Another view of Leonard Peikoff

[Roger Bissell]

I do not include all my future characteristics, do you?

Roger,

Does this mean that time is not part of what you are? You do not have a future? And in the future, you will no longer be Roger?

I personally will continue to be Michael, both in concept and in fact, irrespective of any future characteristics. That characteristic of staying the same person over time is a property I have right now and includes all future characteristics (and past ones, for that matter).

So to answer your question, yes I do include all my future characteristics. Qua existent.

I don't know how to exist in a timeless state.

Michael

Who said that to exist here and now is to exist timelessly? The only time I ~do~ exist is ~now~.

I do not exist in the past. I ~did~ exist in the past.

I do not exist in the future. I ~will~ (God willing) exist in the future.

I do not include all my past characteristics. I ~did~ include all my past characteristics, ~when I had them~.

I do not include all my future characteristics. I ~will~ include all my future characteristics, ~when I have them~.

I ~do~ include all my present characteristics. The only ones I ~do~ include are the ones I have ~now~.

I do not exist timelessly. I exist at every moment that I exist. But I do not now exist at every moment that I ~did exist~. And I do not now exist at every moment that I ~will exist~.

And Michael, it's reasonable to think that the above statements are all true of ~you~, too.

Metaphysics, especially the metaphysics of time, is a lot easier to keep straight with a good grounding in English grammar, especially the grammar of tenses.

As for persistence of identity, especially the persistence of the ~essence~ of one's identity, that is so because the characteristics one has at a future time are sufficiently similar to those one has now, and because there is an unbroken continuity of a single entity's existence, that we (rightly) say that it is the same person then (in the future) as now, despite countless changes in measurements of those characteristics.

But the characteristics one will have at a future time are ~now~ only ~potential~ characteristics, not ~actual~ characteristics. One contains one's future only as a ~potential~. And that future and potential are open-ended and contingent. A truck might run us over, and then the future characteristics we thought we "included" at an earlier time turn out not to materialize.

It is important to distinguish between the actual and the potential (as well as between the actual and the no-longer-actual). The ~only~ thing that is important and essential about you is what you are now and what you do about it. ("You" meaning: any of us, as individuals.)

REB

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Roger,

I disagree with your concept of a slice of time being an ontological pre-condition of existence. I hold that the past and the future are part of existence in addition to the present. Time exists and we all are part of it just as surely as we are part of the universe.

You claim that the present is the only thing that exists for an existent, while talking about the existence of the past and the existence of the future for that same existent. That's a contradiction. Either the past and future exist for the existent or they do not. You can't have both and have a valid syllogism.

Anyway, there is no such thing as a time-frozen state in reality, so why should our concepts about reality be time-frozen? That is making an incorrect or incomplete referent for broad concepts and trying to impose that approach on metaphysics. That's backwards and it doesn't work. Concepts stand for reality. Reality does not stand for concepts. And reality has time (past, present and future) as one of its components.

I agree that within my existence, when looked at from the present only, what I have at the present does not include some things I will have in the future. So we agree on potentials, but from that viewpoint only. Where we part ways is your (unstated) presumption that time is somehow outside of reality and is only a metaphysical kind of potential. I hold that time is a very real existent.

When looked at from the view of my entire existence (me as an entity), my existence includes having a future until I die, including all things in that future. Time is part of me as an entity. I do not continue to be the entity of me just because of some kinds of similarities between the present me as opposed to some kind of floating me in the future. In the big picture I will continue to be me irrespective of what may come, and that includes all possibilities.

But in fact, on a tangential but related aspect, I have a great deal of difficulty being aware of the present. The moment I think "I exist," that thought is already in the past by the time I get to the end of it. The present is a hard little sucker to pin down. It is a mistake to try to make the present an ontological condition that wipes out time in our concepts.

Michael

[Roger Bissell]

Roger,

I disagree with your concept of a slice of time being an ontological pre-condition of existence. I hold that the past and the future are part of existence in addition to the present. Time exists and we all are part of it just as surely as we are part of the universe.

You claim that the present is the only thing that exists for an existent, while talking about the existence of the past and the existence of the future for that same existent. That's a contradiction. Either the past and future exist for the existent or they do not. You can't have both and have a valid syllogism.

Anyway, there is no such thing as a time-frozen state in reality, so why should our concepts about reality be time-frozen? That is making an incorrect or incomplete referent for broad concepts and trying to impose that approach on metaphysics. That's backwards and it doesn't work. Concepts stand for reality. Reality does not stand for concepts. And reality has time (past, present and future) as one of its components.

I agree that within my existence, when looked at from the present only, what I have at the present does not include some things I will have in the future. So we agree on potentials, but from that viewpoint only. Where we part ways is your (unstated) presumption that time is somehow outside of reality and is only a metaphysical kind of potential. I hold that time is a very real existent.

When looked at from the view of my entire existence (me as an entity), my existence includes having a future until I die, including all things in that future. Time is part of me as an entity. I do not continue to be the entity of me just because of some kinds of similarities between the present me as opposed to some kind of floating me in the future. In the big picture I will continue to be me irrespective of what may come, and that includes all possibilities.

But in fact, on a tangential but related aspect, I have a great deal of difficulty being aware of the present. The moment I think "I exist," that thought is already in the past by the time I get to the end of it. The present is a hard little sucker to pin down. It is a mistake to try to make the present an ontological condition that wipes out time in our concepts.

Michael

That is a nearly unrecognizable caricature of my position, Michael. I'm not going to discuss this with you further, because I can't trust that you will portray my position accurately enough to not make me sound like some kind of Humean time-slice lunatic. You referred to my supposed "concept of a slice of time being an ontological pre-condition of existence". That is the stupidest, most flat-out nonsensical thing that has ever been said about my views on ~anything~. So, congratulations for that, anyway.

You also seem to have no concept of what a contradiction is involving the use of the words "is," "was," "will be" and "exists." Again, it is impossible to continue discussing the issue with you because of this. :bye:

You also seem to think that you are all of your possibilities. I'm sorry, but what you ~might~ become is not what you ~are~. I can't tell you how many people I know with the attitude, "I am my aspirations," or "I am my good intentions." When I judge people, I go by what they ~are~, not by what they ~say~ they are going to be or do, or would like to be or do, or might be or do. :no:

Robert Efron wrote some really helpful, clarifying things about the concept of the "present," before he left the Objectivist movement in disgust in the late 1960s. You might want to look them up. I'd post them here, but I'm done with this discussion. You can have the last word. I'm going to stop and smell the coffee. Here and now. Sorry the present is so elusive for you. :poke:

Onward to the future, which doesn't exist yet...

