Imagination and Causality in Quantum Physics


Paul Mawdsley

Recommended Posts

...The energy for an act of choosing is not potential. It is kinetic and proactive. It is not necessitated by an impulse from any antecedent action. It is an impulse itself.

Perhaps this is a clue to how to create an intuitive/experiential model of Quantum phenomena, Special Relativity, General Relativity, etc. Perhaps proactive causation is the key. What if, at the base of it all, entities were proactive? Starting from here, what would a model of existence look like?

Paul

Are you asserting free will or consciousness as first-cause here? Not really sure yet what you're getting after, but very interesting.

Bob

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 285
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Paul Wrote:

"I think Rand held a view of causation with regard to human behaviour that was non-deterministic but not acausal. "

I think there's a logic problem here though. Truly non-deterministic means truly impossible to predict. Truly impossible to predict means algorithmic randomness. Algorithmic randomness implies that no laws govern the outcome. No laws means acausal.

I think this position, if indeed this is the positon of Rand/Branden is contradictory. You can't have a view of causation that is acausal.

Bob

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are you asserting free will or consciousness as first-cause here? Not really sure yet what you're getting after, but very interesting.

Bob

First cause is proactive entities. Perpetually kinetic stuff is at the base of reality and has shaped everything we observe. It has also shaped us. It is at the foundation of consciousness and free will. It is also at the foundation of Special Relativity, General Relativity, Quantum reality, etc. At least this is the way I have been imagining things.

Paul

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Paul Wrote:

"I think Rand held a view of causation with regard to human behaviour that was non-deterministic but not acausal. "

I think there's a logic problem here though. Truly non-deterministic means truly impossible to predict. Truly impossible to predict means algorithmic randomness. Algorithmic randomness implies that no laws govern the outcome. No laws means acausal.

I think this position, if indeed this is the positon of Rand/Branden is contradictory. You can't have a view of causation that is acausal.

Bob

I don't. I think the logical problem is to be found in different definitions of determinism. I see determinism as all current and future actions being determined (i.e.: necessitated) by antecedent actions. If choice is real, the act of choice is not necessitated. But it is caused by the actions and interactions of physical entities if this is a basically physical world. Proactive causation opens the door to non-necessitated actions because the energy for action is within the entity, not transferred from other entities. Sorry I can't say more right now. I have to finish building my new fence or I won't like the attention my wife gives me. :)

Paul

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When we get to human behaviour, there is a twist. All the talk is about this thing called free will. As NB said, “Man’s greatest distinction from all other species is the capacity to originate an action of his consciousness– capacity to originate a process of abstract thought.” The act of making a choice, any conscious choice, is distinctly an act that is non-deterministic but causal. It is not deterministic simply because the chain of actions to actions is not necessitated. That there is choice means the action path is not determined. Yes we can say, “Oh, but the path is predetermine, we just can’t know that.” I can’t help but think this logic is similar to thinking, “Oh, but the path of a quantum particle is determined, we just don’t know it.”

No, there is a crucial difference: it is not a question that we "just don't know" the path of a particle, such a path is in principle unknowable, even if we had unlimited means and time we couldn't determine such a path. In contrast the complete action path in the brain may be unknowable for practical reasons (the enormous complexity of the brain), but that won't preclude the possibility that in the future we'll be able to know more parts of it or at least discover some general features of it when we know more about the functioning of the brain. It's for example practically not possible to know the movements of all the molecules in a gas, even if we use the classical approximation, but we can still derive general principles by using statistical methods for the individual moving molecules.

The introspective evidence suggests we do have action alternatives and the act of choosing IS an impulse that starts a causal chain down the path of one of those alternatives.

