DL's Book

[dlewis]

Tmj, you ask,

"I think trying to equate information/data with knowledge leaves no explanation of error, or even volition."

I hope the except on my "cholce" above explains this at least to some degree. Also realize that I don't think knowledge is exactly the same thing as physical information-- I think physical information only is what is presently recorded in space-time, but it does not really include the future or the lost past-- I'm conceiving of knowledge within an infinite timescape.

You also question,

"How would the information/knowledge paradigm be affected in the example if instead of two men in a field, it was one man viewing a holographic image of another man?"

Initially the communication may be very similar in viewing a holographic image versus a real person, although the holographic image itself would not possess the same internal information (There are some fascinating Star Trek episodes dealing with this issue as you are probably aware). It would be quite an illusory device that could keep up that charade for a long time, I would think, before the observer would start to detect inconsistencies with the world he/she normally experiences.

[dlewis]

Ok--my last comment today-- just to amend what I said above in post #22: "I believe cause to be a more primary concept, seeding both inertial action (what I call "state") and change (i.e. a cause involves some action (state) in the process of changing into something else)."

I mean "state" to be any inertial or stable action. So I think the holarchy is:

Knowledge: any/all "actualizations" (probable and actual things).

Cause (probable): any first/primary actualizations--things/actions that could or do lead to other things/actions.

State: any more primal constant/stable active thing.

Change: Any actions from one thing to another.

Note: Effects are the missing "actual" part completing my idea of knowledge.

[dlewis]

Lol--sorry--not "more primal" or even "stable" for state--wrong connotation-- I mean "first context"

[Ellen Stuttle]

The take-home of the first law of classical mechanics for philosophy is: drop the old doctrine that every change requires a cause. A body moving in a straight line at a constant speed requires no cause to continue in that condition; changing that sort of change does require a cause. Sorry for the repetition of this elementary point, but philosophers fully aware of the correct physics principle of motion sometimes forget it when thinking about metaphysics and go on to maintain that every change has a cause. That is false, and the means by which people thought it true needs to be kept always on probation best we can.

Hopefully, we will not now in this thread use mention of physics to wander far afield into physics, that is, into physics not directly tied to the epistemological and metaphysical views Dan has woven in this book. So far, we're still on the beam.

Sorry for the physics question, but why are you calling a state of uniform motion "change"?

Ellen

[Guyau]

.

Inertial motion of a body is a translational motion, which is to say, change of a body's location.

[Peter]

Dan Lewis wrote:

The whole idea of knowledge permeating all things is meant to say we must have SOME pre-programming there, so the "mind" (unless we are talking about this as consciousness itself) really isn't ever a "blank slate."

end quote

Fascinating stuff Dan. Unschooled as I am in your field I would be interested to know more. A pre-conscious brain certainly must have the apparatus to regulate its automatic systems like the heart and the early brain may exhibit signs it is sleeping. What other pre-programming do humans have? Does a subconscious exist before consciousness? Dreaming?

Tangentially, my thinking BDL (before Dan Lewis) is that when an infant is in the womb and its brain waves (are they alpha, delta, and theta?) FIRST occur, as they do in adults, then that is the point I would say *consciousness* begins and the baby human should be granted, conditional rights though it is still dependent upon its mother. That is when a *person* is there.

Tell us about human pre-programming.

[tmj]

I know nothing about brain wave activity identification or monitoring. Do they , the readings show changes in different periods of life? Its an interesting topic when tied to justifying 'fetal rights' or 'abortion rights'. Why would the standard be an adult's readings' profile and not the reading profile of a full term baby day +1? or is it that the readings are similar? And is this or could this the be the medical standard when determining that someone is 'brain dead', and that life sustaining techiques can or should be withheld?

[Jonathan]

The take-home of the first law of classical mechanics for philosophy is: drop the old doctrine that every change requires a cause. A body moving in a straight line at a constant speed requires no cause to continue in that condition; changing that sort of change does require a cause. Sorry for the repetition of this elementary point, but philosophers fully aware of the correct physics principle of motion sometimes forget it when thinking about metaphysics and go on to maintain that every change has a cause. That is false, and the means by which people thought it true needs to be kept always on probation best we can.

Hopefully, we will not now in this thread use mention of physics to wander far afield into physics, that is, into physics not directly tied to the epistemological and metaphysical views Dan has woven in this book. So far, we're still on the beam.

Sorry for the physics question, but why are you calling a state of uniform motion "change"?

