Unknowable Ontology?

[AnssiH]

anssiH, from wiki

 

Ontology is referring to the ideas of "what exists". Because many predictionwise valid specific ontologies can always be built - it's just a matter of changing some man-made definitions in self-coherent manner - that means the question about "what really, actually, ontologically exists" turns into "what is reality like devoid of those human definitions that can always be arbitrarily chosen" (and that is why Kant came up with the concept of "noumena").

 

In some peoples minds though that is the same as choosing one of those "specific ontologies" to be valid (on undefendable grounds of course). For example, the interpretations about the QM formalism are often called "ontological interpretations", i.e. they are stabs at explaining what sorts of entities give rise to the behaviour that we see, but none can be defended.

 

The stuff you bolded and underlined "a traditional realist position in ontology is that time and space have existed apart from the human mind" is an example of specific ontology, not "the ontology". Perhaps you underlined it because you have misunderstood what I'm saying. I am not talking about idealistic ontology and it is very tiring that you think I am.

 

Concentrate a bit now ->

i think your a priori is that only information and its organization can truly represent reality. this is only a "specialization" on a particular branch of ontology. and let us not be hypocrite. epistemology is also an attempt on ontology, to say things are unknown is describing already the property of its nature.

 

First, I wouldn't say "epistemology is an attempt on ontology". Ontology is about the ideas of "what exists" or "what world is made of", and by "specific ontology" I mean some specific world model that some person might have in his head about reality.

 

Epistemology is the study about "how do we know about world", i.e. it is about the methods of "knowledge". The result of that process can be a specific ontology (essentially assumptions). So you could perhaps say "a specific epistemological construct leads to ontology", but epistemology as a field of study is not an attempt on ontology and people should be careful to not confuse them together.

 

Your main objection here seems to be that in your opinion, my assertion that ontology is something fundamentally unknown, is also an assumption. Given the common definition of "ontology", your objection would be that it is merely an arbitrary assumption that multiple valid ontologies exist.

 

Or another way to put it, if I say one cannot know with absolute certainty that their particular world model is ontologically valid, you say "you can't know that with absolute certainty either". One cannot know with absolute certaintly that their worldview is not absolutely certain?

 

What I am really saying is that whatever ontology you choose, you got that from giving names to familiar patterns/circumstances, and the form you have in your head - certain entities with persistent identity, having certain properties etc - that contains very many purely epistemological facets, for instance your idea of "identity" of objects. When does an object "change" and when does it "go out of existence" that's entirely a function of chosen definitions, and there does not exist information to defend between alternative views there.

 

That is why I am saying - with absolute confidence - that doubt exists about any specific ontology. If you trace that down, you see the confidence does not arise from any claim about what reality is like, but from the very definition of "ontology".

 

and thanks to Qm it's making a comeback in mainstream philosophy. also in QM the unknowability of things were said to be intrinsic to nature and not a result of our lacking in knowledge of it, this is dead end in physics, and you don't want to g o there.

 

Well first, I don't like the idealistic type QM interpretations any more than you do. Second, what you call the dead end of physics is exactly where I want to go, except that I wouldn't call it the dead end of physics any more than relativity or QM formalism was the dead end of physics. It is just a shift in perspective that needs to be made. Einstein felt non-determinism was the dead end of realism. That's silly, he was just very used to the idea of deterministic reality, "so what?" I would have asked him. Here people are very used to the idea that reality really is made of the entities that we define, in the sense that those entities really do contain an identity with them, like some sort of metaphysical token they somehow carry with them. (Once again I am referring to Bell experiments)

 

If you take the perspective that our idea of those "persistent objects" arises from definitions that only refer to familiarity in circumstances suddenly the QM strangeness is not strange at all. So, not so much a dead end of physics as it is the death of some stubborn and intuitive, but fundamentally undefendable ontological assumption about reality.

 

the point is that your view is just a small part in the whole shebang of ontology and you cannot take your view as a true representative of ontology. for one, i think you are confusing the symbolic contents of the mind from the mind it self as the true organ of perception. that is why you are denying the validity of the human mind to know what actually exists.

 

You completely mis-read me there, I hope the above explains it better.