We know that introspection can only show us our thoughts but not the processes that are at the basis of those thoughts, so it's obvious that we can't see by introspection how an impulse to make a choice arises. It's therefore an unwarranted leap to conclude from that that there is no process that can lead to such a choice. The standard theory can explain that in principle, even if we don't know the details, so we should kill your pro-active baby with Occam's razor. It's like the theory of evolution: the results of evolution are amazingly sophisticated, they form the most complex structures in the universe that we know, the existence of which seems to demand special explanations. Yet they are the result of completely blind, mechanical processes that don't need special physical theories to be explained (just as biology doesn't need the non-explanation of an élan vital, the previous incarnation of "pro-active causality"). But does that fact make those creatures any the less wonderful? I don't think so!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, there is a crucial difference: it is not a question that we "just don't know" the path of a particle, such a path is in principle unknowable, even if we had unlimited means and time we couldn't determine such a path. In contrast the complete action path in the brain may be unknowable for practical reasons (the enormous complexity of the brain), but that won't preclude the possibility that in the future we'll be able to know more parts of it or at least discover some general features of it when we know more about the functioning of the brain. It's for example practically not possible to know the movements of all the molecules in a gas, even if we use the classical approximation, but we can still derive general principles by using statistical methods for the individual moving molecules.

How do we know whether or not the underlying action of the brain is not unknowable in the sense the path of a quantum particle is unknowable? Presumably, there is a quantum level to the actions of the brain. If all knowledge is assumed to derive from observation, with the aid of mathematics to expand our understanding of underlying relationships and reason connecting the evidence and mathematical understanding into an integrated whole, then knowledge necessarily has to stop where observation and measurement cannot be applied. This does not mean, however, that reality comes to an end at this point. If this is our view of the nature of knowledge, then we can say we can know no more. But we cannot say there is no more. This assumes, a priori, that what we can observe, measure and describe mathematically is all there is. There is no justification for this assumption. If we should not assume that there is not reality beyond what we can observe, measure and describe mathematically, why should we assume acausal randomness is the best possible description of quantum reality. If there is a reality beyond what we can observe measure and describe mathematically when talking about quanta, perhaps that reality is essential to understanding the underlying actions of the brain.

If we are going to say anything about any possible underlying nature of reality beyond the quantum limit, we need some other means of generating our perspective. Imagination, strictly limited by our most precise and inclusive definitions of identity and causality, is the only means of saying anything about reality beyond what can be observed, measured and mathematically described. Any model of existence that results from such a process must pass rigorous tests against the evidence and mathematical descriptions if it is to meet any standard of knowledge. Again, if a model of reality created in this manner can explain quantum events, Special Relativity, and General Relativity in causal terms that make intuitive sense and that fit the other criteria, then I believe the idea that there is a fundamental randomness built into existence will be well on the way to being forgotten.

We know that introspection can only show us our thoughts but not the processes that are at the basis of those thoughts, so it's obvious that we can't see by introspection how an impulse to make a choice arises.

True. But the fact that there is a choice is what makes my point.

It's therefore an unwarranted leap to conclude from that that there is no process that can lead to such a choice.

I never said that. I am not claiming acausal events. I am claiming causal but not necessitated events. And I am claiming I am not confused by this. B)

The standard theory can explain that in principle, even if we don't know the details, so we should kill your pro-active baby with Occam's razor.

My baby doesn’t die that easily. You are killing my baby by first misinterpreting the evidence that gives birth to it. How can you prove that choice is not real? How can you show that we do not have a willful act of choosing? You are saying we are deluded into believing this. How can you prove this? Surely not by referencing some notion of causality; a notion of causality that is incompatible with non-necessitated action; a notion of causality that I am bringing into question.

It's like the theory of evolution: the results of evolution are amazingly sophisticated, they form the most complex structures in the universe that we know, the existence of which seems to demand special explanations. Yet they are the result of completely blind, mechanical processes that don't need special physical theories to be explained (just as biology doesn't need the non-explanation of an élan vital, the previous incarnation of "pro-active causality"). But does that fact make those creatures any the less wonderful? I don't think so!

The creatures are wonderful. The question is, “How did they get to be this way?” And yes, the notion of causation I question is the same one that guided the development of evolution theory. I am not talking about the guiding hand of some consciousness here. I am just saying the view of causation that has been the epistemological guiding hand of science should be questioned. Other views of causation might cast new light on old perspective, long assumed to be absolute, even evolution theory.

Paul

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Again, I think we're trying to work to these concepts, not from them in this case.

What are you going to do with them when you get there?

"Causality becomes– what a thing does is determined by the actions and interactions of its physical components."

Too vague for me.

While it is abstract, and it does have the weaknesses I mentioned earlier, I don’t consider it vague. It is meant to limit the kind of models that can be created to represent reality. It limits the degrees of freedom available to the imagination when creating models of existence. The imagination is still free to flow within these limits.

