Philosophy Discussion Forums

Belindi: Surely you feel intentions? Your intentions are final causes of any event that concerns you.

Yes, obviously one must have an affinity to some sort of "casual nexus" to even get out of bed in the morning - even if it's a Platonic bed.

P.S. - That is a "causal," not a "casual" nexus, except maybe if it's casually causal or vice versa.

Belindi wrote: ↑September 25th, 2019, 7:04 am GaryLouisSmith wrote:

There is no causal nexus in my philosophy.

Then viewing a boy, making tea, breaking your leg, and so forth are not necessary events. As not necessary events they are not events in the mind of god.

As not events in the mind of god they nevertheless may exist causally in human experience. Surely you feel intentions? Your intentions are final causes of any event that concerns you. Including breaking your leg; you intended to climb that tree you fell out of.

https://www.google.com/search?q=wittgen ... e&ie=UTF-8

I think it exceedingly strange, but enlightening, that I side with Wittgenstein and many others in not believing in the causal nexus and suddenly I am the absurdist du jour.

I rather agree with Gary about forms. Eternal forms. Why not? All the same things keep on happening, only in different ways.

Reality certainly does appear to be based on imperfect fractals, the imperfections making possible the varieties of forms we see. But we see a lot of forms repeat, both physical and metaphysical. Eg. the branching of trees, rivers, ideas, social and company structures. Even the comic web!

But the analogies are never exact. Encapsulating systems like solar systems, cells and atoms are all obviously regions of great density - the Sun, cellular nuclei, atomic nuclei - that control and maintain the activities of their surrounding zones. Yet they are never perfect analogies for each other, eg. electrons and mitochondria don't orbit their nuclei as the planets orbits stars. However, they all are largely under their central region's control.

Particulation is another good one. Any homogeneous field will particulate, forming areas of concentration. Then those concentrated zones will absorb their environment, effectively clearing space around themselves. Stars, planets, cities ...

Inversion and eversion - turning inside out - is other hit in Greta's Top Ten Tropes of Nature ... supernovas, gastrulation, death and this charming example https://infinitespider.com/stomach-ever ... e-animals/

Greta wrote: ↑September 25th, 2019, 7:31 pm
I rather agree with Gary about forms. Eternal forms. Why not? All the same things keep on happening, only in different ways.

You mentioned my name, Greta, so I guess I’ll reply. Yes, I am mesmerized by form. But that is not the end of the story. I am a realist about forms. That does not only mean that I think they are real in the world. I have an erotic relation to them. Let me try a different approach to my ideas.

Let’s say you live in the country and there is a big field near you with ravines and cliffs and streams and the whole lot. Yes it is full of all those forms you mentioned. And you like to contemplate all that, so you go for a walk out away from your house. You lie down and you doze off. When you wake up it has started to rain. In fact it is starting to come down harder and harder. So soon the field turns into a swamp. That ravine you crossed is full of mud. The brambles you made your way through are soaked. But you have to make it back home. The way has become treacherous. You have to watch your every step. Now you don’t contemplate forms; you just try desperately to get across that field back to the safety of your home. You have been caught up in all those forms. The nexus between you and them is a tight nerve-wracking entanglement. You can think of nothing except where to step next.

That is realism. Yes, the forms are real and you are right there caught up in them. That is what I call an erotic encounter. You try to make it to the end. No more quiet, serene contemplation. You deal with it.

GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑September 25th, 2019, 9:19 pm

Greta wrote: ↑September 25th, 2019, 7:31 pm
I rather agree with Gary about forms. Eternal forms. Why not? All the same things keep on happening, only in different ways.

You mentioned my name, Greta, so I guess I’ll reply. Yes, I am mesmerized by form. But that is not the end of the story. I am a realist about forms. That does not only mean that I think they are real in the world. I have an erotic relation to them. Let me try a different approach to my ideas.