REB

[Brant Gaede]

Time does not exist except as a measurement of motion. One year is once around the sun. Four billion down, about 4 to go.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Roger,

Have you noticed that when you disagree with me, you become insulting?

I don't recall doing that with you.

Ever.

Anyway, I thought you had a clear notion between fact and concept. You said you did several times.

But I find in our discussions that when I discuss fact (ontology), you slide in concept (epistemology and things like grammar) and pretend that's the issue, and vice-versa, then make some long pronouncements on master of the obvious stuff and (almost always wrong) suppositions about my intent, and then call it all stupid. You often lace this stuff with sarcasm.

Like I asked you before, what do you really want to discuss with a dummy like me? Why bother? You did well to bow out. It seems to get you upset.

At least you can see one of the reasons I have refrained from discussing ideas with you before when you were making so many mistakes about what I wrote. This manner of yours is intimidating. Not to me, but intimidating in general. I find it bothersome and ultimately my attention wanders.

I like the ideas, not the insults.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

She didn't. She merely said concepts were open-ended. In other words, concepts can expand in content, they admit new knowledge as it is discovered. I assume you were being sarcastic, Daniel. If so, you failed. If not, I apologise. Nicholas Dykes.

Concepts refer to all characteristics, including ones unknown. Yet concepts are man's sole means of true and certain knowledge. I didn't say it made sense to inveigle it in (there is a lot of similar fudging with Rand however, so it is not unusual). Perhaps she needed a rhetorical bulwark against the obviously skeptical consequences of her "contextual certainty" theory. As Fred Seddon put it (towards the end of this otherwise rather misguided article) this theory amounts to we may know p, yet p may be false. This is a plainly skeptical position that flies in the face of her rhetorical attacks on skeptics.

At any rate, I am away this weekend so am not able to reply till my return. Meantime I did respond to your prior attack on Karl Popper, which you may care to consider.

Edited August 15, 2008 by Daniel Barnes

[Brant Gaede]

Roger, Michael is right about this. It's true that Michael can mis-represent another poster, but the correct response is to deal with that right then and there with particulars, not fluff up your feathers. Michael is trying to do too much and all at once and I think that is the source of this type of complaint.

--Brant

[Paul Mawdsley]

I am reminded of Zeno's paradoxes, which are resolved by distinguishing between what is epistemologically given and what is metaphysically given.

We perceive the passage of time, the extension of space, and things in motion. These are epistemological givens in human consciousness. They are existents in an epistemic sense. They exist in our perception of the world and are there for us to isolate, identify and categorize.

The question is: Are they metaphysically given? Are they metaphysical existents? Or is something more fundamental and something else more derivative metaphysically?

The essence of thinking metaphysically is distinguishing between what is fundamental and what is more derivative in our perceptual field, and building models of existence from fundamentals. Things in motion in the eternal now is more fundamental than time and space. Time and space are a measure of things in motion. If there are no things in motion, there is no time and space; there is only void.

Consciousness works by experiencing new information in the context of existing information--i.e: in the context of integrated information. We perceive time because consciousness carries with it the context of the experienced past, and the imagined future, as part of our awareness of the now. We perceive space because consciousness carries with it the context of the experience of where we've been (or what we've looked at), and where we're going (or what we are going to look at), as part of our awareness of where we are (or what we are looking at). Space and time are categorical concepts that arise from experiencing here and now in context. Since this is done by consciousness automatically, space and time are epistemically fundamental.

Metaphysically, what is space without some thing, or some thing in motion, defining it or measuring it? What is time without internal or external motion of some thing to define it or measuring it? Any image you can have about space or time requires some thing defining it. Occupying space and time is a property of things in motion, not the other way around.

If holon is a metaphysical concept, as Roger says ( I don't doubt Roger, I just don't know enough about the concept), then it applies to things in motion in the eternal now. Applying entity-to-action causation to things in motion in a part/whole relationship we get: what a thing is determines what it does in the context of the degrees of freedom created by the form of the system, or whole, of which it is a part. With this definition I don't see why we shouldn't consider humans to be holons, even individualists, because entities can act according to their identity within systems. In fact, such behaviour generates and defines the form of the system. A system of individualists, who believe in mutual respect and freedom from coercion, will act in a way that determines the degrees of freedom in which all the individuals will act. The whole is generated and defined by the action of its parts and the action of its parts are limited by the degrees of freedom created by the form of the whole. I think this is how Rand saw capitalism.

Paul

Edited August 15, 2008 by Paul Mawdsley

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Paul,

Here's one for ya' as a causality freak (like you once claimed to being).

Does causality exist in the past, present or future? Does it even make any sense to ask that?

If causality only exists in the present, what is it? What action can be done in the present only?

I cannot imagine causality without all three.

The seed becomes the adult not because there are many existences with similarities. There is only one entity from the seed and its singular existence spreads out over time.

Michael

[Paul Mawdsley]

Paul,

Here's one for ya' as a causality freak (like you once claimed to being).

Does causality exist in the past, present or future? Does it even make any sense to ask that?

If causality only exists in the present, what is it? What action can be done in the present only?

I cannot imagine causality without all three.

The seed becomes the adult not because there are many existences with similarities. There is only one entity from the seed and its singular existence spreads out over time.

Michael

Michael,

What exists is entities acting and interacting in the ever unfolding now. Causality is an idea we use to explain the world we perceive. Causality is our assumption of necessary connection and our hypothesis about the nature of this connection. Causality is an epistemological principle used to guide our building of metaphysical models. We apply the ideas of space, time, and causality to build our models of existence. And we use these as concepts to categorize phenomena. Space, time, and causality exist as epistemological primaries but as metaphysical derivatives, even though they guide the creation of our metaphysical models.

Metaphysically, the seed becomes the adult not because of how we look at it, but because the things it is made of act and interact in a way whereby the action of the parts determine the shape of the whole and the shape of the whole limits the degrees of freedom of the parts. As the nows unfold the seed turns into the adult through these actions and interactions. We see it as occurring through the lens of our categories of time and space and causation.