Ellen

That's really not a physics question, but an epistemological one: It's about Stephen's using different definitions/meanings of the same word in the same paragraph, and apparently confusing them, and confusing how others use them.

J

[dlewis]

Peter, I'm afraid I've researched only a little into neuroscience and cognitive psychology. My footnotes in the first passage clarify most of what I know. So when you ask what other pre-programming humans have, I really can't answer authoritatively, though I find the fields important and fascinating. My approach mainly is from epistemology and systemology-- from the logic of natural, or evolutionary design-- my professional training has been as a visual artist and educator, which led me to study philosophy, mainly Rand, some scientific theory and general philosophy, so that over the course of almost twenty years, I've been able to develop an axiomatic structure/system that I think can be used as a mechanism to organize, at least the basic structures, for all fields of knowledge. I've created about 20 different structures-- the most thoroughly researched ones are in the book, covering the elements and principles physics, epistmology, ethics, aesthetics and visual art. The other structures look promising-- I've started ones for literature, music, performance, mathmatics, logic, psychology, biology, politics, sexuality, meteorology, permaculture, botany, and evolution, but they aren't researched or developed well enough yet.

Stephen's prior book references on cognitive development look really interesting-- that precipice between matter and life then "mind" is at the crux of a lot of issues, not just epistemological, but potentially ethical and sociopolical. My non-expert thoughts on how humans develop from DNA is that DNA given the right environmental context, becomes living or aware at conception-- on perhaps an unconsious level-- the level e.g. of plants, and that it probably goes through stages of "subconsicousness" as a fetus, first at some invertebrate level and then taking on higher vertebrate qualities as the spine and neural network begin to form. There are likely some prenatal forms of consciousness, or memories/percepts that develop in the brain as a result of tactile-emotional responses to stimuli in the womb (research has been done to observe that fetuses respond to music/sound as well), but I don't know exactly when that normally occurs. As you state, most neuroscientists say the third trimester is when cognitive functioning and our brains becomes developed (perhaps that pre-frontal lobe that separates humans from other animals). I'm not sure the development of this, as "consciousness," is where we necessarily should draw the line for human autonomy-- even thought the baby may be able to survive as a conscious human outside of the womb at some third-trimester stage, it may be that birth itself signifies an assertion of that child's first natural "rights." That is an interesting debate. There may be another thread on this issue on OL.

[dlewis]

The take-home of the first law of classical mechanics for philosophy is: drop the old doctrine that every change requires a cause. A body moving in a straight line at a constant speed requires no cause to continue in that condition; changing that sort of change does require a cause. Sorry for the repetition of this elementary point, but philosophers fully aware of the correct physics principle of motion sometimes forget it when thinking about metaphysics and go on to maintain that every change has a cause. That is false, and the means by which people thought it true needs to be kept always on probation best we can.

Hopefully, we will not now in this thread use mention of physics to wander far afield into physics, that is, into physics not directly tied to the epistemological and metaphysical views Dan has woven in this book. So far, we're still on the beam.

Sorry for the physics question, but why are you calling a state of uniform motion "change"?

Ellen

That's really not a physics question, but an epistemological one: It's about Stephen's using different definitions/meanings of the same word in the same paragraph, and apparently confusing them, and confusing how others use them.

J

Expanding on this same idea, I think science informs philosophy on what has to be considered, but cannot dictate all of what things are, just because something is discovered. Science by its empirical methodology always has to limit variables in some way (perhaps the most noted claims of this are Hiesenburg uncertainty and observations of our "cosmological horizon"). Thus science on its own really doesn't seem able to prove something completely and fundamentally--the gaps left by science need to be filled in by some kind of associative logic (I think axiomatic concepts are the most brilliant solution). So I don't think classical physics, just because it doesn't pressuppose cause with its law of inertia, can rule out cause as something more fundamental to inertia, and it seems more logical to me that a change of location still requires cause, something (or at least context) that initiates or at least allows that change to occur.

[dlewis]

Note also that I don't think cause is axiomatic, or self-proven, like the concepts I'm positing. I just think cause makes the best sense as an intermediary concept from knowledge to state and change.

[Guyau]

Re #35: Material causality remains universal within physics, including in the alterations that are (i) inertial motion or (ii) spontaneous decay of elementary particles (half-lives). From my "Induction on Identity" (1991):

. . .

