On Hell and Forgiveness

[Angrboda]

Feel free to enlighten me about what objective means in the ontological sense.

It means that it’s nature is based on something outside of and independent of the subject. Whereas subjective would be based on and dependent of the subject such as tastes or feelings.  It’s like the sci-fi shows, where they always use numbers to communicate with ET, because numbers are a universal and not dependent on us.

Fine. What is figure and ground independent of mental operations distinguishing figure and ground? Can you have number without figure and ground?

[The Grand Nudger]

If I could be so bold as to suggest....jorg has a more expansive or permissive view of subjectivity.  That which is related to subjects.  What you might call objective, jorg might call intersubjective.

Intersubjectivity could qualify as epistemic objectivity.....but it might not (and often doesn't) qualify for ontological objectivity.

Let me give you an example. Is a venomous snake actually terrifying, is that a property of the snake? Or is it, more accurately, a property of the terrified observer (granted, many observers feel that way, still...not all)? A function of how we separate figure from background. Signal from noise.

[RoadRunner79]

It means that it’s nature is based on something outside of and independent of the subject. Whereas subjective would be based on and dependent of the subject such as tastes or feelings.  It’s like the sci-fi shows, where they always use numbers to communicate with ET, because numbers are a universal and not dependent on us.

Fine. What is figure and ground independent of mental operations distinguishing figure and ground? Can you have number without figure and ground?

I don’t know what you’re trying to say.

[Angrboda]

Fine.  What is figure and ground independent of mental operations distinguishing figure and ground?  Can you have number without figure and ground?

I don’t know what you’re trying to say.

Don't try to guess what my endpoint is, just answer the questions. If you prefer, we can speak of parts and wholes. Do parts and wholes exist independent of the machinations of the mind?

[robvalue]

I was thinking about this the other day.

If we were to say that all abstract concepts “exist” in some hypothetical field, then that leads to further problems. To be sure two people are talking about the same concept within that field, a simple label isn’t enough. We would have to make sure that every aspect of that concept, as their minds perceive it, is identical. This would require their perception of every concept used to qualify those aspects to be identical too, and so on.

[polymath257]

The number 4 represents something different when applied to oranges and to apples. It represents something different in the ring of integers versus in the field of real numbers.

Sorry, i thought you understood some of the basics. I guess not.

The problem continues to be that you can't really talk about anything outside of math or science and concepts such as objective are difficult to grasp. Your examples illustrate this clearly. There is not a person in the world that would agree that the number 4 is subjective. This is why RR asked your age. It's like discussing things with a college student who has had a couple of classes and all the sudden thinks they have a grasp on knowledge and if it wasn't covered in class, it is not worth knowing.

On the contrary, I have studied these things most of my adult life (and i am 55 years old). You are simply wrong in claiming that no rational person sees the number 4 as subjective.

Let's ask this: are language constructs 'objective' under your definition? It seems that they are, which in turn says that your definition is faulty. Language constructs certainly *shouldn't* be objective, even if they are independent of any particular person.

On the contrary. Everything we know shows that mental events are physical events. Mental phenomena are physical phenomena. But more broadly, there is and can be no clean separation between mental events and physical events because of the complex web of causal links between the two. To call mental events non-physical would be as perverse as calling electromagnetic effects non-physical.

Nope. The "I" in "I will do such and such" or "I wish that..." is not understood AT ALL by scientist. Of course there is no clean separation between mental events and physical events because the mental relies on physical. The problem is that consciousness CLEARLY appears to be more than the sum of its parts. Therefore we have something that is not just physical (a cause) having a physical effect. So your claim that anything that affects the physical must be physical is in fact wrong. According the the rules, you have the burden of proof. There is no proof to produce. You lost this point as well. It is definitely coherent that the nonphysical can have an effect on the physical. 

The problem comes when you attempt to define what it means to be 'physical'. Are photons physical? Are neutrinos? How about dark matter? Dark energy? In all cases, I would say definitely yes, they are physical. But why? The only separating property is that they interact with things we previously accepted as physical. This is what allows them to be measured and analyzed. And that is what makes them physical.

The mind being physical just goes along with this realization. But, we can go much, much farther. No new physics is required to explain the workings of the mind. EVERYTHING is based on patterns of neural firing. That much is quite clear from what we have learned about the brain and the mind. In the exact same way that a running compute rprogram is a physical process, the mind is a physical process of the brain.

All this shows is that you don't grasp how testing is done in the sciences. Contingency, according to the definition you gave, is irrelevant. All that is required is correlation.

Semantics. Contingency is a metaphysical principle. Scientist don't use the word 'contingency' but they rely on the principle.  Correlation is the description of the relationship of actual data/observations. 

Exactly. All we need to observe is the correlation between phenomena. We don't have to assume causality. We don't have to base our philosophy on 'contingency'. That is all badly irrelevant.

And I think you are simply wrong here. Causality is a scientific concept: how do events at one time affect the development of events at later times? That *is* what causality is all about.