Paul

I still endeavor to live up to this label.

Edited August 15, 2008 by Paul Mawdsley

[Roger Bissell]

Roger,

Have you noticed that when you disagree with me, you become insulting?

I don't recall doing that with you.

Ever.

Anyway, I thought you had a clear notion between fact and concept. You said you did several times.

But I find in our discussions that when I discuss fact (ontology), you slide in concept (epistemology and things like grammar) and pretend that's the issue, and vice-versa, then make some long pronouncements on master of the obvious stuff and (almost always wrong) suppositions about my intent, and then call it all stupid. You often lace this stuff with sarcasm.

Like I asked you before, what do you really want to discuss with a dummy like me? Why bother? You did well to bow out. It seems to get you upset.

At least you can see one of the reasons I have refrained from discussing ideas with you before when you were making so many mistakes about what I wrote. This manner of yours is intimidating. Not to me, but intimidating in general. I find it bothersome and ultimately my attention wanders.

I like the ideas, not the insults.

Michael

I promised you the last word, and I'm breaking my promise.

No, I do NOT become insulting when I disagree with you. I become "insulting" (angry and blaming) when you MISREPRESENT me. You just don't get it. You think the vehemence of my response is just because I disagree with you? How in bloody Hell can you possibly think this? Look at the sequence from posts 251 (me) to 252 (you) to 253 (me).

Did I disagree with you in post 251? Yes. Did I insult you in post 251? Hell, no.

Did you misrepresent me in post 252? Yes, egregiously. And apparently you still don't realize it.

Did I object to your misrepresentation of me in post 253? Yes, emphatically and angrily. And you still don't get that either. You can call that getting "insulting" when I "disagree" with you, if you want -- but that is grossly mischaracterizing your post and my response to it.

And for the record, I'm not the one confusing concepts and facts. The future does not exist now as a fact. It exists only as a conceptual projection. Yet, you continue to argue as if the future's existence ~now~ is a fact. It is not. The same thing applies to the past.

And don't confuse grammar with concepts. I am saying that when you talk about what is, you MUST use present tense. And if you can't use PRESENT tense, then it does not exist NOW. You can't say, "Dinosaurs exist." They ~existed~. They do not exist NOW. You can't say "The 88th President of the United States exists." He or she ~will exist~ (maybe). He or she does not exist NOW.

All the "being intimidated" and "mind-wandering" and obfuscating and misrepresenting in the world is not going to make these elementary FACTS go away. However, it is making ME go away. I'm through with this thread. Tangle it as you like.

REB

[Brant Gaede]

Roger, wrong again. That is, you are through with this thread. In other words you'd rather be angry than right even if you are right if that means giving up the angry.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Roger,

I don't use double standards and it's ugly to see you using them. You apparently want to misrepresent my ideas to your heart's content and consider that not only your God-given right, but from the repeated mocking and dismissals, it is a good source of entertainment as well. Yet you have an attitude when you think you have been misrepresented.

Just from reading this last post, I judge that you are so wound up, you have no idea at all of what I am talking about.

After a bazillion posts where you mischaracterized my own views with a bunch of high-falutin sounding stuff like Cartesian dualism, I started correcting you. I even looked up the name-dropping stuff to make sure, and looked it up again even when I was sure. When I kept telling you that you got my ideas wrong, I knew exactly why. I mentioned I did not like the tone, too. I wanted to wait until that mockery and dismissal stuff stopped. (And look at this now. I should have listened to my inner voice.)

You then complained that I was not discussing the ideas. So I started discussing the ideas, but you still kept up the mockery and dismissals. (My mistake again. I should have waited and demanded respect. If respect was not forthcoming, I should have kept my peace.)

Not once have you asked, "What do you mean?" You have told me what I meant right before ridiculing it or dismissing it and going on master of the obvious diatribes like about the English language having verb tenses. You have done this repeatedly. But the worst part is that you have been wrong about my words repeatedly and you have kept the between-the-lines mockery and dismissals up. That gets tiring. Really tiring.

Now you are all in a huff because you still do not ask, "What do you mean?" Once again you apparently know what I meant in looking at your words well enough to get all righteous about it. Well, don't think about it. Just get all righteous. That's your free choice.

(I have a beef about Objectivists who put the normative before the cognitive, who judge before they know, anyway, so don't expect me to take that too seriously.)

Sorry, Roger. I think with my own mind, not with yours. I do not bow down to intellectual intimidation from anybody, including you. I do not consider you to be a superior thinker to me. And I do not think that (literally—in an "I don't think of you" manner) for one reason only. I don't make comparisons of that kind against my own mind. I am sad to perceive through your behavior that you do.

Despite not making my own comparisons, I am not a fool. I perceive when someone else does make those comparisons and I do not appreciate being treated as an inferior thinker who should constantly be dismissed, brushed aside and told to shut up. That is piss-poor behavior on your part and I don't like it. If you want to dish out that kind of crap (and it has been many more times than once, other than the shut up part which was only twice), you take what you get in return.

For the record, I have serious issues with the following statement of yours. From your behavior, though, I doubt you are interested in what those issues are. So I will just leave it to say that you are wrong about this. Just like you are wrong about holons (see Koestler's own work for the correct explanation since he's the guy who coined the term, or Wilber's work, since he added to the term and built a body of work on it—both are easily available right here on this thread).

As for persistence of identity, especially the persistence of the ~essence~ of one's identity, that is so because the characteristics one has at a future time are sufficiently similar to those one has now, and because there is an unbroken continuity of a single entity's existence, that we (rightly) say that it is the same person then (in the future) as now, despite countless changes in measurements of those characteristics.

(I just can't resist.)

Time is part of who we are, not something separate from who we are. Our identity is singular, not plural and not divisible. That is due to an entity being one thing, not an "unbroken continuity" with "similar characteristics," which presumes that there can be a discontinuity of identity. There can't. The law of identity is axiomatic, not divisible. There can only be "unbroken continuity" because identity does not break down over time. An entity is made up of parts, but on the individual level, its identity is singular, whether past, present or future. Time doesn't matter to its identity.

One identity. One only. I can't be more than me nor less than me. Ever. Identity is more fundamental than time. The law of identity is absolute and it includes time. Your statements presume the contrary, that time can govern identity because the parts can change. If that is not your intent, those statements are extremely unclear (and not just those).

