for me to do so.

This is another equivocation, and you’re denying that you were making reference to a philosophy (extreme objectivist worldview), especially when you stated it was used as a counter-position to an extreme subjectivist in your circumstantial case with Xei. You claimed to not have philosophical aspirations, though you claim to be an exponent of the extreme objectivist worldview. That’s the same as having philosophical aspiration towards something. You were using the terminology (objectivist) to reach the goal of hopefully clarifying Xei of what you presumed his mode of logic was, or his presumed worldview.

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

...If you utilize that view with other views, stop saying you hold an extreme objectivist view. Just state that when it comes to certain circumstances, you subscribe to a certain view (loosely) as a means to be a supplement towards getting your point across.

It's as simple as that, and nobody will take you seriously on wondering whether or not you're militantly following extreme sides, and jumping from one side to the next..

Yupp - I can confirm this - that's exactly what I was thinking.
Voldmer - I thought, that you don't actually mean, what you said - maybe didn't even know, what you were saing, when claiming to have an extreme objectivist worldview.

But it also wasn't a grammer mistake - you just used the -ism in a sort of naivete concerning it's already established connotations.
You were on about different world-views - clearly a philosophical topic - and you also know, Link is around - so you could have avoided putting up a trap for yourself by being more diligent.

It is important, because you hang up your whole overall conclusion of your exchange with Xei on these two freshly redefined -isms.

You should now see, that what you personally meant by objectivism respectively subjectivism needs clarification.
Been hick-upping heavily on Ayn Rand myself, but thought it indeed not required to look up the different objectivisms (again - and happily forget again..) in order to understand you here.
But understand - I don't.

So - grammer, schnammer - what do you actually say to Xei's two statements?

Originally Posted by Xei

If we can't pin down any way, the world would seem different to us, when statements like "observations are reality" or "reality causes observations" are true or false, how can we come to any conclusions about them? How did you come to any conclusions?

Originally Posted by Voldmer

I'm afraid I don't really know what you mean. Which conclusions are you referring to?

Originally Posted by Xei

There were a couple of statements you talked about in your post,

"observations are reality", and
"reality causes observations".

By conclusions, I mean deciding the truth or falsity of these statements. Your conclusions in particular were that the first was false and the second was true.


You said from your perspective the two models aren't equivalent at all. But it shouldn't really depend on perspective if we're talking about the same thing. Did you mean "for my definition of equivalent, the two models aren't equivalent at all"..? If so this seems like a bit of an empty statement... definitions aren't really substantive opinions, they're just means of communication.

What now Voldmer?
How do you personally arrive at your preferred worldview?
What do you mean by equivalent?
What exactly sways you to disagree with statement one?

Are you of the beyonder persuasion?
That would explain a need for strange jumps in reasoning - esp. in a physicist. I'm aware this question looks like quite a jump itself - but it does make sense, I believe.
Sorry - but you yourself throw about with "most alien" and "delusional" also - so I hope, you take it in good arguing spirit..wink.gif
It might be so, that not many people think matters through - but I would say, that Xei's standpoint concurs with what most seriously interested scientists would arrive at - given the incentive.
But actually - I cannot even say that - it is mainly alien, because I can't fathom, what it actually consists of.
Could you give an overview, please?
smile.gif


While I am most delighted to read your line of reasoning, agree and couldn't ever have put it forth so eloquently and concisely as you did Xei - chapeau!
Food for thought on "what I actually think of the world".

You're right, it wasn't really a grammatical error, so I deeply apologize to Voldmer on that.

Originally Posted by StephL

It might be so, that not many people think matters through - but I would say, that Xei's standpoint concurs with what most seriously interested scientists would arrive at - given the incentive.

This reminded me of an incidental remark I was going to make previously but forgot. Voldmer said that his viewpoint was the historical driving force of physics. I'd dispute that. I suspect a large number of physicists would explicitly reject that it was a necessary motivator; in any case, the historical pattern is of scientists not worrying about the philosophy, and simply getting on with whatever seemed to work. We can even go all the way back to Newton for a nice example: when philosophical questions were raised about how gravity could "act at a distance", which a lot of people found ridiculous, he famously said "hypotheses non fingo" - I feign no hypotheses. His point was that the metaphysics didn't really matter; at the end of the day, his rules worked.

Originally Posted by Xei

This reminded me of an incidental remark I was going to make previously but forgot. Voldmer said that his viewpoint was the historical driving force of physics.

No, I wrote "My view is pretty much consistent with the views held by physicists for the past two thousand years. It is part of a long tradition, of trying to understand why nature behaves the way it does."

Yes... trying to understand nature's behaviour means endeavouring to do physics, in this context anyway.

This is in reply to Stephs post (# 105)

I used a word derived from "objective" along with another word derived from "subjective". I assume most ordinary people would have understood it the way I meant it. That someone, deeply embedded in philosphical thought patterns, misunderstood it may be regrettable, but it's hardly something I should be worried about.

Originally Posted by StephL

You were on about different world-views - clearly a philosophical topic - and you also know, Link is around - so you could have avoided putting up a trap for yourself by being more diligent.

About Link ... who is he, then? I don't think I've never come across him before, so how would I have any particular prior opinion of him? Is he a known case, always looking to barf torrents of philosophical rants wherever some unsuspecting person treads?

Originally Posted by StephL

How do you personally arrive at your preferred worldview?

I have no idea. I am not a psychologist.

Originally Posted by StephL

What do you mean by equivalent?

Having exactly the same consequences.

Originally Posted by StephL

What exactly sways you to disagree with statement one?

It doesn't fit with the view I believe in.

Originally Posted by StephL

Are you of the beyonder persuasion?

I had to look that one up, but it wasn't in the dictionary, so I have no idea what you are talking about.

Originally Posted by StephL

It might be so, that not many people think matters through - but I would say, that Xei's standpoint concurs with what most seriously interested scientists would arrive at - given the incentive.

Not physicists - how would there even be a purpose for physics, if observations are not caused by something?

Originally Posted by StephL

But actually - I cannot even say that - it is mainly alien, because I can't fathom, what it actually consists of.
Could you give an overview, please?

Maybe, if I knew what you were referring to ...

Originally Posted by Voldmer

Not physicists - how would there even be a purpose for physics, if observations are not caused by something?

You implied I'd misunderstood you in my prior post, but this kind of thing is indeed pretty much what I was driving at. Hypotheses non fingo. Newton was a revolutionary physicist, yet he declared "causes" outside of his domain when it came to the "nature" of gravity. He was just concerned with appearances, not what lay beneath them.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

This is in reply to Stephs post (# 105)
About Link ... who is he, then? I don't think I've never come across him before, so how would I have any particular prior opinion of him? Is he a known case, always looking to barf torrents of philosophical rants wherever some unsuspecting person treads?

Philosophy is one of the rudiments in which sciences are built. You wanting to forget (or probably not being cognizant of) that science has its own epistemological and philosophical underpinnings is wanting to deny that philosophical assertions, arguments, counterarguments, etc. (especially towards your philosophical implications of causation with observations being the consequence of reality) can inspire new scientific paradigms and interpretations, and vice versa for science creating the same inspirational trend.

If you’re more bothered by people "barfing" philosophical "rants" (which are really just arguments) to your casual arguments of what you believe reality is, and what observations are a consequence of, then you're probably not going to be able to answer questions Xei, or anyone creates for you to discuss about.

You’re probably wanting to feel science can be perfectly fine on its own without having philosophical underpinnings, especially on your interpretation of causation with observations being a consequence of reality. Or maybe you feel that the casual argument of observations being a consequence of reality is a justified belief on your end that shouldn’t have counterarguments towards it. Of course, I don’t know the totality of your mode of logic, nor the totality of your conceptions of reality other than what you’ve stated that’s still conjecture at this point.