When one comes to formulate ideas about inanimate motion more generally, things become much less obvious, and customary experience can put one in the wrong frame of mind. It was very difficult for man to get straight which motions needed to be explained, which motions have causes in the primary sense. Today, students of physics learn the answer when they are taught the law of inertia, the law that a body will continue at constant speed and in a straight line (or will remain at rest) unless acted upon by a force. At a more advanced level, students learn that and how the inertia principle has been recast in more general forms: in the Lagrangian mechanics, as an extremal principle which tells how a body will move when or when not subjected to external forces; and in general relativity, as the principle that free bodies travel along geodesics of spacetime whether curved or flat.

It is only the elementary form of the law of inertia that concerns us here. Aristotle and his followers held to principles contrary the inertia principle. Terrestrial bodies, when moving, naturally tend to move towards certain places of repose (Phys. 199b14–19, 208b9–15, 215a1–21, 230a19–231a17). The heavenly spheres, upon which ride the heavenly bodies, naturally and always move in circular ways. Here let us confine attention to terrestrial bodies whose natural direction of motion is towards the earth: the earthly bodies, not water, air, nor fire. Aristotle’s camp took the free fall of earthly bodies as natural and as standing in no need of special explanation; no external force is being applied to keep such bodies falling to the earth. Any other motion of an earthly body, any motion that is not free fall, needs special external explanation. Moreover, any motion at all requires some explanation. “Everything that is in motion must be moved by something. For if it has not the source of its motion in itself it is evident that it is moved by something other than itself, for there must be something else which moves it” (Phys. 241b34–36).

What could be more sensible? In our life experiences here on the surface of the earth, we have countless confirmations of Aristotle’s thesis every day. To get an object moving requires effort, to keep it moving requires effort, and the object will sooner or later return to rest. The strings of the harp will return to silence. For Galileo and his followers to propose that motion, provided it be uniform, required no explanation, no efficient cause, but that non-uniform motion, including coming to rest, did, they had to put on new thinking caps. (Although it does not affect my argument, I should note for historical accuracy that it was not until Descartes that uniform motion was surely taken to be along a straight line; Galileo took it to be along a circle of constant radius, with center at the center of the earth.) These men could not leave the answer to habitual experience (nor to tradition). Formulating physical principles simply according to the most usual observations would not have led men to the law of inertia. Until this law and its conceptual vantage were discovered, the scientific revolution could not happen (Butterfield 1965, 14–28, 67–85; McClosky 1983).[25]

In common sense and in most scientific reasoning, we make the tried and true presumption that occurrences have causes. Hume discussed this principle in the venerated form “whatever begins to exist, must have a cause of existence.” He contended that this principle is not a necessary truth. He may have actually doubted the truth of the principle (T 78–82). We should distinguish two interpretations of the principle. In one we take cause as material cause, and in the other, we take cause as efficient cause. As to material cause, the principle seems to have held up perfectly in the two and a half centuries of science since Hume. It holds for all elementary particles; every particle gets made from some others. As to efficient cause, the principle holds always for cause in the broad mode; each type of elementary particle has its distinctive ways of coming about. (It seems to me that Kant’s defense of the principle as pertaining to efficient causality, in his celebrated Second Analogy, succeeds for the broad mode, but not for the narrow; Kant 1965 A190-211 B233–56; Brittan 1978, 170–71, 181–82.) Again as to efficient cause, the principle evidently does not hold in the narrow mode for elementary particles. There is no narrow cause of a particle decay, so there can be no narrow cause of the decay products. Remember, too, the proverb of particle physicists: “Seek not reasons for decay, but seek the barriers to decay.” At the level of elementary particles, we seek reasons for stability (Frauenfelder and Henley 1974, 83–87; Sachs 1987, 100–103, 175-77; Weinberg 1981).[26]
. . .

[Guyau]

Well, I could add here the following amplification, from this 2008 addendum to my "Functions of Mathematical Description in Astronomy and Optics – Illustrations from Antiquity" (1999):

Reading this composition these nine years later, it took me a while to see why I was referring to the principle of conservation of angular momentum as a causal explanation of phenomena at all. Conservation principles are reasons, they fulfill because, but are they causal explanations? I had written “if asked why the earth continues its axial rotation, I should say this is due to conservation of angular momentum.” That’s pretty bad. All it really says is that unchanging continuance of the earth’s axial rotation is a case of the principle of inertia, Newton’s first law. That is a principle that sorts motions into those not requiring an explanation in terms of an external cause (force or torque) and the sorts of motion that do require an external cause. The steady spinning earth (supposing its angular velocity were exactly unvarying) is the sort of motion not requiring an external causal explanation at all.

