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Haines Brown...

Posted: Fri May 09, 2008 8:27 am

Guest

I plan to tackle the issue of the reality of an "entity", and here
offer some preliminary notes, for which I'd appreciate criticism.

The basic issue is the appropriateness of "entity" as our basic way to
apprehend the world scientifically, or whether it should instead be
"process". However, I here primarily offer a critical inspection of
entity, leaving the subject of process largely aside.

I should start by making a distinction between entity as nothing more
than a convient mental construct and whether that construct is also
constrained by our experience of the world (or better, by our actions in
the world). I will argue that the notion of entity presumes a Cartesian
dualism that is inadmissible in terms of the material monism that is
today prevalent in the sciences.

While it is generally felt that our conceptions of the world are
constrained by our experience of it, there is also a view that would
limit our conception of the world to the realm of thought and
marginalize the question of whether our conceptions have truth value in
relation to the world. However, such a view is not widely held, and it
raises problems, such as how science is progressive; how we can predict;
how our actions can be efficacious. Action must obviously be informed by
past experience, not just past thinking. So I will here presume that the
truth value of our conceptions arise from their being constrained by the
world beyond consciousness.

Nevertheless, it seems useful to touch upon the subjective utility of
the entities present in consciousness. We tend to represent things as
instances of general categories. Prediction and communication depend on
these categories. We can't reference a thing, point to it in thought or
communicate very well without an object to which the thing refers that
does not reduce to description of its qualities. There is no doubt the
entity as a conceptual unit has practical utility.

The question, however, is the manner by which that conception is
constrained by experience to acquire its truth value. Does it capture
the whole of experience, or merely one aspect of it? It seems that the
entities to which we refer engage only the empirical aspect of things,
and there may be more to them than just this. We even handle that
empirical aspect selectively. The demands of daily life encourage us to
focus on what persists in time and space rather than on change, although
in fact all things in principle actually are processes. We tend to
reduce a process to a static description of an initial state and an
outcome, and then look for non-essential causal factors to account for
the change that act upon the empiria, so that the question is begged;
change is described, not explained. That is, we reduce a process to a
sequence of static states, and the force for change remains external to
our definition of the essential initial state.

But this convention, encouraged by the narrow scope of daily life, does
not imply we should necessarily adopt the entity as our ontological
basic unit in science. Science is not daily life writ large. For one
thing, in the course of history we find ourselves in a world that
changes at an accelerating pace, and our action in the world must
increasingly be seen in dynamic terms. We are no longer farmers who can
assume the world is essentially predictable. Also, thanks to
globalization in a broad sense, we live in a complex world in which it
is difficult to depend see it as consisting of empirically coherent
wholes, and in fact we need to define unities that arise from empirical
diversity.

If there is nothing compelling about adopting entity as our basic
ontological unit, we can turn to consider what the term usually means.

A morning fog is empirically real, and yet is not an entity. The reason
is that it is not bounded. The usual definition of entity is that it
represents a set of distinctive qualities or, if two things have the
same qualities, their separation in space. Both definitions presume
closure. The entity, unlike the morning fog, must be bounded. So an
entity must not only have qualities, but it must also have a boundary,
whether to distinguish its qualities from all else, or to distinguish
two entities having the same qualities.

This boundary makes the entity a closed system in the sense that what
defines it is what distinguishes it from its environment. This
introduces an element of artificiality, for in fact things tend to be
open systems. A completely closed system floating about in outer space
is often referred to as nothing more than a hypothetical. Although our
conceptual categories commonly presume a persistence of essential
qualities and closure, in science we need a basic ontological category
that implies openness, not closure, which means a scientific unit that
does not correspond to the conceptual unit that is so convenient in
daily life.

A closed system is determinant in that its outcome is predictable from a
a perfect knowledge of its initial state. This is not the real world of
our experience, which only to a small degree, and then imperfectly, is
unequivocally predictable. In fact, perturbations always arise in from
the entity's environment, which would violate the notion of entity as a
closed system. But these perturbations are necessarily represented as
being external and therefore as non-essential to a system that is
defined in empirical terms; they act upon it as accidentals, not as
something that is essential to the system. If in practice they are
always present and affect the behavior of the system, why are they
represented as un-essential other than for the convenience of daily
life?

There is a philosophical tradition that would posit an entity as being
independent of its qualities: an essential thingness, a
haecceity. Although often discussed in terms of, say, medieval
scholasticism, today I suppose we would look at the issue from the
perspective of the scientific realism that today is becoming
prevalent. It holds that unobserables can be real. So from this
standpoint, is it possible that an entity, understood as a haecceity
independent of its empirical qualities, is simply a real unobservable?

This might be a tempting line to pursue, but it ultimately fails. The
classic example of a real unobservable is a causal potency. However, in
terms of scientific realism, such a potency is not ontologically
independent, but is instead, like empiria, merely an aspect or property
of matter. It seems to me that efforts to posit a reality for entity
that is independent of its properties posits a metaphysical level of
reality that implies a dualism rather than the material monism that is
conventional today in the sciences.

There have been efforts to offer an alternative definition for entity
that addresses some of the objections I have raised, and broadly these
are known as holistic theories. Examples are Arthur Koestler's holons
and David Bohm's implicate order. In a general sense, the aim has been
to incorporate into the entity a connection with the broader world, what
I suppose William James would call "fringes" or transitive parts.

There are terms we might apply to such theories that offer alternatives
to atomism, such as continuism, holism and organicism. The question,
though, is whether they imply a whole/part dichotomy that presumes
entities, or do they transcend the entity.

A common form of continuism goes back to Leibnitz, in which the universe
represents an essential unity from which empirically discrete entities
arise. But this distinction of discrete/continuous, popular in the 19th
century, leaves us uncomfortable today. Generally, people prefer to give
greater weight to what is discrete, which leads us back to the issue
of entity. How can we give emphasis to empiria without recourse to
entities, and therefore their opposite, a non-empirical and
ontologically independent background reality?

Holism is a more popular notion, but is not without its
ambiguities. Since World War II, the philosophical debate over wholes
and parts has faded because we now broadly accept the principle that a
whole refers to properties that arise from the interaction of its parts,
but which cannot be entirely predicted from a perfect knowledge of
them. We typically refer to these as "emergent properties". A system
experiencing a decrease in entropy is a system that generates a novel
order or an outcome that is less probable than implied by an empirical
description of its initial state.

The point I would like to make here, however, is that the part and the
whole are still present as entities, as essentially closed systems
having no essential connection with the wider world. Both the parts and
the whole remain distinguished by their qualities and boundaries, for
otherwise both part and whole would dissolve.

Some (Val Dusek, for example) have countered that the whole in holism
affects its parts or structures their relations. In this case, the part
is not an autonomous atom, but is essentially incorporated within a
larger whole. Unfortunately, emergence can arise from the interaction
of parts without implying any dependence of the part on the whole. But
even where there is such a dependence of the part on the whole, it is
understood in terms of the qualities and relations of parts, which is to
represent things as merely interactive entities. The interaction or
interdepenency of a thing's qualities does not make them any less
entites.

The interdependency of part and whole seems better conveyed by the term
organicism. However, even with organicism, the parts and whole remain
entities in that they each have their own qualities, and their
integration into the whole is seen only in functional terms. It is hard
to see that holism or organicism really escapes the limitations of
entities.

In short, to move toward a more realistic conception of the world, it
appears that the qualities of a conceptual unit must be represented as
merely one aspect of its existence, and its casual relation with the
wider world (or causal potencies, if we conceptually represent it in
hypothetical isolation) as another. Neither aspect has any ontological
independence, but represent merely the aspects or properties of a
thing.

To make empirical qualities and causal potency or relations merely
aspects of a thing, it seems that today we would say that the empirical
qualities that are the effect of the past constrain the probability
distribution of the possible future actualizations of the causal
potencies that exist in the present. This turns out to be a definition
of "process", and so it would make sense to use the conceptual unit
process in lieu of entity when making scientifically realistic
statements about the world.