But if philosophical assertions, and even epistemological assertions that you seem to condense down to philosophical assertions either way when I (and probably anyone else in the past and future) make responses to you is a sign that a person is on a militant crusade to shun other people down, it only raises questions on potentially dogmatic individuals in the field of Science that use that as their justification to run from further arguments.

Originally Posted by Xei

You implied I'd misunderstood you in my prior post, but this kind of thing is indeed pretty much what I was driving at. Hypotheses non fingo. Newton was a revolutionary physicist, yet he declared "causes" outside of his domain when it came to the "nature" of gravity. He was just concerned with appearances, not what lay beneath them.

Newton came up with a theory of why apples fall to the ground; this implies looking for the cause (gravity) of the observation (apple falling).

He stated (in modern translation, from Wikipedia): "I have not as yet been able to discover the reason for these properties of gravity from phenomena, and I do not feign hypotheses."

This means he did not attempt to investigate the cause of gravity (which was probably a good idea, because it still is not well understood), but he DID look for the cause of the apple falling. Therefore, he did do the "physicist thing", and look for a cause of an observation.

There is no theoretical physics without it.

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

If you’re more bothered by people "barfing" philosophical "rants" (which are really just arguments) to your casual arguments of what you believe reality is, and what observations are a consequence of, then you're probably not going to be able to answer questions Xei, or anyone creates for you to discuss about.

Since Xei appears to have defined away the causes of the observations, I can obviously not answer his question of what "reality causes observations" means.

This is in reference to Linzeldas post #104.

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

If you see a range of different views, you can’t be jumping from one extreme to the next.

Who's jumping?

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

You never stated in that post that you subscribed to various ranges of views.

And I don't. You shouldn't suggest otherwise.

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

Even if you’re using that for a circumstantial case based on what was being argued between you and him before, how you go about making categorical black and white dichotomies is going to confuse people on how you presume what you thought another person meant, or what their disposition or view was.

What does this even mean? It sounds as if you want me to go about making categorical black and white dichotomies in a different manner ...

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

Unless you have a different definition of world views, bringing up philosophy would seem to be something we would have to agree on.

If you wish to make a philosophy of the phrase "reality exists, with or without observations", then knock your self out!

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

All you’ve been doing is stating the person either suffers from delusions, is arbitrary, ambiguous, etc. as your cop out from addressing that how you were using certain words was completely wrong and out of context. Either you’re having grammatical issues and aren’t admitting to it, or you’re so dogmatic to use ad hominem before being cognizant of those grammatical mistakes.

I believe more people would understand my meaning of "objectivist" and "subjectivist", than would understand yours. Especially since I used them as contrasting ideas.

And, to the best of my knowledge, there was no grammatical error involved.

Moreover, in my defence, statements ad hominem have rarely been more called for than as responses to your ridiculously overblown rants, which you must realise are remarkably distant from being pertinent to the original issue of Xei and I not grasping each others way of understanding reality.

Incidentally, why do you keep making reference to yourself in the third person?

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

This isn't about philosophical literature, this is talking about your grammatical errors.

Which grammatical errors?

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

This is what you call an equivocation

What was?

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

If you can't address what you specifically meant by holding an extreme objectivist worldview "

I can easily do that: holding the view that reality exists with, or without observations.

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

so if you're wanting to side with this humble approach, try doing that instead of siding/being an exponent with the extreme objectivist worldview that would be solely fixated on seeing things with objectivity.

This is just plain weird; it is not possible to see things with objectivity. Every view is subjective.

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

You still claim to be an exponent of the extreme objectivist worldview, it's going to be interesting on how you would apply objectivist epistemology towards things like Consciousness that Sheldrake seems to play a major role in researching.

I have no interest in Sheldrake.

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

No way was that formatted in you “trying to understand a world view completely alien to him.” You were formatting it to how you felt his presumed world view is “just about the most alien thing I have ever come across in my life!”

I have no clue what you are talking about there. Which meaning do you imply in the word "formatting"? Try substituting another word, maybe that would clear it up for me.

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

A tautological statement that’s just an ad hominem.

I don't see why it would be a tautology, but certainly it was a (well earned) ad hominem.

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

There are no delusions

You appeared to think I adhered to a philosophy formally named "Objectivism". I don't. How does this not make your wrong perception a delusion?


By the way, while we're at it, why do you bother to write these long rants? Clearly, you must realise few people could take serious interest in it. And clearly, I have no desire to read your tirades. So what is it for? Is it ultimately simply long memos to yourself?

Originally Posted by Xei

There were a couple of statements you talked about in your post,

"observations are reality", and
"reality causes observations".

By conclusions, I mean deciding the truth or falsity of these statements. Your conclusions in particular were that the first was false and the second was true.

I wouldn't ever pretend to be able to prove that the second one is true, and the first one is false. My point is, was, and will remain, that these two views are fundamental beliefs (or assumptions), and it is beyond reasoning to decide which of them is true.

Originally Posted by Xei

You said from your perspective the two models aren't equivalent at all. But it shouldn't really depend on perspective if we're talking about the same thing. Did you mean "for my definition of equivalent, the two models aren't equivalent at all"..? If so this seems like a bit of an empty statement... definitions aren't really substantive opinions, they're just means of communicating the same idea.

I'm unsure if I understand your point correctly here, but using a definition implies believing it "true" in some sense. Therefore a definition must be an opinion (or belief, or something you have faith in, or an assumption, or whatever other word you might prefer).

Originally Posted by Voldmer

This is in reply to Stephs post (# 105)

I used a word derived from "objective" along with another word derived from "subjective". I assume most ordinary people would have understood it the way I meant it. That someone, deeply embedded in philosphical thought patterns, misunderstood it may be regrettable, but it's hardly something I should be worried about.

Yeah - that's been through now.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

About Link ... who is he, then? I don't think I've never come across him before, so how would I have any particular prior opinion of him? Is he a known case, always looking to barf torrents of philosophical rants wherever some unsuspecting person treads?

Well - you came across him in here enough to suspect, he will take you up on it, if you seemingly declare your/a philosophical standpoint.
Even if you didn't plan to embark on philosophy.
I could actually feel this little eureka moment of yours about having gained a sudden understanding, on where Xei might be coming from.
This then probably made all perfect sense - and you thought, the words coming to your mind for it should be adequate and understandable.
Sort of and up to a point.
But I too can see no reason for further worries in that department for now - except you want to expound on your personal meaning of objectivism - fresh as sprung forth from your brain. But - as you also already mentioned - you're basically on about statements one and two and hold no further connotations to the word?

Originally Posted by Voldmer

Quote Originally Posted by StephL
How do you personally arrive at your preferred worldview?

I have no idea. I am not a psychologist.

So you are saying, that arriving at your view is inherent in your psychological make-up and you can't reason it through?
Really? But why not abstract further and try to understand, what it is then?

Originally Posted by Voldmer

Quote Originally Posted by StephL
What do you mean by equivalent?

Having exactly the same consequences.

Okay - having the same consequences - so it follows, that you believe statement one has other consequences than statement two, because they are clearly not equivalent in your view?
Which differences in consequences are there?

Originally Posted by Voldmer

Quote Originally Posted by StephL View Post
What exactly sways you to disagree with statement one?

It doesn't fit with the view I believe in.

I suppose, statement one doesn't fit your belief, because you believe the two have different consequences.
How are they different in consequences?

Originally Posted by Voldmer

Quote Originally Posted by StephL
Are you of the beyonder persuasion?

