Roger's "Ontologically Objective" - A Question

[Roger Bissell]

I think this problem can be summarized as follows; does it make sense to speak of a process as a "thing" that "exists"? Science tells us that at sub-microscpic levels what we call "things" or "objects" are really processes and our abstractions are merely "snapshots" of processes. Apple_jan.11 is not apple_jan.30 and it will eventually become "apple sauce". So the object "apple" only exists while it matches our abstraction of what an apple "is".

You cannot legitimately speak of the processes and/or smaller objects that constitute perceptual entities as being "more real" than the perceptual entities that are the epistemic given for us. It is no more accurate to say that perceptual entities are "really" processes than it is to say that sub-microscopic process are "really" entities. These things are ~all~ real.

Parts are no more "real" than wholes, and causes are no more "real" than effects. If perceptual entities are wholes built of sub-microscopic parts and the causal effect of sub-microscopic processes, so be it. But that does not make the sub-microscopic entities or processes "more real" than perceptual entities.

Perceptual realism and scientific realism should work hand in hand to help us integrate our knowledge. There is no need for a superiority trip by scientists and philosophers of science to elevate the sub-microscopic to the status of "most real."

REB

[tjohnson]

You cannot legitimately speak of the processes and/or smaller objects that constitute perceptual entities as being "more real" than the perceptual entities that are the epistemic given for us. It is no more accurate to say that perceptual entities are "really" processes than it is to say that sub-microscopic process are "really" entities. These things are ~all~ real.

Parts are no more "real" than wholes, and causes are no more "real" than effects. If perceptual entities are wholes built of sub-microscopic parts and the causal effect of sub-microscopic processes, so be it. But that does not make the sub-microscopic entities or processes "more real" than perceptual entities.

Perceptual realism and scientific realism should work hand in hand to help us integrate our knowledge. There is no need for a superiority trip by scientists and philosophers of science to elevate the sub-microscopic to the status of "most real."

REB

Are you questioning the process nature of microscopic phenomena? If so, there is nothing further we can discuss.

[BaalChatzaf]

Are you questioning the process nature of microscopic phenomena? If so, there is nothing further we can discuss.

Once a small enough scale is reached the distinction between process and object becomes fuzzy. A particle is localized wave. De Broigle demonstrated that particles have a wave aspect and the indivisibility of photons demonstrate that waves have a particle aspect.

How solid are we humans? We are bags of mostly water which is liquid, not solid.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[tjohnson]

All I'm trying to say is that what appears to us as static, unchanging "objects" are, according to science, actually processes. Now I have qualified my 'actually' by saying according to science. Now the issue is do we accept science as the standard for our knowledge or do we say that intuitive unaided abstraction by our senses is on an equal footing? I know what I believe.

[Brant Gaede]

All I'm trying to say is that what appears to us as static, unchanging "objects" are, according to science, actually processes. Now I have qualified my 'actually' by saying according to science. Now the issue is do we accept science as the standard for our knowledge or do we say that intuitive unaided abstraction by our senses is on an equal footing? I know what I believe.

Science is the basis for scientific knowledge. Our other knowledge has the same epistemological basis as science generally, but is not of a kind.

--Brant

[Roger Bissell]

GS...what? I won't embrace sub-microscopic processes as "more real" than the perceptual entities that they supposedly compose, so there is "nothing left to discuss"?

Look, my scientistic friend, it really doesn't matter whether perceptual entities are composed of teeny little entities or teeny little processes or Peikoff's "gloop." None of these real or hypothesized constituents are "more real" than perceptual entities.

Our awareness of perceptual entities ~is~ the "footing" for science. You cannot skyhook your way to "true reality" and then discard the means you used to reach it. Perceptual realism and scientific realism are equally tuned in to the real.

Whoever said -- other than Parmenides -- that entities are static and unchanging?? It is the fact that perceptual entities and their parts engage in myriad actions/process, and in fact are the ~causes~ of their actions, that enables us to grasp the concept of "causality" and to build the edifice of science that GS wants to use to consign perceptual entities to the status of "unreal" or "less real" than their constituents.