--

Haines Brown, KB1GRM

jhn_hbr at (no spam) yahoo.com...

Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 8:18 pm

Guest

Quote:

The basic issue is the appropriateness of "entity" as our basic way to
apprehend the world scientifically, or whether it should instead be
"process".

Very well written post Haines. Consider the point of view of using
the term "subject" instead of "entity". With "subject" we can employ
the use of the word "subjective". In common language, the word
"entitive" doesn't exist.

The term "subject" can be associated with the term "relation" as a
relation is more than one subject combined together.
Processes can be thought of as relations in time as opposed to
space.

The name "Subjations" can be used as the subject of subjects and
relations as it is a blend of the two words.
Here is what I believe it looks like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Subjations.GIF

Other possiblities are "object" or "unit". With "object" the word
"objective" does exist; however, objects have no emotional value and
are limited in that way. With "unit" the word "unitive" does not
exist and units have no content.

By defining an extrinsic subject as the subject given to a relation
and an intrinsic subject as the subjects of a relation, an extrinsic
subject is the same as a whole and an intrinsic subject is the same as
a part. Intrinsic subjects are parts related within a whole. Thus
the reason for the terms "relative" and "relevant".

The subject of subjects and relations is a closed system, it contains
everything including itself.

John Huber, KC7EEU

brodix...

Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 3:48 pm

Guest

On May 9, 6:27 am, Haines Brown <bro... at (no spam) teufel.hartford-hwp.com>
wrote:

Quote:

I think your mistake is trying to leave out "process."

If there is no motion, you have a temperature of absolute zero. I
think the conceptual mistake is trying to model time as a fundamental
dimension, but it makes more sense as a consequence of motion, rather
than the basis for it. Consider;

Time does go both directions.
While physical reality goes from past events to future ones, the
information of these events goes the other way. First it is future
potential, then past circumstance. If time were a fundamental
dimension, then physical reality proceeds along it, from past events
to future ones, but if time is a consequence of motion, then physical
reality is simply energy in space and the events, once created, are
replaced by the next and recede into the past. It isn't presentism
because time as a point would be meaningless as a measure of motion.
The only absolute time would be like absolute temperature; the
complete absence of it. Of course most motion is at the speed of
light, but we cannot process it in real time, so our minds create
flashes of perception, like frames of film. Thus to us, time does seem
like a series of instants. So the physical brain moves forward in
time, but the mind is a series of frames receding into the past.

Consider a thermal medium, say a pot of hot water, with lots of water
molecules moving about. To construct a timekeeping device out of this
we would measure the motion of one of these points of reference
against the medium it is moving through. The point is the hand and the
medium is the face of the clock. Obviously all the other points are
hands of their own clocks, but are medium/face for all other clocks.
The motion of any point/hand is balanced by the reaction of the medium/
face of the clock. So to the hand of the clock, the face goes
counterclockwise. At any one moment, the positions of all these points
constitute an event, so while any and all of them go from past events
to future ones, the medium against which any point is being judged is
the overall context, which once created, is displaced by the next, as
all these individual points move around, so the events go from future
potential to past circumstance. The illusion of direction is created
because the reference point moves through the series of circumstances,
though these events go the other way. There are innumerable points of
reference describing their own narrative, so every potential clock
constitutes its own measure of time. Whether the earth rotating and
creating days, or a cesium atom going through transitions, or strings
and their vibrations, conserved energy goes toward the future, as the
information defining it recedes into the past.

Think of the relationship between object and process as that between
a production line and product. The object/product describes a
narrative unit of time that goes from start to finish, while the
production line/process faces the other way, consuming raw material
and expelling finished product. The process of life goes from one
generation to the next, as individual lives go from being in the
future to being in the past.

Of course this point is worthless in terms of modern physics, which
describes time as an actual dimension and all information subjectively
exists on it, rather than being destroyed as new information is
created. Of course the same logic used to describe time as an
additional dimension of directional space could be used to argue
temperature is an additional parameter of volume space and the math
would be just as precise, but we function as intellectual particles,
so we have a more objective perspective on temperature and volume than
we have of time and distance.

Much of this ties into the Complexity dichotomy of top down structure
and bottom up process(Organism and eco-system). It also describes the
logical flaw with monotheism, since absolute is basis, not apex, so
the spiritual absolute would be the essence from which we rise, not an
ideal from which we fell. Essential we have always confused unity
with unit, but unity is a neutral state and unit is a singular. Zero,
vs. one. The problem with assigning entropy to the universe is
assuming it is a closed set, but a unit isn't unitary, as there is
inside and outside, while a unitary state trades energy around rather
than losing it.

Regards,

John Merryman

Haines Brown...

Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 7:02 am

Guest

John, thanks for your reply.

"jhn_hbr at (no spam) yahoo.com" <jhn_hbr at (no spam) yahoo.com> writes:

Quote:

The basic issue is the appropriateness of "entity" as our basic way to
apprehend the world scientifically, or whether it should instead be
"process".

Consider the point of view of using the term "subject" instead of
"entity". With "subject" we can employ the use of the word
"subjective". In common language, the word "entitive" doesn't exist.

The word "subjective" I gather is an adjective that applies to a
reference to a human actor or to an actor's consciousness. An entity
(other than as a reference to fellow humans), is not a conscious actor
nor has consciouness. I am probably missing your point, but we normally
don't think of things as being conscious actors.

On the other hand, perhaps you are hinting that it is we who construct
the world, including entities. If so, I'd agree, but with two provisos:
a) I had suggested that our construction of our world is constrained by
that world, to which don't seem to object, and b) I had suggested that
the concept "entity", while useful enough in daily life, is one sided,
and to bring in change seems to contradict what we usually mean by
entity. Hence my preference for "process", which adds to the
empirical-based entity a causal relation or potency and thus a more
realistic and complete representation of things.

Quote:

The term "subject" can be associated with the term "relation" as a
relation is more than one subject combined together. Processes can be
thought of as relations in time as opposed to space.

Yes, but does this not reduce things to causal relations at the expense
of empiria. Back in the 1970s, Bertell Ollman offered this kind of
approach, and the critical reaction to it was that it represented a kind
of "indeterminant interactionism". I don't think we can privilege causal
relations at the expense of any sensitivity to empiria.

On the other hand - a point which I did not develop in my original
piece, I believe the way we should distinguish things, given that I had
suggested that "entities" were hopelessly empiricist and subjective, is
to define them as what stands in a causal relation with something
else. For example, social class has two standard definitions: a) a
collection of properties which the members of a social group share, or
(a less known definition) b) a shared relation with a source of one's
development (usually called a "relation of production").

Quote:

The name "Subjations" can be used as the subject of subjects and
relations as it is a blend of the two words. Here is what I believe
it looks like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Subjations.GIF

For some reason this link didn't work. So I googled for "Subjations.gif"
and encountered your discussion of the subject with a "Jason" on
groupsrv.com, and the link you offered there worked. No idea why the
link works there, but I can't find the site it by putting its address
into my browser.

To be honest, I'm unable to wrap my mind around your proposal:

Quote:

These entities must be called subjects because subject is the most
general of all possible terms.

Why do you say this? Why is "subject the most general of all possible
terms"? For example, in what sense does a hypothetical mineral yet
unknown to man represent a "subject"?

Quote:

A relation itself can be given a subject. Thus the system becomes
closed and everything and everyone is in it.

I don't get this, either. You are using the word "subject" in a sense
that escapes me.

--

Haines Brown, KB1GRM

Haines Brown...

Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 8:41 am

Guest

brodix <brodix at (no spam) earthlink.net> writes:

Quote:

On May 9, 6:27Â am, Haines Brown <bro... at (no spam) teufel.hartford-hwp.com
wrote:

I plan to tackle the issue of the reality of an "entity", and here
offer some preliminary notes, for which I'd appreciate criticism.

The basic issue is the appropriateness of "entity" as our basic way
to apprehend the world scientifically, or whether it should instead
be "process". However, I here primarily offer a critical inspection
of entity, leaving the subject of process largely aside. Â

I think your mistake is trying to leave out "process."