 

i mean directly is that while you have given up on ontology, you wanted to make a model purely based on our knowledge alone. never mind what actually exists.

 

Given the definitions I gave above, I can't build a model based on "what actually exists" can I? What I think exists is whatever I defined to exist. Of course it is overlayed on reality, the problem of course being that many models can be overlayed on the same exact reality.

 

the realist view of ontolgy is to pursue the fundamental essence/substance or first principle of existence...

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...a more general, simpler and less unnatural and more attuned is for us to study the substance of reality, substance is more simple to grasp and we can intuit with it readily because we are it. we are the substance of the universe.

 

That is sort of the problem. The irresistible urge to see everything as substance/entities/anything with identity. Well not so much an urge as an epistemological requirement. All the while it is in no way an ontological requirement! That conundrum is essentially the topic Kant was talking about, and also Korzybski and in a sense also Kuhn.

 

In your posts you put forward a lot of concepts as "things that exist", and suggest we just don't know their properties. What is that if not a case of making ontological assumptions?

 

Last but not least, I would say the philosophy called "objectivism" is in my mind pretty much the same as "constructivism" with the difference that they take only the defined things as "meaningful" but undefined and self-contradictory things as things that don't exist. Whereas constructivists don't refer to the validly defined things as "things that exist", meaning they are immaterial references to something that exists.

 

So you can see, it's very confusing for a constructivist to converse with an objectivist; they refer to the same ideas in very different manners. I know Rade likes to talk about objectivism a lot and I get the feeling that you are aligned to those terms a bit too. I think the only real problem for an objectivist comes from the difficulty of coming to terms with the idea that identity itself isn't objective property of reality :I

 

-Anssi

[watcher]

That is the beauty of science, as opposed to ontology, metaphysics, or theology, its relentless advance forward is continuous.CC

 

science cannot advance without philosophy.

 

"How does it happen that a properly endowed natural scientist comes to concern himself with epistemology? Is there no more valuable work in his specialty? I hear many of my colleagues saying, and I sense it from many more, that they feel this way. I cannot share this sentiment. ... Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things easily achieve such an authority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterable givens. Thus they come to be stamped as 'necessities of thought,' 'a priori givens,' etc.

 

"The path of scientific advance is often made impassable for a long time through such errors. For that reason, it is by no means an idle game if we become practiced in analyzing the long-commonplace concepts and exhibiting [revealing, exposing? -Ed.] those circumstances upon which their justification and usefulness depend, how they have grown up, individually, out of the givens of experience. By this means, their all-too-great authority will be broken." Einstein, 1916, "Memorial notice for Ernst Mach," Physikalische Zeitschrift 17: 101-02.

 

 

I think the only real problem for an objectivist comes from the difficulty of coming to terms with the idea that identity itself isn't objective property of reality

 

reality present itself objectively through identity.

without identification, there is nothing for you to work with,

and you are with the same boat as an objectivist.

the only problem with constructivism was while you are living and functions in the "real world", you have constructed your worldview in utter abstraction. and thus fall prey to the pitfalls einstein had cited in the above post,

and afterwards, the temptation to ask "what is the physical meaning?" of my equations will set in. an ontological issue you cannot escape.

[coldcreation]

science cannot advance without philosophy.

 

It can be said too that philosophy cannot advance without science.

 

As areas of scientific endeavour proliferate and expand, so will the philosophical questions that they generate.

 

What is the point you're trying to make?

[watcher]

It can be said too that philosophy cannot advance without science.

 

As areas of scientific endeavour proliferate and expand, so will the philosophical questions that they generate.

 

What is the point you're trying to make?

 

i am refuting your earlier post that i quoted. science is not opposed to ontology and metaphysics, they go hand in hand as you have exactly posted here.

[coldcreation]

i am refuting your earlier post that i quoted. science is not opposed to ontology and metaphysics, they go hand in hand as you have exactly posted here.

 

Not.

 

I am claiming that philosophy cannot advance without science.

 

And I would dump the metaphysics, since being an enquiry of a non-empirical character into the nature of existence, one can claim whatever she likes, even if vague or untrue.

 

Metaphysical statements that imply ideas about nature are not falsifiable or empirically verifiable.