Not at all. Causality is a metaphysical concept and CERTAINLY not a scientific one. Science PRESUPPOSES that causality is an objective feature of reality. Read more here.  You really really should have taken that philosophy class in college. 

Sorry, but htis is simply wrong. Science is quite possible without a notion of causality. All that is required is correlation and observation of such as patterns.

And no, quantum indeterminacy is NOT meaningless at the macroscopic level. In fact, it can be measured at the macroscopic level given the right situation.

I'm sorry, but the notions of causality from classical philosophy are not just incoherent. They are actually irrelevant to how the world actually works. The macroscopic level is built up from the quantum level. And if philosophy ignores that, then it makes itself useless (well, more so).

What effect can be measured at the macroscopic level?

You are drinking someone's coolaid. Cause/effect are not scientific concepts (as established in the above link). As such, any sub atomic particle theories that have no effect above that level really have no bearing on it. Classical causality lives on!

Classical causality is the averaging of the underlying randomness. When you have Avagadro's number of molecules adding their randomness together, it tends to average out.

The whole field of quantum computing is based on making quantum level phenomena affect the macroscopic world. But the subject of macroscopic quantum effects has a long history: look up Josephson junctions some time.

Sorry, but that is simply wrong. The issues surrounding evolution are tested in labs all around the world, including issues of randomness of mutations, the conditions required for selection, etc.


Seemingly irreducibly complex functions, can be tested for reducibility. And, the results of such testing is that there are NO known examples of irreducible complexity. How biological networks come about can, and has been tested by watching volcanic islands denuded of life and how life returns and re-forms an ecosystem. In fact, literally all the things you mention not only *can* be tested, but *are* tested all the time.

You really don't know what any of those things I mentioned are, do you? No one has a clue how an eye was formed--only theories inferred from, well, the eye. No organism has a half an eye. The steps from a light spot to my eye is entirely inferred. You don't even know what a biological network is (I even gave a link in my response). You have made zero progress showing the grand theory of evolution isn't one gigantic inference--a cornerstone of science. So, my original point was that inferential arguments are used all the time--even in science is definitely true.

What you seem to fail to understand is that the 'inference' is very testable. The difference between an evolved eye and a created one *can* be tested. And the tests have been done and the eye was evolved, not designed. The steps from the eyespot to a fully functioning eye are observed in organisms today. It isn't theoretical that the stages are possible and even exist. We can also investigate the genetics and biochemistry as *tests* of our ideas.

Science works by making observations, formulating *hypotheses*, making predictions based on those hypotheses (here is where inference legitimately operates), and then testing those predictions based on further observation. We cannot and do not 'infer' the truth of a general idea, but rather conclude that the hypothesis has not been negated.

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Fine.  Show me an example of the number four existing in the universe.

LOL, so in a debate about the existence of non-physical objects, of which the number 4 is an example, you'll only be satisfied if someone produces the number 4 as a physical object. Yeah...that sounds reasonable.

The number 4 is NOT an object. That is the whole point here. It is a language construct.

So, unless you accept language constructs as 'objects'.....which would be, well, strange.

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No, it wouldn't.  But by all means, further underscore my opinion of you as an idiot.

Cool... can you lend me a thousand dollars. When I pay you back one dollar and call it the same, it’s good to know you won’t dispute it?  

Actually I suspect that this is just another case of an atheist not understanding what is meant by objective in the ontological sense.  However I don’t see how a number in the other sense can be subjective either.

Edit: or in other words, we’re not talking about the same thing.

But if you paid me back in a thousand euros, I would be happy.

Context matters.

[RoadRunner79]

I don’t know what you’re trying to say.

Don't try to guess what my endpoint is, just answer the questions. If you prefer, we can speak of parts and wholes. Do parts and wholes exist independent of the machinations of the mind?

I’m not trying to guess where you are going. As I said, I don’t understand what you are saying.

A simple answer to your question here, I do believe that the whole exists and the parts of things exist, outside of human conception. I believe that hydrogen and oxygen exist, as well as the combination of them known as water, apart from a persons knowledge of it.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think that jorg gets that you do believe that.  Describing your beliefs is to describe the contents of your mind.  That's ontological subjectivity even if it were epistemic objectivity (and even if there really were parts and wholes outside of your mind).

It may not seem like it, but an invocation of your beliefs is a straight "no" to jorgs question.

[Amarok]

The problem continues to be that you can't really talk about anything outside of math or science and concepts such as objective are difficult to grasp. Your examples illustrate this clearly. There is not a person in the world that would agree that the number 4 is subjective. This is why RR asked your age. It's like discussing things with a college student who has had a couple of classes and all the sudden thinks they have a grasp on knowledge and if it wasn't covered in class, it is not worth knowing.

On the contrary, I have studied these things most of my adult life (and i am 55 years old). You are simply wrong in claiming that no rational person sees the number 4 as subjective.

Let's ask this: are language constructs 'objective' under your definition? It seems that they are, which in turn says that your definition is faulty. Language constructs certainly *shouldn't* be objective, even if they are independent of any particular person.

