Footnote: Intuitions in the technical philosophical sense—as non-sensual, purely intellectual or spiritual "visions" or perceptions—are different from intuitions in the ordinary, nonphilosophical sense, in which they are vague gut feelings or hunches.Consul wrote: ↑November 18th, 2021, 3:37 pmThe question of the a priori: Is purely intellectual or rational intuition/contemplation/speculation a source of knowledge (especially knowledge of nonanalytic/synthetic truths)?
Intuition: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intuition/
Is it Metaphysics or Science Fiction...?
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Re: Is it Metaphysics or Science Fiction...?
- Consul
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Re: Is it Metaphysics or Science Fiction...?
To be more precise: Here I'm talking about intuitions in that particular philosophical sense in which they are events/states sui generis rather than just (dispositions/inclinations to) opinions, judgments, or beliefs: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intu ... uiGeneStatConsul wrote: ↑November 21st, 2021, 3:37 pmFootnote: Intuitions in the technical philosophical sense—as non-sensual, purely intellectual or spiritual "visions" or perceptions—…Consul wrote: ↑November 18th, 2021, 3:37 pmThe question of the a priori: Is purely intellectual or rational intuition/contemplation/speculation a source of knowledge (especially knowledge of nonanalytic/synthetic truths)?
Intuition: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intuition/
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Re: Is it Metaphysics or Science Fiction...?
Jack!JackDaydream wrote: ↑November 20th, 2021, 7:52 pm @3017Metaphysician
It seems as if we are back to the mystery of existence. I wonder if there is more to unconscious aspects of existence than many people realise. Of course, I am partly coming from the idea of Jung's collective unconscious. But in some emergent views of consciousness it almost seems that consciousness is seen as an add on feature whereas it may be that there is some underlying consciousness which is primary. Some thinkers have thought that the world of consciousness preceeded descent into the material world. I am not sure that this is what happened but sometimes I do wonder about it as a possibility.
In Biology, the concept of encoded information that arguably exits 'prior' to existence itself (like the idea that abstract/metaphysical structures-Structuralism- existing prior to the BB/mathematics) is very similar to Schopenhauer's World as Will. The Will is viewed as the essence of existence:
Schopenhauer used the word "will" as a human's most familiar designation for the concept that can also be signified by other words such as "desire", "striving", "wanting", "effort" and "urging. When we become conscious of ourself, we realize that our essential qualities are endless urging, craving, striving, wanting, and desiring (similar to Jung/Maslow's 'striving'). These are characteristics of that which we call our will. Schopenhauer affirmed that we can legitimately think that all other phenomena are also essentially and basically will. According to him, will "is the innermost essence, the kernel, of every particular thing and also of the whole. It appears in every blindly acting force of nature, and also in the deliberate conduct of man…."[40]
Schopenhauer said that his predecessors mistakenly thought that the will depends on knowledge. According to him, though, the will is primary and uses knowledge in order to find an object that will satisfy its craving. That which, in us, we call will is Kant's "thing in itself", according to Schopenhauer.
The main body of the work states at the beginning that it assumes prior knowledge of Immanuel Kant's theories, and Schopenhauer is regarded by some as remaining more faithful to Kant's metaphysical system of transcendental idealism than any of the other later German Idealists. However, the book contains an appendix entitled Criticism of the Kantian Philosophy in which Schopenhauer rejects most of Kant's ethics and significant parts of his epistemology and aesthetics.
Schopenhauer believed that Kant had ignored inner experience, as intuited through the will, which was the most important form of experience. Schopenhauer saw the human will as our one window to the world behind the representation; the Kantian thing-in-itself. He believed, therefore, that we could gain knowledge about the thing-in-itself, something Kant said was impossible, since the rest of the relationship between representation and thing-in-itself could be understood by analogy to the relationship between human will and human body. According to Schopenhauer, the entire world is the representation of a single Will, of which our individual wills are phenomena. In this way, Schopenhauer's metaphysics go beyond the limits that Kant had set, but do not go so far as the rationalist system-builders that preceded Kant. Other important differences are Schopenhauer's rejection of eleven of Kant's twelve categories, arguing that only causality was important. Matter and causality were both seen as a union of time and space and thus being equal to each other. Schopenhauer also frequently acknowledges drawing on Plato in the development of his theories and, particularly in the context of aesthetics, speaks of the Platonic forms as existing on an intermediate ontological level between the representation and the Will.
