External world

[brave ocean]

GG @spice flame, you just advanced to level 2!

lack____ has been warned

Reason: Duplicated text

[spice flame]

<@&651269736948039710> My carefully crafted opening post was deleted. I don't think it had any duplicated text! Any chance you can bring it back?

[dusty spoke]

I will give you an explanation until the mods or admins bring it back, the bot doesn't like when you press "enter" too much, it's not gonna be a big problem they can easily give you a role that permits you to dodge this bot behaviour, hope this is not something that bothers you much

[spice flame]

Ah, paragraphs make the bot angry? Good to know!

[spice flame]

So after watching TJump's conversation with Joe Schmidt (https://youtu.be/AGNmFe0nbXA?si=qJJVlRD396rO3vyw) I was struck by Joe's attempt to steel-man the theist objection to TJump's "novel testable predictions" criteria, and TJump's response.

First of all, the distinction of "things I can directly influence with my mind" and "things I can't directly influence with my mind" are the clearest definitions I've ever heard for "imagination" and "external world", respectively. I think holding to those is a great response to the "brain in a vat" or "Cartesian demon" arguments; as long as the "things I can't directly influence with my mind" act in a predictable enough way that allows induction, it doesn't matter what they are ontologically.

The thing I'm left with now is if there's any way to bridge the gap from "things I can't directly influence with my mind" to "that is physical reality".

Can anyone help me out here? (Literally. I'm stuck in my own mind. Can you help me get out?)

[worldly basalt]

there is no solution to mind dependence. TJump just presupposes that there is and leans on the rhetoric that it is possible to differentiate imagination and reality. This is not the case.

mind independence is a myth of western philosophy, like the laws of logic

[spice flame]

What about the categories of "Things I can direcly influence with my mind" and "Things I cannot directly influence with my mind" - Do you think it's possible to differentiate between those 2 things?

[worldly basalt]

yes, but since we exist in a world of concepts, you can influence the whole world indirectly with your mind through concepts, and so it is not a very useful distinction. we want distinctions to be meaningful, this one needs more work before it's meaningful.

a useful distinction here might be between photonic and massive matter. we can move photonic matter with our minds but we can only move massive matter with our bodies.

[spice flame]

I don't think I understand what you mean. When I read the word "concept" I consider it to mean a mental model. Is that what you mean? I don't think my concepts or my will have any observable effect on a large number of the experiences I have. I also don't have the ability to make light change direction or wavelength using only my mind. Is "photonic matter" the same thing as massless photon particles in physics? Or something else?

[worldly basalt]

you personally might not influence the world with concepts but you might be able to grant that the world is itself influenced by concepts like theological narratives and such.

you make light change direction every time you perceive something, so you do have that ability. and yes photonic matter is light. there's no particles in my model though, that's not a thing

[spice flame]

I can agree that some concepts influence "the world" in specific limited ways, sure. But do you agree that's a very different kind of interaction than the unlimited "creative mode" control I have within what I'm calling "imagination" aka "things I can directly influence with my mind"? When you use your phrase "photonic matter", are you saying that photonic matter is what comprises these "imaginary things" I can picture and manipulate at will with my mind? In other words is "photonic matter" what you call "imagination stuff"?

[worldly basalt]

well, everything is made of photons but you can separate photons into whether they are massive or not. your mind functions on the basis of photons, concepts function on the basis of photons, so your mind can influence photons this way. imagination would also be photonic matter, but everything is essentially photonic matter

just think of it like this: the future is remembered into the present. i can't remember a future where hydrogen is equal to helium bc that would go against the intrinsic proportionality of massive matter. i can remember a future that is very different to this one, and actualise it though, so can anyone else.

[spice flame]

This made it harder to understand, not easier. You're using a lot of words in ways I don't use them, so it'll take some additional work at first for me to understand your usages.

[spice flame]

Okay, so let's start by assuming everything is made out of photons, whatever they are. How do I separate photons into whether they're massive or not?

