An axiomatic paradox?

[worldlogicleague]

It doesn't seem possible to me for a person to be conscious and not be considered an observer of it in themselves.

It happens in sports as a commonly known phenomenon and is called 'being in the zone'. The player is conscious of the ball but wastes no time being conscious of being conscious of the ball. To do so would cause loss of concentration and playing poorly. There is no need for the player to be conscious-that he-is-conscious-of the-ball for him to be conscious-of-the-ball. Therefore the primacy of existence axiom stands.

[tjohnson]

It happens in sports as a commonly known phenomenon and is called 'being in the zone'. The player is conscious of the ball but wastes no time being conscious of being conscious of the ball. To do so would cause loss of concentration and playing poorly. There is no need for the player to be conscious-that he-is-conscious-of the-ball for him to be conscious-of-the-ball. Therefore the primacy of existence axiom stands.

You have an interesting way of arguing. You make some vague statement and then conclude that "the primacy of existence axiom stands". It certainly doesn't stand for me. When you are trying to convince someone of something you don't just proclaim that you have proven your point, you have to get the other person to agree.

[Paul Mawdsley]

(Note: from the metaphysical view the general principles that shape a given view of existence are existents to be isolated and identified in one's metaphysical models. These principles are arrived at through inductive inference and the test for the validity of these inferences is whether or not the worldview created is consistent with the evidence. Whereas the test for premises in a deductive argument is non contradiction between the each of the premises-- the parts-- and the evidence, the test for an inductive inference is non contradiction between the whole system and the evidence.)

Paul

PS--Dragonfly, I appreciated your comments.

Deduction is not a definite mode of validating premises. If no logical contradiction is derived, that is no guarantee that the premises are true. If a contradiction is derived it says that the set of premises cannot be totally satisfied by fact. It tells you something is wrong, but not exactly what.

Empirical checking does not guarantee the truth of premises either. A collision with fact again indicates one of the premises is false.

The duality is this: Deduction is a valid way to get from premises to conclusion. It does not guarantee the truth of the premises (i.e. the -soundness- of the derivation). Deduction only assures the validity of the argument, not its soundness. Empirical corroberation does not guarantee the truth of the premises but empirical refutation tells tells you one of the premises is wrong. This is the basis of Rand's saying: Check your premises.

By the way, you should include -abduction- with inductive reasoning. Abduction ( a term invented by C.S. Peirce) is hypothesizing to possible to cause. Given the evidence, produce a cause (hypothetical) that can account for the evidence seen.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Bob...Ba'al,

I was tired (finished writing after 3 am) and didn't have the energy or desire to proof read what I wrote using a context of formal logic. Thanks for doing this for me. I need to reevaluate and reformulate what I said.

Paul

PS-- Do you prefer Bob or Ba'al. I noticed Michael calling you Bob and took his lead. Do you have a preference?

[Paul Mawdsley]

GS, I urge you to read a little on pancritical rationalization. I think you may find it to be an epistemic metacontext that fits with your approach.

Paul

[merjet]

That was interesting Merlin but did you have any comment about how it relates to what we were discussing?

Your statement that I quoted in #149 is not about self-awareness???

[BaalChatzaf]

I was tired (finished writing after 3 am) and didn't have the energy or desire to proof read what I wrote using a context of formal logic. Thanks for doing this for me. I need to reevaluate and reformulate what I said.

Paul

PS-- Do you prefer Bob or Ba'al. I noticed Michael calling you Bob and took his lead. Do you have a preference?

I am the Master of Cheekiness. It took me a long time to get to be this, so I like my honorific. At my age I should be Jolly Old Fellow, but that is contrary to my nature. My goodwife says she cannot take me anywhere. Coming from her, that is high praise. I am the Lord of Chutzpah. By the wa Ba'al is hebrew for Master, Lord or Boss. It is similar in meaning to the akadian word Baal which is what the folks on the Plains of Shinar called their gods.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

OK, I'm burned out on reading posts on induction. (And why aren't they in this folder??)

Here's a puzzler for you Objectivist and logic hotshots. Here is a syllogism (or as near to one as I can make it), which seems to lead to a paradoxical conclusion. What's wrong with the syllogism -- or the premises?

Premise 1: Existence is independent of consciousness. Or, Every thing that exists is independent of consciousness. (This is the Primacy of Existence principle.)