Michael

[Paul Mawdsley]

Ellen,

I just wanted to thank you for your efforts on posting the Koestler quotes. I finally made time to read them and found them valuable. I always try to invent my own wheel on an image level first and then look to see if there is an overlay that can give me the vocabulary to talk about it. Koestler's work looks like it might be a valuable overlay. Thanks.

Paul

[william.scherk]

~Not~ everything that exists is a holon. A holon is something that is both a part of some whole, and a whole having parts. The fundamental particles -- electrons, neutrinos, quarks, etc. -- are presumed to ~not~ have parts. Thus, while they are parts of larger things, they are ~not~ holons.

This is how I understand the holon, Roger, as an heuristic that does not fit all things at all times, a kind of template of understanding one can apply in some cases and not in others. It just doesn't seem useful to posit that everything is made of quarks (not correct either, electrons and other leptons are not made of quarks) unless one also sketches out the relationships and the rules/patterns that make the system hang together.

Similarly everything is a holon, as baldly stated, is meaningless (and incorrect in the example of photons, electrons). One needs to add in the additional information: if a human being is a holon, fine, it is part of what larger thing, then -- society? family? clade? primate? species? vertebrate?

I don't think merely assigning humans as holons works without establishing the holarchy or holarchies that contains the humans. And if a biological holon an ATP molecule is part of another (an organelle) which is part of a larger whole (a cell) and then part of a larger whole (multicelluar organism), then how does one make the jump to an even larger whole without defining the relationships? Just to say that humans are holons, parts of 'society' doesn't tell you much that we don't already know by other means.

And your later note about humans being members-of-species rather than holons as parts-of-species (in a distinct hierarchical relationship) is well-stated. I believe both you and Ellen have this correct, and this reading is backed by several essays in the Wilberian universe that make the same "member" distinction.

In any case, from my reading of Koestler, Wilber and Sheldrake, we should also recognize that there is indeed a 'ghost in the machine' -- with Koestler it was 'psi,' with Wilber it is a mystifying nomenclatural landscape of neologisms, some borrowed, some new, and from Sheldrake we get the morphic resonance or the habits of matter. In each of these cases, it seems to me, the proponents are in search of 'something extra' -- and each is bewildered/angered/apalled by a science that doesn't respect the ghost that they postulate. Koestler's 'new vitalism,' Wilber's evolutionary telos, Sheldrake's morphogenesis . . . this seems part of a struggle to open up science the invisible spirit of the cosmos.

That's the part that I don't buy -- the spirit business, and that perhaps is what you reject, Roger in arguments that posit a special something that inside-the-box scientists have not yet acknowledged.

Edited August 15, 2008 by william.scherk

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Similarly everything is a holon, as baldly stated, is meaningless (and incorrect in the example of photons, electrons).

William,

I am curious. Do you know for a fact that photons (etc.) cannot be reduced to further parts. Or do you imagine that based on the present state of knowledge?

In other words, if someone discovered that parts of photons actually existed, would you reject the discovery? From your present statement, it seems you do not allow for the possibility of such a discovery being made ever and I wonder what such knowledge is based on.

Apropos, if your statement "everything is a holon, as baldly stated" refers to me baldly stating it, this is an inaccurate understanding of the bald statements.

(btw - What did you do to the formatting of your post? It is suddenly full of empty html tags.)

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Similarly everything is a holon, as baldly stated, is meaningless (and incorrect in the example of photons, electrons).

William,

I am curious. Do you know for a fact that photons (etc.) cannot be reduced to further parts. Or do you imagine that based on the present state of knowledge?

1. photons have zero rest mass (which is why they flit about at the speed of light).

2. There is no empirical evidence that photons have parts.

Of the massive particles, electrons/positrons have no parts (no evidence indicates otherwise). Ditto for neutrinos.

The reason why we know the atom has parts is because experiments revealed the parts. J.J. Thompson was the first to show that atoms have parts. He discovered the electron.

Later on Rutherford did experiments showing that most of the mass of an atom is in the nucleus. Further experiments showed that the nucleus has parts.

And so on and so. There is no -logical- principle that says these sub atomic particles have parts. We can only go by evidence.

It was about 40 years ago that quarks were hypothesized to explain the particle "zoo" and later on high energy accelerators revealed that protons and neutrons have parts. Also mesons. The way you find out if things have parts is to bash them about and see if pieces fly off.

See http://www.wikinfo.org/index.php/Subatomic_particle

and this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_particle

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited August 16, 2008 by BaalChatzaf

[Roger Bissell]

~Not~ everything that exists is a holon. A holon is something that is both a part of some whole, and a whole having parts. The fundamental particles -- electrons, neutrinos, quarks, etc. -- are presumed to ~not~ have parts. Thus, while they are parts of larger things, they are ~not~ holons.

This is how I understand the holon, Roger, as an heuristic that does not fit all things at all times, a kind of template of understanding one can apply in some cases and not in others. It just doesn't seem useful to posit that everything is made of quarks (not correct either, electrons and other leptons are not made of quarks) unless one also sketches out the relationships and the rules/patterns that make the system hang together.

Similarly everything is a holon, as baldly stated, is meaningless (and incorrect in the example of photons, electrons). One needs to add in the additional information: if a human being is a holon, fine, it is part of what larger thing, then -- society? family? clade? primate? species? vertebrate?

I don't think merely assigning humans as holons works without establishing the holarchy or holarchies that contains the humans. And if a biological holon an ATP molecule is part of another (an organelle) which is part of a larger whole (a cell) and then part of a larger whole (multicelluar organism), then how does one make the jump to an even larger whole without defining the relationships? Just to say that humans are holons, parts of 'society' doesn't tell you much that we don't already know by other means.

And your later note about humans being members-of-species rather than holons as parts-of-species (in a distinct hierarchical relationship) is well-stated. I believe both you and Ellen have this correct, and this reading is backed by several essays in the Wilberian universe that make the same "member" distinction.

In any case, from my reading of Koestler, Wilber and Sheldrake, we should also recognize that there is indeed a 'ghost in the machine' -- with Koestler it was 'psi,' with Wilber it is a mystifying nomenclatural landscape of neologisms, some borrowed, some new, and from Sheldrake we get the morphic resonance or the habits of matter. In each of these cases, it seems to me, the proponents are in search of 'something extra' -- and each is bewildered/angered/apalled by a science that doesn't respect the ghost that they postulate. Koestler's 'new vitalism,' Wilber's evolutionary telos, Sheldrake's morphogenesis . . . this seems part of a struggle to open up science the invisible spirit of the cosmos.

That's the part that I don't buy -- the spirit business, and that perhaps is what you reject, Roger in arguments that posit a special something that inside-the-box scientists have not yet acknowledged.

William, I agree with each of your points above. And I second Ba'al's comments about why electrons, quarks, etc. are fundamental particles. Right on!

REB

[Ellen Stuttle]

In any case, from my reading of Koestler, Wilber and Sheldrake, we should also recognize that there is indeed a 'ghost in the machine' -- with Koestler it was 'psi,' with Wilber it is a mystifying nomenclatural landscape of neologisms, some borrowed, some new, and from Sheldrake we get the morphic resonance or the habits of matter. In each of these cases, it seems to me, the proponents are in search of 'something extra' -- and each is bewildered/angered/apalled by a science that doesn't respect the ghost that they postulate. Koestler's 'new vitalism,' Wilber's evolutionary telos, Sheldrake's morphogenesis . . . this seems part of a struggle to open up science the invisible spirit of the cosmos.

That's the part that I don't buy -- the spirit business, and that perhaps is what you reject, Roger in arguments that posit a special something that inside-the-box scientists have not yet acknowledged.

Guys,

I'm badly time-pressured between household stuff going on, and helping my husband get ready to depart for a week. Plus I overindulged by typing in the Hospers excerpts this a.m., and I'm bleary-eyed. So I'm afraid this isn't going to be any well argued comment, with quotes to back it up. There are plenty of quotes from The Ghost in the Machine which might be brought to bear.

William, I think that your post from which I quoted was very good. However, I repeat my warning to you: Please do not be dismissing Koestler as though he was some sort of wafty thinker because of the uses to which Wilber put the idea of "holon" and because Sheldrake clearly is wafty-supreme. I repeat that the major antagonist in The Ghost in the Machine was the Behaviorist paradigm of the human. It's a paradigm which certain thinkers you applaud, such as Steven Pinker and Damasio, also reject.

Koestler might have developed mystical leanings as he aged. I haven't read his later works. But I don't think of the works of his which I have read as mystical. To believe that there's something missing from a reductive materialist explanation of all phenomena does not equal being mystical.

As to psi, not everyone who believed in psi thought that there was anything supernatural -- or even "invisible spirit of the cosmos" -- about it.

I'm just trying to caution you against tarring Koestler retroactively because of your distaste for Wilber, and especially for Sheldrake. I repeat the recommendation that you read The Act of Creation -- and The Ghost in the Machine, too. Whatever disagreements you might have, I think that you would find both of these books, especially the first, very vistas-opening.

Ellen

PS: You're welcome, Paul, for the excerpts I provided. I'm glad you found them interesting.

___

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Similarly everything is a holon, as baldly stated, is meaningless (and incorrect in the example of photons, electrons).

William,

I am curious. Do you know for a fact that photons (etc.) cannot be reduced to further parts. Or do you imagine that based on the present state of knowledge?

1. photons have zero rest mass (which is why they flit about at the speed of light).

2. There is no empirical evidence that photons have parts.

Of the massive particles, electrons/positrons have no parts (no evidence indicates otherwise). Ditto for neutrinos.

The reason why we know the atom has parts is because experiments revealed the parts. J.J. Thompson was the first to show that atoms have parts. He discovered the electron.

Later on Rutherford did experiments showing that most of the mass of an atom is in the nucleus. Further experiments showed that the nucleus has parts.

And so on and so. There is no -logical- principle that says these sub atomic particles have parts. We can only go by evidence.

It was about 40 years ago that quarks were hypothesized to explain the particle "zoo" and later on high energy accelerators revealed that protons and neutrons have parts. Also mesons. The way you find out if things have parts is to bash them about and see if pieces fly off.

See http://www.wikinfo.org/index.php/Subatomic_particle

Ba'al Chatzaf

Bob,

I agree with all this within the present extent of our knowledge.

I do not agree with the implicit premise that our present level of knowledge will not grow (and even surprise us).

Do you find anything to justify thinking that no new methods of smashing things will ever be discovered?

I happen to leave this possibility open because humans have always found new ways to smash things when they thought they had discovered all there was.

I guess I am asking, do you believe we have discovered all there is to know in fundamental terms about the subparticles we already know about? Or do you think it is possible we can discover new fundamental knowledge?

If you think we can't, you obviously think no new methods of smashing things can ever exist. I am curious if this is your position. And if this is your position, I would be interested in knowing why.

Michael

[Paul Mawdsley]

From Ken Wilber Online:

The point is that an organism is not a part of a society in the same way that a cell is part of an organism. These are two different types of "parts" and "wholes": two different types of "wholes" (a whole individual and a whole system) and likewise two different types of "parts" (constitutive components and participating partners).¹⁸ Even those philosophers who have taken a generally "organismic" view--from Herbert Spencer to Alfred North Whitehead--have emphasized the many important differences between individual organisms and societies/systems, differences we will continue to explore as we go along.

(Of course, in one sense, an individual organism is a system, because "system" in general simply means "a functional whole"; but this individual system has a center of prehension, whereas a collective system does not--as Whitehead put it, the individual has a "dominant monad," whereas societies categorically do not--which is why "system" usually means the collective system, although it can apply to systems in an individual organism. The point is simply that systems in an individual often have a central agency, but collective systems rarely do--and if they do, they become what, by definition, is called an "individual"--which is why "systems" is usually used to refer to communal, societal, or collective holons, which is generally how I will use that term, although context will tell. A system or collective holon is indeed "a functional whole," but, as we will see, its control mechanisms--or how it establishes its wholeness--differs fundamentally from those of individual holons.)

I'm not arguing for Wilber's perspective. This is the first I've read on Wilber's perspective. However, he seems to consider human individuals as holons, being parts in relation to societal systems, even if these are parts of a different type. Whether or not individuals are metaphysical parts, or just conceptually parts, is another question. Societal systems do seem to fit the definition of "a functional whole" though, even if the binding force of the whole is psychological/philosophical rather than one of the four physical forces. Is individual psychology/philosophy any less a metaphysical reality than the four fundamental forces of physics? (Maybe to a physicist!)