 

That says it all.

 

CC

[watcher]

Not.

 

I am claiming that philosophy cannot advance without science.

 

And I would dump the metaphysics, since being an enquiry of a non-empirical character into the nature of existence, one can claim whatever she likes, even if vague or untrue.

 

Metaphysical statements that imply ideas about nature are not falsifiable or empirically verifiable.

 

That says it all.

 

CC

 

metaphysical claims always lead to new science because it is also involved in speculative thought with basis on solid scientific body of knowledge. Higg's field is a metaphysical claim. is it not?.

 

this was always been the role of metaphysics in the evolution of science thru history. and science was used to be called natural philosophy and metaphysics as the queen of sciences.

[AnssiH]

reality present itself objectively through identity.

without identification, there is nothing for you to work with,

 

But there is! That's the whole point. See my reply to Jedaisoul.

 

It's not immediately obvious what that is, but I guess it shouldn't be too surprising that there is something to work with. After all, somehow we all come to build a worldview from "scratch" so to speak. I.e. whatever there is "to work with" is also an explanation to what human worldview is founded on at its "root" (<- that's not a good word but I trust you understand what I'm getting at). I.e. if you trust that our learning mechanism is explainable, you also trust there is something to work with prior to the definitions that arise... ...and that is exactly the issue at hand!

 

the only problem with constructivism was while you are living and functions in the "real world", you have constructed your worldview in utter abstraction. and thus fall prey to the pitfalls einstein had cited in the above post,

and afterwards, the temptation to ask "what is the physical meaning?" of my equations will set in. an ontological issue you cannot escape.

 

Now what would you say if I told you that that Einsteinian worldview arises as a necessary character of a self-coherent worldview, purely as a consequence to the data ordering mechanisms, without ANY connection to ontological nature of the "data to be explained"? (somewhat analogous to how complex organisms arise from evolutionary processes without any intentional design mechanism to themselves... ...and likewise before one understands those mechanisms, they only see amazingly appropriately "designed" organisms/systems/objects that perform somehow incredibly appropriate interactions between each others)

 

-Anssi

[watcher]

But there is! That's the whole point. See my reply to Jedaisoul.

 

but what if identity is universal and not a sole function of the human nervous system? i.e. however we perceived the natural principles of the world persists regardless of human presence. what would become of pure epistemological models? the so called modeling the models are quite redundant.

 

It's not immediately obvious what that is, but I guess it shouldn't be too surprising that there is something to work with.

 

yes it is the substance (brain) that the mind seats upon, so while the mind brags about the world is known through itself, it forgot it owes it existence to that substance.

 

After all, somehow we all come to build a worldview from "scratch" so to speak. I.e. whatever there is "to work with" is also an explanation to what human worldview is founded on at its "root" (<- that's not a good word but I trust you understand what I'm getting at).

 

no if it is from scratch, that "something to work with" is not an explanation as to how concepts are formed in the mind. i cannot see the connection..

 

I.e. if you trust that our learning mechanism is explainable, you also trust there is something to work with prior to the definitions that arise... ...and that is exactly the issue at hand!

 

our learning mechanism is not explainable. there is a whole school of t thoughts to support this claim. so there is no prior to work with. in this view, the mind knows this ontological elements, they are not unknowns, other wise how can we make conceptions of them and represnet them in mathematics if they are unknown?

 

it is quite a stretch to assert that our conceptions of reality is an illusion at all and brought about by self deception, it is like a hindu mystic proclaiming to that the whole world is an illusion and a dream.

 

Now what would you say if I told you that that Einsteinian worldview arises as a necessary character of a self-coherent worldview, purely as a consequence to the data ordering mechanisms, without ANY connection to ontological nature of the "data to be explained"? (somewhat analogous to how complex organisms arise from evolutionary processes without any intentional design mechanism to themselves... ...and likewise before one understands those mechanisms, they only see amazingly appropriately "designed" organisms/systems/objects that perform somehow incredibly appropriate interactions between each others)

 

it would say reality is a malleable substance. it's essence is in its activity and potentials.