[worldly basalt]

the difference between massive and non massive matter is that the former has mass

do you not know what mass is?

https://chat.openai.com/share/aea92c14-77df-427b-b7d3-e89035a9780f

i use the same idea as this except there's no particles, it's just waves

[spice flame]

I don't know if what I mean by either "mass" or "photon" mean what you mean, since my meanings of these words are rooted in a more traditional physics education. By my understanding a "photon" is a massless particle, so talking about a "photon with mass" would be talking about a "massless particle with mass", which doesn't make sense. That's why I asked how to differentiate the two kinds of photons, hoping you could describe interactions with them in some ways that I could better understand what you mean.

Let's say I'm here experiencing photons in my "not yet sure about the external world" state. Can I tell which photons are massive and which aren't? How do I do that?

[worldly basalt]

you aren't experiencing photons in your mind. your mind is itself made of photons.

you have never perceived anything other than photonic matter with photonic matter

[brave ocean]

GG @spice flame, you just advanced to level 4!

[worldly basalt]

physics

[spice flame]

How do know my mind is made of photons?

[worldly basalt]

evidence

you could also ask God, but you might not want to

when i want to know something, i ask God

[spice flame]

What evidence leads us to the conclusion that our minds are made of photons?

[worldly basalt]

they are always right

[worldly basalt]

physical evidence

physical evidence says everything is made of photons

your mind can move the photons that are massless

[spice flame]

If my mind can move the photons that are massless, why does that mean my mind is also made of photons?

[worldly basalt]

it's not that complicated, light coming from the sun is massless, then it makes solid/liquid mass hotter and life comes out of that, and the consciousness of life is massless light mixed up with solid/liquid mass

[worldly basalt]

the logic is that everything is made of photons -> your mind is made of photons -> your mind can move photons

that's based on the presupposition that stuff can move stuff of the same kind

it's fine as a presupposition, you can see it has evidence with mass. massive stuff can move massive stuff

[spice flame]

But massive stuff can also move non-massive stuff (light bending through gravity fields), and non-massive stuff can move massive stuff (like a radiometer). I'm not sure why that should lead me to think my mind is made of non-massive photons.

Where does this idea that "everything is made of photons" come from?

[worldly basalt]

massive stuff cannot move non massive stuff

[worldly basalt]

it comes from Indian Theology originally, but modern physics has rediscovered this ancient truth and it is very likely that all Solar cultures in history (those worshipping a solar deity) acknowledged this fact to some extent

you can replace 'photons' with 'emptiness' from Buddhism and it's the same thing. i just think 'photons' is easier to understand, possibly not by much though

[spice flame]

Photons reflect off surfaces. How is that not a massive thing (an object's surface) moving a massless photon by causing it to change direction?

[worldly basalt]

gotcha, in your understanding they can influence each other, but the manner of influence is different. light causes mass and mass alters the path of light.

[spice flame]

And when you use the word "move" you mean something different?

[worldly basalt]

i reason using atemporal causality, so my concept of motion is slightly different yes

i look at it as light causing everything, including the glass in your example. but it's probably easier to think of light as able to move mass and mass as able to divert the path of light.

[spice flame]

Okay. So I'm still struggling with a couple of your earlier statements... first the one that my photonic mind can move other massless photons. Does this mean any massless photons anywhere? Does this mean I should be able to will an area of darkness in one corner of my room, or change the sky to be pink instead of blue?

[worldly basalt]

both the circumstances you describe involve matter, so i think you are missing the point of what i'm saying, you can't possibly think i am saying that. it means someone could hypothetically change how people understand material objects. doesn't mean you can see whatever you want in matter itself.

[spice flame]

But as I understand the word "photon", the photons that refract through the sky and the photons that light the corner of my room are massless photons. I guess I'm not sure what you mean by "massless photon" then, if those aren't examples.

[spice flame]

I'm honestly not trying to misrepresent your view, but trying to put what I understand about what you've said about your view and its implications into my words, so you can help me understand what I'm getting wrong!

