Assigning number values to none existent things

[Halc]

Having no known cause is not the same as having no cause.

Fair enough. An entirely deterministic interpretation like Bohmian has hidden causes for such things.
White holes are a source of uncaused events, but the are no known white holes, despite their being a valid solution to Einstein's field equations. Plenty of nonexistent things (e.g. tachyons) are allowed by those equations.

[3017Metaphysician]

I seem to be keeping you quite busy. Not intentional, but you seem to be the only one posting interesting topics.

Causation laws either posit infinite regress or some logically necessary thing-in-itself that caused the theoretical BB.
…
Hence the proposition: all events must have a cause.

Such laws have never been demonstrated, and are demonstrably false. Quantum mechanics has effects without cause, so that’s an example of uncaused occurrences. Another example is the abrupt end of time in a black hole, which, given the symmetry of time, also allows the abrupt beginning of time in the same way. None of these things violate the laws of the universe, but they do violate this causation ‘law’ you quoted above.
First-cause is only a problem for realism: How to explain the reality of whatever it is you consider real. Under presentism for instance, the universe is not there, and then later on it is. That’s a serious issue.
I’ve seen a paper that managed to compete with Einstein’s relativity theory (a century too late), denying both premises of special relativity. It is esssentially a generalization of LET, something nobody ever published in the 20th century. It gets around the big bang problem and the black hole problem by denying both, replacing them with a big bounce and a sort of egg-shell model near the nonexistent ‘space’ within.

Sure Halc (and thank you btw). Either way though, the most intriguing part about the causes of actually asking about causes, is that it in itself, it confers no biological survival value. And most importantly, asides from imaginary leap's, all physical theories start with synthetic propositions (all events must have a cause) since they can be tested.

Too, there will always be wonder and curiosity effecting the human condition. There is no escape. The good news is, wondering about the why's (along with what, where, when, how, who, etc.) ironically enough, effects our quality of life stuff! Without such properties of conscious existence, there would be little advancement within the human condition.

And irrational numbers are said to be transcendent.

No idea what you mean by that. How is √2 more 'trancendent' than 7/5?

Poorly worded on my part. √2 is irrational but not transcendent since it is the solution to x² = 2.

Steady state theory. A sense of eternity.

Steady-state theory is a denial of entropy progression. It says that the universe looks more or less the same for all of time. It makes all sorts of predictions that don’t match empirical evidence.
This isn’t a multiverse view, and my question was what sort of multiverse you were referencing. There’s a bunch of different kinds.

I was just broad brushing it. Remember, if something exists, everything exists.

If something exists, everything exists.

Even self-contradictory things? I mean, I can make a square circle, but some things just don't work.

Yes even contradictory things exist. A simple example from logic is three fold:

1. There exists at least one true proposition. (Logical necessity.)
2. This statement is false. (Propositions/contradictions from self-reference.)
3. Socrates: What Plato is about to say is false. Plato: Socrates has just spoken truly.

There’s no contradiction with the existence of any of those statements. The contradiction is only in the assignment of a truth value to them. I was looking for an example of something the existence of which is a contradiction.
[/quote]

There is of course contradiction because, as you suggest, because their truth values are either incomplete (Heisenberg), paradoxical or contradict one another. But hey, that's logic for you! Think of the laws of physics themselves, as being metaphysical, unchanging laws, that describe the physical existence of not only physical things, but a world of change. Kind of reminds me of the mind-body problem when you think about it. It all relates to diametrically opposing features of how the world works, and how one thinks about stuff.

Similarly, aside from the existence of those existing propositions that are contradictory, and the contradictory unchanging mathematical laws themselves, it's worth mentioning that one's own conscious existence is contradictory yet exists. The infamous driving while daydreaming riddle bears witness. Hence the proposition: I was driving and not driving. It's a true statement, but logically impossible.

Many of us existentialists find truth in contradiction. Isn't the idea of quantum phenomena and relativity supposed to somehow unite or resolve two opposing features of the universe? There exists both determinism (causation) and indeterminism (QM) in the universe.

[GE Morton]

The infamous driving while daydreaming riddle bears witness. Hence the proposition: I was driving and not driving. It's a true statement, but logically impossible.

No, it is not a true statement. It is a self-contradictory and therefore false statement. Amazing how you cling to that "riddle," continue to think it meaningful, long after it has been refuted and the conceptual error involved explained.

[Consul]

Quantum mechanics has effects without cause, so that’s an example of uncaused occurrences.

The phrase "causeless effect" is a contradiction in terms, since "effect" is defined as "caused event". You may consistently say instead that QM has events without cause, but a causeless or uncaused event is not an effect.

[3017Metaphysician]

The infamous driving while daydreaming riddle bears witness. Hence the proposition: I was driving and not driving. It's a true statement, but logically impossible.