Nope. The "I" in "I will do such and such" or "I wish that..." is not understood AT ALL by scientist. Of course there is no clean separation between mental events and physical events because the mental relies on physical. The problem is that consciousness CLEARLY appears to be more than the sum of its parts. Therefore we have something that is not just physical (a cause) having a physical effect. So your claim that anything that affects the physical must be physical is in fact wrong. According the the rules, you have the burden of proof. There is no proof to produce. You lost this point as well. It is definitely coherent that the nonphysical can have an effect on the physical. 

The problem comes when you attempt to define what it means to be 'physical'. Are photons physical? Are neutrinos? How about dark matter? Dark energy? In all cases, I would say definitely yes, they are physical. But why? The only separating property is that they interact with things we previously accepted as physical. This is what allows them to be measured and analyzed. And that is what makes them physical.

The mind being physical just goes along with this realization. But, we can go much, much farther. No new physics is required to explain the workings of the mind. EVERYTHING is based on patterns of neural firing. That much is quite clear from what we have learned about the brain and the mind. In the exact same way that a running compute rprogram is a physical process, the mind is a physical process of the brain.

Semantics. Contingency is a metaphysical principle. Scientist don't use the word 'contingency' but they rely on the principle.  Correlation is the description of the relationship of actual data/observations. 

Exactly. All we need to observe is the correlation between phenomena. We don't have to assume causality. We don't have to base our philosophy on 'contingency'. That is all badly irrelevant.

Not at all. Causality is a metaphysical concept and CERTAINLY not a scientific one. Science PRESUPPOSES that causality is an objective feature of reality. Read more here.  You really really should have taken that philosophy class in college. 

Sorry, but htis is simply wrong. Science is quite possible without a notion of causality. All that is required is correlation and observation of such as patterns.

What effect can be measured at the macroscopic level?

You are drinking someone's coolaid. Cause/effect are not scientific concepts (as established in the above link). As such, any sub atomic particle theories that have no effect above that level really have no bearing on it. Classical causality lives on!

Classical causality is the averaging of the underlying randomness. When you have Avagadro's number of molecules adding their randomness together, it tends to average out.

The whole field of quantum computing is based on making quantum level phenomena affect the macroscopic world. But the subject of macroscopic quantum effects has a long history: look up Josephson junctions some time.

You really don't know what any of those things I mentioned are, do you? No one has a clue how an eye was formed--only theories inferred from, well, the eye. No organism has a half an eye. The steps from a light spot to my eye is entirely inferred. You don't even know what a biological network is (I even gave a link in my response). You have made zero progress showing the grand theory of evolution isn't one gigantic inference--a cornerstone of science. So, my original point was that inferential arguments are used all the time--even in science is definitely true.

What you seem to fail to understand is that the 'inference' is very testable. The difference between an evolved eye and a created one *can* be tested. And the tests have been done and the eye was evolved, not designed. The steps from the eyespot to a fully functioning eye are observed in organisms today. It isn't theoretical that the stages are possible and even exist. We can also investigate the genetics and biochemistry as *tests* of our ideas.

Science works by making observations, formulating *hypotheses*, making predictions based on those hypotheses (here is where inference legitimately operates), and then testing those predictions based on further observation. We cannot and do not 'infer' the truth of a general idea, but rather conclude that the hypothesis has not been negated.

---

LOL, so in a debate about the existence of non-physical objects, of which the number 4 is an example, you'll only be satisfied if someone produces the number 4 as a physical object. Yeah...that sounds reasonable.

The number 4 is NOT an object. That is the whole point here. It is a language construct.

So, unless you accept language constructs as 'objects'.....which would be, well, strange.

---

Cool... can you lend me a thousand dollars. When I pay you back one dollar and call it the same, it’s good to know you won’t dispute it?  

Actually I suspect that this is just another case of an atheist not understanding what is meant by objective in the ontological sense.  However I don’t see how a number in the other sense can be subjective either.

Edit: or in other words, we’re not talking about the same thing.

But if you paid me back in a thousand euros, I would be happy.

Context matters.

My friend your trying to explain reality to cavemen who think magic spirits cause 4 to exist

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I think that jorg gets that you do believe that.  Describing your beliefs is to describe the contents of your mind.  That's ontological subjectivity even if it were epistemic objectivity (and even if there really were parts and wholes outside of your mind).

It may not seem like it, but an invocation of your beliefs is a straight "no" to jorgs question.

Good luck getting him to admit that

[The Grand Nudger]

It's not really an issue of admission, though.  It's clear that he want's to express an answer in the affirmative.  I'm not saying that he can't or that there isn't a sufficient answer...only that an invocation of belief falls directly under the header of what jorg takes (and what can be sensibly described) as ontological subjectivity.  

The things that exist inside of our minds and pertain to our minds, not (necessarily) apart or outside of them. Same as the figure-background distinction. Which is which? Well, you'd have to ask the designator. There's nothing obvious about the universe that determines that.