Let’s say you live in the country and there is a big field near you with ravines and cliffs and streams and the whole lot. Yes it is full of all those forms you mentioned. And you like to contemplate all that, so you go for a walk out away from your house. You lie down and you doze off. When you wake up it has started to rain. In fact it is starting to come down harder and harder. So soon the field turns into a swamp. That ravine you crossed is full of mud. The brambles you made your way through are soaked. But you have to make it back home. The way has become treacherous. You have to watch your every step. Now you don’t contemplate forms; you just try desperately to get across that field back to the safety of your home. You have been caught up in all those forms. The nexus between you and them is a tight nerve-wracking entanglement. You can think of nothing except where to step next.

That is realism. Yes, the forms are real and you are right there caught up in them. That is what I call an erotic encounter. You try to make it to the end. No more quiet, serene contemplation. You deal with it.

Sure, if stuck in the scenario you mentioned, I'd care plenty. More likely, though, I would have checked the forecast and left before trouble arrived. Why assume that I'd get carried away and neglect practicalities? Is that something you used to do?

Nor do I care if forms are real in the world. It's a notion based on the wrong question, like pulling your computer to pieces in search of a program. You won't find a program in there, only hardware. We know that standard forms appear time and again. Spheres and hexagons. Pi. Fibonacci ... they are metaphysically real.

That is realism. Yes, the forms are real and you are right there caught up in them.

The local coyotes seem to agree, they are howling in the background as I write this - it's early at night for that sort of conduct.

Greta wrote: ↑September 25th, 2019, 10:53 pm

GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑September 25th, 2019, 9:19 pm

You mentioned my name, Greta, so I guess I’ll reply. Yes, I am mesmerized by form. But that is not the end of the story. I am a realist about forms. That does not only mean that I think they are real in the world. I have an erotic relation to them. Let me try a different approach to my ideas.

Let’s say you live in the country and there is a big field near you with ravines and cliffs and streams and the whole lot. Yes it is full of all those forms you mentioned. And you like to contemplate all that, so you go for a walk out away from your house. You lie down and you doze off. When you wake up it has started to rain. In fact it is starting to come down harder and harder. So soon the field turns into a swamp. That ravine you crossed is full of mud. The brambles you made your way through are soaked. But you have to make it back home. The way has become treacherous. You have to watch your every step. Now you don’t contemplate forms; you just try desperately to get across that field back to the safety of your home. You have been caught up in all those forms. The nexus between you and them is a tight nerve-wracking entanglement. You can think of nothing except where to step next.

That is realism. Yes, the forms are real and you are right there caught up in them. That is what I call an erotic encounter. You try to make it to the end. No more quiet, serene contemplation. You deal with it.

Sure, if stuck in the scenario you mentioned, I'd care plenty. More likely, though, I would have checked the forecast and left before trouble arrived. Why assume that I'd get carried away and neglect practicalities? Is that something you used to do?

Nor do I care if forms are real in the world. It's a notion based on the wrong question, like pulling your computer to pieces in search of a program. You won't find a program in there, only hardware. We know that standard forms appear time and again. Spheres and hexagons. Pi. Fibonacci ... they are metaphysically real.

Ok, you are a lady who never gets stuck. Sorry I mentioned it. Never mind.

My reply made clear that your assumption about me was as wrong as all of your others. No, Gary, I am not too lost in forms to check the weather forecast. Perhaps you need to wake up from your dream?

The question is about the existence of God, not about how good or effective a person we are. Theists on forums almost always seem to resort to personal pissing contests. Who is the best person? Who has the "correct" philosophy? Bleagh.

Simply, you were talking about forms and I agreed, and also discussed aspects of forms. Let's take it further. You claimed that gods had a particular form and that is not true. Gods take whatever form the individual wants them to take. There is no particular god form, nor particular god qualities. The concept is almost entirely amorphous once you put together all those deities.

Greta wrote: ↑September 25th, 2019, 11:30 pm My reply made clear that your assumption about me was as wrong as all of your others. No, Gary, I am not too lost in forms to check the weather forecast. Perhaps you need to wake up from your dream?

The question is about the existence of God, not about how good or effective a person we are. Theists on forums almost always seem to resort to personal pissing contests. Who is the best person? Who has the "correct" philosophy? Bleagh.