[coldcreation]

metaphysical claims always lead to new science because it is also involved in speculative thought with basis on solid scientific body of knowledge. Higg's field is a metaphysical claim. is it not?.

 

this was always been the role of metaphysics in the evolution of science thru history. and science was used to be called natural philosophy and metaphysics as the queen of sciences.

 

But today science is a different animal.

 

:wub:

 

 

CC

[AnssiH]

but what if identity is universal and not a sole function of the human nervous system? i.e. however we perceived the natural principles of the world persists regardless of human presence.

 

You must mean, "what if one of all those specific ontological views that one could validly believe in, would in fact be true?" (after all, what you refer to as "natural principles" can be understood in quite many prediction-wise valid ways)

 

what would become of pure epistemological models? the so called modeling the models are quite redundant.

 

If one specific worldview happened to perfectly co-incide with the way reality ontologically is, the epistemological principles that I'm talking about are still just as valid because they are consequences of the transformation process from unknown data patterns to a valid predictive model of those data patterns.

 

Also it would still be just as impossible to prove which one is that "ontologically correct model", because there always are many facets to our worldview that can be transformed from one representation to another without changing any observable properties (You can readily think tons of examples from physical interpretations I'm sure).

 

That is btw the central point of Korzybski's "general semantics" also, and on that same note I should continue that the mechanisms that are used to generate a prediction-wise valid world model without ANY a-priori information about the meaning of the "data to be explained", are also exactly the mechanisms from which so-called semantical understanding is springing. I.e. the resulting "knowledge" about reality is not immutable, it is always a subject to change upon coming up with a new "meaningful interpretation".

 

It's not immediately obvious what that is, but I guess it shouldn't be too surprising that there is something to work with.

yes it is the substance (brain) that the mind seats upon

 

That's not what I meant. I meant, even without any a-priori information about reality, there is "something to work with", in the sense that there exists a mechanism for building a meaningful worldview. I.e. there is a way to start interpreting the data in meaningful way, even without any pre-existing knowledge about it.

 

And actually you could say it is "an explanation as to how concepts are formed in mind".

 

no if it is from scratch, that "something to work with" is not an explanation as to how concepts are formed in the mind. i cannot see the connection..

 

Well it's not a trivial subject, but I hope I can spark your interest!

 

our learning mechanism is not explainable. there is a whole school of t thoughts to support this claim.

 

Yes, and I find those ideas a bit behind the curve at present time. For instance Searle's idea that semantics is intrinsic "human property" as in he does not think any mechanical process can yield a behaviour like that... ...I think it is fairly easy to prove that idea wrong (I kind of touched exactly that subject above). Well, easy to prove if it wasn't for some people who have already made up their mind on the issue and thus refuse to seriously think about it :P

 

so there is no prior to work with.

 

Yes, no a-priori information about reality to work with. That is in fact important aspect of semantics! Start with too much given information, and the learning system becomes constrained into very narrow perspective about how everything else falls into place in the worldview.

 

in this view, the mind knows this ontological elements, they are not unknowns, other wise how can we make conceptions of them and represnet them in mathematics if they are unknown?

 

Now I think you are asking the right questions! That is what the epistemological analysis is about. Begin with thinking about, what sorts of collections of ideas would be invalid just for the simple reason that they would contradict themselves. One defined pattern cannot also mean a different defined pattern. I.e, a defined pattern is something that leads to a known outcome by some large probability. A defined persistent element is in one way or another a defined pattern that leads to a similar pattern over and over. (Since you think about this in terms of "brain" and neurological concepts, you can take brain as a pattern recognition device)

 

Communicating this in english language is painfully sloppy and even I think the above is almost impossible to understand absolutely correctly. That is why the epistemological analysis is working in terms of differential statements about probability functions. That is quite a bit more powerful tool in logic than english words and intuitive conceptualization.

 

it is quite a stretch to assert that our conceptions of reality is an illusion at all and brought about by self deception, it is like a hindu mystic proclaiming to that the whole world is an illusion and a dream.

 

Yes, good thing I haven't said anything like that! ;)

 

it would say reality is a malleable substance. it's essence is in its activity and potentials.