That each cubic inch of matter composing the earth is rotating about the earth's axis, rather than traveling along some straight line at constant speed, does require causal explanation external to each such part. To begin mathematical characterization to serve causal explanations, we turn from Newton’s first law to his second.

But let us not simply toss conservation principles into the bin of characterization by an essential form. Instead of the whole spinning globe, think of the way a spinning figure skater draws in her arms to spin faster. Appealing to the conservation of angular momentum is a squarely causal explanation for what is going on in this maneuver. The lesson I draw then is that a given conservation principle can be appealed to merely to point out an essential form present in a case at hand (unvarying spin of earth) or appealed to by way of causal explanation (changing spin of skater).

In my 1991 essay “Induction on Identity,” I had written “Out of all the conditions that obtain in a situation, we typically take only one or a few as cause of some distinctive result, only a select portion of the ways in which the law of identity applies to an action or a becoming. We try to discover among antecedent conditions ones that will make a certain result under a wide range of variations in the remaining variable conditions. . . . In a primary sense, causes make things happen” (Objectivity V1N3, pp.25–26). That still goes. I’m pleased to say that this conception of causality has been developed in a really big way by James Woodward in Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation (OUP 2003).

Looking to our further, modern understanding of why angular momentum is conserved, Bob and Peter remind us that isotropy of space joined with Hamilton’s principle implies that conservation. I say that causality is quartered in Hamilton’s principle, and the way causality can be brought out of it in classical domains, such as for the extended causal explanation of the changing spin of the skater, is through the relation between the Hamiltonian (a composition of energies in this situation) and force (or torque). With rendition of an application in terms of forces, we could turn to Newton’s second law (and third) to produce a causal analysis, in mathematical form.

As you would expect, I do not agree that causation is in the head and not given by the world. There are true causes, and mathematical characterizations help us find them and their situation in the mind-independent world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Following on the lesson I drew above, it appears that in Newton’s derivation of the form of the law of gravity in Book 1 of Principia, he uses the conservation of angular momentum only as an essential form. However, the principle is here doing significant explanatory work (noncausal), unlike in an appeal to conservation of angular momentum to “explain” the continued rotation of the earth on its axis.

In Newton’s dynamical analysis of planetary motion, the conservation of angular momentum was quartered in the law of equal areas. Kepler had discovered that law, you will recall, for the elliptical orbits of the planets. Newton demonstrated that the law holds more generally for any orbit due to any sort of central force.

This generalization is necessary for his grand strategy of demonstrating the various separation-dependencies of the various force laws that would be required for various supposed forms of orbits (mathematically specified of course)—to the end of showing that his demonstration of the form of the actual force for the actual planetary orbits is an instance of a general form of demonstration upon very general dynamical principles (http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/in...amp;#entry45789 ). (Instructive: The Key to Newton’s Dynamics by J. B. Brackenridge [u of CA 1995] and, rocking the boat, essay 3 in Reading Natural Philosophy edited by D. B. Malament [Open Court 2002])

Newton’s generalized law of equal areas in equal times is Proposition I, Theorem I of Principia Book 1. The demonstration relies on Newton’s first law alone. (Newton’s use of the second law in his proof of the parallelogram rule is dispensable.) In Proposition II, Theorem II, Newton demonstrates that any body subject to central forces (as in Prop. I) is subject, more specifically, to a centripetal force. This demonstration relies on Newton’s second law, as well as the first. Proposition IV, Theorem IV derives the general mathematical form of centripetal forces, relying on Propositions I and II. (The Scholium here mentions his alternative demonstration, from his student days, of this mathematical form [ http://www.solopassion.com/node/2361#comment-61725 ].) Proposition VI, Theorem V codes centripetal force into a characteristic of the instantaneous arc along the path of an orbiting body. This demonstration relies on Proposition I and its corollaries.

The specific form of the centripetal force (gravity) that sets an orbiting body in an elliptical orbit, where the source of the force is located at one focus of the ellipse, is demonstrated in Proposition XI, Problem VI. The demonstration relies on Proposition VI. All of these demonstrations rely on geometry. That is not a causal element here, unlike in machinery.

Newton’s demonstration of the mathematical form of the law of gravity is an explanation. His demonstration displays explanatory structure, following the causal structure of nature. Forces have sources, and the form of those forces dictate the form of orbits about the source. The form of the orbits indicates the form of their external cause.