So there is no room for gods, ghosts, or magic. Equally, on this view of causation, there is no room for uncaused events. However, there is room for unnecessitated events. This is a requirement of causality if we are to take the “act of choosing,” with the degree of freedom we witness introspectively, seriously. If we consider the core of our being, that which is conscious and that which wills, to be, essentially, a perpetual kinetic machine, initiating an impulse to begin a causal chain of action, without being necessitated by a prior chain of actions, is conceivable in principle. I imagine this perpetual kinetic machine to exist as an isolated system from the outside environment, contained within and dependent upon the structure of the body.

In particular, I have come to imagine it as a microscopic, force-free plasma filament maintained by its electro-magnetic relationship to the amino acid sequence in DNA. The connection between mind and body is the elecro-magnetic connection between the plasma filament and the cell via the DNA strands. Bob, I don’t have any clue how such an idea will be received but you can’t say it’s too vague.

In short, to exist a thing must be physical."

Ok, but we don't know what "physical" really means do we? For example, what's anti-matter? It certainly exists, beyond doubt. We use it in medical imaging applications all the time. It follows that there is a deeper, perhaps quite strange reality of what "physical" really means.

I actually think physical is exactly what we imagine it to be. Physical entities occupy volume in 3 dimensional space through time. I also tend to think that time and space are absolute but it is the actions of those things we use to make our measurements that is relative. Their actions are not relative to the actions of other things but are relative to the actions of their components. (My Identity-to-action causation may be incomplete, but it does suggest another way of interpreting Special Relativity. "What a thing does is determined by the actions and interactions of its physical components." Behaving relatively is something things do. Therefore, Special Relativity is determined by the actions and interactions of a things physical components.) In fact, I see Special Relativity as being a special case of the same deeper reality that underlies quantum phenomena (and conscious phenomena). In a strange way, Special Relativity gives rise to Newton’s Laws of Motion. Our problem, today, with how we are interpreting the meaning of “physical,” has completely to do with the mental somersaults we are doing to think within the limits of an incomplete view of causation. It is wave-particle duality that is the illusion we cannot see beneath, not causality. It is our current mathematical descriptions of the physical world that break down at the quantum limit and at singularities, not physical existence.

Again, this is where my imagination, limited by my view of causation, has led me. If I am wrong, so be it. I live to reevaluate. But arguments based in an incomplete concept of causation, or in an incomplete epistemology, will not persuade me. If my view of causality is mistaken, I want to know how and why. If my epistemology is leading me astray, I want to know how and why. I want to be right so much, I want to know when I am wrong.

"One of the biases I had gained by abstracting from my experience is the idea that there can be no unextended entities nor disembodied actions."

Sure, we all have these biases, but I contend, and I think you agree, that this type of experience is not good enough to form any conclusions about the subject matter at hand. I would go as far as to say it looks like this bias works against deeper understanding of reality.

Does it? Or is it just that we have not done a good enough job identifying and evaluating our biases. If we consciously and systematically reconstruct the biases that shape our intuition, might we not find ourselves with a better understanding of reality.

I think we are contorting our minds into knots and, with the contortions of our minds, we are distorting our understanding of reality. What we do to our minds, we do to our perspectives of reality. Our disrespect for the power of the imagination as an epistemological tool, and the mental twists that are required to circumvent the application of our imagination in the pursuit of knowledge, are causing ridiculous twists in our basic notions of existence.

What does it mean for a thing to be physical? It has wave properties and particle properties. Why? Because it is a wave and a particle. Why? Because that’s as far as we can observe and we gave up on trying to use intuitive imagination when the Michelson-Morley experiment destroyed the ether. When the Michelson-Morley experiment confounded common sense, we gave up on trying to imagine the underlying nature of existence. We gave up on the flow of imagination guided by causal principles as a tool of knowledge. What if, instead, we just started to question our notions of causation? Relativity and Quantum reality would still be with us but, maybe we would not have lost causality.

I have often reflected on how the ancient Greeks produced so much incredible wisdom in such a short period of time without today’s technology. I recently learned that a recovered document of Archimedes was found to show he had invented calculus 2000 years before Newton and Leibniz. It has taken us so long to get back to what the Greeks had achieved. I would say the reason for losing what the Greeks had created is that we let our imaginations run amuck. We invented gods and ghost and magic in our imaginations by letting a very incomplete notion of causality– agent-to-action causation– limit our imaginations. It is no wonder we don’t trust our imaginations.