Not sure I quite follow you here. It seems you could mean one of two
things: a) "process" should somehow be incorporated into our notion of
"entity", or b) I should have gone on to discuss process more fully
rather than put it aside.

If (a), I suggested, whether correctly or not, that "entity" is
inherently empiricist and therefore hostile any incorporation of causal
potency or relations into the essence of things. For example, a fired
bullet has kinetic energy, but that energy is represented as a property
that is external to the definition of "bullet"; it is an "accidental"
rather than essential property.

If (b), my aim was to suggest that "entity" is a one-sided
representation of things that is inadequate for any problematic that is
broad in time or space. If you are suggesting that a critique of entity
can't proceed very far without developing a notion of process, I'd be
interested in your reasons.

Quote:

If there is no motion, you have a temperature of absolute zero. I
think the conceptual mistake is trying to model time as a fundamental
dimension, but it makes more sense as a consequence of motion, rather
than the basis for it. Consider;

Time does go both directions.

While physical reality goes from past events to future ones, the
information of these events goes the other way.

Yes. You bring up a hairy and much discussed issue. I believe I'm in
agreement with you here. It is often pointed out that the past no longer
exists and the future does not yet exist. In a (rather technical) sense
one can even cast doubt on the present.

My own take on this, for whatever it's worth, is to look at the
empirical dimension of the present as the effect in the present of what
once occurred; and the probability distribution of possible outcomes is
the existence of the future in the present. In other words, I'm agreeing
with you that there is no time dimension outside consciousness. We have
an intuitive sense of the passage of time because memory is the
empirical effect of the past. Because we are aware of a sequence of past
states, we represent that in thought as time's arrow or the flow of
time. In a way, we can "see" a process, such as the setting sun, but
have difficulty describing what we have just seen for someone else
(St. Augustine's point).

Quote:

It isn't presentism because time as a point would be meaningless as a
measure of motion.

Yes, technically correct. On the other hand, the "present" can perhaps
not be defined in temporal terms, but as a condition. Would you be
inclined to agree with this?

Quote:

... so while any and all of them go from past events to future ones,
the medium against which any point is being judged is the overall
context, which once created, is displaced by the next, as all these
individual points move around, so the events go from future potential
to past circumstance. The illusion of direction is created because the
reference point moves through the series of circumstances, though
these events go the other way.

If I understand correctly, you are suggesting that time is a relation of
events, and no event is privileged as the time keeper. But often it is
pointed out that decreasing entropy gives direction to time and cosmic
dissipation is a reference for all else. True, this is only direction,
not a time dimension, so your basic point holds, I believe.

However, I'm therefor uncertain about your statement that "...or strings
and their vibrations, conserved energy goes toward the future, as the
information defining it recedes into the past". It seems you here
implicitly allow back in the time dimension that you had wanted to
exclude. For example, information can't "recede" into the past, for the
past no longer exists; all information must exist in the present. This
includes consciousness, for our mental information (memories) about the
past exists only in our present consciousness.

Quote:

But if there is no time dimension, then you can't "be" in either the
past or the future. A narrative is our subjective story about the
temporal relation of the states we hold in consciousness.

Quote:

Much of this ties into the Complexity dichotomy of top down structure
and bottom up process(Organism and eco-system). It also describes the
logical flaw with monotheism, since absolute is basis, not apex, so
the spiritual absolute would be the essence from which we rise, not an
ideal from which we fell. Essential we have always confused unity with
unit, but unity is a neutral state and unit is a singular. Zero,
vs. one. The problem with assigning entropy to the universe is
assuming it is a closed set, but a unit isn't unitary, as there is
inside and outside, while a unitary state trades energy around rather
than losing it.

John, I'm not sure I follow these interesting comments. Yes, there are
systems we speak of as organic in which the part is shaped by the whole
so as to be functional in relation to the behavior of the whole. And (if
I understand your reference to eco-system correctly), there are systems
in which the properties of the whole emerge from the interaction of its
parts. This may be a conventional distinction, but the more I think
about it, the less I understand it.

For example, I'm such an organism, and my organs function to sustain the
whole of my being, and my whole acts in a way to sustain my
parts. However, my parts originated in my genetic code, and my whole
being emerged from the nascent organs while still in the womb. I don't
know that there is any priority implied here, and the conventional
dichotomy might be meaningless. My genetic code is the product of
evolutionary history, and that history necessarily engaged the
eco-system. In other words, I'm an organism now, but only as a result of
a past in which I did not exist as an organism.

You loose me entirely on monotheism. I would see monotheism as a social
construct, not a reference to an independent ontological level of
existence that is outside consciousness. In my view, Okham's razor is
handy for this issue.

I believe I understand your distinction of unity and unit, and "unit"
would seem to be close to what I discussed as an "entity". The term
"unity" on the other hand seems to beg the question. To be speicific, we
have different kinds of unities that are quite different things. For
example, Gestalt theory, general systems theory, a system with
decreasing entropy, conceptual general categories, etc. But I'm not sure
such unities are not always in part our mental constructions. Even
something having decreasing entropy and therefore bounded, depends on
its relation with its surroundings and therefore is not a closed system;
it seems to fall short of being an objective unity. This, I suspect, is
your point about the universe not being dissipative, since entropy is
always a relative measure, and there's nothing else against which we
might measure the universe as a whole. However, didn't Boltzmann provide
a solution to this problem? (discussed nicely in Lawrence Sklar, Physics
and Chance (Cambridge, 1993).

--

Haines Brown, KB1GRM

jhn_hbr at (no spam) yahoo.com...

Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 9:30 pm

Guest

Quote:

Consider the point of view of using the term "subject" instead of
"entity". With "subject" we can employ the use of the word
"subjective". In common language, the word "entitive" doesn't exist.

The word "subjective" I gather is an adjective that applies to a
reference to a human actor or to an actor's consciousness. An entity
(other than as a reference to fellow humans), is not a conscious actor
nor has consciouness. I am probably missing your point, but we normally
don't think of things as being conscious actors.

For example, we could refer to a molecule as an entity or we could
call it an object or a thing, unit, whole or subject. The choice of
the word depends on what one is trying to explain. If the application
is natural phenomena then the choice of "object" would suffice. If
the application is natural and non-natural phenomena then "entity"
would do. But the highest of all possible words is "subject" which
can be applied to molecules, Harry Potter or even this thread we are
writing in.
It all depends on what one is trying to describe. Being in a
newsgroup called sci.philosophy.meta I am assuming we are going after
the largest range of reality possible. We could call this thread an
"entity" but that is not the word that is commonly used. After all,
just above this field I see a link that is titled "Edit Subject," it
doesn't say, "Edit Entity." We might as well use what natural
language employs.

However, from your statement "...but we normally don't think of things
as being conscious actors," I am not sure what you mean by "things."
From the context I suspect you are limiting this term to physical
reality but your OP I believe refers to non-physical reality.
Entities can be imaginary, imaginary entities certainly can be
conscious actors.

Quote:

On the other hand, perhaps you are hinting that it is we who construct
the world, including entities. If so, I'd agree, but with two provisos:
a) I had suggested that our construction of our world is constrained by
that world, to which don't seem to object, and b) I had suggested that
the concept "entity", while useful enough in daily life, is one sided,
and to bring in change seems to contradict what we usually mean by
entity. Hence my preference for "process", which adds to the
empirical-based entity a causal relation or potency and thus a more
realistic and complete representation of things.

Well, we didn't construct the world of course, but we did construct a
system that explains it.
Some of the explanation is static, some of it is dynamic. All of it
is information.

Quote:

The term "subject" can be associated with the term "relation" as a
relation is more than one subject combined together. Processes can be
thought of as relations in time as opposed to space.

Yes, but does this not reduce things to causal relations at the expense
of empiria. Back in the 1970s, Bertell Ollman offered this kind of
approach, and the critical reaction to it was that it represented a kind
of "indeterminant interactionism". I don't think we can privilege causal
relations at the expense of any sensitivity to empiria.