Paul

Edited August 16, 2008 by Paul Mawdsley

[william.scherk]

I'm just trying to caution you against tarring Koestler retroactively because of your distaste for Wilber, and especially for Sheldrake. I repeat the recommendation that you read The Act of Creation -- and The Ghost in the Machine, too. Whatever disagreements you might have, I think that you would find both of these books, especially the first, very vistas-opening.

Thanks for taking the time from the malefic demands of your schedule to post your caution. I have picked up Koestler's "Janus" and have the "Ghost in the Machine" on order at our library.

I take your caution to heart with regard to Koestler's mystical leanings. Indeed, 'psi' research was in its infancy an attempt to discover through scientific means the forces and actors of a normally unseen world. Its paucity of findings cannot be credited to Koestler, nor should he be dismissed as a crank/crackpot/mystic. I did find it a little disconcerting that this was one of the foci of Koestler's interests later in his career, but in the same way as I can't dismiss all that Wallace wrote on evolution because he reverted to spritism in his dotage, I won't dismiss all of Koestler!

Sadly, what has perhaps done most to damage or dilute Koestler's influence is the noxious post-mortem charges against him, the violence towards women that was highlighted in the Cesarani's Arthur Koestler: the Homeless Mind. See also this acccount here.

[Paul Mawdsley]

Do you find anything to justify thinking that no new methods of smashing things will ever be discovered?

I happen to leave this possibility open because humans have always found new ways to smash things when they thought they had discovered all there was.

I guess I am asking, do you believe we have discovered all there is to know in fundamental terms about the subparticles we already know about? Or do you think it is possible we can discover new fundamental knowledge?

If you think we can't, you obviously think no new methods of smashing things can ever exist. I am curious if this is your position. And if this is your position, I would be interested in knowing why.

Michael,

Improving our ability to smash things has its limits in what it can tell us. If there is "little stuff," to borrow Rand's term, or a fundamental hidden variable, then it would be the stuff that everything that we observe is composed of, including light itself. Shining light on light will not show us the parts of light. Just like hitting air molecules with sound wave won't show us that air molecules exist. If we break an electron down into pure energy through a matter/anti-matter annihilation, we could never, in principle, see what the energy is made of, if it were made of parts. Exploring such "hidden realities" would require an epistemic method other than science. The only way to hold any optimism about "discovering new fundamental knowledge" is to believe there can exist another epistemic method that can push beyond the limits of the scientific method. Who knows, a metaphysics informed by science and guided by holonic modeling may create a more satisfying picture of the underlying nature of the universe. This is basically what David Bohm was attempting with his part/whole modeling and his causal hidden variable view of quantum mechanics. He wasn't able to complete the picture. But even if he could, would we be able to call such a picture knowledge?

Paul

[william.scherk]

Similarly everything is a holon, as baldly stated, is meaningless (and incorrect in the example of photons, electrons).

Do you know for a fact that photons (etc.) cannot be reduced to further parts[?].

Your question puzzles me, Michael. In some corners of the high holonic literature I have read that holons can be 'quarks' (or elementary particles).** But in none of the literature I am familiar with is it suggested that light/photons are able to be dissociated into constituent elements.

Are you asserting that photons and electrons are dissociable? I don't think so.

In my larger remarks you will note that an electron is not a quark, and a photon is not a quark -- thus an earlier formulation that everything is made of quarks is wrong. As is the formulation that everything is a holon. Unless we are to believe that photons are somehow holons, as quarks would be holons, since everything is a holon. Per your formulation, "In other words, everything is a holon and everything is made up of quarks." Which I think is wrong.

While I am at it, I might as well mention a few puzzling bits in your earlier remarks about holons. In a reply to my post in the Dawkins thread, you wrote these items:

I find the whole concept of emergence to "imply a force, not merely a pattern." The only difference between that kind of thinking and Wilber's is that the emergence people consider the force to come from the bottom up and Wilber considers it to come from the top down. But both consider such a force to be a "a field that is invisible but active, guiding the forms and structure of the things under its influence."

Now, here you follow on my remarks that I understand the utility of a holon as an heuristic, but find that Wilber and Sheldrake (and in some small measure, Koestler) tend to reify a holon into something in and of itself. In other words, they make the holon-as-holon an actor or agent, rather than the thing or complex in question (I said nothing about emergence, let alone 'emergence people,' and I have no idea who you mean . . . nor do I understand how emergence is properly a force/field. Nor indeed do I find that Wilber considers 'emergence' to be a phenomena directed from the 'top.' Perhaps you could amplify this remark).

That is why I mentioned evolutionary developmental biology. In researching epigenetic factors, for example, one can see the blastocyst as a holon, but a holon in development. The interesting questions are derived from the basic one: how does a particular cell differentiate into other functional cells and in generation and growth, build an organism? I don't know if you are familiar enough with Evo-devo to understand my reference, however. It is the fabulous dance of cell/blastocyst, DNA and RNA machinery, methylation, imprinting, chromosome inactivation, epithelial-mesenchymal interactions, genetic assimilation and so on. In any case, the holistic approach of Evo-devo attempts to understand cross-species relicts of evolution and their use and reuse across the eons of development.

When I wrote that I couldn't get my head around an unnamed invisible force in-and-of-itself (elan vital), it is because such things as fields are fields caused by something, and I want to know what those somethings are. The 'morphogenetic field,' noted by Ellen, is an abstraction of the constraints of development -- it is not the constraints itself. It is a mathematical rendering of the constraints, a map or graph. Do you follow that distinction?

If so, you can perhaps understand where I go off the rails with holonics and Wilber's extrusions. The interesting thing for me is the varied constraints that allow or channel the developing organism (part-listed above); in other words I know that there is not a single thing that constrains, but many, and the resulting 'morphological landscape' is not the result of a single, cryptic actor.

One thing cannot be denied. Evolution of life shows a historical pattern of movement from the simple toward the complex. This is confirmed by observation and examination of fossils. The issue is why, not that this pattern exists. Even big bang theorists claim the singularity was a huge SIMPLE ONENESS, then suddenly it became complex and kept expanding after that and presumably getting more complex as it goes along (like with the development of life).