The Greeks did trust their imaginations. It was the development of their intuitive perspective through the use of their imaginations, guided by their principles of causality, that produce Plato and Aristotle’s works. Were there mistakes? Hell yes! Their principles of causality were not yet well honed. But look at the magnificence of what they produced without the technology to observe and measure, and the mathematics to guide them, that we have today. Perhaps, this is one more way we need to rediscover what the ancient Greeks already discovered. We need to rediscover the power of the imagination as an epistemological tool.

Paul

(Sorry Bob. My response to you turned into a bit of an essay. I have a tendency to let my enthusiasm get caught on a line of thought that just wants to flow. I generally let it take the tangent. As Jenna once said to me, "Tangents tell you where the curve is going... " And I'm pretty curved. Or is that warped?) ;)

Edited by Paul Mawdsley
Link to comment
Share on other sites

How do we know whether or not the underlying action of the brain is not unknowable in the sense the path of a quantum particle is unknowable? Presumably, there is a quantum level to the actions of the brain.

There is no evidence that quantum processes play a significant role in the functioning of the brain. See for example M. Tegmark: "Importance of quantum decoherence in brain processes" Phys.Rev. E61 4194-4206 (2000), and E. Joos et al.: "Decoherence and the Appearance of a Classical World in Quantum Theory" 2nd. ed. Springer (2003), p. 107-109. From the latter:

"Calculations of this kind strongly support the view that [..] the workings of the brain such as neuron firing and related processes are decohered so strongly that the classical models employed so often appear well founded in principle. Typically, dynamical timescales for neuron firing and cognitive processes are in the range of 10^-4 to 10^0 seconds, whereas decoherence timescales are many orders of magnitude shorter [ranging from 10^-13 to 10^-20 seconds; as I said in a previous post: the brain is far too hot for quantum effects to play a significant role.]

If all knowledge is assumed to derive from observation, with the aid of mathematics to expand our understanding of underlying relationships and reason connecting the evidence and mathematical understanding into an integrated whole, then knowledge necessarily has to stop where observation and measurement cannot be applied. This does not mean, however, that reality comes to an end at this point. If this is our view of the nature of knowledge, then we can say we can know no more. But we cannot say there is no more. This assumes, a priori, that what we can observe, measure and describe mathematically is all there is. There is no justification for this assumption.

To say that "there is something" that in principle cannot be observed, measured or described mathematically is a meaningless statement, at least from a scientific point of view. Such "things" are merely flights of fantasy, you could think up everything you want and all those things would be all equally true, as there is no way to test the different fantasies. Such fantasies are therefore cognitively empty and belong to the realm of religion.

We know that introspection can only show us our thoughts but not the processes that are at the basis of those thoughts, so it's obvious that we can't see by introspection how an impulse to make a choice arises.

True. But the fact that there is a choice is what makes my point.

Why? Computers can make choices too.

My baby doesn’t die that easily. You are killing my baby by first misinterpreting the evidence that gives birth to it. How can you prove that choice is not real? How can you show that we do not have a willful act of choosing? You are saying we are deluded into believing this. How can you prove this? Surely not by referencing some notion of causality; a notion of causality that is incompatible with non-necessitated action; a notion of causality that I am bringing into question.

What do you exactly mean by saying that a choice is "real"?

The creatures are wonderful. The question is, “How did they get to be this way?” And yes, the notion of causation I question is the same one that guided the development of evolution theory. I am not talking about the guiding hand of some consciousness here. I am just saying the view of causation that has been the epistemological guiding hand of science should be questioned.

Why? Is there anything in the theory that cannot be explained by the standard notion of causation? If yes, what is it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The creatures are wonderful. The question is, “How did they get to be this way?” And yes, the notion of causation I question is the same one that guided the development of evolution theory. I am not talking about the guiding hand of some consciousness here. I am just saying the view of causation that has been the epistemological guiding hand of science should be questioned.

Why? Is there anything in the theory that cannot be explained by the standard notion of causation? If yes, what is it?