[worldly basalt]

those are examples of massless photons. everything is photons. some are massive some are not. if you want to think of that as photons plus massive matter you can. but it's all just photons. massive photons can modify non massive photons and non massive photons can modify both.

[spice flame]

Okay. So if my mind is non-massive photons, and the photons coming down from the blue sky are non-massive photons, can my non-massive mind photons change those non-massive sky photons, or not? If yes, are there limits on those effects?

[worldly basalt]

your mind changes the solar photons from the sky when you perceive the sky as blue. you can't change that. that involves massive matter.

that is not so relevant to the point i was making, people don't make decisions based on the colour of the sky. the make decisions based on concepts. those are massless. that is where you have influence to change stuff, how people perceive concepts. that's quite a bit since behaviour is mainly to do w how concepts are perceived.

[spice flame]

Thanks, I think that helps me understand better what you mean.

[brave ocean]

lack____ has been warned

Reason: Duplicated text

[spice flame]

/me shakes his fist at the bot

So am I right in understanding that the reason you didn't find my categories of "things I can / cannot directly control with my mind" to be useful is because of the things I cannot directly control there are some that I can indirectly control either by interacting with massive photons or by using concepts to influence other minds?

[brave ocean]

GG @spice flame, you just advanced to level 5!

[spice flame]

@worldly basalt

[worldly basalt]

the main issue with the way you're framing it is that it seems you're framing it in a physicalist way, and i frame stuff in a mentalist way. my models of physics include subjects. so the key difference in whether a subject can modify matter directly is whether the matter is massless. the example with the sky being blue is confusing because you are modifying the sky photons in order to perceive blueness, but this is the trivial case, so it's not interesting. what is interesting is that subjects are motivated by concepts, and that concepts are massless.

[spice flame]

I don't think my original framing is physicalist at all - I was going with "experiences I have that I can directly control" versus "experiences I have that I cannot directly control" - This isn't making any claim at all about the ontology of what the causes are of either of those categories. They could be mental, they could be physical. I'm wondering how to get from my framing to a conclusion of mental or physical or other.

[spice flame]

The reason I bring up the sky is that it seems to me that my experience of the sky is that of blueness, and I don't seem to be able to change that into anything else besides blueness. When you brought up the idea that my masseless photonic mind could potentially change other massless photons, I immediately started wondering why then under that assumption I can't change the massless sky photons from blue ones to pink ones using only my massless photonic mind photons. It seems to me like I can't so I'm still struggling with what you mean by "massive" and "massless" photons and what the limitations and abilities are of my massless photonic mind.

[worldly basalt]

i said you have a physicalist understanding because all of your examples related to physical stuff, like the sky being blue. the sky is massive.... and you're wondering why you can't alter a massive system with your mind when I said that is not how it works. your mind lacks the energy to move most massive matter directly, but your mind has the power to alter how people perceive concepts and thus how they act. that is the point of what i said. misrepresenting that as somehow tied to the perceived blueness of the sky, which comes about as a result of its MASSIVE photons, misses the original point entirely.

[spice flame]

Ah, I think there's the disconnect: When I hear the word "photon" I have the baggage from my physicalist background that the photons that come from the sky, like all photons, are massless. So, for those photons that travel from the atmosphere to my eye that convey the blueness of the sky to my perception: standard materialist physics would classify these as "massless"; Under your view you would classify them as "massive"?

[worldly basalt]

the photons interacting with your eye are massless, but they come from a massive system. that is the relevant part. concepts don't come from massive systems.

like obviously i don't actually define these terms incorrectly, it's the materialists who define stuff incorrectly and don't understand

like holy shit i'd be dumb to say photons in your eye are massive

this can be disproven physically

[spice flame]

So then are you saying that my massless photonic mind can only alter massless photons that come from massless systems, and not massless photons that come from massive systems? It's the origin of the photon that is important and not the photon itself?