Empiria are relations. That is what a measurement is, a relation.
Certainly this concept is indeterminant but we do have boundary
conditions. After all, one could say that all of mathematics is
indeterminant.

Quote:

On the other hand - a point which I did not develop in my original
piece, I believe the way we should distinguish things, given that I had
suggested that "entities" were hopelessly empiricist and subjective, is
to define them as what stands in a causal relation with something
else. For example, social class has two standard definitions: a) a
collection of properties which the members of a social group share, or
(a less known definition) b) a shared relation with a source of one's
development (usually called a "relation of production").

Yes, this is why I believe in subjects and relations and not just
subjects. You have to put subjects and relations in the same
subject.

Quote:

Sorry you had to go through so much trouble. Once one muscles through
it, it really is something that is quite simple.

Quote:

Word have different levels of scope. A proper noun has the lowest
scope as it is the most specific. A common noun is one level higher.
A generalization or category is higher still as they encompass more
information. The subject is the highest of all since it can be cross-
utilized for any generalization or category.

If you can refer to a hypothetical mineral yet unknown to man, then it
is a subject.

Quote:

A relation itself can be given a subject. Thus the system becomes
closed and everything and everyone is in it.

I don't get this, either. You are using the word "subject" in a sense
that escapes me.

Think of relation as "many" and subject as "one." Many is composed of
ones. Many can also be referred to as a one, such as in saying "the
Many." In this way it is a one. Since one and many comprise all of
mathematics, subjects and relations compose all of information. It is
the system we are all in. It is why family members are referred to as
relatives. We all have relatives. We are all in this system.

Haines Brown...

Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 7:15 am

Guest

"jhn_hbr at (no spam) yahoo.com" <jhn_hbr at (no spam) yahoo.com> writes:

Quote:

Consider the point of view of using the term "subject" instead of
"entity". With "subject" we can employ the use of the word
"subjective". In common language, the word "entitive" doesn't
exist.

Ah, now I know what you mean by "subject" here. Something like "object
of consciousness". This misunderstanding took me down a dead alley.

Quote:

The term "subject" can be associated with the term "relation" as a
relation is more than one subject combined together. Processes can
be thought of as relations in time as opposed to space.

Yes, but does this not reduce things to causal relations at the
expense of empiria. Back in the 1970s, Bertell Ollman offered this
kind of approach, and the critical reaction to it was that it
represented a kind of "indeterminant interactionism". I don't think
we can privilege causal relations at the expense of any sensitivity
to empiria.

Empiria are relations. That is what a measurement is, a relation.
Certainly this concept is indeterminant but we do have boundary
conditions. After all, one could say that all of mathematics is
indeterminant.

What you refer to here is more commonly called "phenomena", isn't it?
But in looking into this further, I have to some extent to concede your
point. The word "empiria" exists, but is said to be an archaic noun form
of empiric(al) by the Oxford English Dictionary. I find that most people
use the word empiric(al) to refer to the data of experience or
observation, and hence phenomena. Should I then avoid the term "empiria"
because it merely means this data itself, better referred to as
"phenomena"? I suspect so.

What I was trying to get at by my use of the term "empiria" wasn't the
data of experience, but a property of the world that enables us to have
that experience or to make an observation. I suppose that since
scientific realism is concerned with "unobservables", that the opposite
would be "observables". Conventionally, a system observable is a
property of the system state that can be determined by some sequence of
physical operations.

Perhaps observables would be a better word for me to have used than
"empiria", but there's another idea I was trying to drag in at the same
time, and that was "specificity". Perhaps specificity is implied when we
speak of "system state". That is, system state may imply system closure
(boundedness) or at least its disconnect from the broader world so that
it acquires specificity.

However, perhaps not all observables are specific. In my earlier example
of a fog, I can see it, but it is not bounded; there is no definable
system state. Although if I make an observation of the fog, I may be
referring to a sample rather than a whole and thereby impose a
boundary. This is a complicated point, admittedly. If I observe a fog
bank, I see its boundary, but if I'm standing in the fog and see that my
surroundings are foggy, I'm describing the state of the bounded region
of space I happen to be viewing currently. So the boundedness of the
observable world may be an objective property, or it may be
subjective. If this be allowed, then observable seems a better term for
me than empiria.

The definition of observables/unobservables is a contentious issue. Most
often, examples of unobservables are offered rather than a definition
other than that unobservables are not observable. Sometimes the
difference is represented as that of Kant's distinction of noumena
(Ding-an-sich) and phenomena, but that worries me for the same reason
that haecceity does, positing an independent level of reality that is
unobservable rather than merely an unobservable aspect of reality. As I
mentioned before, it may imply an ontological dualism.

There may be three kinds of unobservables; a) logically unobservable,
which refers to that which exists solely by negation, b) practically
unobservable (often mentioned is an atom), and c) physically
unobservable in principle. By the term "unobservables" I was concerned
with only the last (c). A force field can be measured only at a
particular place and time, but not as a whole; causal powers can be
inferred from the observation of change, but are not themselves
observable. Can unobservables (in sense [c]) then refer to the causal
relation of observables, while observables are bounded entities? I'm not
sure.

Sorry for speculating out loud here and at such length, but your
critique of my use of the word "empiria" drove me to explore other
options.

As for my original point, I would now put it that "entity" refers to
observables, but in fact all things are processes that also necessarily
entail unobservables, and so entity ends being a one-sided
representation of the world. True, sometimes people refer to
unobservables as entities, and so I would have to make explicit my
limitation of the term entity to observables.

Quote:

Yes, this is why I believe in subjects and relations and not just
subjects. You have to put subjects and relations in the same subject.

Yes, given your use of the word "subject".

Quote:

These entities must be called subjects because subject is the most
general of all possible terms.

Why do you say this? Why is "subject the most general of all possible
terms"? For example, in what sense does a hypothetical mineral yet
unknown to man represent a "subject"?

Word have different levels of scope. A proper noun has the lowest
scope as it is the most specific. A common noun is one level higher.
A generalization or category is higher still as they encompass more
information. The subject is the highest of all since it can be cross-
utilized for any generalization or category.

Yes, perhaps in epistemological terms. As you now realize, my concern
was ontological.

Again, I apologize for all this speculation on my part, although it was
brought on by your critical remarks ;-)

--

Haines Brown, KB1GRM

Jason Glumidge...

Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 1:43 pm

Guest

A good read Haines, and hats off to your style of writing. Flows very
well. Ok, my opinion (for what it is worth given I have just arrived
here), is I was with you completely up to...

On May 9, 2:27 pm, Haines Brown <bro... at (no spam) teufel.hartford-hwp.com>
wrote:

Quote:

[snip]
A morning fog is empirically real, and yet is not an entity.

I was stumped as to why you wouldn't deem a morning fog as an entity,
given it can be referred to via predication, it has discernable
properties, and may be distinguished from another morning fog via
those properties.

Quote:

The reason is that it is not bounded.

And thats probably becuase I am unclear what this means, in this
context - I guess it is related to the 'closure' and 'boundaries' that
you mention later, but it stands out to me as being contestable. I'm
not sure any entity is nice and neatly encapsulated, or if that ought
be required definitionally. In your argument, this seemed to jump out
at me anyhow.

Quote:

The usual definition of entity is that it
represents a set of distinctive qualities or, if two things have the
same qualities, their separation in space.

Are you referring to the bundle theory of substance? If so many
incorporate both intrinsic and extrinsic into qualities, and there are
numerous sub-divisions of the theory that might be worth mentioning in
discussion. (I noted that you indirectly make note of substance
theoretical standpoints further on).

Quote:

Interesting stuff. I am not particularly knowledgeable when it comes
to dualistic standpoints, so hope that my comments aren't overly
naive. Regards, J.

Haines Brown...

Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 6:32 am

Guest

Jason, thanks for the helpful questions.

Jason Glumidge <Jason.Glumidge at (no spam) gmail.com> writes:

Quote:

On May 9, 2:27 pm, Haines Brown <bro... at (no spam) teufel.hartford-hwp.com
wrote:
[snip] A morning fog is empirically real, and yet is not an entity.