REB

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Roger,

I do not understand those who adhere to statements like "we are constantly changing." This is mixing the entity with the subparticles. The entity does not change. "Entity" is an envelope out there in reality for subparticle processes to occur in. All entities have boundaries, filler and structure (to oversimplify).

A cat has different atomic positions of subparticles from one instant to another, but this does not allow it to turn into a frog. It will remain a cat, always.

This is so common sense, I wonder why people try to deny it. I have stopped arguing this point because it rarely goes anywhere. When a person wants to ignore the existence of entities, he is usally adamant about it and blind to any and all arguments.

It is obvious to me that the nature of entieis adheres to principles that can be studied, measured, tested, etc. There is a point where subparticles are not part of a cat, but instead part of the cat's environment. All of those subparticles are changing, but that observation will not get you a cat or its environment.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Look, my scientistic friend, it really doesn't matter whether perceptual entities are composed of teeny little entities or teeny little processes or Peikoff's "gloop." None of these real or hypothesized constituents are "more real" than perceptual entities.

The itty bitty things are the stuff out of which the larger entities are made or composed. The entities (the larger things) are no less real than their components, to be sure, but their components are more fundamental and enduring. We are made of protons that came into existence shortly after the big bang (protons are very stable particles). The protons exist without us. But we don't exist without the protons. Think of it. Most of your mass is (Sagon Voice on) stuff that is billyuns and bullyuns of years old. You are made of stuhr-stuff (Sagan Voice Off)

It is the old question: which came first? The proton or the egg. Answer: the proton. Critters such as we are, are simply the latest and temporary re-arrangement of the basic matter of the cosmos. Long after we (as complex entities) are gone, the the bits and crumbs will still be there. We are just dust in the wind, so to speak.

Dust in Wind Lyrics from Kansas

I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment's gone

All my dreams, pass before my eyes, a curiosity

Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind.

Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea

All we do, crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see

Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind

[Now] Don't hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky

It slips away, and all your money won't another minute buy.

Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind

Dust in the wind, everything is dust in the wind.

===============================================

Or in the words of Omar.

"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it."

Have a good day.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Roger Bissell]

Look, my scientistic friend, it really doesn't matter whether perceptual entities are composed of teeny little entities or teeny little processes or Peikoff's "gloop." None of these real or hypothesized constituents are "more real" than perceptual entities.

The itty bitty things are the stuff out of which the larger entities are made or composed. The entities (the larger things) are no less real than their components, to be sure, but their components are more fundamental and enduring. We are made of protons that came into existence shortly after the big bang (protons are very stable particles). The protons exist without us. But we don't exist without the protons. Think of it. Most of your mass is (Sagon Voice on) stuff that is billyuns and bullyuns of years old. You are made of stuhr-stuff (Sagan Voice Off)

It is the old question: which came first? The proton or the egg. Answer: the proton. Critters such as we are, are simply the latest and temporary re-arrangement of the basic matter of the cosmos. Long after we (as complex entities) are gone, the the bits and crumbs will still be there. We are just dust in the wind, so to speak.

Dust in Wind Lyrics from Kansas

I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment's gone

All my dreams, pass before my eyes, a curiosity

Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind.

Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea

All we do, crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see

Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind

[Now] Don't hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky

It slips away, and all your money won't another minute buy.

Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind

Dust in the wind, everything is dust in the wind.

===============================================

Or in the words of Omar.

"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it."

Have a good day.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I certainly ~will~ have a good day, because my days are not colored by the dreary reductionism of "all we are is dust in the wind," but by my friend, Prof. Douglas Rasmussen's insight that "the significance of life is that without life, there would be no significance."

You are welcome to your perspective, and to Kansas -- the group and the State.

REB

[BaalChatzaf]

I certainly ~will~ have a good day, because my days are not colored by the dreary reductionism of "all we are is dust in the wind," but by my friend, Prof. Douglas Rasmussen's insight that "the significance of life is that without life, there would be no significance."

You are welcome to your perspective, and to Kansas -- the group and the State.