I had to look that one up, but it wasn't in the dictionary, so I have no idea what you are talking about.

Uuups - mea culpa - been using it round here, but mostly in a context, that makes it clear (I hope).
What I am alluding to, when I use it, is "Beyond Dreaming" - I am sorry - this was intelligible of me.
Since I don't mean any single thing like shared dreaming - and don't want to use otherwise in some way loaded generalizations - I created my own little neologism, and forgot, that it was just that..redface.gif
I try again - do you believe in the spiritual, whatever that is - or do you rather not?

Originally Posted by Voldmer

Not physicists - how would there even be a purpose for physics, if observations are not caused by something?

You are the physicist - but for me - it's not so much about causes, but connections, relationships, patterns, predictions you can make from one set of observations towards another one. That is highly useful.
Somehow I am a bit at a loss how to transport what I mean and how that makes a difference, though.

Scientific knowledge is in my view always on the expansion and never arrives anywhere definite ever.
And that agrees with what you say Voldmer, too.
Like what you deem ultimate reality never being knowable in principle in it's entirety.
Arriving at such a humble conclusion - all you have reasonably left, is building models.
And once there are no differences in consequences, when working with this or that one - they are equivalent.

We just keep finding more and more patterns and rules that apply within our observations.
So we can gain insight, but not general overview.

A true causal relationship is incredibly hard to establish, as far as I am aware, there is a lot of attributing going on - methods, which you yourself frowned upon when talking about sympathizing with statisticians, who don't like how physics is done concerning extrapolation.
Straighten me up there anybody please, if need be - feeling a wee bit on thin ice.

Concerning what other physicists might think - I believe, yes, they would in majority agree with Xei - but not if you ambush people in the hallway, who usually don't philosophise.
Kidnap them, but nicely, some tasty food - give them this thread - and I'd like to see, what some say 30 physicists would come to conclude.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

I wouldn't ever pretend to be able to prove that the second one is true, and the first one is false. My point is, was, and will remain, that these two views are fundamental beliefs (or assumptions), and it is beyond reasoning to decide which of them is true.


...

Maybe we do agree after all.
There we are - it is beyond reason to decide, which is true - so concerning validity - they are equivalent - at least that seems to follow from it clearly.
So - then we are back to your personal belief as argument against statement one, but you hold this belief not because you have reasoned it through, but because it seems to spring naturally from your psychological make-up.
But that means, we come up against a wall concerning the ability to discuss these matters.
But then - it's actually fine - I can understand it - and I am taking back my "alien" as well in this light.



Veering steeply off to a side - just because it comes to my mind now:
Xei - or somebody else - help me!
I remember my husband (mathematician - not at home right now) running in a while ago, and declaring, that for the first time, causal relationships would now be accessible for real and for mathematics, because somebody came up with a new calculus, a Mr. Judea Pearl?
This did astonish me.
Do you know something of interest on this?

Originally Posted by StephL

So you are saying, that arriving at your view is inherent in your psychological make-up and you can't reason it through?
Really? But why not abstract further and try to understand, what it is then?

From my perspective it is intuition, and I am not at a point of self awareness, where I can fathom how my intuition arrives at its conclusions.

Originally Posted by StephL

Okay - having the same consequences - so it follows, that you believe statement one has other consequences than statement two, because they are clearly not equivalent in your view?
Which differences in consequences are there?

Well, for one, statement one has made believers out of Xei, and you it would appear, whereas statement two has made a believer out of me. There are of course many other differences, but one should suffice.

Originally Posted by StephL

I try again - do you believe in the spiritual, whatever that is - or do you rather not?

It's hard to assess with any meaningful accuracy, but I instinctively feel about 60% of me believes in the spiritual, and the remaning 40% does not.

Originally Posted by StephL

Arriving at such a humble conclusion - all you have reasonably left, is building models.
And once there are no differences in consequences, when working with this or that one - they are equivalent.

We just keep finding more and more patterns and rules that apply within our observations.
So we can gain insight, but not general overview.

Hopefully we are gradually modelling reality more closely.

Originally Posted by StephL

A true causal relationship is incredibly hard to establish, as far as I am aware, there is a lot of attributing going on - methods, which you yourself frowned upon when talking about sympathizing with statisticians, who don't like how physics is done concerning extrapolation.
Straighten me up there anybody please, if need be - feeling a wee bit on thin ice.

We probably will never find a true relationship (although some physicists would definitely beg to differ). But with any luck we will improve what we've got so far.

Originally Posted by StephL

Maybe we do agree after all.
There we are - it is beyond reason to decide, which is true - so concerning validity - they are equivalent - at least that seems to follow from it clearly.

No, I don't agree on the validity issue, since I believe one is right, and the other is wrong. You also shouldn't agree, since you believe it the other way around, apparently. But, I agree that your view and mine are on an equal footing in as much as they both are fundamental, and non-provable views.

Originally Posted by StephL

So - then we are back to your personal belief as argument against statement one, but you hold this belief not because you have reasoned it through, but because it seems to spring naturally from your psychological make-up.
But that means, we come up against a wall concerning the ability to discuss these matters.

Yup! And that was actually the case from the start, which is one reason why Linkzeldas continued writings seem pointless, from my perspective.

Thanks for that answer, Voldmer!
Makes sense to me.


Just this:

Originally Posted by Voldmer

No, I don't agree on the validity issue, since I believe one is right, and the other is wrong. You also shouldn't agree, since you believe it the other way around, apparently. But, I agree that your view and mine are on an equal footing in as much as they both are fundamental, and non-provable views.

There we have a misunderstanding - I don't hold statement two and reject the first.
If I would - yes - then we would stand on this equal footing.
What I think, is rather that there is no way to make a reasonable choice between them, and thus I decide, that the distinction doesn't matter (to me), when it comes to gaining "objective" knowledge of the world.
I fail to see practical implications.

They look as if they both were true and not mutually exclusive to me - and ultimately they are not saying overly much in themselves. It feels a bit weird to "single out" reality in such a way, if that makes sense..
Ah well - but then I can understand this intuitive feeling also.


Where did our science dogmas go hiding in the meantime..?

Originally Posted by Voldmer

I wouldn't ever pretend to be able to prove that the second one is true, and the first one is false. My point is, was, and will remain, that these two views are fundamental beliefs (or assumptions), and it is beyond reasoning to decide which of them is true.

Well... you can see then exactly why I don't assert that they are true or false. It feels strange to me to hold strongly to a belief when that belief is admittedly beyond any possible reasoning. Stranger still when it seems impossible to pin down what that belief actually means. I only hold beliefs when I know precisely what the belief means, and have some means of deciding that it is true. Well, I endeavour to, at least.

I'm unsure if I understand your point correctly here, but using a definition implies believing it "true" in some sense. Therefore a definition must be an opinion (or belief, or something you have faith in, or an assumption, or whatever other word you might prefer).

I don't think that's true at all. Words are just tools in a conversation. What they're for is to get a concept in interlocutor A's head into interlocutor B's head as unambiguously as possible. A word doesn't make any claims. This is one of the insights you get from doing pure mathematics, where you freely define new words all the time, even if just to disprove an idea. You can use existing words and form a homonym, if you like, as in the case of "imaginary"; all that matters is that you are exact about what your word means, and if you use a homonym, exactly which definition you mean (and don't e.g. confuse an imaginary number with a "non existent" number, whatever that means).

Originally Posted by Voldmer

Newton came up with a theory of why apples fall to the ground; this implies looking for the cause (gravity) of the observation (apple falling).

He stated (in modern translation, from Wikipedia): "I have not as yet been able to discover the reason for these properties of gravity from phenomena, and I do not feign hypotheses."

This means he did not attempt to investigate the cause of gravity (which was probably a good idea, because it still is not well understood), but he DID look for the cause of the apple falling. Therefore, he did do the "physicist thing", and look for a cause of an observation.

There is no theoretical physics without it.

What precisely do you mean by "cause", though? You can't mean a temporal cause (i.e. gravity happens, so then the apple falls), because gravity is equally valid in both directions of time. If you reverse video footage of a ball following a parabolic path through the air, it follows exactly the same laws - but presumably the motion of the ball isn't "causing" gravity in this case. All we can really say about gravity is that it's a description of how things move, not that it's a "reason" for how things move - reasons should precede whatever they are a reason for. All physicists ever do is find more general patterns in the physical world. So for example, Kepler was able to notice that the motion of the planets in the sky could be described in simple terms via an elliptical heliocentric model. He couldn't and didn't try to give a "cause" for these ellipses. To him, that was just how nature went - as, to those before him, circular orbits were just how nature went. Discovering what nature did was enough for him; he wasn't concerned with the "ultimate why" or even saw a need for one. Later, Newton noticed that Kepler's laws could be subsumed into an even more general pattern of kinematics, which also encompassed the motions of objects on Earth. But he couldn't and didn't try to explain his laws. They were just how nature went - discovering a greater generality to the patterns of nature was a sufficiently huge achievement. What would such an "explanation" look like, anyway? It would just look to Newton's laws as Newton's laws looked to Kepler's. That is, it would just be some even more general pattern of reality, formulated in terms of yet more unexplained facts. Clearly this process never approaches any kind of ultimate a priori "cause" for reality. It's always just more patterns.

Don't feel the need to respond too deeply to this if you don't want, this thread was only ever a tangent, anyway. It looks like we're almost done on the major fronts, actually.

Originally Posted by Xei

Well... you can see then exactly why I don't assert that they are true or false. It feels strange to me to hold strongly to a belief when that belief is admittedly beyond any possible reasoning. Stranger still when it seems impossible to pin down what that belief actually means. I only hold beliefs when I know precisely what the belief means, and have some means of deciding that it is true. Well, I endeavour to, at least.

Okay, I acknowledge that. But to me it seems impossible to even breathe without having a belief about something unknowable (breathing must be a consequence of believing life to be better than death).

Originally Posted by Xei

What precisely do you mean by "cause", though?

By "cause" I mean precursor; something that happens prior to the consequence, and without which the consequence would not take place.

I don't believe in the existence of time - only in the existence of sequences of events.

Originally Posted by Xei

Later, Newton noticed that Kepler's laws could be subsumed into an even more general pattern of kinematics, which also encompassed the motions of objects on Earth. But he couldn't and didn't try to explain his laws. They were just how nature went - discovering a greater generality to the patterns of nature was a sufficiently huge achievement. What would such an "explanation" look like, anyway?

I very much assume, that once the models get close enough to reality (as I define it), they will not "look" at all. Any reference to visual (or other sense-based) contexts will then be meaningless.

Originally Posted by Xei

It would just look to Newton's laws as Newton's laws looked to Kepler's. That is, it would just be some even more general pattern of reality, formulated in terms of yet more unexplained facts. Clearly this process never approaches any kind of ultimate a priori "cause" for reality. It's always just more patterns.

Aw, really! You really mean "clearly"? That is a very bold prediction - probably based on your view that there is no ultimate reality. From my perspective, we're getting closer all the time. The original models were quite crude, and the newer ones much more precise in their predictions.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

Who's jumping?

Alright, guess I’ll just accept that you’ll be creating new words with no attachments to any official or formal definitions. It was mostly your willingness to jump, or shift from a range of views from two words that are different from using an objective and subjective standpoint based on certain circumstances. And if not, seeing things mostly through those two beliefs like you’ve stated before in post #102:

Originally Posted by Voldmer

I see a range of different views going from extreme subjectivist to extreme objectivist.

But seeing how there’s equivocation from how you interpret subjectivist as the same as subjective standpoints and vice versa for objectivist, I’ll just leave it be. It’s just that if it’s stated in other forums, it wouldn’t be taken so loosely.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

And I don't. You shouldn't suggest otherwise.

I guess this was a misinterpretation on my end when you stated, though I was connecting post #91 to the following quote below:

Originally Posted by Voldmer

I see a range of different views going from extreme subjectivist to extreme objectivist.

But seeing how there’s no connection apparently, nothing to say to that, I guess.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

What does this even mean? It sounds as if you want me to go about making categorical black and white dichotomies in a different manner ...

Not enticing you to go about making those dichotomies, merely stating what you’ve done from post #91, and how you see a range of difference views going from extreme subjectivist to extreme objectivist.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

If you wish to make a philosophy of the phrase "reality exists, with or without observations", then knock your self out!

I guess you’re not paying attention to how having a worldview is a having a philosophy of life and conception of the world (and reality), but I guess that’s futile to question you about now. You bringing up a certain worldview is bringing up some kind of philosophical rudiment, but seeing how that’s probably not the case with what you’ve done, I guess that’s supposed to be implied as being absolved from your posts. I’ll just look at it as you seeing it for scientific observation, or anything you may state besides anything with “philosophy” implied in it.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

I believe more people would understand my meaning of "objectivist" and "subjectivist", than would understand yours. Especially since I used them as contrasting ideas.

If you feel that’s the case, you can present those words to other forums, but you’re just making a presumption despite of the criticisms that shows up that individuals would be going through the same questioning as I did. Using the wrong terminology as contrasting ideas, when you really meant to state subjective and objective standpoints (that are loosely followed) instead will cause confusion through other discussions beyond this forum.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

which you must realise are remarkably distant from being pertinent to the original issue of Xei and I not grasping each others way of understanding reality.

If you feel that you weren’t trying to get into what view Xei presumably held in post #91 seeing observations in relation to reality, then I guess I can’t really tell you how you hold a certain view would make all the difference in how anyone would try to understand reality. Especially with how you may try explaining certain axioms that an objectivist would state (no implication of any philosophical attachments of course) with causation, and how it would affect how you would interpret consciousness, and other “things-in-themselves” concepts mentioned with mind-independent reality (i.e. appearance of reality without encroaching experience in creating bias from it).

Originally Posted by Voldmer

Moreover, in my defence, statements ad hominem have rarely been more called for than as responses to your ridiculously overblown rants

Alright, if you want to have the personal disposition as it being overblown, I’ll just deal with it.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

Incidentally, why do you keep making reference to yourself in the third person?

So you’ve been presuming that I’m making self-referential statements? That wasn’t the case, though the same could be questioned in post #91, but seeing how that’s futile at this point, there was no self-referential statement intended if you’re asking that question for the quote you responded to.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

Which grammatical errors?

How objectivist and subjectivist wouldn’t be synonymous to objective and subjective in the context of how you used them in this thread, I presumed you were just using them wrong. But seeing how that’s not the case, and you had no connections whatsoever to actual interpretations of the former, I realized it was mistake on my end, seeing how new definitions shouldn’t be considered apparently.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

What was?

To this:

Originally Posted by Voldmer

Therefore, the average person making use of words, that have specific meaning in the philosophical literature, is likely not making reference to these specific meanings.

There's scientific and philosophical interpretations behind certain usage of words, especially for the ones you mentioned that would go hand in hand (but that's rarely the case unless there's a direct meaning for the circumstance). An equivocation is just a misleading use of a certain term that has a range of meanings, and forgetting about which meaning is intended for the circumstance. In this case, the words “objectivist” and “subjectivist.” But seeing how you thought I was only referring to philosophical literature (when I was trying to state other things like the scientific meaning), I felt you were just dodging this.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

can easily do that: holding the view that reality exists with, or without observations.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

This is just plain weird; it is not possible to see things with objectivity. Every view is subjective.

Of course every view is subjective, especially with sentient beings like us that would be sapient enough to make interpretations of the reality we’re in. The view that you held that reality exists, with or without observations, is just mentioning that reality is mind-independent. If you can easily hold the view that reality exists with or without mental states from sentient beings such as us (objectivity), I’m interested on how you feel reality would affect/cause our modes of cognition to conceptualize it if you feel our observations are a consequence of it.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

I have no interest in Sheldrake.

Oh, I guess this means no future discussions of how the view you hold (mind-independent reality) would apply to whatever Sheldrake would discuss about those who have materialistic views of reality. Oh well, thought it would be something interesting to gain insight from you honestly.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

I have no clue what you are talking about there. Which meaning do you imply in the word "formatting"? Try substituting another word, maybe that would clear it up for me.

I would have to make new words to do that if it wasn’t clear to you of what I was trying to get. No need for me to go there, so I won’t be addressing this to you in the future.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

I don't see why it would be a tautology, but certainly it was a (well earned) ad hominem.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

You either have suffered from the delusion that I was talking about an formally recognised philosophy named Objectivism, or you still do

If you were going to use “or,” it would be pragmatic to make another difference to what you formally stated, but the latter was just the same. The saying of the same thing twice in different words, that’s pretty much all of what was meant there in my response to that.

If you felt that was a well-earned ad hominem, I won’t argue with your appeal to that.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

You appeared to think I adhered to a philosophy formally named "Objectivism". I don't. How does this not make your wrong perception a delusion?

The word has a central meaning that can be interpreted through a myriad of ways than just being a philosophical concept. It can be used to interpret something scientifically (i.e. that reality is mind-independent, or in your case, reality exists with or without mental states of sentient beings such as us). If me introducing all of that is still considered a delusion to you, then it probably means you’re only seeing it for scientific observations (or anything besides the word “philosophy” and its variants), which is common to materialist (not saying you’re one) that may not think philosophical concepts and paradigm shifts would be used in tandem with scientific observations.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

By the way, while we're at it, why do you bother to write these long rants?

They’re just arguments for the sake of facilitating discussion, but if you want to interpret them as only rants, guess there’s no point in me knowing what you feel is considered debating or giving augmentatives.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

And clearly, I have no desire to read your tirades

If you feel what you’ve stated so far isn’t considered outbursts to some extent (especially with what you felt were well-earned ad hominem), I guess that’s just an extreme bias of yours I’ll accept.

Originally Posted by Volmder

So what is it for?

Spirit of discussion, and get ourselves thinking. And to hopefully clarify misunderstandings.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

Is it ultimately simply long memos to yourself?

No, you don’t care to answer any arguments that are meant to see if you can make more expositions (when it usually ends up with you being perplexed). You’ve portrayed that you’re extremely biased into thinking that all of them are rants rather than arguments for the sake of discussion. You’ve created new definitions, and me mentioning of other meanings consistent with what the average person would understand is deemed philosophical literature, or something in relation to philosophy. You don’t feel that worldviews would have some relation to philosophy, even though looking them up would clear things up.

You’ve stated you can easily hold the view of a mind-independent reality (especially you claiming to be an exponent of the extreme objectivist view yourself based on circumstances catered for conditions of a mind-independent reality), and dodged answering arguments and responses to that (especially for consciousness related questions Sheldrake would have knowledge of that materialist may be dogmatic about, which is something you have no interest whatsoever discussing in relation to the OP).

This trend of yours is analogous to a person putting their fingers in their ears and ignoring anything that’s meant to challenge their views, and hopefully see if they can make counter arguments in their expositions.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

Okay, I acknowledge that. But to me it seems impossible to even breathe without having a belief about something unknowable (breathing must be a consequence of believing life to be better than death).

Hm. I wouldn't say I breathe because of any belief, I just do it out of instinct. Even if I believed life after death was better, I think I'd struggle to stop breathing. If you were to ask me why I don't kill myself, I'd probably say because I have pleasant experiences whilst living.

By "cause" I mean precursor; something that happens prior to the consequence, and without which the consequence would not take place.

But by this definition, gravity is not actually a cause. Gravity is not an event which "happens", so it can't precede anything. It's a fact which "is".

And gravitation is symmetrical in time.

I don't believe in the existence of time - only in the existence of sequences of events.

How are you defining time?

Personally I believe in time to the same extent that I believe in... for example... gravitation. I'm not sure what exactly it means for these things to "exist", but certainly they're faithful abstractions from the world.

Aw, really! You really mean "clearly"? That is a very bold prediction - probably based on your view that there is no ultimate reality.

Once again, I must take pains to clarify that I really don't believe "there is no ultimate reality" any more than I disbelieve it, and certainly I don't use such a belief as a basis for other things I say. I wasn't actually predicting anything, I was just describing what my post illustrated. Every physical theory ever has just been a generalisation of patterns, and defines those things in terms of patterns which are atomic and unexplained. This isn't a prediction, this is just a description of what explanations are. You can't give an example of an "explanation" which doesn't simply assume some pattern, because that's not how explanations work.

I feel like knotting this thread together with it's OP again.
Being honest - I had started to watch the video only for the first quarter, since really hate, what I perceive as Sheldrake's self-satisfied tone and spouting common-places and slipping in falsehoods - some of which I believe he knows to be false, and uses them for the sake of argument and polemic.

Not taking the video seriously is not conductive to the purpose of this thread, though - and the second one, I'll have to see, how I watch it - doesn't work somehow - Germany again..
I even feel like apologizing for having derived my further stance from the reflection of his theses from other poster's minds.

Won't do that right now - I need to take more care with it, and write stuff out - but I want to go through his 10 supposed dogmas in a different way than has been done.
Xei - and me with point 10 "Materialistic Medicine" - and others - have already sufficiently shown, that the scientific community does not appear to generally operate dogmatically in these respects.
I think, we did agree on this.
Even Sheldrake himself and definitively OP have taken pains to not generalize and laud the scientific method + spirit. So fine. Nought to argue.


But - I do have my very own opinions and also personal beliefs to each of the points.
To just swat away the claim of dogma without considering the content and my personal stance to them seems stupid omission to me now.
Born from laziness - but then better shut up for good maybe..
Dogma or no dogma - Sheldrake holds these frequently occurring 10 views for false.
Some of them are in my view as well - and he conjures up the suggestion, scientists would hold them true in very weak ways there.

But some I do believe in myself - such as that the mind originates in the brain.
This following is just pertaining to the initial claims - as said - will watch further.
As per usual - we have already agreed in so much and many posts, that science is not able to provide 100% proof of this, or to 100 % disprove the opposite.
But the opposite view - mind independent of brain - does simply lack any positive evidence, and requires a completely new model of understanding of physical reality to be compatible.
The latter is not a counterargument - but lack of evidence is.
I disbelieve data, which seem to provide such evidence, since none of the research done, has survived scrutiny from the scientific community ever.
But to get rid of accusations on bias in this - luckily we have Mr. Randi and his over 1000 self-declared psychics, who failed to make a quick one million bucks with psi under controlled conditions.
No evidence - no need to expand and revolutionize current physics and neuroscientist theory. At all.

How do you see it, Voldmer?
Not all meant to just ask you of course - want to bring the thread together in itself..




So - but on the other hand - 'Objectivism' and 'Subjectivism' have been floating about in here so much - that I thought, why not shed a bit of light on these general concepts.
Might give us tools for argumentation whichever way.
Or just ignore it!
smile.gif

It's not our topic, but it's a bit hard to keep out ethics/politics/economics, which are key elements to Rand's philosophy - so I spoilered away a lot of it.
In these respects - she has been attacked quite comprehensively and is mostly seen as discredited, her views a fringe-phenomenon somewhere in American Ultra-Right-Wing Libertarian thinking. She does appear naive at best, racist at worst - but definitively not as clever as she believes herself to be.

I watched a shorter interview, when she was already old - but I'll throw this one in here, still listening to it - it might be entertaining.
If you don't think so - below is something written, too:



What we have basically got is a strong opposition to Kant's Realism - she abhors altruism (we could have saved a bit of a hassle, considering that these isms are supposed to be written with capital letters in English - in German all nouns are anyway written so).

I have found this overview on Objectivism from within the camp itself - here the beginning - rest in spoiler:

Originally Posted by AynRand.org

A full system of philosophy advocating reason and egoism has been defined in our time by Ayn Rand. It is the philosophy of Objectivism, The base of Objectivism is explicit: "Existence exists—and the act of grasping that statement implies two corollary axioms: that something exists which one perceives and that one exists possessing consciousness, consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists."

Existence and consciousness are facts implicit in every perception. They are the base of all knowledge (and the precondition of proof): knowledge presupposes something to know and someone to know it. They are absolutes which cannot be questioned or escaped: every human utterance, including the denial of these axioms, implies their use and acceptance.

The third axiom at the base of knowledge—an axiom true, in Aristotle's words, of "being qua being"—is the Law of Identity. This law defines the essence of existence: to be is to be something, a thing is what it is; and leads to the fundamental principle of all action, the law of causality. The law of causality states that a thing's actions are determined not by chance, but by its nature, i.e., by what it is.

It is important to observe the interrelation of these three axioms. Existence is the first axiom. The universe exists independent of consciousness. Man is able to adapt his background to his own requirements, but "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed" (Francis Bacon). There is no mental process that can change the laws of nature or erase facts. The function of consciousness is not to create reality, but to apprehend it. "Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification."

The philosophic source of this viewpoint and its major advocate in the history of philosophy is Aristotle. Its opponents are all the other major traditions, including Platonism, Christianity, and German idealism. Directly or indirectly, these traditions uphold the notion that consciousness is the creator of reality. The essence of this notion is the denial of the axiom that existence exists.

Spoiler for Objectivism :

...presented in detail in Atlas Shrugged, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, and The Virtue of Selfishness. It is the antidote to the present state of the world. (All further quotations, unless otherwise identified, are from the works of Ayn Rand.)

Most philosophers have left their starting points to unnamed implication.
In the religious version, the deniers advocate a consciousness "above" nature, i.e., superior, and contradictory, to existence; in the social version, they melt nature into an indeterminate blur given transient semi-shape by human desire. The first school denies reality by upholding two of them. The second school dispenses with the concept of reality as such. The first rejects science, law, causality, identity, claiming that anything is possible to the omnipotent, miracle-working will of the Lord. The second states the religionists' rejection in secular terms, claiming that anything is possible to the will of "the people."

Neither school can claim a basis in objective evidence. There is no way to reason from nature to its negation, or from facts to their subversion, or from any premise to the obliteration of argument as such, i.e., of its foundation: the axioms of existence and identity.

Metaphysics and epistemology are closely interrelated; together they form a philosophy's foundation. In the history of philosophy, the rejection of reality and the rejection of reason have been corollaries. Similarly, as Aristotle's example indicates, a pro-reality metaphysics implies and requires a pro-reason epistemology.

Reason is defined by Ayn Rand as "the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses."

Reason performs this function by means of concepts, and the validity of reason rests on the validity of concepts. But the nature and origin of concepts is a major philosophic problem. If concepts refer to facts, then knowledge has a base in reality, and one can define objective principles to guide man's process of cognition. If concepts are cut off from reality, then so is all human knowledge, and man is helplessly blind.

This is the "problem of universals," on which Western philosophy has foundered.

Plato claimed to find the referent of concepts not in this world, but in a supernatural dimension of essences. The Kantians regard concepts (some or all) as devoid of referents, i.e., as subjective creations of the human mind independent of external facts. Both approaches and all of their variants in the history of philosophy lead to the same essential consequence: the severing of man's tools of cognition from reality, and therefore the undercutting of man's mind. (Although Aristotle's epistemology is far superior, his theory of concepts is intermingled with remnants of Platonism and is untenable.) Recent philosophers have given up the problem and, as a result, have given up philosophy as such.

Ayn Rand challenges and sweeps aside the main bulwark of the anti-mind axis. Her historic feat is to tie man's distinctive form of cognition to reality, i.e., to validate man's reason.

According to Objectivism, concepts are derived from and do refer to the facts of reality.

The mind at birth (as Aristotle first stated) is tabula rasa; there are no innate ideas. The senses are man's primary means of contact with reality; they give him the precondition of all subsequent knowledge, the evidence that something is. What the something is he discovers on the conceptual level of awareness.

Conceptualization is man's method of organizing sensory material. To form a concept, one isolates two or more similar concretes from the rest of one's perceptual field, and integrates them into a single mental unit, symbolized by a word. A concept subsumes an unlimited number of instances: the concretes one isolated, and all others (past, present, and future) which are similar to them.

Similarity is the key to this process. The mind can retain the characteristics of similar concretes without specifying their measurements, which vary from case to case. "A concept is a mental integration of two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s), with their particular measurements omitted."

The basic principle of concept-formation (which states that the omitted measurements must exist in some quantity, but may exist in any quantity) is the equivalent of the basic principle of algebra, which states that algebraic symbols must be given some numerical value, but may be given any value. In this sense and respect, perceptual awareness is the arithmetic, but conceptual awareness is the algebra of cognition.

Concepts are neither supernatural nor subjective: they refer to facts of this world, as processed by man's means of cognition. (The foregoing is a brief indication; for a full discussion see Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.)

The senses, concepts, logic: these are the elements of man's rational faculty—its start, its form, its method. In essence, "follow reason" means: base knowledge on observation; form concepts according to the actual (measurable) relationships among concretes; use concepts according to the rules of logic (ultimately, the Law of Identity). Since each of these elements is based on the facts of reality, the conclusions reached by a process of reason are objective.

The alternative to reason is some form of mysticism or skepticism.

The mystic seeks supernatural knowledge; the skeptic denies the possibility of any knowledge. The mystic claims that man's means of cognition are inadequate and that true knowledge requires illumination from God; the skeptic agrees, then throws out God. The mystic upholds absolutes, which he defends by an appeal to faith; the skeptic answers that he has no faith. The mystic's faith, ultimately, is in his feelings, which he regards as a pipeline to the beyond; the skeptic drops the beyond, then follows his feelings, which, he says, are the only basis of action in an unknowable world.

Feelings are products of men's ideas and value-judgments, held consciously or subconsciously. Feelings are not tools of cognition or a guide to action.

The old-fashioned religionists condemned human reason on the grounds that it is limited, finite, earthbound, as against the perfect but ineffable mind of God. This implies an attack on identity (as does any rejection of the finite); but it does so under cover of affirming a consciousness with an allegedly greater, supernatural identity. The modern nihilists are more explicit: they campaign, not for the infinite, but for a zero. Just as in metaphysics they reject the concept of reality, so in epistemology they reject the possibility of consciousness.

Man, say the Kantians, cannot know "things as they are," because his knowledge is acquired by human senses, human concepts, human logic, i.e., by the human means of knowledge.