[brave ocean]

GG @spice flame, you just advanced to level 6!

[worldly basalt]

there's no separation in my worldview, so no.

what matters is whether you're dealing w something massive or massless

i can make someone see the world different by explaining concepts to them. i can't make the sky pink by force of will. see the difference?

concepts = massless
sky = massive

[spice flame]

Yes, that part is pretty clear and easy to understand. The thing I don't understand is why you're calling everything photons and what meaning you're trying to convey there, an what the distinction of "massive" and "massless" mean in your worldview. You say that my massless photonic mind can alter massless photons, and you don't see a separation between the kinds of photons that originate from massive and massless sources. But you also say my mind can't change the photons that come from the sky. That I don't understand. I'm not asking why I can't change the sky itself (because in both your view and the physicalist view that wouldn't make sense). I'm asking you why I can't change the photons that come from the sky under your view.

[worldly basalt]

I'm calling everything photons, because that can be demonstrated scientifically and because it's useful for differentiating concepts. if you don't understand what i mean, maybe you need to learn more about concepts.

your mind does change photons from the sky when it observes them as blue. it can't change that it perceives them as blue bc that property is intrinsic TO SOLID MATTER.

if you can't understand that people are motivated by concepts, also, not sure what to tell you, maybe read history

we have been controlled by the concept of civilisation for quite a long time

[spice flame]

I have never said I don't think people are motivated by concepts. I agree that they are.

[worldly basalt]

i can't control the matter of the civilisation that already exists, but i can change how people understand the concept of civilisation, which will cause the future to be altered in accordance with my will

so among other things, my worldview optimises the ease with which i can alter conceptual understanding

'not understanding' isn't really an argument, no one fully understands this stuff, your only choice is whether you use the techology for its intended purpose, or abuse it to special plead your own worldview

[spice flame]

I don't think I've tried to make an argument at all here one way or the other. I asked a question about the external world and one way to differentiate the internal from the external. Everything else I've said here has been trying to interrogate your position based on the framework that I currently provisionally hold (physicalism) so I can understand what you're saying. I don't think I understand it yet. That's not an argument, just a description of where I am.

[worldly basalt]

ok. maybe part of your issue with understanding is that you believe in an external world. there is no external world in this worldview, everything is inside perception.

that's the main difference w TJump and my worldview, he presupposes that you can get outside of perception, I don't.

[spice flame]

This i understand. I can see that way of looking at the world. II agree that everything I experience is inside my perception.

[worldly basalt]

but because you can't get outside perception bc my worldview is the right one, presupposing that something exists outside perception is equivalent to special pleading against my worldview

[worldly basalt]

the level to which your perception affects other stuff has to do w how massless the other stuff is. the more massless, the easier it can be altered through your perception

[spice flame]

And here is were you've lost me again.

[worldly basalt]

your mind observes your body through perception then your body can have limited control on solid matter. your mind continues to have subtle control tho.

[worldly basalt]

no one understands this stuff, your only choice is if you accept it and use the technology or not

[spice flame]

But what would I even be accepting? What technology do you mean?

[worldly basalt]

nondualism, the philosophy that allows me to draw these conclusions

nondualism is accepting that mind independence is a pipe dream, likely a crack pipe dream

[spice flame]

But your view has a dualistic aspect - Massless versus Massive, doesn't it? What's the difference/

[worldly basalt]

massive photons are a particular form of massless photons, so they are fundamentally nondual but conditional dualism is invoked so that i can explain it to you

Advaita = Nondualism
Vasisthadvaita = Qualified Nondualism

any Nondualist teacher will have some qualified nondualism teachings to help beginners, and that appears to be dualistic to the uninitiated, but it isn't actually dualistic, it's a model for dualism. good observation though.

if i just tried to go through it purely in terms of massless photons and saying mass is an illusion, i think you'd have more trouble

[spice flame]

Probably 😉

[worldly basalt]

I don't mind doing it, it's already done tho

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Bodies_Doctrine

[spice flame]

I don't mind reading it, if there's a good resource you can recommend.