REB

It is not dreary. It is a reminder of why we should make the best use of the little we have. It is an argument against procrastination, for example. My perspective is based on FACTS. In the not so long run we will all be dust and dissolution. That is simply a FACT, and it is up to us to live with it (while we are alive) the best we can. Part of growing up is knowing for certain sure that we will die. Life is not a rehearsal, it is all we have. The life we are currently living (while we may) is the ONLY life we have and ever will have. We are temporary children of the Cosmos.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[tjohnson]

GS...what? I won't embrace sub-microscopic processes as "more real" than the perceptual entities that they supposedly compose, so there is "nothing left to discuss"?

Look, my scientistic friend, it really doesn't matter whether perceptual entities are composed of teeny little entities or teeny little processes or Peikoff's "gloop." None of these real or hypothesized constituents are "more real" than perceptual entities.

Our awareness of perceptual entities ~is~ the "footing" for science. You cannot skyhook your way to "true reality" and then discard the means you used to reach it. Perceptual realism and scientific realism are equally tuned in to the real.

Whoever said -- other than Parmenides -- that entities are static and unchanging?? It is the fact that perceptual entities and their parts engage in myriad actions/process, and in fact are the ~causes~ of their actions, that enables us to grasp the concept of "causality" and to build the edifice of science that GS wants to use to consign perceptual entities to the status of "unreal" or "less real" than their constituents.

REB

There are no "entities" outside of your nervous system and this includes 'protons' etc., they are manufactured by your nervous system from stimuli ,which is outside your nervous system. So all I will agree to is that stimulus exists independent of us, but not objects, perceived or postulated.

[BaalChatzaf]

There are no "entities" outside of your nervous system and this includes 'protons' etc., they are manufactured by your nervous system from stimuli ,which is outside your nervous system. So all I will agree to is that stimulus exists independent of us, but not objects, perceived or postulated.

Are you channeling Imanuel Kant? Where did all those protons come from? The inside of our head? (Carl Sagan On). The Cosmos contains billyuns and billyuns of stuhrs. The Cosmos is all there is, all that was and all that ever will be (Carl Sagan Off).

The Cosmos is and it doesn't need us in order to be.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[tjohnson]

Are you channeling Imanuel Kant? Where did all those protons come from? The inside of our head? (Carl Sagan On). The Cosmos contains billyuns and billyuns of stuhrs. The Cosmos is all there is, all that was and all that ever will be (Carl Sagan Off).

The Cosmos is and it doesn't need us in order to be.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Sorry, 'proton' is a word to represent some phenomenon, it only exists in your mind Baal. You should be asking where did all the energy (stimuli) come from. Matter is nothing but 'bound up' energy which is what we detect with our senses. For simplicity we can say 'an event' exists, that's about it.

Edited January 13, 2008 by general semanticist

[John Dailey]

GS:

~ I'm still waiting for you to either (as MSK asked) clarify what you mean when you use the word 'know', or, admit that you have no criteria for identifying any referent for the term...in which case, it's totally meaningless when you use it. --- Best I can make coherent re any possible 'meaning' is that 'knowledge' is what we sense-experience...while we are experiencing it; beyond that, I have no idea what you might mean by 'abstract knowledge' (which is what I alluded to re the bats' hearing situation.) Sometimes I think you like to argue in...semantic, word-playing...circles.

~ To say that it's a mere 'assumption' that something existed before we 'discovered' it, is no different from Berkeleyian idealism, as I said before. In such a case, no one would ever die from a bullet to the back of their head. I don't think there's too many commandos/police/mercenaries who are Berkeleyians.

LLAP

J:D

[John Dailey]

ADDENDUM:

~ I should 'know' better...'abstractly' e-v-e-n. I'm arguing with anti-Inductionists here who regard things that are discovered as only hypothetically pre-existing before the sensorially-experienced interactive-'discovery'. Discoveries supposedly may well be part of a Berkeleyian universe (r-i-g-h-t; that is quite believable.) Pre-existence of 'X' is considered by most as not a logically valid Induction to go by; it's merely a chancedly-workable (so far) 'assumption.'

~ I'll discuss no more on this in this thread...anymore than on the 'INDUCTION' one.