Yes, there is one thing: the evolution of a consciousness that is free from necessitation and capable of willed action. :D As I recall there are some other blips in the data similar to the minor blips in the data that gave birth to Special Relativity. It's something to do with the rates of mutation that cannot be accounted for by random action. I will have to go looking for my references on these. I'll respond to the rest of your post later.

Paul

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But there is nothing strange about anti-matter, it's as real and physical as "ordinary" matter; the latter is only "ordinary" while there happens to be far more matter than anti-matter in the universe.

How do we know there is far more matter than anti matter in the universe? If different volumes of space are separated by electro-magnetic fields, can the different volumes of space not have different balances of matter and anti-matter? If this occurred, how would we know the difference? I don't have the physics knowledge to answer these questions with confidence but it fits with what I do know.

Like Objectivist factions the two can't exist peacefully together, but annihilate each other when they come into contact.

That's why we must keep the different factions in different volumes of space.

Paul

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How do we know there is far more matter than anti matter in the universe? If different volumes of space are separated by electro-magnetic fields, can the different volumes of space not have different balances of matter and anti-matter? If this occurred, how would we know the difference? I don't have the physics knowledge to answer these questions with confidence but it fits with what I do know.

See for example here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Paul Wrote:

"What are you going to do with them when you get there?"

We'd have arrived!! We'd have the Unified Theory and we'd see where it takes us.

"If we consider the core of our being, that which is conscious and that which wills, to be, essentially, a perpetual kinetic machine, initiating an impulse to begin a causal chain of action, without being necessitated by a prior chain of actions, is conceivable in principle."

I cannot conceive of a chain of events that is continuous other than the first "impulse" as you've decribed it. I think your perpetual kinetic machine concept is accurate at least in the sense that the human body has little if any thermodynamic mystery to it. The chemical energy to kinetic energy process and vice-versa is well understood.

It seems to me though that you have a somewhat normal causal chain, with a somehow special first cause going on that has no connection to prior events.

"I actually think physical is exactly what we imagine it to be. Physical entities occupy volume in 3 dimensional space through time."

I think it NOTHING like we imagine it to be. If the entire earth was collapsed to the density of a neutron star it would occupy the space of a small marble. Physical matter is not simple - huge hidden complexity.

From another post:

"It's something to do with the rates of mutation that cannot be accounted for by random action. "

If I recall, there was some realy questionable theories on this topic. Random mutation is one thing, genetic drift is another. The latter is FAR from random. Very specific, and sometimes very high external adaptive pressures apply to organisms and the change rates can be very high unmysteriously. There was other theories out there that speculated that intricate biological machinery like advanced eyes could not spontaneously evolve. These theories are basically totally shot down.

"If my view of causality is mistaken, I want to know how and why. If my epistemology is leading me astray, I want to know how and why. I want to be right so much, I want to know when I am wrong."

I understand what you mean. The only thing I feel fairly certain about is that I think we do not understand causation very well, and that we need to undertand more. I think causation has some type of circular or other multi-dimensional component that we do not understand yet. I do not think it is a simple chain in simple time, that's for sure.

However, I also believe that the while the simple causation idea is incompatible with free will, quantum effects are insuffient to explain free will as well. Randomness or acausality also gives us no easy way to understand our apparent control over outcomes any more than billiard-ball causality does.

However, I also understand that our perception of free will is totally insufficient as evidence that we do indeed have it. I remain unconvinced. Occam's razor would seem to indicate the simple solution that we "think" we have free will, but we actually don't. THis is not a guarantee of truth though. I keep an open mind.

Quite honestly, logic would seem to dictate that at this point that free will does not seem likely. Of course, this could change with more info.

Bob

Edited by Bob_Mac
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here are a couple of quotes that are pertinent to this discussion.

Chris Matthew Sciabarra, Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical, Chapter 5 - "Being," "The Entity as a Cluster of Qualities," p. 143:

In discussing the nature of an entity, Rand continue to emphasize that philosophy is metascientific. We may never know an entity's ultimate constituents. We may never know if entities are reducible to matter or to some as-yet-undiscovered form of energy. We may never know if our perceptual level is even capable of discovering the ultimate nature of entities in the universe ("Appendix," 290-95). None of this has any philosophical significance.

The only important philosophical conclusion that can be made about the nature of the any entities in the universe is that each has identity.

The "Appendix" referenced is the Appendix to the Expanded Second Edition of Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology by Ayn Rand. This Appendix is an edited rendering by Binswnager of workshops on Objectivist epistemology Rand held in NYC between 1969-1971. I decided to look up the reference and I uncovered a very pertinent passage on the preceding page.

Prof. B: Is the concept of "matter" a philosophical concept or a scientific one?

AR: In the way we are using it here, as a very broad abstraction, it is a philosophical concept. If by "matter" we mean "that of which all the things we perceive are made," that is a philosophical concept. But questions like: what are different things made of? what are the properties of matter? how can you break it down? etc.—those are scientific problems.

Philosophy by its nature has to be based only on that which is available to the knowledge of any man with a normal mental equipment. Philosophy is not dependent on the discoveries of science; the reverse is true.

So whenever you are in doubt about what is or is not a philosophical subject, ask yourself whether you need a specialized knowledge, beyond the knowledge available to you as a normal adult, unaided by any special knowledge or special instruments. And if the answer is possible to you on that basis alone, you are dealing with a philosophical question. If to answer it you would need training in physics, or psychology, or special equipment, etc., then you are dealing with a derivative or scientific field of knowledge, not philosophy.

This should make the issue of axioms clearer in the sense I have been trying to convey. There is a very broad meaning for philosophy, which is practically an endorsement of the mind's validity to know things in a knowable reality, and a more specific technical meaning for physics.

(Whether or not one agrees with her boundary of what constitutes philosophy, this is the context of her definition and use of axioms.)

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Prof. B: Is the concept of "matter" a philosophical concept or a scientific one?

AR:

So whenever you are in doubt about what is or is not a philosophical subject, ask yourself whether you need a specialized knowledge, beyond the knowledge available to you as a normal adult, unaided by any special knowledge or special instruments. And if the answer is possible to you on that basis alone, you are dealing with a philosophical question. If to answer it you would need training in physics, or psychology, or special equipment, etc., then you are dealing with a derivative or scientific field of knowledge, not philosophy.

Ok, to be consistent with this position, Philosophy should then make no claims with regard to causality at all.

Bob

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bob,

Ok, to be consistent with this position, Philosophy should then make no claims with regard to causality at all.

Why? Do you mean that man cannot know for certain that fire will burn him and animals with big pointy teeth will eat him until a scientist lets him know that? Those things are entities and are causes of specific results. Man can know that for certain because it works every time.

Once again, you are thinking causality in terms of physics, not philosophy. For philosophy, causality is another animal.

Let's put it this way. This is true: "philosophy should then make no claims with regard to the specialized physics meaning of causality at all."

I can't do the contrary, though. Unfortunately for rhetorical symmetry, I would need to be able to say that the specialized physics meaning of causality can be known without a mind (without human knowledge at the philosophy level - without the basic concept level). I can't. Doesn't work.

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bob,
Ok, to be consistent with this position, Philosophy should then make no claims with regard to causality at all.

Why? Do you mean that man cannot know for certain that fire will burn him and animals with big pointy teeth will eat him until a scientist lets him know that? Those things are entities and are causes of specific results. Man can know that for certain because it works every time.

Once again, you are thinking causality in terms of physics, not philosophy. For philosophy, causality is another animal.

Michael

You're right, I definitely thinking of causality in the physics sense. So while this is outside the range of philosophical discussion, there seems to be great discussion in Philosophy forums on this very topic.

I'm all for the philosophical position of letting the physicists figure it out. But there seems to be a lot of philosophers who are telling the physicists that they must have it wrong. As you might guess, I don't really agree all that much with that position...

Bob

Edited by Bob_Mac
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now please do continue with Paul and Dragonfly. You guys (and others) have much to teach me...

Michael,

I may not have responded to your discussion on axioms but I am paying attention to, thinking about, and learning from what you have been saying. I find it interesting that my own thought processes are not tied to axioms the same way as other's seem to be. This is the reason I have talked about "personal fictions" and "relative perspectives" in my previous posts. As you have so clearly, and, to me, profoundly, pointed out: axioms act as an interface between the mind and reality. They works to connect our "personal fictions" or "relative perspectives" to reality to allow us to make knowledge claims.