The same type of argument would apply to any consciousness—human, animal, or divine (assuming the latter existed): if it is something, if it is limited to some, any, means of knowledge, then by the same reasoning it would not know "things as they are," but only "things as they appear" to that kind of consciousness.

Kant objects to the fact that man's mind has a nature. His theory is: identity—the essence of existence—invalidates consciousness. Or: a means of knowledge makes knowledge impossible. As Ayn Rand points out, this theory implies that "man is blind, because he has eyes—deaf, because he has ears—deluded, because he has a mind—and the things he perceives do not exist, because he perceives them."

Just as Kant's epistemological nihilism sweeps cognition away from identity, so his ethical nihilism sweeps morality—the field of values—away from any enjoyment of life.

The Objectivist ethics is the opposite of Kant's.

The Objectivist ethics begins with a fundamental question: why is ethics necessary?

The answer lies in man's nature as a living organism. A living organism has to act in the face of a constant alternative: life or death. Life is conditional; it can be sustained only by a specific course of action performed by the living organism, such as the actions of obtaining food. In this regard plants and animals have no choice: within the limits of their powers, they take automatically the actions their life requires. Man does have a choice. He does not know automatically what actions will sustain him; if he is to survive he must discover, then practice by choice, a code of values and virtues, the specific code which human life requires. The purpose of ethics is to define such a code.

Objectivism is the first philosophy to identify the relationship between life and moral values. "Ethics," writes Ayn Rand, "is an objective, metaphysical necessity of man's survival—not by the grace of the supernatural nor of your neighbors nor of your whims, but by the grace of reality and the nature of life."

The standard of ethics, required by the nature of reality and the nature of man, is Man's Life. "All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil."

"Man's mind," states John Galt, the protagonist of Atlas Shrugged,

is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without a knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch—or build a cyclotron—without a knowledge of his aim and of the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think.

Thinking is not an automatic process. A man can choose to think or to let his mind stagnate, or he can choose actively to turn against his intelligence, to evade his knowledge, to subvert his reason. If he refuses to think, he courts disaster: he cannot with impunity reject his means of perceiving reality.

Thinking is a delicate, difficult process, which man cannot perform unless knowledge is his goal, logic is his method, and the judgment of his mind is his guiding absolute. Thought requires selfishness, the fundamental selfishness of a rational faculty that places nothing above the integrity of its own function.

A man cannot think if he places something—anything—above his perception of reality. He cannot follow the evidence unswervingly or uphold his conclusions intransigently, while regarding compliance with other men as his moral imperative, self-abasement as his highest virtue, and sacrifice as his primary duty. He cannot use his brain while surrendering his sovereignty over it, i.e., while accepting his neighbors as its owner and term-setter.

Men learn from others, they build on the work of their predecessors, they achieve by cooperation feats that would be impossible on a desert island. But all such social relationships require the exercise of the human faculty of cognition; they depend on the solitary individual, "solitary" in the primary, inner sense of the term, the sense of a man facing reality firsthand, seeking not to crucify himself on the cross of others or to accept their word as an act of faith, but to understand, to connect, to know.

Man's mind requires selfishness, and so does his life in every aspect: a living organism has to be the beneficiary of its own actions. It has to pursue specific objects—for itself, for its own sake and survival. Life requires the gaining of values, not their loss; achievement, not renunciation; self-preservation, not self-sacrifice. Man can choose to value and pursue self-immolation, but he cannot survive or prosper by such a method.

Moral selfishness does not mean a license to do whatever one pleases, guided by whims. It means the exacting discipline of defining and pursuing one's rational self-interest. A code of rational self-interest rejects every form of human sacrifice, whether of oneself to others or of others to oneself. The ethics of rational self-interest upholds the exercise of one's mind in the service of one's life, and all of the specific value-choices and character attributes which such exercise entails. It upholds the virtues of rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, pride. It does not advocate "survival at any price."

Man's life, as required by his nature, is not the life of a mindless brute, of a looting thug or a mooching mystic, but the life of a thinking being—not life by means of force or fraud, but life by means of achievement—not survival at any price, since there's only one price that pays for man's survival: reason.

Reason is an attribute of the individual. Thought is a process performed not by men, but by man—in the singular. No society, committee, or "organic" group can do it. What a group can do in this regard is only: to leave the individual free to function, or to stop him.

The basic political requirement of Man's Life is freedom.

"Freedom" in this context means the power to act without coercion by others. It means an individual's power to act according to his own judgment, while respecting the same right in others. In a free society, men renounce a lethal method of dealing with disagreements: the initiation of physical force.

Force is the antonym and negation of thought. Understanding is not produced by a punch in the face; intellectual clarity does not flow from the muzzle of a gun; the weighing of evidence is not mediated by spasms of terror. The mind is a cognitive faculty; it cannot achieve knowledge or conviction apart from or against its perception of reality; it cannot be forced.

The proper political system, in essence—the system which guards the freedom of man's mind—is the original American system, based on the concept of inalienable individual rights. "[T]he source of man's rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A—and Man is Man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival."

The Founding Fathers were right about the fact that rights are political, not economic, i.e., that they are sanctions to act and to keep the products of one's action, not unearned claims to the actions or products of others. And they were right about the fact that the proper function of government is the protection of man's rights.

Man's rights, Ayn Rand observes, can be violated only by physical force (fraud is an indirect form of force). A political system based on the recognition of rights is one that guards man against violence. Men therefore deal with one another not as potential killers, but as sovereign traders, according to their own independent judgment and voluntary consent. This kind of system represents the methodical protection of man's mind and of his self-interest, i.e., of the function and purpose on which human life depends.

Government is the agency that holds a monopoly on the legal use of physical force. In a free society the government uses force only in retaliation, against those who start its use. This involves three main functions: the police; the military; and the courts (which provide the means of resolving disputes peacefully, according to objective rules).

The government of a free society is prohibited from emulating the criminals it is created to apprehend. It is prohibited from initiating force against innocent men. It cannot inject the power of physical destruction into the lives of peaceful citizens, not for any purpose or in any realm of endeavor, including the realm of production and trade.

This means the rejection of any dichotomy between political and economic freedom. It means the separation of state and economics. It means the only alternative to tyranny that has ever been discovered: laissez-faire capitalism.

Historically, capitalism worked brilliantly, and it is the only system that will work. Socialism in every variant has led to disaster and will again whenever it is tried. Yet socialism is admired by mankind's teachers, while capitalism is damned. The source of this inversion is the fact that freedom is selfish, rights are selfish, capitalism is selfish.

It is true that freedom, rights, and capitalism are selfish. It is also true that selfishness, properly defined, is the good.

There is no future for the world except through a rebirth of the Aristotelian approach to philosophy. This would require an Aristotelian affirmation of the reality of existence, of the sovereignty of reason, of life on earth—and of the splendor of man.

Aristotle and Objectivism agree on fundamentals and, as a result, on this last point, also. Both hold that man can deal with reality, can achieve values, can live non-tragically. Neither believes in man the worm or man the monster; each upholds man the thinker and therefore man the hero. Aristotle calls him "the great-souled man." Ayn Rand calls him Howard Roark, or John Galt.

In every era, by their nature, men must struggle: they must work, knowingly or not, to actualize some vision of the human potential, whether consistent or contradictory, exalted or debased. They must, ultimately, make a fundamental choice, which determines their other choices and their fate. The fundamental choice, which is always the same, is the epistemological choice: reason or non-reason.

Since men's grasp of reason and their versions of non-reason differ from era to era, according to the extent of their knowledge and their virtue, so does the specific form of the choice, and its specific result.

In the ancient world, after centuries of a gradual decline, the choice was the ideas of classical civilization or the ideas of Christianity. Men chose Christianity. The result was the Dark Ages.

In the medieval world, a thousand years later, the choice was Augustine or Aquinas. Men chose Aquinas. The result was the Renaissance.

In the Enlightenment world, four centuries later, the founders of America struggled to reaffirm the choice of their Renaissance ancestors, but they could not make it stick historically. The result was a magnificent new country, with a built-in self-destructor.

Today, in the United States, the choice is the Founding Fathers and the foundation they never had, or Kant and destruction. The result is still open.

For the definitive, systematic statement of Objectivism, see Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff.

So then - what the counterpart Subjectivism is all about only really shortly - deserves to get equal attention - but I don't have it at the moment:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Subjectivism is the philosophical tenet that "our own mental activity is the only unquestionable fact of our experience".

The success of this position is historically attributed to Descartes and his methodic doubt. Subjectivism accords primacy to subjective experience as fundamental of all measure and law. In extreme forms like Solipsism, it may hold that the nature and existence of every object depends solely on someone's subjective awareness of it. One may consider the qualified empiricism of George Berkeley in this context, given his reliance on God as the prime mover of human perception. Thus, subjectivism.


Metaphysical subjectivism is the theory that reality is what we perceive to be real, and that there is no underlying true reality that exists independently of perception. One can also hold that it is consciousness rather than perception that is reality (subjective idealism).
This is in contrast to metaphysical objectivism and philosophical realism, which assert that there is an underlying 'objective' reality which is perceived in different ways.

This viewpoint should not be confused with the stance that "all is illusion" or that "there is no such thing as reality." Metaphysical subjectivists hold that reality is real enough. They conceive, however, that the nature of reality as related to a given consciousness is dependent on that consciousness. This has its philosophical basis in the writings of Descartes (see cogito ergo sum), and forms a cornerstone of Søren Kierkegaard's philosophy.

Ethical subjectivism
Ethical subjectivism is the meta-ethical belief that ethical sentences reduce to factual statements about the attitudes and/or conventions of individual people, or that any ethical sentence implies an attitude held by someone.
As such, it is a form of moral relativism in which the truth of moral claims is relative to the attitudes of individuals (as opposed to, for instance, communities).
Consider the case this way — to a person imagining what it's like to be a cat, catching and eating mice is perfectly natural and morally sound. To a person imagining they are a mouse, being hunted by cats is morally abhorrent. Though this is a loose metaphor, it serves to illustrate the view that each individual subject has their own understanding of right and wrong.

An ethical subjectivist might propose, for example, that what it means for something to be morally right is just for it to be approved of. (This can lead to the belief that different things are right according to each idiosyncratic moral outlook.) One implication of these beliefs is that, unlike the moral skeptic or the non-cognitivist, the subjectivist thinks that ethical sentences, while subjective, are nonetheless the kind of thing that can be true or false.

Subjectivism and panpsychism
One possible extension of subjectivist thought is that conscious experience is available to all objectively perceivable substrates. Upon viewing images produced by a camera on the rocking side of an erupting volcano, one might suppose that their relative motion followed from a subjective conscious within the volcano. These properties might also be attributed to the camera or its various components as well.

In this way, though, subjectivism morphs into a related doctrine, panpsychism, the belief that every objective entity (or event) has an inward or subjective aspect.

In probability
Broadly speaking, there are two views on Bayesian probability that interpret the probability concept in different ways.
In probability, a subjectivist stand is the belief that probabilities are simply degrees-of-belief by rational agents in a certain proposition, and which have no objective reality in and of themselves. According to the subjectivist view, probability measures a "personal belief".

For this kind of subjectivist, a phrase having to do with probability simply asserts the degree to which the subjective actor believes their assertion is true or false. As a consequence, a subjectivist has no problem with differing people giving different probabilities to an uncertain proposition, and all being correct.

Many modern machine learning methods are based on objectivist Bayesian principles.
According to the objectivist view, the rules of Bayesian statistics can be justified by requirements of rationality and consistency and interpreted as an extension of logic.
In attempting to justify subjective probability, Bruno de Finetti created the notion of philosophical coherence. According to his theory, a probability assertion is akin to a bet, and a bet is coherent only if it does not expose the wagerer to loss if their opponent chooses wisely.
To explain his meaning, de Finetti created a thought-experiment to illustrate the need for principles of coherency in making a probabilistic statement.
In his scenario, when someone states their degree-of-belief in something, one places a small bet for or against that belief and specifies the odds, with the understanding that the other party to the bet may then decide which side of the bet to take.
Thus, if Bob specifies 3-to-1 odds against a proposition A, his opponent Joe may then choose whether to require Bob to risk $1 in order to win $3 if proposition A is found to be true, or to require Bob to risk $3 in order to win $1 if the proposition A is not true. In this case, it is possible for Joe to win over Bob. According to de Finetti, then, this case is incoherent.

I find the last paragraph on probability fascinating!
Got to search for something I read by Wolf Singer, how the unconscious mind does not use Bayesian principles to compute probabilities for things to happen irl and decide on reactions to that calculation.

Ah - got to look it up - that was very fascinating too, and I can't reconstruct it now.

To add on to that list, here are some that give more critique and criticisms on the workings with Objectivism and variants of it:

Why I'm not an objectivist

Objectivist Epistemology: Strengths and Weaknesses <-- Older entry, but still brings up some good points

And here's a melange of criticisms of Objectivism (mostly against Rand's philosophy that derived from the generalized Objectivism).

Criticisms of Objectivism


Here's one that gives criticism (but doesn't wholeheartedly reject) on Objectivism:

Is Objectivism Merely a Disguised Materialism? | The Moral Liberal*|*The Moral Liberal <-- I believe they were just referencing the original entry that I can't seem to find, and where adding their opinions on it.

A quote that the link quoted on:

Originally Posted by quote from link

Modern Materialism holds that the universe is an unlimited material entity; that the universe, including all matter and energy (motion or force), has always existed, and will always exist; that the world is a hard, tangible, material, objective reality that man can know. It holds that matter existed before mind; that the material world is primary and that thoughts about this world are secondary. (Charles S. Seely, Modern Materialism: A Philosophy of Action.)

You can find criticisms against that same link, but that links to other forums I probably can't reference to unfortunately. Most of them talk about where Objectivism falls under (Materialism, Idealism, or other isms).

There's more links, but I think those are okay for now for furthering any discussion in the future. The axioms you mentioned was something I was trying to encroach at some point if the ad hominem and straw man cesspool is reduced.

Also, to Voldmer:

I haven't been engaging in pit-pattering rage in what you deemed as philosophical rants. I was not angry, mad, pissed, or irritated to levels so extreme that would inspire me to type those responses. All of my responses are intended to be casual and hopefully be a bit more thought-provoking based on circumstances of threads like these.

Just because someone may give a more extended discussion on something doesn't necessarily mean their modes of cognition in producing them requires them to be filled with a ranty-bitchy-piss-poor demeanor, that's a really naive mindset to attribute to anyone in discussions like this. I guess if people have predispositions on something where they question how another person could cognitively formulate something like that so abnormal to their own modes of cognition should expand their horizon a bit.

Maybe what you deem as intellectual is whatever fits your spectrum of cognition, and anything beyond what you're capable of fixating is deemed as rants. I guess everyone's cognitive grasp of that is subjective, but if there's any more declarations from you of them being rants in the future, rest assured that isn't the intention on my end. If you still continue to believe something else contrary to that, then fine.

In short: I'm not even mad