Schopenhauer's philosophy returned to the Kantian distinction between appearances and things-in-themselves, or between phenomena and noumena, in order to stress the limitations of reason. In his major philosophical work, The World as Will and Representation (1819), Schopenhauer reiterated Kant’s claim that, given the structure of human cognition, knowledge of things as they really are is impossible; the best that can be obtained are comparatively superficial representations of things.
But the most influential aspect of Schopenhauer’s philosophy was his recasting of the concept of the will. He viewed the will as a quasi-mystical life force that underlay all of reality: “This word [will] indicates that which is the being-in-itself of everything in the world, and is the sole kernel of every phenomenon.” Although the will remained inaccessible to ideas or concepts, its nature could be fathomed or glimpsed through nonrational aesthetic experience—an insight that was clearly indebted to Schelling’s philosophy as well as to the romantic concept of “genius.”
Jack, Voluntarism and Pantheism/Panenetheism/Emergence are other concepts that run parallel to this philosophy of the Will in consciousness/ nature...
― Albert Einstein
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Re: Is it Metaphysics or Science Fiction...?
Thanks for your reply which gives the details of the way in which Schopenhauer interprets Kant's ideas. I have only read some essays by Schopenhauer, so I was not aware of this. I will try to get hold of 'The World as Will and Representation', as I have been aware for some time that it is an important book to read and your post has made this more clear.
I had interpreted some of Hegel's ideas about the phenomenology of spirit along similar lines. I find him to be an interesting writer. It seems that in many ways that a lot of philosophy, after logical positivism and Wittgenstein, has gone in the direction of ideas within the sciences, especially physics. These ideas are important but it may become a bit distorted if other metaphysical ideas are pushed aside almost completely. The ideal may be to be able to think about science alongside the ideas of the system builders of the past, although that may not be an easy task. However, it may be worthwhile in order to get a more balanced or fluid account of the issues related to existence.
One other writer who I have read about but not read directly is Whitehead. I don't know if you have read him, as there are just so many authors to read.
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Re: Is it Metaphysics or Science Fiction...?
Jack!JackDaydream wrote: ↑November 23rd, 2021, 9:58 am @3017Metaphysician
Thanks for your reply which gives the details of the way in which Schopenhauer interprets Kant's ideas. I have only read some essays by Schopenhauer, so I was not aware of this. I will try to get hold of 'The World as Will and Representation', as I have been aware for some time that it is an important book to read and your post has made this more clear.
I had interpreted some of Hegel's ideas about the phenomenology of spirit along similar lines. I find him to be an interesting writer. It seems that in many ways that a lot of philosophy, after logical positivism and Wittgenstein, has gone in the direction of ideas within the sciences, especially physics. These ideas are important but it may become a bit distorted if other metaphysical ideas are pushed aside almost completely. The ideal may be to be able to think about science alongside the ideas of the system builders of the past, although that may not be an easy task. However, it may be worthwhile in order to get a more balanced or fluid account of the issues related to existence.
One other writer who I have read about but not read directly is Whitehead. I don't know if you have read him, as there are just so many authors to read.
Yep. Good stuff. Whitehead's idea of process-philosophy inspired other's to develop the logic associated with process-theology (process thought in general) and the notion of a 'dipolar God'. Considering mathematics is a logically necessary way to describe the world, it's so-called disadvantage is that it's also considered an unchanging truth, in the face of a world of change.
However, in our world of quantum physics which allows for an inference of an indeterministic process that unfolds over time, similarly, biologically coded information can evolve into a natural state of 'becoming'. This provides for an openness to potentiality which the universe is then free to actualize. This way of thinking integrates both a dynamic and static existence of things such that the tendency for the universe to self-organize into a richer variety (consciousness) of abstract or complex forms of existence can emerge.
― Albert Einstein
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Re: Is it Metaphysics or Science Fiction...?
Fritjof Capra's 'The Tao of Physics' was the first book I ever read related to physics and I found it inspirational. So, I come more to physics from a philosophy point of view, which I am sure is very different from someone who had studied sciences, although I had to study biology in my psychiatric nursing course and I did enjoy that, especially how it involved looking at systems.
In relation to biology, I have read some of the writing of Rupert Sheldrake on morphic resonance and that has interesting philosophy implications. It suggests a form of memory in nature, almost like the collective unconscious or Plato's theory of Forms. However, I believe that many people are dismissive of Sheldrake, David Bohm and Fritjof Capra but that is probably in attempt to support materialism within philosophy. It is a divide within science and philosophy. I even read how there is a big split between materialism and idealism within Buddhism.