Proposition XI relies on Newton’s first law and second law. Conservation of angular momentum enters in the way that the first law enters. Causality enters under the second law. Conservation of angular momentum is part of the Newtonian explanation of the law of gravity, but it is not the causal strand in the explanation.

When we come to general relativity, the gravitational force is seen as a particular type of curvature relation between nearby geodesics in a curved spacetime. It is sensible to say that spacetime curvature dictates that planets shall orbit the sun in the way they do. Certain aspects of spacetime (not mere space) become causes. But, of course, spacetime curvature is caused by source matter/fields. Causality runs from source mass-energy density to spacetime curvature to characteristics of the motion of bodies in that spacetime vicinity. Newton’s law of gravitation is recovered from general relativity in the joint limit of (i) velocities small in comparison to c and (ii) weak gravitational fields.

On the loss of traction from Noether’s theorem when applied in GR so as to include not only mass-energy density but energy of the (nonlocal) gravitational field, see Roger Penrose’s The Road to Reality, pp. 489–90 (Knopf 2004).

Related:
http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/in...amp;#entry28908

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/in...amp;#entry27765

http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/Objectivi...0242_3.shtml#69

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Using ancient astronomy for examples, I moved from the uses of mathematics in observation to its uses in characterization by essential form to its uses more particularly in characterizations that are causal explanations. In my next note, I want to look at a case, from optics, having those three, but scientific experimentation as well.

I'm delighted to be getting some of your vista, Dan, and looking forward to more and more.

[Peter]

Dan Lewis wrote:

The whole idea of knowledge permeating all things is meant to say we must have SOME pre-programming there, so the "mind" (unless we are talking about this as consciousness itself) really isn't ever a "blank slate."

end quote

But the mind IS free of concepts and higher level thinking.

I suppose a race like the Eloi in H.G. Well’s “The Time Machine,” could be bred for submissiveness but I am doubtful that concepts could be carried through DNA. I remember a SciFi premise where a race is programmed from conception to be in awe of “The Changeling” masters. I think that was StarTrek Deep Space Nine.

You coin the phrases: "cholce," or "holistic choice." I read of studies using fMRI’s that map human brain activity. It is interesting that our responses to stimuli can go through subconscious processes, gut responses, and then we act out our rational response. Michael mentioned the millions of neurons firing off coming from multiple directions from within our brains.

Sense of life is programming. Military basic training is programming. Video games can be programming. Brain washing is programming. An inborn sense of shyness is programming. Yet to a degree programming can be reprogrammed and that starts with *volition.* And at some level we are *free.*

Too bad another sentient species doesn’t inhabit our earth. Each species could tell the other, how our responses are shaped by our DNA.

You “hu-mans” are all alike!

Ha! You Centaurs act like herd animals!

[dlewis]

Wow Stephen-- those are excellent excerpts from your articles/esseays--they bring up crucial ideas about kinds of causality, its primacy in in different fields, and its tie in to different physical laws.

The conclusion of your "Induction and Identity" analysis above that

" Again as to efficient cause, the principle evidently does not hold in the narrow mode for elementary particles. There is no narrow cause of a particle decay, so there can be no narrow cause of the decay products. Remember, too, the proverb of particle physicists: “Seek not reasons for decay, but seek the barriers to decay.” At the level of elementary particles, we seek reasons for stability (Frauenfelder and Henley 1974, 83–87; Sachs 1987, 100–103, 175-77; Weinberg 1981).[26]"

makes sense. I think causality, like any wide enough philosophic principle, does not have to be consiously considered as a variable in order for more narrow, focused or specific contexts to have scientific or more braodly, some internal validity/logic. In fact many times trying to take in those larger ideas simply distracts one from more immediate or direct explanations, thus creating confusion. This is where the ideas, limits and the ways in which holarchy works --where things are nested within one another from general to specifc-- becomes really important to understand. I still struggle with discovering and correctly analyzing holarchies--I think a lot of this stems from the fact that I/we live most immediately in a concrete world where relatively, the very small and very grand are cloaked in layers from our percepts. Writing the book it became clear to me how important ideas like only, some, any and all became to try to clarify general and specific realities and essences. I'm still not exactly sure how to phrase holarchies in a good syllogistic way-- has a defined methodology for this been discovered beyond the traditional laws of inference? I tend to find the laws of inference more confusing and restrictive than really helpful in discovering a truth--again, like with science, there seems to be a problem with limiting variables in logic as well, because the premises almost always are incomplete in some way (perhaps demonstrated by Godel's incompleteness theorem) --that's why I was so drawn to axiomatic concepts and axiomatic structure, as ways to really link and secure the foundational roots of epistemology in metaphysics in a way so inclusive and holarchic, that all other things or knowledge would have to be nested within that structure somehow.