EXASPERATEDLY Tired of Wall-Banging with my head...

LLAP

J:D

Edited January 14, 2008 by John Dailey

[tjohnson]

GS:

~ I'm still waiting for you to either (as MSK asked) clarify what you mean when you use the word 'know', or, admit that you have no criteria for identifying any referent for the term...in which case, it's totally meaningless when you use it. --- Best I can make coherent re any possible 'meaning' is that 'knowledge' is what we sense-experience...while we are experiencing it; beyond that, I have no idea what you might mean by 'abstract knowledge' (which is what I alluded to re the bats' hearing situation.) Sometimes I think you like to argue in...semantic, word-playing...circles.

~ To say that it's a mere 'assumption' that something existed before we 'discovered' it, is no different from Berkeleyian idealism, as I said before. In such a case, no one would ever die from a bullet to the back of their head. I don't think there's too many commandos/police/mercenaries who are Berkeleyians.

LLAP

J:D

I use the word 'know' as to know structure. Now will you ask me what I mean by 'structure'? Well that's where I stop, because we can go on and on but I leave 'structure' undefined. We all have some idea what 'structure' means and I trust you do. So there is an event of some kind external to us and it has some structure which we sense from the stimuli. These abstractions take the form of objects etc. in our nervous systems and then we abstract further and create a language which has similar structure. This structure is then projected onto the event to see how it fits (similarity of structure). This is how knowledge grows in the theory of GS hence the statement by Korzybski "the only possible content of 'knowledge' is structure"

[tjohnson]

~ To say that it's a mere 'assumption' that something existed before we 'discovered' it, is no different from Berkeleyian idealism, as I said before. In such a case, no one would ever die from a bullet to the back of their head. I don't think there's too many commandos/police/mercenaries who are Berkeleyians.

LLAP

J:D

I said we assume we would have sensed 'the earth' millions of years ago had we been there, slightly different wording. How could you know anything about a bullet in the back of your head until it touches your head (ie. you sense it)?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I use the word 'know' as to know structure. Now will you ask me what I mean by 'structure'?

GS,

Actually, before getting to "structure" I am still stumbling over "to know" in your phrase, "to know structure." I have no idea what you mean by "to know."

Michael

[tjohnson]

I use the word 'know' as to know structure. Now will you ask me what I mean by 'structure'?

GS,

Actually, before getting to "structure" I am still stumbling over "to know" in your phrase, "to know structure." I have no idea what you mean by "to know."

Michael

OK, let's refrain from using 'know' altogether. The only thing we can perceive and speak about in any meaningful way is structure. It's not that radical of a departure from saying you perceive objects to saying that you perceive structure, after all, it is the structure and function of (perceived) objects that we use in our definitions and theories. Also I use 'structure' to include 4-dimensional structure and so process, ie. structure changing over time.

[John Dailey]

~ As Carmen (SOUTH PARK) would say: "Godammit!" or, more apropos, per Pacino (GODFATHER saga): "JUST when you think you're getting Out, they P-U-L-L you back in!" --- Ok; I let meself get seduced back, just by reading your response I really must be a masochist. :sick:

~ Anyhoo, you're really advertising your chronic use of the fallacy (re 'logical' argumentation in discussions) called 'equivocation' (a purposeful playing on term-uses re their different meanings.) This is not good re expectable continued discussions; but, from a 'semanticist'-oriented one...hmmm.

2Bcont

LLAP

J:D

Edited January 15, 2008 by John Dailey

[John Dailey]

GS:

~ You speak of 'knowing structure' as if 'structure' was the main subject to be concerned with...without clarifying (A-H-E-M!)/identifying/defining what you mean by 'knowing' such a, dare I say, 'sensorially'-irrelevent subject. Like, what do 'abstract' concepts like this have to do with your experiential-sense concerns you stressed about my 'bats' example? Clearly, nothing...other than subject-changing.

~ But then, MSK brought up the core question (following up on mine!) re your own phrasing in *your* using the term 'know'; you then advertise that you wish to drop that subject altogether. I wonder why?