One thing which I also read in a recent article in , 'Philosophy Now' magazine is that when Ayer was in hospital, a while before he died, he had a near death experience in which he saw a 'divine being'. Apparently, he said that on that basis he would need to revise his previous philosophy position. I wonder how many who support the view of metaphysics as based on logical positivism are aware of this about this aspect of the end of Ayer's life.
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Re: Is it Metaphysics or Science Fiction...?
You might find the first interview intriguing. As I was listening, too me, it begged the infamous question about whether numbers exist and/or what does it mean to say 'abstract mathematical structures exist' (a Platonic reality). Actually, from an engineering perspective, I was thinking about doing a (another) thread on it....JackDaydream wrote: ↑November 23rd, 2021, 1:59 pm @3017Metaphysician
Fritjof Capra's 'The Tao of Physics' was the first book I ever read related to physics and I found it inspirational. So, I come more to physics from a philosophy point of view, which I am sure is very different from someone who had studied sciences, although I had to study biology in my psychiatric nursing course and I did enjoy that, especially how it involved looking at systems.
In relation to biology, I have read some of the writing of Rupert Sheldrake on morphic resonance and that has interesting philosophy implications. It suggests a form of memory in nature, almost like the collective unconscious or Plato's theory of Forms. However, I believe that many people are dismissive of Sheldrake, David Bohm and Fritjof Capra but that is probably in attempt to support materialism within philosophy. It is a divide within science and philosophy. I even read how there is a big split between materialism and idealism within Buddhism.
One thing which I also read in a recent article in , 'Philosophy Now' magazine is that when Ayer was in hospital, a while before he died, he had a near death experience in which he saw a 'divine being'. Apparently, he said that on that basis he would need to revise his previous philosophy position. I wonder how many who support the view of metaphysics as based on logical positivism are aware of this about this aspect of the end of Ayer's life.
― Albert Einstein
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Re: Is it Metaphysics or Science Fiction...?
There is a Mandatory Permanent Continuous Simplest Non-Composite Fundamental Existent, X, as all there is, because it has no alternative or opposite to its being, for ‘Nonexistence’ can’t even be meant as something, much less be productive.
Why does X have to produce the temporary forms?
X cannot be still or naught would have become as the temporaries, thus, X is not still and so X is energetic and X ever moves.
How does X produce the temporary forms?
X has only itself available to constitute the temporary forms and so these have to be formed via arrangements of itself that can have some persistence as elementary units that have mobility.
What mobility?
X is everywhere and so the elementary units can travel about.
Why elementary?
X is the ultimate lightweight and so the first temporary forms as the elementaries must also be lightweights. The elementary units may then combine or interact to form composite elements, and we know the rest of that story from Science.
But how do we know the first part of the story from Science, as confirmation of the philosophical logic?
X would be the quanta vacuum with its overall quantum field as partless and continuous, as the simplest, mandatory, permanent existent.
A field is merely what has a value at every point, they having to fluctuate, given that there cannot be stillness. The points must tug on one another and so the field at large wavers, this wave nature leading to the necessity of the quantum aspect of stable excitation levels happening.
A model that proves to be correct in representing a field is one that has sums of the harmonic oscillations of the field points. The rather persistent elementaries occur at the stable rungs of energy excitation quanta and they are those quanta.
Wanna-be ‘elementaries’ that do not reach the right excitation level are the still real virtuals that come and go very quickly. We know these from the Casmir effect.
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Re: Is it Metaphysics or Science Fiction...?
Sure! Process-philosophy is much like Wheeler's PAP in QM. Much like consciousness itself, 'reality' requires an observer.PoeticUniverse wrote: ↑November 23rd, 2021, 3:55 pmThere is a Mandatory Permanent Continuous Simplest Non-Composite Fundamental Existent, X, as all there is, because it has no alternative or opposite to its being, for ‘Nonexistence’ can’t even be meant as something, much less be productive.
Why does X have to produce the temporary forms?
X cannot be still or naught would have become as the temporaries, thus, X is not still and so X is energetic and X ever moves.
How does X produce the temporary forms?
X has only itself available to constitute the temporary forms and so these have to be formed via arrangements of itself that can have some persistence as elementary units that have mobility.
What mobility?
X is everywhere and so the elementary units can travel about.
Why elementary?