Premise 2: Consciousness exists. Or, Consciousness is something that exists.

Conclusion: Consciousness is independent of consciousness.

I'm really interested in what O-L'ers have to say about this.

Best,

REB

Some entities are artifacts of consciousness, like points and lines. So you major premise is false. Things outside our skins exist with or without us. Things inside are sometimes made inside, like our thoughts.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[worldlogicleague]

It happens in sports as a commonly known phenomenon and is called 'being in the zone'. The player is conscious of the ball but wastes no time being conscious of being conscious of the ball. To do so would cause loss of concentration and playing poorly. There is no need for the player to be conscious-that he-is-conscious-of the-ball for him to be conscious-of-the-ball. Therefore the primacy of existence axiom stands.

You have an interesting way of arguing. You make some vague statement and then conclude that "the primacy of existence axiom stands". It certainly doesn't stand for me. When you are trying to convince someone of something you don't just proclaim that you have proven your point, you have to get the other person to agree.

Actually standard. One presents their evidence/reasoning and then presents their conclusion drawn from it. One cannot convince someone of something without stating what that is, their conclusion. And one cannot convince someone of something without presenting their evidence/reasoning for it.

[tjohnson]

GS, I urge you to read a little on pancritical rationalization. I think you may find it to be an epistemic metacontext that fits with your approach.

Paul

Thanks Paul, I found this quote of Popper's there.

By "world 1" I mean what is usually called the world of physics, of rocks, and trees and physical fields of forces. By "world 2" I mean the psychological world, the world of feelings of fear and of hope, of dispositions to act, and of all kinds of subjective experiences.

By "world 3" I mean the world of the products of the human mind. Although I include works of art in world 3 and also ethical values and social institutions (and this, one might say, societies), I shall confine myself largely to the world of scientific libraries, to books, to scientific problems, and to theories, including mistaken theories.

This is remarkably similar to what Korzybski shows in his Structural Differential. It seems they correspond like this;

World 1 => Event level

World 2 => Objective level

World 3 => Verbal Level

[tjohnson]

Actually standard. One presents their evidence/reasoning and then presents their conclusion drawn from it. One cannot convince someone of something without stating what that is, their conclusion. And one cannot convince someone of something without presenting their evidence/reasoning for it.

Well you should say your position still stands and so does mine. It's not possible to say either position is absolutely "proven". At best we can accept the premise or not as stated.

[Paul Mawdsley]

Thanks Paul, I found this quote of Popper's there.

By "world 1" I mean what is usually called the world of physics, of rocks, and trees and physical fields of forces. By "world 2" I mean the psychological world, the world of feelings of fear and of hope, of dispositions to act, and of all kinds of subjective experiences.

By "world 3" I mean the world of the products of the human mind. Although I include works of art in world 3 and also ethical values and social institutions (and this, one might say, societies), I shall confine myself largely to the world of scientific libraries, to books, to scientific problems, and to theories, including mistaken theories.

This is remarkably similar to what Korzybski shows in his Structural Differential. It seems they correspond like this;

World 1 => Event level

World 2 => Objective level

World 3 => Verbal Level

This epistemic metacontext makes the breakdowns in communication much more understandable, without the need to assume that someone is being irrational for holding an untenable position. Interesting that Korzybski isolated a parallel context to describe what seems to be a common reality. The fundamentally contextual nature of consciousness and certainty, with only the capacity to approach approach certainty through constant exposure to criticism and reevaluation, points to the incompleteness of Objectivism's epistemology and to the fact that Objectivist metaphysics is not absolute. This being said, I still consider myself to be metaphysically an Objectivist. I just think the position cannot be justified with absolute certainty.

Pancritical rationalism, as it strikes me at my current level of understanding, is not incompatible with Objectivist epistemology and metaphysics. It creates the context in which Objectivist epistemology and metaphysics makes sense and it removes the dogmatic elements of Objectivism. Of course, for this to work Objectivism needs to be viewed as an open system that is an epistemic subcontext to pancritical rationalism. Incidentally, the scientific method and scientific knowledge would also have to be considered an epistemic subcontext to pancritical rationalism. Pancritical rationalism is the metacontext within which all other epistemic contexts, and their resultant models of the nature of existence, are grounded, created and critically evaluated.

Paul

[Mindy Newton]

Paul, I'm lost in space.