The lynchpin for me was when I finally realized existence, being anything and everything, no matter the time, place or context, (which you, Stephen, originally helped show me btw), had to mean that there was in fact a completely unavoidable self-proven or "axiomatic" idea, engulfing both metaphysics and epistemology. With this, the other three ideas of self, proof (primally as identity, e.g. A=A) and some idea (e.g. knowledge or consciousness) had to also be there. Of course the more exact nature, function and order of those concepts was a lot of other work-- but I figured there had to be some primary system including those four things!

The connections and differences between the metaphysical and physical, what I describe as manifesting as "essences" and "realities" (my two first derivatives from existence), was also a turning point for me-- in how abstact ideas like quantities and qualities (e.g. essences) could have a kind of physical embodiement within some never-ending space-time context(s), thus beiing metaphysical. This seemed to explain why metaphysical things could easily be construed/misconstrued as "otherworldly," because essences would be always underneath realities, "fueling" them.

Specifically geometries of the universe in the way you site Penrose (I have read sections of The Road to Reality-- what a book!), I also find really important to understanding the "metaphysical" or universal laws of nature. I think the geometries, directional paths and motions within space-time (not all that different from "strings" in theorectical physics) could uncover foundational pathways echoing though things of similar quality on different scales, structures and levels, so that we may be able to more potently visualize, harmonize and evolve holarchic structures on multiple levels at once (in a way this thought is very Buckminster Fulleresque).

[dlewis]

Peter,

I wholeheartedly agree with your statement (italics mine),

"But the mind IS free of concepts and higher level thinking (at early developmental stages)."

I too think concepts come about later in development, after birth, due to enviromental conditioning in combination with the right human/higher animal "programming," (DNA and/or otherwise) which as a by product creates a new volitional "self-concious" state of awareness. Here, you are right, we gain a new level of freedom.

But I also think there is some lower level of this same kind of freedom in the self-regulatory processes of any "multifunctional" entity (because it is somehow containing as a whole more than one way of functioning). I don't think programming innately discounts this kind of freedom. I think internal constraints and freedoms are always at work in "multifunctional" individuals. We as individuals are innately limited forms of knowledge (here is where the soucre of our error comes about that tmj questioned in an eariler post), constrained by our "genetics" (internal contriants) and "environments" (external constraints), but if individuals on any level have more than one way they function, still retaining their essential cores, this is an active freedom-- the best example I give in a footnote is that the potential "cholce" within water, seen in all its flexibilities as an entity, from its various states, bodies and atmospheric formations, to is permeation underground, in plants, animals and so much of our own bodies-- it is quite versatile and therefore can maintain its core structure, even without any form of what we call living awareness.

This idea is really very Buddhist/Hinduist, but without the notion that "consciousness" permeates or is everything. I'm just trying to see how knowledge, as some eternal physical informaton propogation, would evolve to the effect that new properties could emerge more gradually-- I don't think our kind of volition (e.g. choice), as remarkable as it is, is so fundamentally different rom other potential forms of "cholce"--I think it is perhaps a higher level of functioning, but it doesn't necessarily offer us more freedom or at least success than other individual multifunctions.

What are your thoughts on this?

[dlewis]

Peter,

You are right-- I realize I don't need (at early developmental stages) there--we can choose to put ourselves in a non-conceptual state (like inducing a coma). But by doing so we are simultaneously shutting off that level of volitional capacity--I think this is why a term like cholce is needed to understand self-regulation on different levels. It seems harder to go from a lower to a higher level than from a higher to lower level, especially if we look at emergence in evolution though mutation and environmental change, don't you think? Would this alawys be due to the increased complexity of the action or context?

[Guyau]

Dan, my distinction between narrow and broad senses of causality was not spelled out in the portions of “Induction on Identity” I quoted. My distinction given elsewhere in the essay is as follows, and I was wondering if this is how you would formulate causality in the broad sense as opposed to causality in the narrow sense.

Narrow: Same causes under same conditions produce same effects, or, there is one and only one possible outcome of a fully specified physical setup.

Broad: Identical existents, in given circumstances, will always produce results not wholly identical to results produced by different existents in those same circumstances.

As you know, Rand set causality in identity with the brief statement “The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action.” A few years latter, she stated what she meant by the law of causality: “All the . . . forms, motions, combinations, and dissolutions of elements within the universe . . . are caused and determined by the nature of the elements involved.”