[worldly basalt]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosha

[spice flame]

I'll take a look!

[worldly basalt]

generally i don't advise English translations of Nondualism teachings but here are 2 ways you can see an example of a massless photon model which aggregates into mass

the Wiki stuff is mostly ok if you remember that English isn't really equipped to handle a lot of these concepts

[spice flame]

I'd agree, but add that I don't know if any language can actually fully handle concepts. We muddle through though.

[worldly basalt]

so massless and massive photons would be a 'two bodies doctrine' which would be the easiest thing to understand relative to the secular manner of thought in the west

but it's not going to be 'easy' to understand, none of this stuff is

[worldly basalt]

we do too, we have words for stuff we can't reference in language definitionally which is included as implicit grammar about the context

none of these models is dualism tho, each is emergence from the fundamental layer

i think the switch from substance dualism to fundamental layer emergence is a big deal

[spice flame]

I'm not sure what it is to have words for stuff we can't reference; isn't a word a reference?

[worldly basalt]

yes

a word is a reference, so it can be a reference to the fact we can't reference its concept in language

like Brahma, if i use that word w traditional people, there is already an implicit context that it is not able to be described in words

we have the word there as a placeholder bc we dont want to have to make that point 50x

there is nothing like this in english, every word is presupposed to possibly have a propositional conceptual referent

[spice flame]

The phrase "I don't know" might be an example, it refers to something we can't refer to.

[worldly basalt]

i don't know refers to a total absence
Brahma refers to an acceptence of a presence but a simultaneous acceptance of the inability of language to encompass that presence

so it's not the same thing, I'm telling you, english doesn't have this

english doesn't have declensions or specific grammar rules like that

[spice flame]

I guess I just assumed that English is the same way in that it's incapable of referring to a full concept, but only partial concepts.

But when it's the only language I know well, I've just got what I've got.

[worldly basalt]

english doesn't say either way, so it defaults to what users of the language believe.

[spice flame]

Sure, but that's not a monolith.

English word meanings vary from speaker to speaker. That's why communication is hard. Some words are clearer referrants than others.

[worldly basalt]

im not aware of any words or grammar in english that negates the possibility of a word indicating its concept linguistically

[spice flame]

I guess you just said Brahma is exactly that though, isn't it?

[worldly basalt]

yes but that's not an English word

that's a Sanskrit word

it doesn't necessarily inherit its context upon translation

[spice flame]

Even though the term doesn't originate in english, I can use it in an english sentence to mean the same thing, and you have explained the meaning using english words.

[worldly basalt]

yes but there's no word for it

i can use words to explain it, but there is no word that itself already possesses the explanation

[spice flame]

Of course. English words are not objective items that exist on their own. They're grunting sounds we invent as needed to try to explain things.

[worldly basalt]

i know this because there is no consensus among english speakers about whether words can or can't convey concepts and to what degree

invent is a strong word

[spice flame]

What do you mean? All spoken languages are invented.

Written ones too.

[worldly basalt]

oh yeah, you're an expert on language?

no you are not.

if you want to understand this stuff, you need to stop interjecting your ideas - you don't understand, your ideas aren't right

[spice flame]

But all I have are my ideas. When you say something that doesn't fit my idea, I'm not assuming I'm right. I'm telling you my idea to see if you agree or not, hoping that if you don't agree you'll tell me why.

When I started with "what do you mean?" that wasn't rhetorical. I was genuinely asking you for more clarification.

[spice flame]

This Turiya state of being "free from the dualistic experience which results from the attempts to conceptualise reality" is an intriguing idea.

[worldly basalt]

sorry i was impatient with you. i have to deal with a lot of trolls. Turiya is intriguing to me also, it's one of the most important aspects of my doctrine.

[spice flame]

Hey, no offense taken.

I totally get it 🙂

Communication is hard, and I can see how my comment above could come off as condescending, too.