2Bcont

LLAP

J:D

Edited January 15, 2008 by John Dailey

[John Dailey]

GS:

~ Maybe *you*...'perceive'...whatever you mean (A-H-E-M!) by 'structure.' The rest of us mortals can only 'conceive' of it. --- There is a dif 'twixt perceptions and conceptions, or, if you're trying to talk to O'ists and you disagree on that, you'd have done better to have clarified yourself on that. But then, 'clarifying' yourself doesn't seem to be your forte.

~ 'Structures', per se, are not perceived by anyone or anything I know. They're abstract things (like 'patterns' or 'relationships') which are conceived thereby and therein only.

~ You clearly enjoy playing word-game confusionality. I'm really not finding your questions/concerns/'arguments' as...well...really 'honest' ones.

J:D

PS: Otherwise, you're more confused than any of us ever thought; in which case...LLAP

Edited January 15, 2008 by John Dailey

[thomtg]

Kelley also holds, as I do, that a fact is the object of a proposition, while an existent is the object of a concept. (However, unfortunately, he seems to think that facts do not exist independently in the world, a view with which I ~emphatically~ disagree! And did so state during the TOC cyberseminar on epistemology in 1996.)

Anyway, just so you know, Kelley, a much more precise and careful thinker than Peikoff, draws a clearcut distinction between facts and existents, and it closely parallels the one I've been arguing for here in OL, as well as in my own cyberseminar paper in 1996. (Just in case anyone thinks I am dissing Peikoff's philosophical ability, I think he is a much more creative and interesting thinker than Kelley. Now, if someone could just split the difference between them!

Roger, do you still have the notes or transcripts of the cyberseminar? If so, I'd like to get a copy.

Regarding the concept "fact," Rand discusses it in the workshop (ITOE 241-246). There, she contrasts facts against errors and imaginaries. This tells me that facts too are epistemological, not metaphysical as you inferred from her letter to John Hospers. Which of Rand's writings is definitive? I would think the later one. That Cinderella lost a slipper is imaginary; that the three little pigs became bacon for the wolf is an error; that pigs can't fly is a fact. These thoughts identify existents as standing in different epistemological relationships to the thinker. And of course, that "pigs can't fly" is true.

[Roger Bissell]

Kelley also holds, as I do, that a fact is the object of a proposition, while an existent is the object of a concept. (However, unfortunately, he seems to think that facts do not exist independently in the world, a view with which I ~emphatically~ disagree! And did so state during the TOC cyberseminar on epistemology in 1996.)

Anyway, just so you know, Kelley, a much more precise and careful thinker than Peikoff, draws a clearcut distinction between facts and existents, and it closely parallels the one I've been arguing for here in OL, as well as in my own cyberseminar paper in 1996. (Just in case anyone thinks I am dissing Peikoff's philosophical ability, I think he is a much more creative and interesting thinker than Kelley. Now, if someone could just split the difference between them!

[.....]

Regarding the concept "fact," Rand discusses it in the workshop (ITOE 241-246). There, she contrasts facts against errors and imaginaries. This tells me that facts too are epistemological, not metaphysical as you inferred from her letter to John Hospers. Which of Rand's writings is definitive? I would think the later one. That Cinderella lost a slipper is imaginary; that the three little pigs became bacon for the wolf is an error; that pigs can't fly is a fact. These thoughts identify existents as standing in different epistemological relationships to the thinker. And of course, that "pigs can't fly" is true.

Thom, if you're still there, several comments on this:

1. I didn't "infer" from her January 3, 1961 letter to Hospers that Rand held facts to be metaphysical. She stated them to be so. Here is a relevant quote from that letter:

Aren't you confusing 'truth' with 'facts'? 'Truth' is a concept that refers to epistemology, not to metaphysics...[T]here are 'facts' even when nobody knows them and nobody recognizes them...the recognition of these 'facts' by some human consciousness constitutes 'truths'...Many facts exist in the world, which nobody yet knows, and when somebody discovers them, he will be able to form many true ideas which nobody can form at present.