Simply, you were talking about forms and I agreed, and also discussed aspects of forms. Let's take it further. You claimed that gods had a particular form and that is not true. Gods take whatever form the individual wants them to take. There is no particular god form, nor particular god qualities. The concept is almost entirely amorphous once you put together all those deities.

What I was arguing in my first piece to you was that a philosophy that has only form is inadequate. There must also be a material substratum that exemplifies that form. In my ontology I call that substratum a bare particular. That bare particular exemplifies the form. The question is how we experience that material substratum, that bare particular. In physics matter is mostly form. Chemical, electromagnetic, subatomic etc. it is all a very formal thing. The question of what has or exemplifies that form is never asked. For instance a field is a wave, so what’s waving? The question isn’t asked.
I presented that little story of someone getting trapped in the rain as a way to present our experience of that bare particular that is tied to the form. At each step in that person’s struggle he is aware of THAT. It is THAT that he is dealing with. The bare particular. He has lost concern with form and he thinks only of THAT. It is THAT that exemplifies the form. It is THAT that one must know and have in order to complete one’s philosophy.
Most philosophies today have no THAT. They have only pure form, which is usually expressed in set theory. Set of sets of sets of sets … all the way down to infinity without ever having any urelement that is fundamental.

GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑September 26th, 2019, 12:54 am

Greta wrote: ↑September 25th, 2019, 11:30 pm My reply made clear that your assumption about me was as wrong as all of your others. No, Gary, I am not too lost in forms to check the weather forecast. Perhaps you need to wake up from your dream?

The question is about the existence of God, not about how good or effective a person we are. Theists on forums almost always seem to resort to personal pissing contests. Who is the best person? Who has the "correct" philosophy? Bleagh.

Simply, you were talking about forms and I agreed, and also discussed aspects of forms. Let's take it further. You claimed that gods had a particular form and that is not true. Gods take whatever form the individual wants them to take. There is no particular god form, nor particular god qualities. The concept is almost entirely amorphous once you put together all those deities.

What I was arguing in my first piece to you was that a philosophy that has only form is inadequate. There must also be a material substratum that exemplifies that form.

Sure, and the material naturally follows variations on these fundamental forms / dynamics.

GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑September 26th, 2019, 12:54 amIn my ontology I call that substratum a bare particular. That bare particular exemplifies the form. The question is how we experience that material substratum, that bare particular. In physics matter is mostly form. Chemical, electromagnetic, subatomic etc. it is all a very formal thing. The question of what has or exemplifies that form is never asked. For instance a field is a wave, so what’s waving?

The fabric of reality. The closest definition of energy is "work". That is, energy (and thus matter) is a perturbation of reality. What is that fabric of reality? Apparently more energy, only finer.

GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑September 26th, 2019, 12:54 amI presented that little story of someone getting trapped in the rain as a way to present our experience of that bare particular that is tied to the form. At each step in that person’s struggle he is aware of THAT. It is THAT that he is dealing with. The bare particular. He has lost concern with form and he thinks only of THAT. It is THAT that exemplifies the form. It is THAT that one must know and have in order to complete one’s philosophy.
Most philosophies today have no THAT. They have only pure form, which is usually expressed in set theory. Set of sets of sets of sets … all the way down to infinity without ever having any urelement that is fundamental.

That seems quite eastern. The gonzo philosophy of the ancient subcontinentals. They'd meditate and explore the mental terrain, and then report their findings. As far as I can tell, the fundamental element is the subatomic particle.

I don't know what it means to "complete" one's philosophy. There will always be unknowns that better informed people of the future can handle.

GaryLouisSmith wrote:

I think it exceedingly strange, but enlightening, that I side with Wittgenstein and many others in not believing in the causal nexus and suddenly I am the absurdist du jour.

No, that's not absurd.

Alternative to the causal nexus are

a)Eternity as in timelessness.

b) Chaos.

I can't sustain my life in either eternity of chaos. You can't either. What nexus other than time/causality do you live in because I can't think of one?

