GrahamH wrote:
You cant have certainty so live with the doubt and see what you can build from what is available

Yes that is it in a nutshell. A foundational basis that is as true as can be at any point in time but which can never
be perfect by default. And so notions of absolute knowledge are therefore entirely meaningless in such a context

GrahamH wrote:You can't have certainty, so live with the doubt and see what you can build from what is available.
Space time is not certain. Matter is not certain, mind is not certain. Try to explain the physical world from consciousness - fail. Try to explain consciousness from physical world - maybe, if you respect the doubt. Impossible if you deny the doubt.

Fine. Define a world without space or time or objects. Make an argument in this world. I have no idea how you would construct such a thing but apparently you are a believer and you know of a way.

DavidMcC wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:...

Now it does not matter what kind of space/time we accept. It is not necessarily the Cartesian coordinates we are used to. If you want to try and start with a singular world filling 'I' that fine. Go ahead and try! But that's still a version of space. If you want to start with think then fine. It's still going to allow some concept of time.

I'm sure it doesn't, but that is a red herring - the article doesn't mention them.

Of course the article doesn't mention space/time/objects. That's what this thread is about. The fact that they are full of shit.

Now you've lost me. You bring in Cartesian co-ordinates because they're irrelevant?

Yes. You got lost somewhere there.

surreptitious57 wrote:

GrahamH wrote:
You cant have certainty so live with the doubt and see what you can build from what is available

Yes that is it in a nutshell. A foundational basis that is as true as can be at any point in time but which can never
be perfect by default. And so notions of absolute knowledge are therefore entirely meaningless in such a context

You started to say something earlier that was spot on. Science and our knowledge in general is never about certainty but rather about filling in more and more of the picture. A certainty of the absolute kind would be like the death of knowing. Or at a minimum the death of learning.

SpeedOfSound wrote:

GrahamH wrote:You can't have certainty, so live with the doubt and see what you can build from what is available.
Space time is not certain. Matter is not certain, mind is not certain. Try to explain the physical world from consciousness - fail. Try to explain consciousness from physical world - maybe, if you respect the doubt. Impossible if you deny the doubt.

Fine. Define a world without space or time or objects. Make an argument in this world. I have no idea how you would construct such a thing but apparently you are a believer and you know of a way.

Clearly YOU are the beliver and I am the sceptic. I'll take physicalism as the pragmatic starting point. You seem to want to claim more than that.

GrahamH wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

GrahamH wrote:You can't have certainty, so live with the doubt and see what you can build from what is available.
Space time is not certain. Matter is not certain, mind is not certain. Try to explain the physical world from consciousness - fail. Try to explain consciousness from physical world - maybe, if you respect the doubt. Impossible if you deny the doubt.

Fine. Define a world without space or time or objects. Make an argument in this world. I have no idea how you would construct such a thing but apparently you are a believer and you know of a way.

Clearly YOU are the beliver and I am the sceptic. I'll take physicalism as the pragmatic starting point. You seem to want to claim more than that.

I'm claiming you ca't make the cogito argument without assumptions about space/time/objects. You claimed you could or so it sounded like you did to me. Can you?

SpeedOfSound wrote:
You started to say something earlier that was spot on. Science and our knowledge in general is never about certainty but
rather about filling in more and more of the picture. A certainty of the absolute kind would be like the death of knowing

You have to have something to begin with in order to determine certain axioms that are self evident such as the physicality of time and space and the objectivity of science and mathematics in determining how everything works. Then you can start to fill in the more intricate pieces of the puzzle as knowledge increases. But you must remember that the puzzle will never be complete. It is always good to remember that the entire process which allowed this to happen was a random one. For it was not an inevitability that a species with both the inquisitiveness and intelligence to investigate the observable universe could actually be. Now our existence is proof it did happen. Although it was statistically very improbable it would however

And so if ever we get frustrated at not being able to find the answers that we are looking for we should be grateful that we are actually here in the first place to ask questions. Now our guaranteed extinction makes knowledge acquisition ultimately meaningless but the way to override such negativity is simply to accept our fate as fact and not ponder too much if at all on why it is happening. Because we are only passing through at the end of the day for this is not our final destination. What we do is only important to us. It has precisely zero consequence in the grand scheme of things. As long as we do not forget that we can proceed with our humble quest to learn as much as we can before passing onto the final aforementioned destination

SpeedOfSound wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

GrahamH wrote:You can't have certainty, so live with the doubt and see what you can build from what is available.
Space time is not certain. Matter is not certain, mind is not certain. Try to explain the physical world from consciousness - fail. Try to explain consciousness from physical world - maybe, if you respect the doubt. Impossible if you deny the doubt.

Fine. Define a world without space or time or objects. Make an argument in this world. I have no idea how you would construct such a thing but apparently you are a believer and you know of a way.

Clearly YOU are the beliver and I am the sceptic. I'll take physicalism as the pragmatic starting point. You seem to want to claim more than that.

I'm claiming you ca't make the cogito argument without assumptions about space/time/objects. You claimed you could or so it sounded like you did to me. Can you?

I don't think the cogito is much use. It doesn't justify 'I am' nor 'spacetime is'.
That human thinking is limited to temporal patterns, cause and effect and so on, says nothing whatsoever about the ontology of spacetime.

GrahamH wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:
Fine. Define a world without space or time or objects. Make an argument in this world. I have no idea how you would construct such a thing but apparently you are a believer and you know of a way.

Clearly YOU are the beliver and I am the sceptic. I'll take physicalism as the pragmatic starting point. You seem to want to claim more than that.

I'm claiming you ca't make the cogito argument without assumptions about space/time/objects. You claimed you could or so it sounded like you did to me. Can you?

I don't think the cogito is much use. It doesn't justify 'I am' nor 'spacetime is'.
That human thinking is limited to temporal patterns, cause and effect and so on, says nothing whatsoever about the ontology of spacetime.

The inescapable fact that there is space/time and objects says all that needs be said about that.

Your statement of faith is noted. You experience time so time must the really-trully certain thing. Ramen.

GrahamH wrote:Your statement of faith is noted. You experience time so time must the really-trully certain thing. Ramen.

Let's unpack that a bit. You are offering up an alternative called really-truly that hasn't time of any kind. Nor objects or space. What is it? How does 'I think' fare in your proposed reality?

Better yet how do you get to work in this world?

So I have a concept of I and think and I say that 'I do this think thing'. So now I have a concept of do and of possession and the like. And a about a hundred other backing concepts that we could tease out of this.

My claim, again, is that you can't pick and already formed pair of concepts out of your adult knowledge and claim them fundamental while claiming all the formative concepts are not.

Pick one and you must take them all.

I'll leave that as a simple formulation of the threads first purpose.

Hmm. I'm not seeing any progress past the idea that the starting point has to be a working assumption or postulate, vaguely along the lines that Descartes used.

Another way to consider going that way: the "logical alternatives are non-starters" technique.

That is, we assume that we exist, because if we assume we don't, there's no point in doing or thinking anything at all. Only useful if you want to go with a life based on drinking beer and watching football in your underwear. Attractive, I know, but the need for occasional fresh underwear to prevent chafing, drives even the most ardent of these faithful to do what it takes to get some. And to arrange beer deliveries.

No, really.

Kant held that we mediate or structure the world around us by our very natural structure. That we impose structure on the world. He also held, and no one likes to bring this up, that we do exactly the same thing with mental artifacts. That neither is to be trusted.

There is a transcendent view of the Ding an sich that is presumably held as a god's eye view. My view, in spite of my rule that we should never talk about the gods that are viewing, is that the god's eye view suffers the same structuring curse. That there is no absolute truth because truth is always in relation to that which finds it. My truth is a structural and dynamic relationship with whatever it is that I draw it on.

So on this view the whole nature and structure of truth is also given to the structuring/mediating curse. The god's or the aliens may have no analog for it in their structuring.

igorfrankensteen wrote:Hmm. I'm not seeing any progress past the idea that the starting point has to be a working assumption or postulate, vaguely along the lines that Descartes used.

Another way to consider going that way: the "logical alternatives are non-starters" technique.

That is, we assume that we exist, because if we assume we don't, there's no point in doing or thinking anything at all. Only useful if you want to go with a life based on drinking beer and watching football in your underwear. Attractive, I know, but the need for occasional fresh underwear to prevent chafing, drives even the most ardent of these faithful to do what it takes to get some. And to arrange beer deliveries.

No, really.

I'm going to go with a starting point of 'everything we know' as axiomatic. That is a bit different. Granted we may refine, toss, or add axioms.


You know I can't tell you how excited I was when I found out that Big Bottle on Lyndale delivers.

SpeedOfSound wrote:

GrahamH wrote:Your statement of faith is noted. You experience time so time must the really-trully certain thing. Ramen.

Let's unpack that a bit. You are offering up an alternative called really-truly that hasn't time of any kind. Nor objects or space. What is it? How does 'I think' fare in your proposed reality?

Better yet how do you get to work in this world?

No, I'm NOT offering up an alternative. I'm pointing that all these metaphysical 'alternatives' are bunkum. There are serious physisists who doubt that space or time are actually fundamental.

Once again I'll point out that limits of human thinking are not reliable guides to the nature of reality. That we think in middle-scale, spatio-temporal terms doesn't make that The Truth.

GrahamH wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

GrahamH wrote:Your statement of faith is noted. You experience time so time must the really-trully certain thing. Ramen.

Let's unpack that a bit. You are offering up an alternative called really-truly that hasn't time of any kind. Nor objects or space. What is it? How does 'I think' fare in your proposed reality?

Better yet how do you get to work in this world?

No, I'm NOT offering up an alternative. I'm pointing that all these metaphysical 'alternatives' are bunkum. There are serious physisists who doubt that space or time are actually fundamental.

Once again I'll point out that limits of human thinking are not reliable guides to the nature of reality. That we think in middle-scale, spatio-temporal terms doesn't make that The Truth.

What do you mean the Truth?

I'm pointing that all these metaphysical 'alternatives' are bunkum. There are serious physisists who doubt that space or time are actually fundamental.

So you think the idea that there is space/time and objects is metaphysical bunkum along the lines of a turtle holding up the world? sure sounds like that's what you said here.

These brilliant physicists have their Truth which is different from the child's? Let's see about that.

First you have to re-imagine what is meant by space/time. A little. Imagine a very limited metaphysic where there are many objects, n, and the only property these objects have is that one is related to another by touching as a many_to_many relationship. This is automatically a spatial metaphysic. Not so Cartesian though.

Now if one of these objects is 'I' and the relationships with 'I' are not always fixed then this automatically brings us time in an I-frame.

This is what I mean by space/time/objects. Nothing more. I'll have to a little to be sure no mistake has been made in that model.

Now with that abstract minimalism in mind we can come back to our world and ask about the child's truth of there being a carrot over there. Then the PB, Phisicum brilliantalis comes along and says the child is wrong. The thing over there is really X and over there simply a frame of reference, etc.

Is that the truth that the child wanted? Or did he want a carrot? What if the PB get's hungry and desires a carrot? Is the PB now wrong and the child right? Which is Really Truth?

Now say the PB owns (or pl0bs pwns) the Truth. How does PB account for the child always finding the carrot-over-there as truth? Consistently. The PB will have some set of propositions that account for the child's truth. A transform on the child's truth that maps to the new theory of the PB's truth. Such that the child's transform on the PB's truth always results in the carrot being over there.

So how is the child wrong exactly?

Very important question.

SpeedOfSound wrote:So you think the idea that there is space/time and objects is metaphysical bunkum along the lines of a turtle holding up the world? sure sounds like that's what you said here.

Clearly not. All I'm doing is rejecting the notion that known physics is 'the bottom turtle'.
It's not a turtle at all since it is observable, measurable and we can model it. Leave out the metaphysics.

You started this topic to criticise the cogito, but all you did was swap one unfounded metaphysical assumption for different metaphysical assumption. Where does that get you?

Is 'I am thinking, therefore I exist' justified? No.
Is 'I experience objects and time, therefore spacetime is real' any better? No.

SpeedOfSound wrote:So how is the child wrong exactly?

Very important question.

Wrong question. We can imagine various fantasies in which the child would be wrong, but these are fantasies we cannot validate.

How is anyone right? Why do you claim to know what you can't actually know?

Why does this matter to you?