On the down side, there is the tendency to tie ourselves more tightly to perspectives for which we make knowledge claims because we start to confuse our equations with some kind of direct connection with reality. Maintaining the relativity of our perspectives does tend to avoid this. The axioms that connect our relative perspectives to reality, and the logical and mathematical equations that shape our relative views, must always be open to scrutiny.

Thanks for the insight.

Paul

Edited by Paul Mawdsley
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Paul,

There are two big confusions that I have observed in Objectivist discussions. The first is a confusion between philosophy and science. Hopefully, I made it clear that an axiom of philosophy is different (but not contradictory) to an axiom of science. (Just because things are weird on a quantum physics level doesn't mean that tigers stop being dangerous animals or that we stop being sure of it.)

The second confusion is between psychology and epistemology. Philosophy concerns the volitional faculty - even when it deals with emotions. And even then, the mind is dealt with only on a basic level, not at a neuroscientific level. There is a small branch forming called "neurophilosophy," but it is more science than philosophy.

Psychology concerns automatic mental functions and activities and how they interact with the volitional capacity. In your language, this would be how we form our "personal fictions" and "relative perspectives." These considerations are extremely important. However, the rules of logic will be the same for all perspectives. A syllogism will function in the same manner at all levels. That's the philosophy. How we work the syllogism into our thinking - that's the psychology. I see you right on the edge of this.

Steven Shmurak is writing a paper for JARS where he identifies the innate building blocks of emotions. This is presented with empirical evidence. On a philosophical level, I don't see how the affects he describes will be able to be left out of philosophy. They are crucial to our normative abstractions and do much more than impact "personal fictions" and "relative perspectives." They practically create them in infants. These perspectives change as we grow and volition starts being added to the mix. As the observation of these affects is something open to all men without specialization, they will have to be integrated into the philosophy, despite being discoveries of psychology.

You have done some world-class heavy thinking about causality. I would be interested in your views on the implications of this thing with affects. Steve even has a phrase about how our values choose us. How's that for inverted causation?

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would be interested in your views on the implications of this thing with affects. Steve even has a phrase about how our values choose us. How's that for inverted causation?

Michael,

I have allowed my imagination to take me to many places over the years and have spent time piecing together causal perspectives on a lot of key areas. I am very driven to think, learn, and write on all these things, sometimes to the detriment of other areas of my life. As you know, I have a young family and, like most, a full-time job. I am also in the process of starting a small manufacturing and installation company in all my spare time. Usually, writing is paid for by time I should spend sleeping. I am starting to feel a little of the stress this has created on my time and energy.

I'm not quite sure why I feel the need to write this. I think partly it is because I find myself getting into discussions I am very enthusiastic about, only to not be able to follow them through the way I'd like. I am very interested in discussing ideas surrounding affect and volition in a causally intuitive way. As with many other areas, I have spent a lot of time over the last 20 years thinking about causality and psychological processes. Please understand, if I am unable to follow through on discussions I am involved in, it is in no way due to any disrespect for the people or the ideas I am engaged with. This forum, and the people I interact with here, have become a very important part of my life. Thank you and Kat, again, for providing this forum, and for your respect and interest in my views.

Paul

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Paul,

I understand your feeling completely. (I have felt that feeling of being overwhelmed with not enough time on occasion.) So let me say this.

My request was not the creation of any expectation on my part other than a possibility. The good thing about OL is that you can take all the time you need for anything you wish to say. Notice how many threads are picked up again after a few months laying idle.

On the thing about affects, I will look forward to your comments in particular if and when you can get around to commenting on it since I like what you write. But if you don't... well... you don't.

I'm still going to like what you write.

:)

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Michael,

Thanks for your kind words. The motivation for what I wrote came more from a conflict between my desire to participate and my energy to do so, rather than any sense of expectation. As with most things, it was all about me. :D

Paul

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Paul,

All about you? Wanna do an analysis on the different causation elements in that?

(Forget it, just joking...)

:)

Michael

Of course. What a thing is determines what it does. Even though my internal components were informed by my environment, the actions and interactions of my internal components determined what I wrote; and the actions and interactions of my internal components were influenced by a proactive, non-necessitated, willful core. In this way, my actions were not caused by the actions of outside entities. Self-responsibility begins with an internal locus of control. An internal locus of control begins with the epistemological principle of entity-to-action causation guiding intuitive processing, not action-to-action causation

Paul

Edited by Paul Mawdsley
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now