That is a broad enough formulation of the law of causality to not run afoul of the principle of inertia. For she says all motions are caused by the nature of the elements involved, not that all motions have efficient causes. I can endorse Rand’s formulation of the law of causality, provided I give a looser meaning to “determined by” than she meant. She meant determined by in the narrow sense above; I allow it only in the broad sense above.

One readily notices that in her statement of the principle of causality, she uses the term caused. As I wrote in the essay two decades ago: fundamentally, causes make things happen. I doubt one can define “make things happen” without some ostension, and I imagine that is one driver towards making the concept cause an axiom or corollary of axioms. Ronald Merrill argued it should be held as an axiom in “Axioms: The Eightfold Way.” (1995)

I have another more general principle, also from “Induction on Identity,” which I named the principle of substantive propagation: The ways things are has grown out of the ways things have been. But that is broader than the principle of causality (even with causality’s broad determined). Causality is subsumed under the principle of substantive propagation, but I reserve causality for a class within “growing out of.” For a body in inertial motion (including being at rest) grows out of its past without an efficient cause. Physics informs philosophy.

Is your broadest concept of causation so broad that it is simply the principle of substantive propagation? How would you state the principle(s) of causality?

[BaalChatzaf]

Roger wrote:

I really sympathize with the Cardassians. They've been so mistreated by the media. :-)

end quote

What I wonder about is flatulence on The Enterprise or an inter galactic space station. You are walking to ten forward and a Klingon walks by and farts.

“Jeezus H. Christ!” you yell. “What were you eating?”

“What?” he replies. “I didn’t do anything.”

One of the primary social stigmata of Kingons is that they fart in air-locks.

And when the finish doing their business in the johns they say - q'plop,

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Peter]

I am still thinking about other posts on this thread but Dan wrote:

We as individuals are innately limited forms of knowledge (here is where the source of our error comes about that tmj questioned in an earlier post), constrained by our "genetics" (internal constraints) and "environments" (external constraints), but if individuals on any level have more than one way they function, still retaining their essential cores, this is an active freedom—

end quote

I agree. We may ALL agree that the choice to raise or lower our level of awareness is the very basic level of volition. External stimuli can *force* a change in awareness as with a loud boom or other stimuli, but if we *choose* to raise or lower our thinking that is a true choice.

And as Dan wrote: “. . . but if individuals on any level have more than one way they function . . . ”

Then choosing what to think about is one step removed from the first choice. Determinists try to trace the “sources” that “cause” them to think about a certain thing or to think in a certain way and therein could lie madness. Similarly, if we try to perceive more than the dimensions we were evolved or designed to notice we might experience extreme vertigo or unconsciousness. Or we might experience extra dimensions as hallucinations, (or ghosts.)

Dan asked in another context though it is relevant to my train of thought, “Would this always be due to the increased complexity of the action or context?”

If a researcher could observe a toddler Ayn Rand (or someone close to her mode of thought, with little programming that has occurred since the beginning of her consciousness) and a mature Objectivist Ayn Rand (or her closest human likeness) and then hook them both up to an advanced form of Lie detector, with an attached, wireless fMRI, and then the two subjects are simultaneously questioned by a modern, mental analyst what would be the results? AND what if each level of Rand-like human deliberately tries to be one hundred percent truthful during all the observation and questioning what would be the result? Even our revered, rational, older Ayn might need enhanced truthfulness as with sodium pentothal, but a free willed toddler, might need no encouragement :-) Otherwise, with an adult human there is always a “holding back” - perhaps not exactly stage fright but something similar that IS preprogramming that would hold her back before uttering the honest truth, and not the “processed” truth.

How does that trite saying go? “In vino veritas” or drunkenness loosens the tongue.

Many of us have exhibited or heard preprogrammed responses that are proclaimed as *rational* responses. We must choose to re-examine ourselves and stop with the recitations and the preprogramming to the extent that we can, as both Dan Lewis and Nathaniel Branden have attempted to do.

[Peter]

Dan Lewis wrote:

However, cholce, being removed from any mental and human constraints, could qualify a level of control (however strong or weak) within all entities, without discounting any physical causality . . . But if self (as will be examined later) holds as an axiomatic concept, this could implicate some kind of all-pervading separating, or individualizing force on all levels of existence. Such self-regulatory forces seem necessary for entities to maintain their unique positions and powers in space-time.

end quote

Expanding from the concept of *choice* Dan derived, *cholce* or cause, effect, state, and change. Your writing is dense in nutrients or, “noodle soup,” as Diana Hsieh might call it, Dan.