Well, you are wrong here: the historical pattern of movement is a canard that has been most adequately debunked by Gould. I include here an image that might help you understand how the 'telic impulse' as intuited by many is quite wrong:

[i also include notes that accompanied the illustration: PROGRESS DOES NOT RULE (and is not even a primary thrust of ) the evolutionary process. For reasons of chemistry and physics, life arises next to the "left wall" of its simplest conceivable and preservable complexity. This style of life (bacterial) has remained most common and most successful. A few creatures occasionally move to the right, thus extending the right tail in the distribution of complexity. Many always move to the left, but they are absorbed within space already occupied. Note that the bacterial mode has never changed in position, but just grown higher.

See, there is no simple force that drives all life to the 'right.' Similarly, the invisible 'something extra' (call it as Sheldrake and Wilber do, the 'morphic field') suggests an independent existence in their theories about life, telos, evolution. Thus, in their view it is not the sum total or aggregate of individual forces (from chemical valences to Hox genes), it is not the myriad physical forces and constraints that guide development -- it is an independent force, a mystical force, a spiritual force. I don't accept that in my science at the moment.

When you ask how to access such a force by the nose, you are making my very point that, if something like this is a part of reality, it needs its own sense organ to perceive it. It will be just as inaccessible to the nose as light is. The mind/brain (to use your phrase) is the closest thing we have.

Perhaps you misunderstood my point about noses and forces. Here is what I wrote: "From what evidence can we posit this invisible but active field, as if it were true and verifiable and as accessible to the nose as any strong odor would be to a mammal like us?" Not quite the same as "how to access such a force by the nose." But I should rephrase, and perhaps explain again my point of view.

In context, I spoke of the utility of Holonics as a form of pattern-seeking, as a guide to inquiry, as a recognition of the relationships and forces and interdependencies that wick and weave through our world. I reject that holons are something apart in another realm from their constituents, existing timelessly, and exerting an independent force as holons. This is what Sheldrake and Wilber put forth, and which I reject.

So, to rephrase: if there is an invisible and active field, if it is verifiable and accessible to the senses/mind . . . where is the evidence? Forgive the poor construction of the sentence that leads to seizing on 'nose' and 'field/force.' I meant to put the stress on evidence. Where is the evidence of holonic/morphic fields as an independent actor in development? Where is the 'strong odour' that we can pick up with our instruments and our mind/brains? And from where comes that strong odour?

I submit that there is as much evidence of independent morphic fields as there is of pixies in the garden.

Hope that helps. If you have doubts about what I mean, please ask. To my mind/nose, the Wilberian/Sheldrakian corpus smells fishy.

** [Wilber takes on quarks as sentient beings, from A Kosmos Composed of Perspectives]

In AQAL metatheory, individual holons (quarks, atoms, molecules, cells, organisms) are sentient beings, all the way up, all the way down. Even atoms have prehension. If you are not comfortable pushing sentience all the way down, feel free to pick up the story at whatever evolutionary point you think that experience or proto-experience of some sort emerges in the universe (and you can picture all of the lower forms as "precursors" of experience and awareness). Presumably by the time we get to humans, the native (folk) perspectives of first-, second-, and third-perspectives have emerged, and you can take it from there.

But if we do view the Kosmos as being composed primarily of sentient beings--not systems, not processes, not webs, not information, not matter, not energy, but sentient beings--then we must simultaneously build a Kosmos composed of perspectives--not feelings, not awareness, not perceptions, not consciousness, for all of those are always already perspectives. If quarks have prehension, then the first quark is not a first particle but a first person. And whatever that quark registers is not a second particle but a second person. There is no way around this. The universe is built of perspectives.

[Roger Bissell]

CALLING TINKER BELLE -- CALLING TINKER BELLE -- CALLING TINKER BELLE -- CALLING TINKER BELLE -- CALLING TINKER BELLE

Similarly everything is a holon, as baldly stated, is meaningless (and incorrect in the example of photons, electrons).

Do you know for a fact that photons (etc.) cannot be reduced to further parts[?].

Your question puzzles me, Michael. In some corners of the high holonic literature I have read that holons can be 'quarks' (or elementary particles).**

** [Wilber takes on quarks as sentient beings, from A Kosmos Composed of Perspectives]

In AQAL metatheory, individual holons (quarks, atoms, molecules, cells, organisms) are sentient beings, all the way up, all the way down. Even atoms have prehension. If you are not comfortable pushing sentience all the way down, feel free to pick up the story at whatever evolutionary point you think that experience or proto-experience of some sort emerges in the universe (and you can picture all of the lower forms as "precursors" of experience and awareness). Presumably by the time we get to humans, the native (folk) perspectives of first-, second-, and third-perspectives have emerged, and you can take it from there.

But if we do view the Kosmos as being composed primarily of sentient beings--not systems, not processes, not webs, not information, not matter, not energy, but sentient beings--then we must simultaneously build a Kosmos composed of perspectives--not feelings, not awareness, not perceptions, not consciousness, for all of those are always already perspectives. If quarks have prehension, then the first quark is not a first particle but a first person. And whatever that quark registers is not a second particle but a second person. There is no way around this. The universe is built of perspectives.

William, this is very reminiscent of views of the recently departed grand-dame of Manitoba Objectivism, Ellen Moore, who used to maintain on the old Atlantis list that because consciousness was a metaphysical axiom, then like existence, consciousness must have always existed, and, furthermore, that all living things, not just animals, were conscious, and that life always existed as well. I wonder what she would make of the above notion of quarks being sentient beings. Seems kinda quirky--uh, quarky--to me.

But in none of the literature I am familiar with is it suggested that light/photons are able to be dissociated into constituent elements.

Are you asserting that photons and electrons are dissociable? I don't think so.

In my larger remarks you will note that an electron is not a quark, and a photon is not a quark -- thus an earlier formulation that everything is made of quarks is wrong. As is the formulation that everything is a holon. Unless we are to believe that photons are somehow holons, as quarks would be holons, since everything is a holon. Per your formulation, "In other words, everything is a holon and everything is made up of quarks." Which I think is wrong.

Ummm....William....I think that if it acts like a holon and quarks like a holon, then it's a holon. Heh.