 

Okay but you already formed concepts in your mind when you refer to something as "substance". You must also recognize that it is easy to change perspective and understand the "same thing" in different ways (general semantics and all that)

 

-Anssi

[watcher]

You must mean, "what if one of all those specific ontological views that one could validly believe in, would in fact be true?" (after all, what you refer to as "natural principles" can be understood in quite many prediction-wise valid ways)

 

 

what i wanted to say, previous to our discussion of identity, is that the identity of the world we observed was not subjective purely based on our mental interpretation. identity of the world as the nature of its existence and being is consistent and not immutable. there is a common unbroken thread from the time the ancients contemplated the observable world up to this day.

 

to make a priori that how we identify this world based on our observation is not reliable because of the unknown nature of our existence is false. as a matter of fact, i think it is imperative for us to understand the world by an ontological approach.

 

for example, we observed gravity, we ask question, what is it? the math (measurable relationship of observable variables ) can remain the same and with predictive powers but the physical explanation can be numerous. like the earth and the apple accelerates toward one another, or the space has pressure and push them together or there is an invisible force field that attract them together. the point is unless we know what gravity actually is ( and there could only be one answer to that) we will never fully understand it. the current body of scientific knowledge we have just needs tweaking from time to time.

 

it is impossible to start from scratch because you will have to violate your own a priori of unknowable ontological elements. somewhere along the line, you will have to make an assumption ( yes, that the ontological elements are unknown is already an assumption).

to identify the unknown you must make a leap of faith from this is what i don't know --------------- leap of faith --------------- to this is what i know.

 

That is btw the central point of Korzybski "general semantics" also, and on that same note I should continue that the mechanisms that are used to generate a prediction-wise valid world model without ANY a-priori information about the meaning of the "data to be explained", are also exactly the mechanisms from which so-called semantical understanding is springing. I.e. the resulting "knowledge" about reality is not immutable, it is always a subject to change upon coming up with a new "meaningful interpretation".

 

you should really make distinction between knowledge and interpretation.

 

lao tzu said ... the tao that can be spoken is not the eternal tao. then he went on to write a voluminous book called tao te ching about the unspeakable tao.

 

the general semantics of Korzybski was that you can't say something specific about reality. and for good reason, a part cannot completely represent the whole . ie that is what the mind does, break reality into bits in order for us to comprehend.

 

but, this doesn't mean that reality is unknown, they are just hard to explain. and epistemological approach is as susceptible as the ontological approach to that fact.

 

That's not what I meant. I meant, even without any a-priori information about reality, there is "something to work with", in the sense that there exists a mechanism for building a meaningful worldview. I.e. there is a way to start interpreting the data in meaningful way, even without any pre-existing knowledge about it.

 

And actually you could say it is "an explanation as to how concepts are formed in mind"

 

the data is already the a priori information about reality.

the mechanism needs these data to build a meaningful worldview.

and the data must come to its (the mechanism) knowledge to be able to start interpreting.

 

in the mental world, the ultimate constitution is "thought". the mechanism is thought associated with another thought becomes concepts, opinions, world views etc.

 

obviously, matter has also an ultimate constitution, but how do these thoughts can represent these final constitution? you anser is it can't and we don't have to. but is this correct, is the nature of knowledge strictly a logical mechanism only?

 

Yes, and I find those ideas a bit behind the curve at present time. For instance Searle's idea that semantics is intrinsic "human property" as in he does not think any mechanical process can yield a behaviour like that... ...I think it is fairly easy to prove that idea wrong (I kind of touched exactly that subject above). Well, easy to prove if it wasn't for some people who have already made up their mind on the issue and thus refuse to seriously think about it :P

 

look at it this way, what is the universe? is it an organism or a mechanism? can you tell for sure? or you have already made up your mind about it? for i suspect that the epistemological approach you spouse assumed that the universe is the latter rather than the former. you think that the universe is a computer, no?