No, it is not a true statement. It is a self-contradictory and therefore false statement. Amazing how you cling to that "riddle," continue to think it meaningful, long after it has been refuted and the conceptual error involved explained.

GE!

Shame on you. Mama said you were still in time out Seriously, though, it's a true statement of contradiction making it logically impossible, yet exists! That's how the conscious and subconscious minds work together. Amazing isn't it!

Remember conscious phenomena is both/and; not either/or. Logic is/either.

LOL

[Consul]

I am a physicalist, and physicalists certainly do claim that all existents are physical (or reducible to physical ones); but this metaphysical claim is different from and doesn't entail the semantic claim that "existence" is synonymous with "physical existence". If it were, then physicalism would be a necessary analytic truth per definitionem, which it surely isn't.

Well, that is an interesting distinction, but surely your metaphysics must deal with non-physical existents ("semantically" speaking) somehow. Are you suggesting we coin a different term than "exists" for the latter (e.g., thoughts, ideas, memories, etc.)? What would be the advantage of doing so, compared with simply understanding "exists" as applying to the 3 conceptually distinguishable realms of phenomena I mentioned, with different implications for each realm?

I've said before that I think semantics takes priority over metaphysics, that the entire purpose of the latter is to explain experience and communicate about it. A metaphysics that denies the existence of the very experience it purports to explain would seem to be self-mooting and self-refuting.

Materialists needn't be eliminativists about subjective experience. Materialist reductionism can be eliminative, but it can be conservative as well. I am a conservatively reductive materialist!

I'm not sure what you mean by "non-physical existents". If you mean "non-physicSal existents", i.e. entities which belong to some scientific ontology other than the one of physics, then physicalists can happily acknowledge such non-physicSal entities as long as they don't turn out to be non-physical entities, i.e. ones which are ontologically irreducible to entities belonging to the ontology of physics.

I reject Alexius Meinong's distinction between different kinds of Dasein (being-there), between existence and subsistence. If there are immaterial, abstract, or ideal entities, they are not ontologically different from material or concrete ones in the sense that the former subsist, while the latter exist. Their difference is not a difference in Dasein but in Sosein (being-thus, essence, nature).

No, what I wrote doesn't entail that! An object of thought/imagination can but needn't exist.

Again, doesn't it exist as a thought/imagination whether or not it exists as an external, physical entity? Sorry, but your claim there entails that unexpressed thoughts and imaginary entities don't exist.

My claim does entail that imaginary entities do not exist. Note that "imaginary" and "imagined" aren't synonyms! All imaginary objects are imagined, but not all imagined objects are imaginary, since I can imagine non-imaginary, i.e. existent/real, things as well.

I'm not sure what you mean by "unexpressed thoughts" – sentences in a subconscious "language of thought", Fregean thoughts = abstract propositions? (I don't believe in the existence of abstract propositions.)

Once again, in the case of an imaginary object of imagination, the act of imagining exists and the object of imagining does not exist.

Mere objects of thought/imagination do not exist.

Aha! If those don't exist, of what are we speaking? A unicorn, say, must be something, not a nothing (we can't say anything about nothings!) Doesn't being something entail existing, in some sense?

Yes, but being thought to be something does not! Being represented to be X doesn't entail being X!
We can meaningfully think and talk about the Sosein (essence or nature) of unicorns without having to impute any form of Dasein (existence or subsistence) to them.

That is, if something is nothing but/more than/over and above an object of thought/imagination, it doesn't exist. And, again, merely being an object of thought/imagination isn't a kind or way of being.

I see no difference between "a way of being" and "a way (or mode, or category) of existing. Saying a thought is not a "way of being" is saying nothing more than that it does not exist. Which would, of course, be absurd.

I use "way of being" and "way of existing" synonymously too; but "way of being" is ambiguous between "way of Dasein" and "way of Sosein". A way of being in the second sense is an attribute, a property or quality of something; and there are different ways of being in this sense. What I deny is that there are different ways of being qua different ways of Dasein. That is to say, there are different kinds of existentS, because not all existents have the same properties, the same essence or nature; but there aren't any different kinds of existenCE, because all existents exist in one and the same sense of "to exist".

My point is that it is a basic ontological mistake to regard mere entia rationis or objects of thoughts as a sort of entities or existents, and to ascribe a form of being or existence to them, viz. intentional or intramental being or existence. The only thing that has real intramental being in the case of a mere, i.e. fictional or imaginary, object of thought is the thought of it.

It is fair enough to distinguish ens realis from ens rationis. That is equivalent to my distinction between experiential phenomena and physical entities (though I consider the latter to be but a category of conceptual constructs). But making that distinction doesn't purge the latter from existence, as you seem to think. They are still "beings" (per your own terms).