Belindi wrote: ↑September 26th, 2019, 5:32 am GaryLouisSmith wrote:

I think it exceedingly strange, but enlightening, that I side with Wittgenstein and many others in not believing in the causal nexus and suddenly I am the absurdist du jour.

No, that's not absurd.

Alternative to the causal nexus are

a)Eternity as in timelessness.

b) Chaos.

I can't sustain my life in either eternity of chaos. You can't either. What nexus other than time/causality do you live in because I can't think of one?

Objections to the "causal nexus" are not a critique of determinism in any sense, nor a denial that cause and effect are real.
Objections to the causal nexus is that no such link is perceptible to the senses, or properly imaginable.
All descriptions of causality rely on a series of ever more detailed metaphors, yet there seems no practical or actual limit to the detail.
Were we to start with "I switched on a light"; there is an obvious and mundane causality that can be demonstrated again, and again, by me switching it off and on again. But the causal nexus is bound up with electrical potential in the wires, the quality of the light filament, and a chain of causes that run way back the the power station, and the ultimate source of the energy which resides in the energy from the sun that made the coal, gas, wind - or whatever powers sources contributed to the production of the electricity.
But it does not stop there, since we would have to consider the manufacture of all the equipment. And I have not ever started on my personal motivation for turning the light on, nor the massive chain of events which led me to being in the room.

So for the most simple moment of cause, where EXACTLY is the nexus?
None of this denies determinism.

Greta wrote: ↑September 26th, 2019, 2:49 am

GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑September 26th, 2019, 12:54 am

What I was arguing in my first piece to you was that a philosophy that has only form is inadequate. There must also be a material substratum that exemplifies that form.

Sure, and the material naturally follows variations on these fundamental forms / dynamics.

GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑September 26th, 2019, 12:54 amIn my ontology I call that substratum a bare particular. That bare particular exemplifies the form. The question is how we experience that material substratum, that bare particular. In physics matter is mostly form. Chemical, electromagnetic, subatomic etc. it is all a very formal thing. The question of what has or exemplifies that form is never asked. For instance a field is a wave, so what’s waving?

The fabric of reality. The closest definition of energy is "work". That is, energy (and thus matter) is a perturbation of reality. What is that fabric of reality? Apparently more energy, only finer.

GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑September 26th, 2019, 12:54 amI presented that little story of someone getting trapped in the rain as a way to present our experience of that bare particular that is tied to the form. At each step in that person’s struggle he is aware of THAT. It is THAT that he is dealing with. The bare particular. He has lost concern with form and he thinks only of THAT. It is THAT that exemplifies the form. It is THAT that one must know and have in order to complete one’s philosophy.
Most philosophies today have no THAT. They have only pure form, which is usually expressed in set theory. Set of sets of sets of sets … all the way down to infinity without ever having any urelement that is fundamental.

That seems quite eastern. The gonzo philosophy of the ancient subcontinentals. They'd meditate and explore the mental terrain, and then report their findings. As far as I can tell, the fundamental element is the subatomic particle.

I don't know what it means to "complete" one's philosophy. There will always be unknowns that better informed people of the future can handle.

I knew that it was probably to use the word "matter" in my reply. Matter in metaphysics and matter in physics are very different. In metaphysics is simply means that which individuates and holds or exemplifies properties. You know what it means in physics. It's not an Eastern idea. It comes out of twentieth century Logical Analysis. And beyond that from John Locke.

GaryLouisSmith wrote: ↑September 26th, 2019, 7:04 am

I knew that it was probably to use the word "matter" in my reply. Matter in metaphysics and matter in physics are very different. In metaphysics is simply means that which individuates and holds or exemplifies properties. You know what it means in physics. It's not an Eastern idea. It comes out of twentieth century Logical Analysis. And beyond that from John Locke.
[/quote]

Why oh why am I in such a hurry to push submit after which I cannot change my typos? Again - I knew that it was probably a mistake to use the word "matter" in my reply. Matter in metaphysics and matter in physics are very different. In metaphysics it simply means that which individuates and holds or exemplifies properties. You know what it means in physics. It's not an Eastern idea. It comes out of twentieth century Logical Analysis. And beyond that from John Locke.