 

Now I think you are asking the right questions! That is what the epistemological analysis is about. Begin with thinking about, what sorts of collections of ideas would be invalid just for the simple reason that they would contradict themselves. One defined pattern cannot also mean a different defined pattern. I.e, a defined pattern is something that leads to a known outcome by some large probability. A defined persistent element is in one way or another a defined pattern that leads to a similar pattern over and over. (Since you think about this in terms of "brain" and neurological concepts, you can take brain as a pattern recognition device)

 

Communicating this in english language is painfully sloppy and even I think the above is almost impossible to understand absolutely correctly. That is why the epistemological analysis is working in terms of differential statements about probability functions. That is quite a bit more powerful tool in logic than english words and intuitive conceptualization.

 

as i have said, when you start to use this method, you will also violate the essence of general semantics. you cannot start the analysis without making first the axioms of your system.

 

Okay but you already formed concepts in your mind when you refer to something as "substance". You must also recognize that it is easy to change perspective and understand the "same thing" in different ways (general semantics and all that) -Anssi

 

perhaps i should introduce the word "experience" to the discussion. since we are also talking the nature of knowledge and human experience is also an aspect of knowledge which is more substantial and encompassing than the mental processes we possess. so this same thing is experience and known. that is a a priori info, the unknown data you refer if you will. when we change perspective or adopt new explanation to that thing, it doesn't mean that the thing constantly changes with our concepts. our experience of this thing is not a concept. they are just begging for the right explanation.

 

(Since you think about this in terms of "brain" and neurological concepts, you can take brain as a pattern recognition device)

exactly!. the brain to me is sufficient, it has a "software" of its own that does the explaining for us.

[AnssiH]

for example, we observed gravity, we ask question, what is it the math (measurable relationship of observable variables ) can remain the same and with predictive powers but the physical explanation can be numerous.

 

I think what you refer to as "physical explanation" here is what I would refer to as "ontological interpretation".

 

like the earth and the apple accelerates toward one another, or the space has pressure and push them together or there is an invisible force field that attract them together. the point is unless we know what gravity actually is ( and there could only be one answer to that) we will never fully understand it. the current body of scientific knowledge we have just needs tweaking from time to time.

 

And I think what you call tweaking I would call "paradigm change" :)

Anyway ->

 

it is impossible to start from scratch because you will have to violate your own a priori of unknowable ontological elements. somewhere along the line, you will have to make an assumption ( yes, that the ontological elements are unknown is already an assumption).

 

You have misinterpreted what I'm saying a bit. Of course a worldview will contain assumptions about the "meaning of the noumena" at some point. But I am not claiming to know anything about ontological reality, nor am I claiming that the epistemological analysis will tell you anything about the ontological form about reality. I'm saying, that there exists mechanism that will allow a meaningful worldview (a self-coherent set of assumptions) to become formed, and that those mechanisms themselves already give rise to many relationships that are normally thought to be part of ontological reality (i.e. part of the actual content of the "noumena to be explained"). In your examples you are referring to those relationships as possibly ontological of nature. "Possibly", but there is no reason to believe so, when those relationships are shown to be a function of "any meaningful object identification mechanism".

 

And there where I said "relationships", I refer to those relationships that you in your terminology refer to as "the math relationships that remain the same while the physical explanation can be numeros".

 

I.e. there are certain relationships that are immutable for any self-coherent worldview because they arise from the symmetries related to the transformation process from "patterns" to "discreet entities". Of course those relationships can be transformed, i.e. expressed in the terminology of many different defined entities. (That would be, taking a semantically different perspective about the same things)

 

And in this context, you can't really say that it is an assumption that the ontological meaning of the "noumena" is unknown. There doesn't exist any explicit information about what sort of pattern constitutes an object, until there exists a way to make some interpretation about that noumena (let's say "sensory data"). I.e. there must exist a mechanism that makes that interpretation. I am talking about exactly the kinds of mechanisms that any AI system needs to perform so to be able to interpret any input data stream in terms of a useful 3D environment (for instance). It's not like reality just hits the surface of our eye and that's how we see it :P

 

you should really make distinction between knowledge and interpretation.

 

I put the word "knowledge" in quotation for that exact reason. I am actually quite fond of the word "interpretation" in this context :)

 

the data is already the a priori information about reality.

the mechanism needs these data to build a meaningful worldview.

and the data must come to its (the mechanism) knowledge to be able to start interpreting.