I was stumped as to why you wouldn't deem a morning fog as an entity,
given it can be referred to via predication, it has discernable
properties, and may be distinguished from another morning fog via
those properties.

Although the reason might not be obvious, my instinctive reply would be
an appeal to naturalism. That is, I should be able to describe its
empirical state if the fog is an entity.

To do this, there are various observables that we might consider, such
as the size and density of the water droplets and the fog's
opacity. However, these properties are derived from the observation of a
sample of the fog. If I were to ask, what is the extent of the fog, the
answer would necessarily be an approximation. At its edges, it tapers
off. One cannot give a precise description of its extent.

Now, what is the conventional meaning of "entity"? The word has some
meanings that are not relevant here, but the one that is refers to
something which has a distinct and separate existence. Certainly its
opacity distinguishes fog from a non-foggy condition, but if it tapers
off, then that distinction becomes foggy Wink

. It is separated from its
surroundings only by degree. The words distinct and separation imply a
boundary of some kind between the entity and its surroundings.

Yes, I'm stretching a point here, but the reason is that doing so
captures better our intuition that there are things that are not clearly
distinct and if not, loose the quality of being entities. For example,
there are many things, the properties of fall within a continuum, and a
standard objection to empiricism is that the imposition of demarcations
in such cases is rather artificial and not dictated by our experience of
the world.

Quote:

The reason is that it is not bounded.

And thats probably becuase I am unclear what this means, in this
context - I guess it is related to the 'closure' and 'boundaries' that
you mention later, but it stands out to me as being contestable. I'm
not sure any entity is nice and neatly encapsulated, or if that ought
be required definitionally. In your argument, this seemed to jump out
at me anyhow.

Yes, as I admitted in my discussion above, this boundary might be
vague. But the definition of the word entity seems to imply a boundary
of some kind in the sense of a distinction of the entity's observables
from those of its environment. While fog may not have been the best
example, intuitively I don't think of it as a entity because it is
insufficiently separated.

Quote:

The usual definition of entity is that it represents a set of
distinctive qualities or, if two things have the same qualities,
their separation in space.

Are you referring to the bundle theory of substance? If so many
incorporate both intrinsic and extrinsic into qualities, and there are
numerous sub-divisions of the theory that might be worth mentioning in
discussion. (I noted that you indirectly make note of substance
theoretical standpoints further on).

No, not if you are implying that I embrace a substance theory. In fact,
I objected to it when I referred at one point to haecceity. A bundle
theory seems the opposite, suggesting that entities are merely bundles
of qualities, with no hidden or underlying haecceity or
essence. However, I objected to this as well. A "bundle" implies
closure, and I suggested on the contrary that all things are processes,
for which a causal relation with the world is also essential. The
"qualities" of a thing, I argued, are only one side, the other
consisting of unobservables, and these unobservables make the entity a
process. The word "properties" might to used to include both aspects of
a process, but I'm not sure if this use of the word properties to
include unobservables as distinct from just qualities is conventional.

Quote:

Both definitions presume closure. The entity, unlike the morning fog,
must be bounded. So an entity must not only have qualities, but it
must also have a boundary, whether to distinguish its qualities from
all else, or to distinguish two entities having the same qualities.

Interesting stuff. I am not particularly knowledgeable when it comes
to dualistic standpoints, so hope that my comments aren't overly
naive.

Like my own? Wink

. When I think of the word "dualism", it conveys to me a
traditional binary opposition in modal terms (such as body/mind),
although perhaps it is used more loosely today. The two aspects of a
process, the observables and unobservables, are not different modes of
existence, but are simply a distinction among properties in terms of
whether or not they are observable. More usefully, observable qualities
seem to be that aspect of processes that distinguish them from other
processes, while the unobservables are what link the process with the
wider world. These are not two different modes of existence, but merely
the two aspects of one process, and hence don't seem to fall under the
term dualism.

The prevailing view in the philosophy of science today are a) its
material monism, and b) its scientific realism, which insists on the
reality of unobservables. The latter implise the reality of both
observables and unobservables, which obviously can't contradict the
principle of monism.

To say that unobservables are "real" in the same sense as observable
qualities offers its own challenges, although the standard definition of
"reality" today would seem inclined to include both. But what does
"real" mean? For example, if we were to define "real" as that which can
enter causal relations, it would seem to imply an empiricist
reductionism, making causal relations external to that reality. We often
infer the existence of something from its effect on something else, such
as on the eye of the beholder. This reductionism is where post-modernism
gets into trouble, for its presumption of Cartesian dualism necessarily
reduces reality to subjectivity. A rigorous materialist monism should
not have a problem with the notion that we construct our world in
thought, for our construction is constrained by the world of experience
and is part of the world.

This is why I'd rather not define "reality" as what can enter causal
relations, but instead try to represent it in terms of our activity in
the world and more broadly, in terms of agency, both human and
material. I'm not embracing vitalism here, for by "agency" I only means
an effect on the world that is a function of a thing's own observable
properties and its unobservable capacity to act. An embrace of
materialistic monism would seem to force such a broader notion of
agency.

All of this is said quickly and off the top of my head. So if you
perceive obvious flaws in this line of reasoning, please help me out by
pointing to them.

--

Haines Brown, KB1GRM

brodix...

Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 7:02 am

Guest

Haines,

Quote:

Admittedly I'm coming from discussing this on physics forums, where
there is a very definite focus on objects and measurements. While
there is an appreciation of the inherent fuzziness of reality, it is
presented as an unknowable, rather than the fundamental dichotomy of
being and doing. Consider that if time is a consequence of motion and
the only absolute is like absolute zero to temperature, the complete
absence of it, then there is no such thing as a specific defined point
in time. It will always be inherently fuzzy, as will any further
measurement made from this reference. It relates to the Uncertainty
Principle in that there is no such measurement as "location." All you
really measure is its force by impeding it, so its "momentum" is lost.

Quote:

If (a), I suggested, whether correctly or not, that "entity" is
inherently empiricist and therefore hostile any incorporation of causal
potency or relations into the essence of things. For example, a fired
bullet has kinetic energy, but that energy is represented as a property
that is external to the definition of "bullet"; it is an "accidental"
rather than essential property.

Not. The bullet exists as a consequence of the ability to fire it.

Quote:

I guess there are many ways to approach this argument. Essentially
it's a dichotomy and it's difficult to really see both sides at the
same time. We exist in a field of energy and in order to comprehend
it, our brains process it as a series of events, like frames of film,
so it is logical to think in terms of defined terms becuse that is how
we do think. The analog side of the equation is the energy, like the
projector light illuminating the film and being part and parcel with
all the bound energy of the film itself.

Quote:

It's fuzzy.

Quote:

My own take on this, for whatever it's worth, is to look at the
empirical dimension of the present as the effect in the present of what
once occurred; and the probability distribution of possible outcomes is
the existence of the future in the present. In other words, I'm agreeing
with you that there is no time dimension outside consciousness. We have
an intuitive sense of the passage of time because memory is the
empirical effect of the past. Because we are aware of a sequence of past
states, we represent that in thought as time's arrow or the flow of
time. In a way, we can "see" a process, such as the setting sun, but
have difficulty describing what we have just seen for someone else
(St. Augustine's point).

There is certainly a time function, as physical reality carries the
memory of past events, at least those not yet erased. The past is the
stored information. The future is where the energy will flow. If the
past is still open enough to fresh energy, the future is a
continuation of the past, but as the stored information becomes ever
more static, energy tends to accumulate elsewhere and the future
becomes a reaction to the past. Evolution and revolution. Spring to
winter. Winter to spring.

Quote:

Yes, technically correct. On the other hand, the "present" can perhaps
not be defined in temporal terms, but as a condition. Would you be
inclined to agree with this?

Yes. Safe to say this is a bit of a defense based on previous
discussion with those of a physics background.