I don't know if it's metacontextual space, subcontextual space, or what, but I am, indeed, lost. Could you define these terms? (I know what context means.:-))

= Mindy

[tjohnson]

Correct me if I'm wrong Paul but when you say 'metacontext' would it be like standing back and examining each person's context? So instead of staying in one's own context one can move to the next level and see it as just one of many contexts?

[Paul Mawdsley]

Paul, I'm lost in space.

I don't know if it's metacontextual space, subcontextual space, or what, but I am, indeed, lost. Could you define these terms? (I know what context means.:-))

= Mindy

Mindy, see here for my reply. I want to stay true to my word and not take this thread on further tangents and shifting contexts.

Paul

PS--GS, see if this link illustrates what I mean further or if I continue to be clear as mud.

Edited September 15, 2008 by Paul Mawdsley

[Roger Bissell]

It is the never-ending terminological disputes such as the above -- especially those that include neologisms, coined phrases, etc. -- that have convinced me of the truth of a fresh, new perspective on the world.

I have decided that I am an Extrinsic Superjectivist. (Or, equivalently, a Superjective Extrinsicist.) In regard to Existence, I reject Intrinsicism and therefore embrace Extrinsicism. In regard to Consciousness, I reject Subjectivism and therefore embrace Superjectivism.

If any readers find this puzzling or nonsensical, I don't blame you. But I need something simple, something I can wrap my puny mind around -- and the foregoing posts just ain't getting it!

REB

P. S. -- Is there a full moon out this weekend, or what? I mean, Bildebergers, Masons, etc., and now this??? Sheesh.

[sbeaulieu]

P. S. -- Is there a full moon out this weekend, or what? I mean, Bildebergers, Masons, etc., and now this??? Sheesh.

Indeed there is! But I'm sure you knew that. :hyper:

[Paul Mawdsley]

It is the never-ending terminological disputes such as the above -- especially those that include neologisms, coined phrases, etc. -- that have convinced me of the truth of a fresh, new perspective on the world.

I have decided that I am an Extrinsic Superjectivist. (Or, equivalently, a Superjective Extrinsicist.) In regard to Existence, I reject Intrinsicism and therefore embrace Extrinsicism. In regard to Consciousness, I reject Subjectivism and therefore embrace Superjectivism.

If any readers find this puzzling or nonsensical, I don't blame you. But I need something simple, something I can wrap my puny mind around -- and the foregoing posts just ain't getting it!

REB

P. S. -- Is there a full moon out this weekend, or what? I mean, Bildebergers, Masons, etc., and now this??? Sheesh.

Roger,

All I have to say is: psycho-epistemology, social metaphysics, contextual certainty, context dropping, entity-to-action causation, sense of life, primacy of existence, law of identity, measurement omission, etc. The value of a concept is not in how easy it is to grasp. It is in whether or not it identifies an existent. Just because you may not have isolated an existent yet, it doesn't mean there is nothing there. After all:

Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man's feelings, wishes, hopes or fears [or knowledge].

— Ayn Rand, "Introducing Objectivism"

The Objectivist Newsletter Vol. 1 No. 8 August, 1962 p. 35 (copied from OL's Metaphysics FAQs)

You now have a file folder for "metacontext." Who knows, you may find some existent to fill it with some day so it won't seem like such an empty concept to you.

Paul

[tjohnson]

...I can wrap my puny mind around

I wouldn't be posting things like this, even in jest. Some people may get the wrong idea.

[merjet]

Ray's essay is fundamentally not about boundaries, but about the metaphysical status of entities. Her essay, "Entities, Edges, and Existence," co-written with Thomas Radcliffe and delivered in June 2000 to the TOC Advanced Seminar, was explicitly aimed at arguing, against Rand, that there are no metaphysically privileged entities that exist as entities apart from our cognitive processes. Quoting from the opening paragraphs of the Ray/Radcliffe essay:

We argue that, for some part of reality to be classifiable under the concept ENTITY, it is both a necessary and sufficient condition that there be a knowing subject who abstracts that part from the rest of reality by an act of selective attention. On this view, all entities are equal. This view is in direct disagreement with Rand's contention that "metaphysically they (entities) are not all equal" (IOE, p. 273). Apparently, it is her view in at least part of the discussion portion of the second edition of

Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology

, that entities are unities in virtue of a uniting principle that is independent of any conscious subject’s awareness or attention. She grants entitihood to mountains, but not to piles of dirt...It is our contention that this distinction is not consistent with

a fully-developed Objectivist epistemology

, and that in fact the distinction requires a concession to realism with regard to universals. We shall nonetheless refer to this as "The Received Objectivist View", to be distinguished from the fully

conceptualist

version of Objectivism we put forward here. [underscoring added]

Roger, I believe you somewhat misportray Ray & Radcliffe. They don't say entities don't exist apart from our cognitive processes. Rather they hold that more important metaphysically are edges, to wit:

To understand how we form our concepts of entities, we must ask how we distinguish entities from the stuff around them. One basic premise that would seem to be indisputable is that an entity is a unity. A unity is some part of reality that is bounded by an edge. The question immediately arises,

To what in reality do we refer when we use the concept EDGE?

We argue that it refers to the results of the act of selective attention whereby the subject distinguishes some portion of reality from everything else. Because we construe all entities with edges that--whatever other metaphysical properties they may trace out--are created by the subject's attention, all entities are equal. Some are more interesting than others, but all are bounded by edges of the same type and origin.

I happen to agree with Rand. In the Appendix to ITOE a professor asks her: “On the metaphysical priority, isn't there a basic classification of things as entities which comes before all these special cases, rather than seeing them all as equal?”

She replies: “Right, they're not all equal metaphysically. A valley, for instance, or society—those epistemologically can be regarded as entities. But a mountain is a primary entity; the valley is not, it's a dependent—it's actually an indentation between two mountains if you regard them together. But then what is the primary entity? Recall what we said about the pile of dirt vs. the mountain: it has to be a unit of some kind, tied or welded or integrated together, which has certain properties, and with actions being possible to it as a whole. Such as, you can climb a mountain, but you can't do anything with the pile of dirt, unless you glue it together.”

What Rand seems to appeal to here is the idea of unity. That is my thesis as well, with the addition that it is organization that provides the foundation of unity. Ray & Radcliffe seem to hold that edges provide the foundation of entities. However, I have a partial problem with that. Edges exist within entities as well as distinguish an entity with its background.

[Mindy Newton]

Ray's essay is fundamentally not about boundaries, but about the metaphysical status of entities. Her essay, "Entities, Edges, and Existence," co-written with Thomas Radcliffe and delivered in June 2000 to the TOC Advanced Seminar, was explicitly aimed at arguing, against Rand, that there are no metaphysically privileged entities that exist as entities apart from our cognitive processes. Quoting from the opening paragraphs of the Ray/Radcliffe essay:

We argue that, for some part of reality to be classifiable under the concept ENTITY, it is both a necessary and sufficient condition that there be a knowing subject who abstracts that part from the rest of reality by an act of selective attention. On this view, all entities are equal. This view is in direct disagreement with Rand's contention that "metaphysically they (entities) are not all equal" (IOE, p. 273). Apparently, it is her view in at least part of the discussion portion of the second edition of

Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology

, that entities are unities in virtue of a uniting principle that is independent of any conscious subject’s awareness or attention. She grants entitihood to mountains, but not to piles of dirt...It is our contention that this distinction is not consistent with

a fully-developed Objectivist epistemology

, and that in fact the distinction requires a concession to realism with regard to universals. We shall nonetheless refer to this as "The Received Objectivist View", to be distinguished from the fully

conceptualist

version of Objectivism we put forward here. [underscoring added]

Roger, I believe you somewhat misportray Ray & Radcliffe. They don't say entities don't exist apart from our cognitive processes. Rather they hold that more important metaphysically are edges, to wit:

To understand how we form our concepts of entities, we must ask how we distinguish entities from the stuff around them. One basic premise that would seem to be indisputable is that an entity is a unity. A unity is some part of reality that is bounded by an edge. The question immediately arises,

To what in reality do we refer when we use the concept EDGE?

We argue that it refers to the results of the act of selective attention whereby the subject distinguishes some portion of reality from everything else. Because we construe all entities with edges that--whatever other metaphysical properties they may trace out--are created by the subject's attention, all entities are equal. Some are more interesting than others, but all are bounded by edges of the same type and origin.

I happen to agree with Rand. In the Appendix to ITOE a professor asks her: “On the metaphysical priority, isn't there a basic classification of things as entities which comes before all these special cases, rather than seeing them all as equal?”