X is the ultimate lightweight and so the first temporary forms as the elementaries must also be lightweights. The elementary units may then combine or interact to form composite elements, and we know the rest of that story from Science.
But how do we know the first part of the story from Science, as confirmation of the philosophical logic?
X would be the quanta vacuum with its overall quantum field as partless and continuous, as the simplest, mandatory, permanent existent.
A field is merely what has a value at every point, they having to fluctuate, given that there cannot be stillness. The points must tug on one another and so the field at large wavers, this wave nature leading to the necessity of the quantum aspect of stable excitation levels happening.
A model that proves to be correct in representing a field is one that has sums of the harmonic oscillations of the field points. The rather persistent elementaries occur at the stable rungs of energy excitation quanta and they are those quanta.
Wanna-be ‘elementaries’ that do not reach the right excitation level are the still real virtuals that come and go very quickly. We know these from the Casmir effect.
― Albert Einstein
- 3017Metaphysician
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Re: Is it Metaphysics or Science Fiction...?
Jack....I failed to mention the 'third interview' as the gentleman speaks to our existential condition viz Metaphysics....JackDaydream wrote: ↑November 23rd, 2021, 1:59 pm @3017Metaphysician
Fritjof Capra's 'The Tao of Physics' was the first book I ever read related to physics and I found it inspirational. So, I come more to physics from a philosophy point of view, which I am sure is very different from someone who had studied sciences, although I had to study biology in my psychiatric nursing course and I did enjoy that, especially how it involved looking at systems.
In relation to biology, I have read some of the writing of Rupert Sheldrake on morphic resonance and that has interesting philosophy implications. It suggests a form of memory in nature, almost like the collective unconscious or Plato's theory of Forms. However, I believe that many people are dismissive of Sheldrake, David Bohm and Fritjof Capra but that is probably in attempt to support materialism within philosophy. It is a divide within science and philosophy. I even read how there is a big split between materialism and idealism within Buddhism.
One thing which I also read in a recent article in , 'Philosophy Now' magazine is that when Ayer was in hospital, a while before he died, he had a near death experience in which he saw a 'divine being'. Apparently, he said that on that basis he would need to revise his previous philosophy position. I wonder how many who support the view of metaphysics as based on logical positivism are aware of this about this aspect of the end of Ayer's life.
― Albert Einstein
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Re: Is it Metaphysics or Science Fiction...?
I did listen to some of the video but not all of it because I only use this site through my mobile phone. The area which your response took me to was how I loathed maths. I thought how in my final year of being expected to study maths I completely stopped doing any homework because I had so much other homework. I am not sure if my teachers or my parents realised that I had stopped doing maths homework completely.
However, I come from a different perspective on maths now and how numbers may be important metaphysical objectives. One other aspect is the whole nature of numbers on a symbolic level, binaries and even symbolic ideas in the Bible, ranging from ideas of seven as the number of perfection, the idea of 666 as the Antichrist, and the mystery of 12 or 13 as including Jesus or Judas. So, we could ask what role numbers play in ideas about objective truth or symbolic realities?
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Re: Is it Metaphysics or Science Fiction...?
JackDaydream wrote: ↑November 25th, 2021, 11:15 am @3017metaphysician
I did listen to some of the video but not all of it because I only use this site through my mobile phone. The area which your response took me to was how I loathed maths. I thought how in my final year of being expected to study maths I completely stopped doing any homework because I had so much other homework. I am not sure if my teachers or my parents realised that I had stopped doing maths homework completely.
However, I come from a different perspective on maths now and how numbers may be important metaphysical objectives. One other aspect is the whole nature of numbers on a symbolic level, binaries and even symbolic ideas in the Bible, ranging from ideas of seven as the number of perfection, the idea of 666 as the Antichrist, and the mystery of 12 or 13 as including Jesus or Judas. So, we could ask what role numbers play in ideas about objective truth or symbolic realities?
" what role numbers play in ideas about objective truth" is a great question...when I get around to putting together an OP, I'll definitely try to add that concept.... . Try to check-out the third interview... .
― Albert Einstein
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Re: Is it Metaphysics or Science Fiction...?
I think that you should go ahead in creating a thread on mathematics and how this relates to objective issues of truth. Even though I admit to not being a big fan of mathematics, it may be extremely important as considering how determinants of truth may be established. I am prepared to overlook my emotional biases against maths and see where it may lead and help in the nature of philosophy exploration. So, I look forward to reading any thread discussion which you develop.
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