Quote:

This gets toward a cosmology discussion, which is where I'm coming
from to begin with, as it was from trying to understand current
cosmology that I came to the conclusion the Big Bang model is based on
some flawed initial assumptions. Simply put, gravitational contraction
and spatial expansion are balanced, as far as they can be measured, so
where is the additional expansion for the universe as a whole to
expand, if what we measure is being cancelled by gravity? What I see
is a classic convective cycle of expanding energy, of which redshift
is a logical consequence and collapsing mass/structure. Until such
point the pressure ignites it and radiates the constituent energy back
out, until it cools sufficiently to start contracting again. Much more
on that, but in terms of time, the unit direction is of collapsing
mass as the information/units of time, that go from being in the
future to the past, while the energy is the process, constantly
shedding old structure and going on to new. Face of the clock going
future to past, as the hands go past to future. (Entropy is based on
usable energy is a closed system, but an infinite universe is not
closed, just trading energy around and since time is a function of
this process not the basis of it, it's meaningless to consider energy
as beginning or ending.

Quote:

However, I'm therefor uncertain about your statement that "...or strings
and their vibrations, conserved energy goes toward the future, as the
information defining it recedes into the past". It seems you here
implicitly allow back in the time dimension that you had wanted to
exclude. For example, information can't "recede" into the past, for the
past no longer exists; all information must exist in the present. This
includes consciousness, for our mental information (memories) about the
past exists only in our present consciousness.

Time is a description of the process, not the basis for it, just like
temperature. Information goes from future potential to past
circumstance, as the energy that is physical reality creates and
consumes these events.

Quote:

Think of the relationship between object and process as that between
a production line and product. The object/product describes a
narrative unit of time that goes from start to finish, while the
production line/process faces the other way, consuming raw material
and expelling finished product. The process of life goes from one
generation to the next, as individual lives go from being in the
future to being in the past.

But if there is no time dimension, then you can't "be" in either the
past or the future. A narrative is our subjective story about the
temporal relation of the states we hold in consciousness.

Of which modern physics has tried to argue actually exists as a
fourth dimension. The irony here, is that if you look up spacetime on
wikipedia, it is Edgar Allen Poe, master of narrative, who is given
credit for first arguing that space and "duration" are one and the
same. In discussions those with training in physics try to point out
to me that physics is non intuitive and I try arguing back that it is
such a mess because it has absorbed a number of intuitive assumptions
that are not fundamentally logical. Suffice to say, I don't have much
luck getting the point across. As I think I've said, the same
relationship exists between temperature and volume, as exists between
distance and time, but we don't try arguing they are the same because
our mental function has a more objective view of volume and
temperarure then it does of time and distance. Like windchill, it's a
triangulation on our perspective.

Quote:

Of course this point is worthless in terms of modern physics, which
describes time as an actual dimension and all information subjectively
exists on it, rather than being destroyed as new information is
created.

But here you seem to slip from the issue of the ontological un-reality
of a time dimension to the practical utility for presuming such a time
dimension. Einstein argued that there is no ontological dimension
clocking events, and that even synchrony is relativistic.

Synchrony is relativistic to our subjective perspective. Try
logically arguing that London and New York do not co-exist. Einstein
proposes that time and space exist at an equal level. While I treat
time as a function of motion, similar to temperature, my argument is
that space was been misinterpreted because geometry never properly
incorporated zero as the absolute and just uses it as a marking point
between positive and negative, but the absolute is not just a
dimensionless point, as it cannot have any form of reference, even a
dimensionless one. A point is still one point. That's one, not zero.
Zero in geometry should be the blank void in which any and all points
are possible. This means that geometry defines space, it doesn't
create it. One of the points I like raising in cosmological
discussions is if space is expanding, how is it that we have a stable
lightspeed? Here is a thread at physicsforum that I started using that
point; http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=21538

Quote:

Yes and you are a projection of a larger organism. Our individuation
is like a parallel processor. The human race functions much like an
ant colony, where the individuals fit within a larger structure.
Consider my point about time. As a process our bodies are constantly
creating and shedding/consuming individual cells, so as process we go
through these series of units from past cells to future ones. Just as
the human race, as a process, goes from past generations to future
generations. The organic process, of which consciousness appears to be
an integral part, is a bottom up emergent phenomena, going forward in
the process of time. Our intellectual structure is an top down
ordering of past information. We look down from the peak of our
current knowledge, but cannot see ahead and above us, where it is that
we are going. When we run out of forward momentum, we are surpassed by
the next generation. Occasionally the entire process breaks down and
one ecosystem is replaced by another.

Quote:

You loose me entirely on monotheism. I would see monotheism as a social
construct, not a reference to an independent ontological level of
existence that is outside consciousness. In my view, Okham's razor is
handy for this issue.

Ref my point about geometry. We view the center point as the source
of our reality. As organic structure, it is an intuitional progression
from viewing the group and its leaders as the source of our reality,
to symbolizing it within the cultural heritage and there are many
permutations on this and many books have been written on it, but
suffice to say, it has been a political convenience to promote the
structural apex as the great father/ god figure. Divine right of kings
and all that. The reality though, in this dichotomy of bottom up
process and top down order, is that the source is the basis, not some
ideal affixed to the top. In many ways, monotheism is a religious
singularity and actually the Big Bang theory was originally proposed
by a Catholic priest, Georges Lemaitre. My argument about the point
not being the absolute applies here as well. A fluctuating vacuum
power by radiation would explain the expansion of space better then an
expanding singularity and while consciousness is prone to bottlenecks,
it makes sense as a field phenomena, more than a point. The neural
network being a prime example, as opposed to the assumption there is a
particular seat of consciousness within the brain.

Quote:

I believe I understand your distinction of unity and unit, and "unit"
would seem to be close to what I discussed as an "entity". The term
"unity" on the other hand seems to beg the question. To be speicific, we
have different kinds of unities that are quite different things. For
example, Gestalt theory, general systems theory, a system with
decreasing entropy, conceptual general categories, etc. But I'm not sure
such unities are not always in part our mental constructions. Even
something having decreasing entropy and therefore bounded, depends on
its relation with its surroundings and therefore is not a closed system;
it seems to fall short of being an objective unity. This, I suspect, is
your point about the universe not being dissipative, since entropy is
always a relative measure, and there's nothing else against which we
might measure the universe as a whole. However, didn't Boltzmann provide
a solution to this problem? (discussed nicely in Lawrence Sklar, Physics
and Chance (Cambridge, 1993).

I'll have to look that up in my very limited free time. The only

thing coming to mind is Boltzmann's brains. Yes, any system we are
capable of defining becomes a unit when it is defined. Just like the
factory production line is one unit within the larger company. So by
definition, a process cannot be fully defined, or it is not a process,
but a unit. and of course, units are processes to their constituent
components, like your body is a process to its cells.

This isn't as clear as I'd like it, but time is tight at the moment...
I realize I probably fall in the crank category, as this is simply my
own efforts to make sense of a reality which seems determined to
define me on its terms, so I study the rules carefully. If someone
proves me wrong, I'm willing to change, as my intention has been
finding what is, not being the one to say it. Climbing up, not
stopping to look down.

John Brodix Merryman

Haines Brown...

Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 5:45 pm

Guest

brodix <brodix at (no spam) earthlink.net> writes:

Quote:

Haines,

Not sure I quite follow you here. It seems you could mean one of two
things: a) "process" should somehow be incorporated into our notion
of "entity", or b) I should have gone on to discuss process more
fully rather than put it aside.

Admittedly I'm coming from discussing this on physics forums, where
there is a very definite focus on objects and measurements. While
there is an appreciation of the inherent fuzziness of reality, it is
presented as an unknowable, rather than the fundamental dichotomy of
being and doing.

I suspect this is the nub of the issue. Scientists are empirically
oriented, as indeed they should be, and so naturally focus on objects
and measurements.

However, any scientific practice is theory-laden, and this theory in
part shapes the reality of the objects we observe and measure. Usually
the implicit theory is left un-inspected, but when there are "scientific
revolutions" or when a science probes an unknown where the dominant
theory is not well established, philosophical speculation leading to a
new theoretical orientation can really change the whole direction of the
science.