She replies: “Right, they're not all equal metaphysically. A valley, for instance, or society—those epistemologically can be regarded as entities. But a mountain is a primary entity; the valley is not, it's a dependent—it's actually an indentation between two mountains if you regard them together. But then what is the primary entity? Recall what we said about the pile of dirt vs. the mountain: it has to be a unit of some kind, tied or welded or integrated together, which has certain properties, and with actions being possible to it as a whole. Such as, you can climb a mountain, but you can't do anything with the pile of dirt, unless you glue it together.”

What Rand seems to appeal to here is the idea of unity. That is my thesis as well, with the addition that it is organization that provides the foundation of unity. Ray & Radcliffe seem to hold that edges provide the foundation of entities. However, I have a partial problem with that. Edges exist within entities as well as distinguish an entity with its background.

Very interesting.

One might point out that more abstract nouns, like "valley," always have a metaphysically primary description also. A valley is a piece of land. When there are two mountains on either side of it, that piece of land is sheltered from cross-winds, and its weather pattern is affected by the mountains, and it receives the run-off from the near mountain slopes, etc. Thus we need a term for such pieces of land, because they all share these features, which have practical significance for us. "Valley" comes into use. The piece of land between the mountains is metaphysically as primary as the mountains. But it's being a valley is dependent on the mountains. The mountains could be removed, and the piece of land would remain, but the valley would be gone. In fact, one mountain could be removed, and the rest remain, but the valley would be gone.

I think, fundamentally, Ray and Radcliffe are missing the point of what Rand said. She pointed clearly to the epistemological nature of the distinction. A valley or a society are grammatically entities, because they are nouns, they are used to refer. And they are real things, not just different names, in that they have "new" characteristics. However, they aren't additional existents to their constituents. There isn't the land between the mountains, and the valley. There are not the twenty thousand people living in College Park, plus the society, College Park. When we say the child is the father of the man, we aren't talking about three members of homo sapiens. We're talking about three developmental stages, each of which involves distinctive characteristics. (The metaphorical meaning depends on this.) That is their status as metaphysically derivative. The child will cease to exist without anyone dying. A forest has no additional roots to those of its trees. Still, a forest is a home to various wildlife only because its trees are closely related.

It isn't about things, it's about language. It's about language that recognizes entities. It points out that that language has two categories, call them simple and complex. The term "entity" refers to both simple and complex things. Complex things involve simple things. Complex things have characteristics their simple things didn't.

If I read them correctly, Ray and Radcliffe are thinking Rand is proposing that some existents aren't as "real" as others. That's not her view, IMO.

On a more technical level, Ray and Radcliffe commit a logical howler in their statement of the problem, when they move from how all entities are abstracted to the conclusion that all entities are therefore metaphysically equal. Being abstracted in the same way does not confer metaphysical status, of course, so this is technically, implicitly, a case of primacy of consciousness. They re-offend in this way when discussing "edges." So, Roger, your take, which Merlin disputes, is logically astute, even though Merlin is right that it isn't what they meant to say.

Their statement of the conditions necessary and sufficient to identify an entity is also problematic, but I doubt that's of interest.

= Mindy

[BaalChatzaf]

What Rand seems to appeal to here is the idea of unity. That is my thesis as well, with the addition that it is organization that provides the foundation of unity. Ray & Radcliffe seem to hold that edges provide the foundation of entities. However, I have a partial problem with that. Edges exist within entities as well as distinguish an entity with its background.

Is the donut more real, as real or less real than its hole?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Mindy Newton]

You now have a file folder for "metacontext." Who knows, you may find some existent to fill it with some day so it won't seem like such an empty concept to you.

Paul

You can't open a file folder without a concept, an idea of a kind of thing. You can't just take a word and label a space and expect ever to file anything beyond new occurrences of that word in speech. I, also, am against jargon.

= Mindy

[Mindy Newton]

Actually standard. One presents their evidence/reasoning and then presents their conclusion drawn from it. One cannot convince someone of something without stating what that is, their conclusion. And one cannot convince someone of something without presenting their evidence/reasoning for it.

Well you should say your position still stands and so does mine. It's not possible to say either position is absolutely "proven". At best we can accept the premise or not as stated.

One can absolutely prove that an argument is false.

=Mindy

[tjohnson]

One can absolutely prove that an argument is false.

=Mindy

I don't agree.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

GS,

I might start calling you "Wet Nurse."

(I hope you have read AS.)

Michael