[worldly basalt]

this is the materialist Turiya. it has 4 colours and four steps reflected in the centre. it's a 3D rendition of the periodic table

all my doctrine is starting at Turiya and then descending into matter

i don't normally describe it that way, i say it's the observation limit: 3+1 and i describe it as photons bc that is what people are used to at this time

[spice flame]

Some of this reminds me of when I used to do svaroopa yoga. I don't know if I ever actually experienced Turia, but it feels like something akin to how I would describe some of my meditation experiences.

But I didn't at the time apprehend much of the philosophy; just the practice.

But the feeling of oneness, dissolution of self (at least a hint of it). That sounds familiar.

[worldly basalt]

yeah, that's cool. i don't go into that side of it much bc i assume my audience will be more sympathetic to a more secularised and logical version

if you do want to go into that side of it, i'd be happy to do that tho

it is basically a strategic way of thinking called 'top down' and then on top of being top down, it's also parsimonious and conditional, so you model the universe as appearances within successive conditions as opposed to objects in spacetime

[spice flame]

I can see the utility of the physicalist framing of objects in spacetime. What do you find better about this framing as successive conditions?

[worldly basalt]

parsimony, insight, enlightenment, actually being ontologically correct, actual utility

you can say you see the utility of spacetime but we already experience spacetime.... that's not much of an insight and the associated doctrine presupposes math that have no physical representation like straight lines and parallel lines. i am skeptical that this framework is useful, i think it just reifies sensuous perception, and makes other systems of thought very difficult or impossible to understand - not useful

[spice flame]

I think the evidence is that the physicalist worldview has produced all of the technology we use every day. That seems useful to me.

[spice flame]

"actually being ontologically correct" seems like an impossible bar to meet for any worldview, except maybe by accident.

[worldly basalt]

yeah well enjoy your physicalism i guess

calculators therefore reality is physical doesn't really cut it for me

[spice flame]

I didn't say physicalism is real. I said it's a useful framework.

When I look at the world that way, a lot of the experiences I have are explained in a way that makes sense to me. A lot of results of the assumptions of that worldview seem to be borne out by experimentation. This doesn't prove it's acually ontologically the case. It just means it has its place as one of the ways I look at the world, when it suits me.

[worldly basalt]

everyone thinks their worldview is useful. physicalism is not useful for insight about consciousness. if you don't think that's important, that's fine, but i think it is.

[spice flame]

I think that is important. I don't think physicalism is the right way or the only way to look at the world. I don't know enough about your alternative yet to contrast, but I'm assuming it's also a useful way to look at the world.

[spice flame]

My suspicion is that there's no real symmetry breaker to conclude that either one is actually ontologically correct, but I'm excited for the possibility. Until then I'd assume they're just different internal mental models that both fit whatever objective things are behind the internal experiences I have.

[brave ocean]

GG @spice flame, you just advanced to level 7!

[worldly basalt]

the secular symmetry breaker is that my model predicts and unifies the results of chemistry, biology and physics. the theological symmetry breaker is my belief can be used to help achieve enlightenment. I'm not sure how you can fail to see that as a symmetry breaker, since your worldview has no edge on mine except possibly, as mentioned earlier, the willingness to destroy the environment to build calculators and worship toilets

[spice flame]

I don't know enough about your view to understand if/how it does the things you say it does, but assuming it does that sounds like a good way to view the world too, sure. I don't know if it will be enough for me to believe it actually is ontologically correct ... that might be a higher bar.

Hearing about a worldview for the first time I usually try to assess it in the following order:

1. does it fit the experiences I have?
2. does it make reliable predictions about experiences I haven't had yet?
3. is there a reason to think it's ontologically correct?

I was still trying to figure out if your way of looking at the world meets #1 on my list.

[worldly basalt]

1. it's nondualism. if your experiences feel nondualistic or you want more nondualistic experiences, you might like nondualism.
2. it predicts the mechanics of physics, chemistry and biology. it predicts sociological phenomena. it predicts that parsimony correlates with enlightenment
3. because it's process-relational and has zero ontology, so in that sense, it cannot be wrong

a pure state of nondualism isn't going to match the experiences you have 100% if you aren't enlightened. i don't see how that's a reason to not embrace the worldview, but i don't think people accept worldviews based on arguments either, so if you reject the worldview, that's fine by me

[spice flame]

I think I can see the world in dualistic and nondualistic ways. Both are interesting. Neither one seems more "real" than the other... and even if they did, I'm not sure that would matter.

I'd like to understand more about how your world view predicts these things.

[worldly basalt]

my worldview doesn't predict nondualism, it uses nondualism to predict things. if you're asking how to predict nondualism, that's a category error.

[spice flame]

No, I was asking you how your worldview predicts things in your #2 above (mechanics of physics, chemistry and biology). I'm interested in what those things even mean in a nondualistic sense...

[worldly basalt]

what do you want to know how to predict?

there's a model for evolution you can start with

[spice flame]

First question: Le Châtelier's Principle. Why this principle? Why exclusively?

[worldly basalt]

because i can interpret it in such a way that nondualist logic applies to it. the reason nondualist logic applies is bc le Châtelier only involves action on a single boundary. that can be adapted to nondualist ends bc i can just swap out the single boundary with the appearance of a boundary

i hope that makes the benefits of a mentalist model more clear

i can use the same principle to deduce other stuff too, chemistry, astrophysics, psychology

this is because nondualism is all based on reducing dosha, and dosha maps into le Chätelier as motion of the boundary

[spice flame]

Next question: Why four? That seems arbitrary.

[worldly basalt]

the same reason there's 7 rows in the periodic table. 4 is the number of aspects stuff has when it's unqualified.

if you're asking why there are 4 levels of evolution however, that's something of a happy coincidence.

i got to 4 with le chatelier because it's the number of steps i needed before there was no more perturbation, since the 4th level doesn't cause perturbation.

[spice flame]

Are we at the 4th step right now? Or are we still in the 3rd one?

[worldly basalt]

humans are in the 4th. within humans however, you'll still see the same basic pattern of builders, consumers, competitive and collaborative intelligence. that's because it's a transcendent model.

[spice flame]

Does the fact that we're destroying the planet's climate count as a "perturbation"?

[worldly basalt]

you can definitely model any kind of pollution as a perturbation.

then you have to think through, what will the pollution do? taking a simple example, just say the pollution kills everything in a given area, the rest of the world will move to minimise that effect, which means stuff will grow there for whom the action of the pollution is minimised

[hybrid prairie]

the physicalist worldview was responsible for all of the technology we use today?... Surely all our technology is moreso due to philosophically illiterate engineers, philosophically ignorant businessmen, philosophically illiterate peasants in the third world who are essentially forced into slave labor to produce tech for the masses, philsophically illiterate companies and governments, and philsophically illiterate scientists who -some of the time- give their ignorant 2 cents on philosophy, who 1% of them would ever be passionate enough about philosophy to add into their published papers " therefore ontological physicalism is correct"

ontological physicalism is the most unjustifiably held position of all time by its own standards

[hybrid prairie]

"does it fit my experiences" - Who says your experiences are not already contaminated by your current worldview and prior context?

"does it reliably predict"-- Nothing about the everyman's use of induction such as weather, basic social happenings, object permanence, and even specialized uses of induction in a laboratory, imply that ontological physicalism is the "best fit" to predict things accurately.--- Infact, most people of all time of all religions have simply used induction and for the most part it has worked regardless of if they hold ont Phys.

And here is the final nail in the coffin of ont phys.

1, All universe is matter
2, Humans are matter
3,Humans cannot ever empirically verify a universal
4. If humans cannot ever empirically verify a universal, premise 1 is unjustified.
5. Humans cannot ever empirically verify premise 1.