2. I wouldn't trust ~anything~ that Rand said extemporaneously to represent her considered opinion. A given statement might or might not be something she would agree with upon later, calm reflection. That is why her various Ford Hall Forum and other interview remarks must be digested only with a salt shaker close at hand.

3. In particular, I have always thought that what she said on facts in the epistemology workshop was unintegrable balderdash. (E.g., you can't contrast fact with error any more than you can contrast entity with hallucination. They are in different categories. "Fact" and "entity" are metaphysical concepts, while "error" and "hallucination" are epistemological concepts. Also, it is a ~fact~, an imaginary fact if you will, rather than a real fact, of the story "Cinderella" that she lost a slipper.)

4. Also, bear in mind that those comments were not edited and published until well after her death. Binswanger and Peikoff uncritically set forth Rand's extemporaneous comments as though they were part of Objectivism. Reader beware, I say.

5. By contrast, what she wrote in her letter to Hospers was clear, lucid, and makes perfect sense. "Truth" is an epistemological concept pertaining to the relationship between existence and consciousness, between an idea in one's mind and a fact of reality. "Fact" or "fact of reality" is a metaphysical concept referring to something's being what it is, even if no one knows it or recognizes it.

REB

[thomtg]

[...]

Thom, if you're still there, several comments on this:

1. I didn't "infer" from her January 3, 1961 letter to Hospers that Rand held facts to be metaphysical. She stated them to be so. Here is a relevant quote from that letter:

Aren't you confusing 'truth' with 'facts'? 'Truth' is a concept that refers to epistemology, not to metaphysics...[T]here are 'facts' even when nobody knows them and nobody recognizes them...the recognition of these 'facts' by some human consciousness constitutes 'truths'...Many facts exist in the world, which nobody yet knows, and when somebody discovers them, he will be able to form many true ideas which nobody can form at present.

2. I wouldn't trust ~anything~ that Rand said extemporaneously to represent her considered opinion. A given statement might or might not be something she would agree with upon later, calm reflection. That is why her various Ford Hall Forum and other interview remarks must be digested only with a salt shaker close at hand.

3. In particular, I have always thought that what she said on facts in the epistemology workshop was unintegrable balderdash. (E.g., you can't contrast fact with error any more than you can contrast entity with hallucination. They are in different categories. "Fact" and "entity" are metaphysical concepts, while "error" and "hallucination" are epistemological concepts. Also, it is a ~fact~, an imaginary fact if you will, rather than a real fact, of the story "Cinderella" that she lost a slipper.)

4. Also, bear in mind that those comments were not edited and published until well after her death. Binswanger and Peikoff uncritically set forth Rand's extemporaneous comments as though they were part of Objectivism. Reader beware, I say.

5. By contrast, what she wrote in her letter to Hospers was clear, lucid, and makes perfect sense. "Truth" is an epistemological concept pertaining to the relationship between existence and consciousness, between an idea in one's mind and a fact of reality. "Fact" or "fact of reality" is a metaphysical concept referring to something's being what it is, even if no one knows it or recognizes it.

REB

Roger,

I accept your Point 4. But I place more weight to what Ayn Rand wrote or said later than earlier. The letter to John Hospers was written in 1961; the workshop was recorded in 1969-1971. Rand had had more time to reflect on her own writings by then. So, I would place more weight in her oral statement that facts are "an epistemological convenience." (ITOE 241) On this view, Rand would have emended her 1961 letter to Hospers.

On the basis of the excerpt of the Hospers-letter and of ITOE 241-243, I would suggest that one way to emend it is as follows:

While an instance of the concept "truth" is an existent of epistemology, and while an instance of the concept "fact" is an apportionment of existents known (or possibly known) of metaphysics ; both "truth" and "fact" are epistemological concepts. Without a human consciousness there would not be existents of epistemology such as "truth" or "fact" even though there would still be existents of metaphysics. The recognition of "facts" by a knower constitutes "truths." ... Not that facts exist qua facts in the world, but that existents (e.g., entities, attributes, etc.) exist in the world, and many of which nobody yet knows, and when somebody discovers them qua facts, he will be able to form many true ideas which nobody can form at present.

Edited May 5, 2009 by Thom T G