The phrase "ens rationis" is a misnomer, because a so-called ens rationis isn't really an ens (entity/existent) at all!

Mental ideas (concepts) or images of nonexistent things such as those entertained in dreams are certainly existent things, but an idea (concept) or image of a thing is not the thing but something different from it.

Now you're contradicting yourself! Those things now exist after all? Of course the idea of a thing is not the thing, but surely the idea exists, does it not? Are we now in agreement?

Yes, but the crucial point is that the thing an existent idea/image is an idea/image of need not exist.

[Consul]

The phrase "ens rationis" is a misnomer, because a so-called ens rationis isn't really an ens (entity/existent) at all!

In my conceptual understanding, an entity is something existent by definition; so "nonexistent entity" is a contradiction in terms. In order to avoid self-contradiction, I prefer to speak of nonexistent objects, items, or things.

[Halc]

There is of course contradiction because, as you suggest, because their truth values are either incomplete (Heisenberg), paradoxical or contradict one another.

Heisenberg didn't speak of truth values. He spoke of epistemology, the limits of what one can know of a system, which is quite different than there being a truth of the matter or not.

The infamous driving while daydreaming riddle bears witness. Hence the proposition: I was driving and not driving. It's a true statement, but logically impossible.

No, it is not a true statement. It is a self-contradictory and therefore false statement. Amazing how you cling to that "riddle," continue to think it meaningful, long after it has been refuted and the conceptual error involved explained.

I was going to say that doesn't violate the law of non-contradiction, so it isn't logically impossible. The two halves (driving, not driving) are true, but in different ways, which is allowed by said law. It is sort of like Galilean relativity where two people pass each other and each says "I'm stationary, you're not" and they're both right, just relative to different implied frames.

[3017Metaphysician]

There is of course contradiction because, as you suggest, because their truth values are either incomplete (Heisenberg), paradoxical or contradict one another.

Heisenberg didn't speak of truth values. He spoke of epistemology, the limits of what one can know of a system, which is quite different than there being a truth of the matter or not.

Heisenberg spoke of the relationship between certain types of physical variables like position and momentum, which roughly states that you can never simultaneously know both variables exactly. Informally, this means that both the position and momentum of a particle in quantum mechanics can never be exactly known. This is one reason why P and -P axiom is dropped in QM. So the observation of fundamental particles transcend or go beyond logical things like LEM/Bivalence. It's not useful. States of consciousness and cognition are similar.

The infamous driving while daydreaming riddle bears witness. Hence the proposition: I was driving and not driving. It's a true statement, but logically impossible.

No, it is not a true statement. It is a self-contradictory and therefore false statement. Amazing how you cling to that "riddle," continue to think it meaningful, long after it has been refuted and the conceptual error involved explained.

I was going to say that doesn't violate the law of non-contradiction, so it isn't logically impossible. The two halves (driving, not driving) are true, but in different ways, which is allowed by said law. It is sort of like Galilean relativity where two people pass each other and each says "I'm stationary, you're not" and they're both right, just relative to different implied frames.

Sure Halc, "I'm stationary, you're not" does not have multiple truth values. However, driving and not driving does. The experience of daydreaming while driving has an indeterminate truth value. For instance, you thought you were on the beach drinking wine with a cute babe, but in reality you were driving a car, ran a red light and crashed (and hopefully survived to talk about it). Accordingly, all you knew or described was that you were on the beach and not driving. Hence multiple truth values of driving and not driving. Or. if you prefer, you were kind-of driving. Generally, logic doesn't allow for kind-of propositions.

I suppose you could ascribe some sort of multi-valued fuzzy logic to the experience/mental phenomenon itself, but it still would not be accurate mathematically/logically. There's no way to put an exacted percentage value on cognition. Another way to think about that would be one's own thoughts and feelings insolubly mixed together during everyday cognition. There's equally no way to assign binary truth value's to things that occur within one's Will. Thoughts and feelings, gravity and particles, time and change, are all similar phenomena only in that it involves opposing elements. However, they do all relate to a state of becoming over being. A constant state of becoming or changing if you prefer. In cognition, a continuous mixture of qualitative properties in the mind. You know, similar stuff that you can't really see, smell, touch, hear or taste, yet exist.

[khurranakabeta]

I follow Sabine Hossenfelder, I'm hoping to get my hands on her new book, Existential physics, dealing with existence. The You tube videos give insight into some of the contents. The title is reminiscent to the papers I've been working on.

[3017Metaphysician]

I follow Sabine Hossenfelder, I'm hoping to get my hands on her new book, Existential physics, dealing with existence. The You tube videos give insight into some of the contents. The title is reminiscent to the papers I've been working on.

Welcome!

Is that similar to the Constructor Theory of Information?