While I am at it, I might as well mention a few puzzling bits in your earlier remarks about holons. In a reply to my post in the Dawkins thread, you wrote these items:

I find the whole concept of emergence to "imply a force, not merely a pattern." The only difference between that kind of thinking and Wilber's is that the emergence people consider the force to come from the bottom up and Wilber considers it to come from the top down. But both consider such a force to be a "a field that is invisible but active, guiding the forms and structure of the things under its influence."

Now, here you follow on my remarks that I understand the utility of a holon as an heuristic, but find that Wilber and Sheldrake (and in some small measure, Koestler) tend to reify a holon into something in and of itself. In other words, they make the holon-as-holon an actor or agent, rather than the thing or complex in question (I said nothing about emergence, let alone 'emergence people,' and I have no idea who you mean . . . nor do I understand how emergence is properly a force/field. Nor indeed do I find that Wilber considers 'emergence' to be a phenomena directed from the 'top.' Perhaps you could amplify this remark).

That is why I mentioned evolutionary developmental biology. In researching epigenetic factors, for example, one can see the blastocyst as a holon, but a holon in development. The interesting questions are derived from the basic one: how does a particular cell differentiate into other functional cells and in generation and growth, build an organism? I don't know if you are familiar enough with Evo-devo to understand my reference, however. It is the fabulous dance of cell/blastocyst, DNA and RNA machinery, methylation, imprinting, chromosome inactivation, epithelial-mesenchymal interactions, genetic assimilation and so on. In any case, the holistic approach of Evo-devo attempts to understand cross-species relicts of evolution and their use and reuse across the eons of development.

When I wrote that I couldn't get my head around an unnamed invisible force in-and-of-itself (elan vital), it is because such things as fields are fields caused by something, and I want to know what those somethings are. The 'morphogenetic field,' noted by Ellen, is an abstraction of the constraints of development -- it is not the constraints itself. It is a mathematical rendering of the constraints, a map or graph. Do you follow that distinction?

If so, you can perhaps understand where I go off the rails with holonics and Wilber's extrusions. The interesting thing for me is the varied constraints that allow or channel the developing organism (part-listed above); in other words I know that there is not a single thing that constrains, but many, and the resulting 'morphological landscape' is not the result of a single, cryptic actor.

One thing cannot be denied. Evolution of life shows a historical pattern of movement from the simple toward the complex. This is confirmed by observation and examination of fossils. The issue is why, not that this pattern exists. Even big bang theorists claim the singularity was a huge SIMPLE ONENESS, then suddenly it became complex and kept expanding after that and presumably getting more complex as it goes along (like with the development of life).

Well, you are wrong here: the historical pattern of movement is a canard that has been most adequately debunked by Gould. I include here an image that might help you understand how the 'telic impulse' as intuited by many is quite wrong:

[i also include notes that accompanied the illustration: PROGRESS DOES NOT RULE (and is not even a primary thrust of ) the evolutionary process. For reasons of chemistry and physics, life arises next to the "left wall" of its simplest conceivable and preservable complexity. This style of life (bacterial) has remained most common and most successful. A few creatures occasionally move to the right, thus extending the right tail in the distribution of complexity. Many always move to the left, but they are absorbed within space already occupied. Note that the bacterial mode has never changed in position, but just grown higher.

See, there is no simple force that drives all life to the 'right.' Similarly, the invisible 'something extra' (call it as Sheldrake and Wilber do, the 'morphic field') suggests an independent existence in their theories about life, telos, evolution. Thus, in their view it is not the sum total or aggregate of individual forces (from chemical valences to Hox genes), it is not the myriad physical forces and constraints that guide development -- it is an independent force, a mystical force, a spiritual force. I don't accept that in my science at the moment.

When you ask how to access such a force by the nose, you are making my very point that, if something like this is a part of reality, it needs its own sense organ to perceive it. It will be just as inaccessible to the nose as light is. The mind/brain (to use your phrase) is the closest thing we have.

Perhaps you misunderstood my point about noses and forces. Here is what I wrote: "From what evidence can we posit this invisible but active field, as if it were true and verifiable and as accessible to the nose as any strong odor would be to a mammal like us?" Not quite the same as "how to access such a force by the nose." But I should rephrase, and perhaps explain again my point of view.

In context, I spoke of the utility of Holonics as a form of pattern-seeking, as a guide to inquiry, as a recognition of the relationships and forces and interdependencies that wick and weave through our world. I reject that holons are something apart in another realm from their constituents, existing timelessly, and exerting an independent force as holons. This is what Sheldrake and Wilber put forth, and which I reject.

So, to rephrase: if there is an invisible and active field, if it is verifiable and accessible to the senses/mind . . . where is the evidence? Forgive the poor construction of the sentence that leads to seizing on 'nose' and 'field/force.' I meant to put the stress on evidence. Where is the evidence of holonic/morphic fields as an independent actor in development? Where is the 'strong odour' that we can pick up with our instruments and our mind/brains? And from where comes that strong odour?

I submit that there is as much evidence of independent morphic fields as there is of pixies in the garden.

I have long had difficulty getting the notion of "field" to sit comfortably in my brain. Where I grew up, a field was a place where you grew crops or let the cows eat grass. Later on, I learned that a field could also be a group of ideas that you studied and/or applied. So far, so good. But when I got to the group of ideas about matter and forces (physics), I kind of hit a snag. There, "field" also meant a region in the world where a certain force operates, with or WITHOUT a material medium supporting it. Enter the pixies!

Force, as we learn it as babes, I can understand. One thing abuts another, and applies contact pressure to it. Air molecules in a sound wave caused by a vibrating object, and exerting pressure against our eardrums so that we hear the vibrating object--I can understand that, since the air molecules are proxy for Mom's gentle hand touching me. Even the photons in a light wave make sense to me as intermediaries between a radiating or reflecting object and my eyes. Or, perhaps, gravitons zipping between physical objects so that they are attracted to one another. Invisible to the naked eye, maybe--but at least detectable with some kind of instruments (except, currently, for gravitons).

But these morphic fields? Either (with Ellen S.) they are just mathematical expressions of the inherent developmental forces in things or....enter Tinker Belle. Identity or pixie dust, the ultimate dichotomy!

Hope that helps. If you have doubts about what I mean, please ask. To my mind/nose, the Wilberian/Sheldrakian corpus smells fishy.

OK, I'll ask: was that intended as a pun? Corpus/corpse? If so, I love it! If not, I love it anyway!

REB