 

I sometimes refer to those interpretation mechanisms as "data ordering mechanisms" because there are some surprisingly limiting constraints to how the data can be understood (when the interpretation involves a transformation from "data with unknown meaning" to "a meaningful model of discreet entities"). In this context, it's bit of a misnomer to call the mere existence of the "data" as a-priori information about reality, because nothing about its explicit meaning is known. (and I don't really care if it's called "data" or "patterns" or "noumena").

 

look at it this way, what is the universe is it an organism or a mechanism can you tell for sure or you have already made up your mind about it for i suspect that the epistemological approach you spouse assumed that the universe is the latter rather than the former. you think that the universe is a computer, no

 

I don't claim to know anything about the ontological form of reality. You can find me reminding people about that in quite many posts in the past, and also it's important that results of DD's epistemological analysis are not taken as ontological claims.

 

perhaps i should introduce the word experience to the discussion. since we are also talking the nature of knowledge and human experience is also an aspect of knowledge which is more substantial and encompassing than the mental processes we possess.

 

What does it mean to experience before having some worldview? (some way to interpret sensory data in some meaningful way). I don't suppose you are talking about naive realism?

 

-Anssi

[Rade]

Hello. I was re-reading this thread and see my name mentioned by AnssiH:

 

So you can see' date=' it's very confusing for a constructivist to converse with an objectivist; they refer to the same ideas in very different manners. I know Rade likes to talk about objectivism a lot and I get the feeling that you are aligned to those terms a bit too. I think the only real problem for an objectivist comes from the difficulty of coming to terms with the idea that [u']identity itself isn't objective property of reality[/u]

I would like to comment on the statement that is underlined. This claim would be considered false to the Objectivist (imo), as per the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Here is my reason, put into the terms of the presentation by Doctordick, that agree with his definition of terms.

 

First, the presentation of Doctordick begins with what he calls |undefined information|. All aspects of it must be open to explanation, and it is a priori undefined. What this means is that before any possibility of defining, there was |undefined information|. Explanation itself (which involves definition) is possible only because |undefined information| is prior to it. I am not referring to any specific explanation, which can be of specific defined elements, but explanation itself.

 

My way of coming to terms with |undefined information| is to define it as "what exists PLUS what does not exist", which includes everything--period--end of dialog. |undefined information| "is" what it is. This is just another way of saying "what is "is" what is", which symbolically can be represented as "A "is" A", which is a logical tautology, and also goes by the name "logic law of Identity". Thus we see a direct and logically true association between "information" and "identity", in fact, we can say that "information itself" IS "identity itself" (this is the unique conclusion of Rand's Objectivist philosophy).

 

Now, "information", in whatever sense of this word you wish, represents a constraint on some possible variety of Identity itself. So, we could say without complaint that the presentation of Doctordick begins with |undefined constraint on possible variety of Identity itself|, which is a logical way of re-stating |undefined information|.

 

Without a concept of constraint on possible variety, a concept of information is impossible. But, variety of what ? Variety implies something corresponding back to the |undefined information|, which for me is "what exists as object PLUS what does not exist", that is, logically there must be variety associated with |undefined information|. It is this variety of what exists as potential object that serves as actual source of "repetitive patterns of energy" that are open to possible explanation. Given that E = Mc^2, the repetitive patterns refer equally to energy and matter, but, of great importance, |undefined information| as constraint is prior to both energy and matter. [in fact, Doctordick shows how the "mass" of matter derives from his tau dimension, which itself derives from undefined information]. And, it is the repetitive patterns of |undefined information| that we seek to explain by use of definitions. Now, to define means one must discover the form of the identity of the |undefined information|, that is, one must discover the identity of undefined repetitive patterns of energy, not as specific object, but as objective possibility of |undefined information| as variety open to possible explanation.

 

Thus, for the Objectivist there is this valid dialectic found in the presentation of Doctordick (well, at least for me):

 

|undefined information| itself = Objective Identity itself (i.e., the constraint on variety of what exists as object PLUS what does not exist).

Explanation (as a procedure for placing expectations)= Identification of Objective Identity

 

Therefore, identity is the objective property of the reality of |undefined information|, the ultimate source of all explanation.

Edited November 16, 2010 by Rade