I would not venture as far as Thomas Kuhn and reduce science to little
more than a consensus among peers, but the most standard of works in
traditional science insists that theory is constructed and arises
somehow from a dialectic between the scientific community and the
world. For example, a classic discussion of this is that of I. Lakatos,
"Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programs", in
Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave, _Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge_,
Cambridge, 1970. This is a good read, although I don't entirely agree
with all of it.

Quote:

I don't know that time is simply a consequence of motion (of change). Of
course, we impose a time scale, but the reality of time is a hotly
contested issue. Time itself may be associated with motion, but to
suggest it is a consequence of motion, of that I'm not at all
convinced. A good discussion of the time issue is D.H. Mellor, _Real
Time II_, London, 1998.

Quote:

It will always be inherently fuzzy, as will any further measurement
made from this reference. It relates to the Uncertainty Principle in
that there is no such measurement as "location." All you really
measure is its force by impeding it, so its "momentum" is lost.

Not sure I follow this, although I suspect I'm in agreement. Yes, the
present time may not be real, in which case measurement will be
fuzzy. I'm not sure how this results from the Uncertainty Principle. In
terms of quantum states, the observation changes the object observed
because the systems are imposed. However, at the macro level in which we
live, such an effect would not be noticeable. On the other hand, if you
are thinking of a energy-time uncertainty in relativistic physics, that
also represents a scale that far exceeds our normal existence. I would
take these as offering some justification for the universality of a
probabilistic causality, but not proof. Your example seems yet a third
view, which is that our measurement affects the object measured. While
this is often pointed out and true, some have objected that it is simply
not always true and therefore is not a general principle.

Quote:

If (a), I suggested, whether correctly or not, that "entity" is
inherently empiricist and therefore hostile any incorporation of
causal potency or relations into the essence of things. For example,
a fired bullet has kinetic energy, but that energy is represented as
a property that is external to the definition of "bullet"; it is an
"accidental" rather than essential property.

Not. The bullet exists as a consequence of the ability to fire it.

Well, maybe a bad example. Would the example of a meteorite get around
the issue of human intentionality?

Quote:

If (b), my aim was to suggest that "entity" is a one-sided
representation of things that is inadequate for any problematic that
is broad in time or space. If you are suggesting that a critique of
entity can't proceed very far without developing a notion of process,
I'd be interested in your reasons.

I guess there are many ways to approach this argument. Essentially
it's a dichotomy and it's difficult to really see both sides at the
same time.

Yes. To put in in old terms, it is the contradiction of being and
becoming. I'd agree that it is difficult for us to grasp both together
in thought. The question is, is that not simply due to the limitation of
our thought? We can see a process such as the setting sun and it does
not seem at all problematic; to describe what we saw to someone else in
formal language is another thing. We can only approximate it, just as
differential calculus approximates change. In the other hand, in the
sciences we do often need ways to represent a reality that cannot be
adequately comprehended in thought, most often by the use of
mathematics. All I was suggesting above that our consciousness, which is
adapted to our daily lives, may not suffice for problems that are quite
alien to our daily life, such as quantum entanglements or a black
hole. There seems no reason not to look to theory or a mathematical
model to represent realities that cannot be adequately grasped in terms
of our ordinary thinking.

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We exist in a field of energy and in order to comprehend it, our
brains process it as a series of events, like frames of film, so it is
logical to think in terms of defined terms becuse that is how we do
think. The analog side of the equation is the energy, like the
projector light illuminating the film and being part and parcel with
all the bound energy of the film itself.

Not sure I follow you here. I assume you are not making the tautological
point that there are energy fields, such as RF, all around us all the
time. I get the feeling you are also not speaking of the fact that for
our organism to maintain its far-from-equilibrium state, it must
constantly process (dissipate) energy. I see no indication that you are
thinking of cosmological dark energy. Once popular (Wilhelm Ostwald, for
example) was the view that everything can be reduced to energy, but no
believes that today.

However, I agree that the brain cannot comprehend a field, and so
Maxwell comes to our aid. And I agree that the brain must describe a
process as a sequence of system states that are somehow empirically
differentiated. But I don't see how this ties into energy, although
clearly work must be done for change to take place.

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There is certainly a time function, as physical reality carries the
memory of past events, at least those not yet erased. The past is the
stored information.

Oops. The "traces" of the past that exist in the present are, of course,
not the past, but mere empirical effects. In that sense, reality has the
memory of the past in a sense. But it is not the past in any
sense. Robinson Crusoe saw Friday's footprint in the sand, and he
inferred from it that someone was on the island with him. But the
footprint surely is not Friday. That things have a time function (by
which I assume you mean McTaggert's A-time) is hotly denied (see
Mellart, for example).

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The future is where the energy will flow. If the past is still open
enough to fresh energy, the future is a continuation of the past, but
as the stored information becomes ever more static, energy tends to
accumulate elsewhere and the future becomes a reaction to the
past. Evolution and revolution. Spring to winter. Winter to spring.

I don't follow. Neither the future nor the past exist. At one time the
past existed, and hopefully there will be a future. And especially if
there is not really any present (in relativistic terms), then there's no
possible way for energy to "flow" through these non-existent things.

I assume that stored information (traces) is static by definition.

No idea what you mean by energy accumulating elsewhere.

As a student some fifty years ago, I was much taken by Manfred
Engelbert's _Evolution und Revolution in der Weltgechichte_ (Recalling
it so moved me that I just ordered myself a copy of it so that I can
relive the past Wink

. So for me, the couplet has a rather specific
meaning. I've no certain ideas what the alteration of evolution and
revolution might mean in physics. Phase shifts? I don't think so.

Quote:

Yes, technically correct. On the other hand, the "present" can
perhaps not be defined in temporal terms, but as a condition. Would
you be inclined to agree with this?

Yes. Safe to say this is a bit of a defense based on previous
discussion with those of a physics background.

Are you saying that your physicist colleagues find it hard to accept
that the present is not a time? Strange; I thought this was kind of
common currency.

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If I understand correctly, you are suggesting that time is a relation
of events, and no event is privileged as the time keeper. But often
it is pointed out that decreasing entropy gives direction to time and
cosmic dissipation is a reference for all else. True, this is only
direction, not a time dimension, so your basic point holds, I
believe.

This gets toward a cosmology discussion, which is where I'm coming
from to begin with, as it was from trying to understand current
cosmology that I came to the conclusion the Big Bang model is based on
some flawed initial assumptions. Simply put, gravitational contraction
and spatial expansion are balanced, as far as they can be measured, so
where is the additional expansion for the universe as a whole to
expand, if what we measure is being cancelled by gravity?

My interests are less cosmological Wink

. The point makes a lot of sense
at the level of daily life. I realize that the big bang theory has some
problems, at least in the respect to which you refer..

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(Entropy is based on usable energy is a closed system, but an infinite
universe is not closed, ...

Yes, that's true. Even if not infinite, it is not closed unless we have
space bending back on itself. However, the term "entropy" has (since
WWII) acquired a much broader meaning, or at least many real processes
are analogous to entropy change, such as the relative probability of
outcomes in relation to an initial state; such as information content
(Shannon), etc. As I suggested before, that classical thermodynamic
entropy started out in terms of closed systems, that restraint did not
last very long. Boltzmann I mentioned before, but a more recent example
would be the work of Prigogine, which can be described as the
thermodynamics of open systems.

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But if there is no time dimension, then you can't "be" in either the
past or the future. A narrative is our subjective story about the
temporal relation of the states we hold in consciousness.

Of which modern physics has tried to argue actually exists as a
fourth dimension.

True, but I think this fourth dimension approach has fallen on hard
times in recent years. The basic issue is whether time is a property of
things (as implied by the "fourth dimension") or not. McTeggart argued
back in 1908 (?) that it was a property of things (A-Time), but I don't
know that anyone would seriously maintain that today.

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In discussions those with training in physics try to point out to me
that physics is non intuitive and I try arguing back that it is such a
mess because it has absorbed a number of intuitive assumptions that
are not fundamentally logical.