[spice flame]

My experiences are just my experiences. I'm not sure what "tainted" would mean. I think my interpretation of those experiences can be biased by my worldview and prior context. Is that what you mean?

[spice flame]

And yes; general sloppy intuitive induction doesn't need any kind of ontological commitment. That's fine. But it seems naive to claim that physics and predictions based on the assumption of physical reality haven't ever predicted phenomena outside of and unexpected by our common intuition. Regardless, if a model can help me predict those parts of my experience that I don't seem to be able to directly mentally influence, it's pragmatic to apply it where it helps.

[spice flame]

I also agree a universal positive can't be empirically verified. So epistemic certainty about the ontology of reality is out. That's fine. I think every worldview suffers from the exact same problem; given that I have access only to my experiences, I just can't have certainty about ontology. I'm used to that.

[hybrid prairie]

exactly correct, no one has a supposedly neutral analysis

[spice flame]

Okay. I agree.

[hybrid prairie]

I would be way more inclined to agree with you if any noticeable number of great minds of physics clinged on to ont phys.

it is simply a massive non sequitur. "our staff in x laboratory with 10 scientists noticed a specific pattern in this small group of molecules when we isolated y variable... blah blah blah p-value etc.... therefore the entire universe is physical" Scientists do not dare do such nonsense.

also a side point "ont phys developed tech etc"

this is inherently a contradiction. A worldview, ont phys,, which declares all existence to be material, by definition cannot actually cause anything. This mental phantasm of a worldview has no causal force. If your ideology was consistent, you would have listed material conditions which spawned all the tech we have. Nowhere along the chain of events in tech was the causal force of ont Phys.

[hybrid prairie]

1. confirmation bias tends to make people think their model is constantly confirmed.
2. I still do not get this tjumpian hypothetical. What is the "model"? What parts of your life are being exclusively aided by this "model" that simply is the dogma that all reality is physical? I cannot think of any activity or process that is pragmatically helped during a human's life.

Your life is not a laboratory

[hybrid prairie]

I mean sure but this quantification of certainty is always a brick wall when it comes to secular debates. How does it help move the discussion forward for someone to say "well im only 55.6% certain of ont phys"

[spice flame]

Yes, your side-point is pedantically correct. I hoped it would be clear that because world views are not casual agents when I said "the physicalist worldview developed technology" it was shorthand for "people who use physicalism as an assumption about how the world works have used predictions based on that worldview to develop useful technology". But regardless, I have not said or intended to imply this entails that these people doing the work all hold philosophical naturalism, or that I hold that view. I am only saying that methodological naturalism is one way to interpret my experiences that seems to fit and be useful to me and others.

[hybrid prairie]

Surely, but methodological naturalism is not at all ontological physicalism

[spice flame]

The way I use the terms, methodological naturalism is the view that we can approach the world as if it is made of physical stuff. Philosophical naturalism is the view that the world is in fact only and exhaustively made of physical stuff. The phrase "ontologically physicalism" to me is compatible with both. It is just a way to say that reality (or at least part of it) is in fact physical. So a methodological naturalist assumes that the ontology of reality is at least in part physical, and a philosophical naturalist assumes the ontology of reality is exhaustively physical.

[spice flame]

And maybe I haven't been as precise or consistent as I should have been, but I don't think I've used the phrase "ontological physicalism", only "ontologically physical"

[spice flame]

I'm no tjump or tjumpian, but when I say "model" in this context I think I mean something like "a set of implicit and explicit assumptions about something's ontology and a set of related expectations about what results should occur after events."

[hybrid prairie]

If you were singing the praises of method naturalism, which is what scientists of all faiths already do within a very specific time and place, ok, But once you started referring to metaphysics at all that is where the line had to be drawn

[spice flame]

What did I say about metaphysics that you felt so strongly about?

[brave ocean]

GG @spice flame, you just advanced to level 8!

[hybrid prairie]

promoting ont phys

[spice flame]

Cool. When did I do that?