I read that Noonan defined “self-regulatory forces” as “*psychological continuity* or links between an intention and a later act, between childhood experiences and adult character traits, persistent beliefs, etc.” So some sort of containment, I think Dan called it, is necessary for the persistence of a person.

[Peter]

If we ever reach the stage of “artificial personalities” such containment would be necessary as well as Asimov’s three laws of robotics to protect humans. It is almost easier to conceptualize a manufactured robot personality than to describe what makes humans tick.

“Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics

1) A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2) A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3) A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection, does not conflict with the First or Second Law.”

end quote

How this programmed morality functions in real life, with Robots using their perceptions of reality, in much the way humans do, is where the drama comes in. Should a robot allow a human being to do something risky? Should a robot steer a human towards more rational acts? Is the greatest good for the greatest number of humans, a consideration for a robot? Within its parameters can a robot be volitional?

Asimov later postulated a 4th Law which I forget.

Edit. I wrote, “Asimov later postulated a 4th Law.” I found it on Wikipedia. It is called the zeroth law.

A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

[Peter]

On Amazon I found the book “Evolition: A Theory of Everything” by Daniel Evergreen, in paperback for $15.25.

Hmmm? Is Daniel Evergreen masquerading as Dan Lewis? Why the difference in names, Dan? Explain the paradox and I might buy the book.

Peter

The blurb reads thusly:

Why should you read “Evolition” versus other philosophies or Theories of Everything?

“Evolition” probes into the most essential and primal of concepts, carefully defining and linking them together into one grand, evolutionary pattern. This pattern is deduced from four “axiomatic concepts,” first postulated by Ayn Rand and elucidated by other Objectivist philosophers, but explored more critically in “Evolition,” uncovering how they function not only as basic mental standards, but as infinite, “a priori” fundamentals for everything, meaning they are (or are within) everything all the time, and thus ultimately cannot be denied.

An “axiomatic structure” starting from such concepts (existence, knowledge, self and identity) splits into eight, then sixteen other basic concepts… ideas like essence and reality, cause and effect, individual and collective, content and form, as well as other concepts like quantity, entity, change, reason, value, truth, and good. The structure demonstrates a natural hierarchy, reciprocal and simultaneous relations, as well as a transitional, four-part balance that explains why basic systems (like four-dimensional space-time and four fundamental forces) likely reduce in this way.

Also, “metaphysical” things (like essences) are posited as physical things that do not end in time, as contrasted from the purely “physical,” helping to alleviate any “mind-body” dichotomies that tend to permeate traditional philosophies. Another key idea is that choice comes as a natural evolution from self-regulated change; if knowledge can be regulated within individuals, it alleviates the need for evolutionary “randomness” by offering us in turn, limited individual powers in an otherwise deterministic universe.

Not only this, but over 150 different principles and elements across five different fields—epistemology, physics, ethics, aesthetics and visual art—are defined and ordered from primal concepts. The principles and elements of physics are outlined in a logical, not overly technical way, by using current scientific information and axiomatic structure as a guide, and geometrically visualizing the process in a very broad-based way. Additionally, what may be the first comprehensively organized, axiomatic structures for ethics, aesthetics and visual art, are flushed out, uncovering an uncanny synergy between the humanities, sciences and philosophy, all without compromising the creative possibilities that often give humanities their purpose and relevancy.

So if you are wondering how everything can connect without the need for reductionism, dichotomies, randomness, or supernatural causes, “Evolition” provides a noteworthy answer. However, it is one that can be adapted to many philosophies pragmatically, no matter one's belief or disbelief in God.

[Guyau]

.

Peter, thanks for the blurb. Evergreen is a pen name. Daniel Lewis is his given name.

[Peter]

"Every fact of science was once damned. Every invention was considered impossible. Every discovery was a nervous shock to some orthodoxy." -- Robert Anton Wilson

Stephen Boydstun wrote:

Peter, thanks for the blurb. Evergreen is a pen name. Dan Lewis is his real name.

end quote

Thank you Stephen. Praise be to Thor. I would always wonder about the ethics of cringing while shaking someone’s hand and saying, “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Evergreen.” It’s just too British, though Dan, Daniel, or Lewis raise no hackles.

Confucius say, “As evergreen ages it can never accept its graying.” OK, I am making this up. How about: What happened to the sheep? She bleated to death.