Who said the world was supposed to be logical? One could make a very
long list of things that are anything but logical. One of my main
interests has to do with the reality of contradictions (and I don't mean
Kantian real oppositions). Well, a basic rule of logic says there can be
no contradictions. But I have no trouble at all showing that
contradictions can be quite real.

Quote:

But here you seem to slip from the issue of the ontological
un-reality of a time dimension to the practical utility for presuming
such a time dimension. Einstein argued that there is no ontological
dimension clocking events, and that even synchrony is relativistic.

Synchrony is relativistic to our subjective perspective. Try
logically arguing that London and New York do not co-exist. Einstein
proposes that time and space exist at an equal level.

Yes, we create a time line, and so if I call up and ask what the GMT
time is here, it will be (almost) and same as what it is here. There's
no question about the practical utility of such time lines. But in
relativistic terms, there's no synchrony because there's no absolute
time reference by which to measure it.

Quote:

This, I suspect, is your point about the universe not being
dissipative, since entropy is always a relative measure, and there's
nothing else against which we might measure the universe as a
whole. However, didn't Boltzmann provide a solution to this problem?
(discussed nicely in Lawrence Sklar, Physics and Chance (Cambridge,
1993).

I'll have to look that up in my very limited free time.

Yes, I recommend you give it a try. It's as nice an intro to statistical
mechanics of which I am aware.

--

Haines Brown, KB1GRM

brodix...

Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 4:08 pm

Guest

Haines,

Quote:

I suspect this is the nub of the issue. Scientists are empirically
oriented, as indeed they should be, and so naturally focus on objects
and measurements.

It wouldn't be so bad if they would police their own extrapolations.
Since our world is possessed of conscious beings, how do you exclude
consciousness when proposing hidden dimensions? Ghosts anyone?

Quote:

However, any scientific practice is theory-laden, and this theory in
part shapes the reality of the objects we observe and measure. Usually
the implicit theory is left un-inspected, but when there are "scientific
revolutions" or when a science probes an unknown where the dominant
theory is not well established, philosophical speculation leading to a
new theoretical orientation can really change the whole direction of the
science.

Paradigm shift. Phase transition. Punctuated equilibrium. Systemic
failure. Revolution. When they blow theoretical bubbles upon
theoretical bubbles, sometimes they all pop at once.

Quote:

I would not venture as far as Thomas Kuhn and reduce science to little
more than a consensus among peers, but the most standard of works in
traditional science insists that theory is constructed and arises
somehow from a dialectic between the scientific community and the
world. For example, a classic discussion of this is that of I. Lakatos,
"Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programs", in
Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave, _Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge_,
Cambridge, 1970. This is a good read, although I don't entirely agree
with all of it.

I'm afraid what reading time I have gets mostly consumed with current
news and trying to understand the forces at work. The tipping point is
when you fall out the window. The crash is when you hit the ground. We
seem to be somewhere in between.

Quote:

Consider that if time is a consequence of motion and the only absolute
is like absolute zero to temperature, the complete absence of it, then
there is no such thing as a specific defined point in time.

I don't know that time is simply a consequence of motion (of change). Of
course, we impose a time scale, but the reality of time is a hotly
contested issue. Time itself may be associated with motion, but to
suggest it is a consequence of motion, of that I'm not at all
convinced. A good discussion of the time issue is D.H. Mellor, _Real
Time II_, London, 1998.

I think if you really follow through the consequences of this
proposition, it doe make some sense. As Newton pointed out, "For every
action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." Now apply this to my
observation that to the hands of the clock, it's the face going
counterclockwise.

Quote:

It's not quite my point. What I'm saying is that you cannot freeze
time at an exact point, as that would effectively require a cessation
of motion and if all motion were to stop, reality would effectively
vanish, even to the sub-atomic level, since everything is mostly empty
space occupied by wave particle relationships that function as motion.
So since you can't stop time or motion to measure it, objects do not
have an exact location. It's the fuzziness that ties it all together
and makes it real. Without the fuzziness, there is nothing. When
physics tries to measure "position," it does so by directly impeding
the particle to narrow its location to the smallest degree of
fuzziness and this obviously does change the momentum, but that's not
the central thrust of my argument.

Quote:

Well, maybe a bad example. Would the example of a meteorite get around
the issue of human intentionality?

Even meteorites have causal histories.

Yes. To put in in old terms, it is the contradiction of being and
becoming. I'd agree that it is difficult for us to grasp both together
in thought. The question is, is that not simply due to the limitation of
our thought? We can see a process such as the setting sun and it does
not seem at all problematic; to describe what we saw to someone else in
formal language is another thing. We can only approximate it, just as
differential calculus approximates change. In the other hand, in the
sciences we do often need ways to represent a reality that cannot be
adequately comprehended in thought, most often by the use of
mathematics. All I was suggesting above that our consciousness, which is
adapted to our daily lives, may not suffice for problems that are quite
alien to our daily life, such as quantum entanglements or a black
hole. There seems no reason not to look to theory or a mathematical
model to represent realities that cannot be adequately grasped in terms
of our ordinary thinking.

Math is still another form of language, a logical shorthand. By
providing a framework for our comprehension, we can build far more
complex and far reaching concepts than we could without it, but like
all tools, it can be abused. As government and business frequently get
caught doing. To quote Churchill, "There are three kinds of lies.
Lies, damn lies and statistics."

Quote:

Think of it in terms of how our eyes function. Obviously there is far
more visual information than we can conceivably process and it is
traveling at the speed of light, so our mind breaks it down into
flashes of perception and then ties it together into a narrative. Sort
of like frames of a movie. Like a movie, much gets edited out as well.
Our minds digitize reality. As our minds go from past perceptions to
future ones, these perceptions that are the essence of our self recede
into the past.

Quote:

However, I agree that the brain cannot comprehend a field, and so
Maxwell comes to our aid. And I agree that the brain must describe a
process as a sequence of system states that are somehow empirically
differentiated. But I don't see how this ties into energy, although
clearly work must be done for change to take place.

Energy is what is conserved. The information it records isn't always
preserved. So energy is what goes from past information to future
information, while the information goes from being future potential to
past circumstance.

Quote:

You are modeling time as a dimension in which the past is somewhere
back there and the future is somewhere up there. If you think of time
as a consequence of motion, then reality is like a rope being woven
out of threads pulled from what had been previously woven, so as the
energy is recycled, past information is constantly being absorbed and
incorporated. Energy and information are like two sides of a coin, as
energy manifests as form/information and information doesn't exist if
it isn't physically manifested. (There are no Platonic Ideals.) The
best model for understanding this is Complexity Theory. Rather than
complexity as the intersection of order and chaos, think of reality as
the intersection order and energy. Both intimately bound, with the
past trying to control the future and the future constantly breaking
down the past.

Quote:

you are looking at it only as information, so yes the past is
information that has been churned up and scattered and the future is
forms that will emerge, but it is still the same conserved energy. The
present is fuzzy. It's just our digitized thoughts that perceive time
as a linear series of flashes and not continuous energy.

Quote:

I assume that stored information (traces) is static by definition.

By definition, but not completely. We think of the past as
unchangeable, but it is dissipating.

Quote:

No idea what you mean by energy accumulating elsewhere.

Think in terms of generational change. Growing up is like grass
pushing though the concrete. Then one day you wake up and you're the
concrete and there is this damn grass trying to push you out of the
way. As we grow up, we consume energy and information, but it builds
up and we slow down. Then the next generation is growing up and they
are running around like mad and using lots of energy, but since we are
old and cranky, they react by occupying the mental and physical spaces
we have left or can't fill.

Quote:

As a student some fifty years ago, I was much taken by Manfred
Engelbert's _Evolution und Revolution in der Weltgechichte_ (Recalling
it so moved me that I just ordered myself a copy of it so that I can
relive the past Wink

. So for me, the couplet has a rather specific
meaning. I've no certain ideas what the alteration of evolution and
revolution might mean in physics. Phase shifts? I don't think so.

Often times revolution is more a function of the old breaking down
than of the new displacing them, because the new are always rising up
and usually it just carries the whole a little bit higher.

Quote: