Form vs. Meaning in Logic

Read my theory: http://www.mm-theory.com


One learns in the study of logic that what determines the adherence to rules (rules like modus ponens, DeMorgan's law, excluded middle, etc.) is form - that is, the form taken by the propositions involved.

All Xs are Ys.
This is an X.
Therefore, this is a Y.

From Aristotle down to present day logicians, the tradition has been to recognize in syllogisms such as the above, as well as other common logical structures, the form of the argument as the one distinguishing feature that justifies drawing the conclusion from the premises. We don't know what Xs and Ys are - they are meaningless terms in this case - and so it can't be meaning that justifies the argument. All we have a right to discern here is its form.

Of course, this disagrees very sharply with one of the basic tenets of MM-Theory - namely, that what justifies drawing the conclusion from the premises is meaning through-and-through - that it is only in virtue of what the premises mean that the conclusion can be drawn. Therefore, I must take it upon myself to rectify this contentious point and defend MM-Theory against this tradition in the field of logic.

The point I would like to make is not so much that form is not a determining factor, not even the determining factor, but that by 'form', one should not understand something contrary to 'meaning' as MM-Theory defines it. This nevertheless does require some defense as the tradition has been to place form in contradistinction to meaning. The point has traditionally been that where only the form of a logical argument is evident, meaning is absent. What I wish to show, however, is that were meaning truly absent, not a single trace of it to be found, not even form would be left.

To start with, compare the following

All Xs are Ys.

with

zupe diva ectongle arba

We could suppose that the latter is a statement expressed in a hypothetical language. Now I ask: which statement strikes us as truly meaningless? I would expect the answer to be: the latter. For at least we get something from the former, some minimal information that tells us more than the latter. What is this minimal information? Is it form? One could say so, but how do we know that the latter - making sense in our hypothetical language keep in mind - doesn't adhere to the same form? Of course, one could say that the latter indeed may adhere to form, but if only we understood the language, we could then demonstrate it. But does not this supposition presuppose that, by 'understand', we mean 'to apprehend the meaning of'? Does it not follow from this that in order to determine the form of a proposition, we must at least determine some meaning therein?

So the question becomes: What about the former statement allows us to apprehend (or impose?) meaning on it such that the latter doesn't? The most obvious answer that comes to mind is that there are units of language present in the former statement that are absent (at least in English) from the latter - namely, units such as 'all' and 'are'. These are English words. They have a meaning. What they tell us is, not so much what things Xs or Ys are, but what kind of words they are - that is, what function they perform in our language. For example, to say "All Xs" seems to indicate that the term X is a noun. This further implies that Xs are 'things' - perhaps abstract things, but things in some sense. It can further be deduced that Ys are also things. In particular, the pluralizing of the term 'Ys' rules out the interpretation that the term is an adjective (for without pluralizing, the statement becomes "All Xs are Y" which shares the form with "All men are mortal"), as well as the interpretation that it is a verb (as that would share the form with "All men are living" - though the latter interpretation could be secured with the suffix 'ing' - as in "All Xs are Ying"). Needless to say, the term 'are' also adds some substance to the meaning of the statement, for the term Y would clearly become a verb should the statement read "All Xs Y" (or grammatically incoherent should Y remain pluralized as in "All Xs Ys").

Thus, form, should it require at least a few clearly defined language units such as 'all', 'are', 'my', 'not', 'if', 'then', 'some', 'at least one', 'This is a' and so on, must also supply us with a rudimentary level of meaning - and in fact must do so in order to serve its very function of form (for without doing so, there is no form to be gleaned as the latter statement above evinces).

Now I say that this rudimentary level of meaning still leaves us wanting for something more substantial for apprehending what Xs and Ys are. We still don't know what kind of things they are. But insofar as the grammatical form of the statement tells us that they are things, this is the beginning of meaning. It has much potential to be developed and refined, but we must acknowledge that we have something meaningful to start with. So long as the right units of language are supplied - the 'all's, the 'are's, the 'like's, etc. - the form of an argument manifests for all who speak the language to see. Without these units, one cannot make heads or tails of its form:

All Xs are Ys.
This is an X.
Therefore, this is a Y.

zupe diva ectongle arba
Tet vi pip diva.
Idavox, tet vi pip arba.

And of course, it goes without saying that the meaning supplied to these terms - Xs and Ys - as rudimentary as they are - also supplies meaning to the overall statement - perhaps also rudimentary, but meaningful nonetheless. Thus, the meaning of the premises overall allows for, and entails, meaning in the conclusion.

It should also be noted that the meaning gleaned from such statements depends not so much on what practiced users of the language know it to mean (in the sense that a statement can have a 'right' meaning), but simply on whether we can glean a meaning (right or wrong). The point here is that insofar as we can glean some meaning, whether or not users of the language correct us, this affects how we recognize the form of the argument overall and whether or not that form is proper. This, after all, is the central argument we want to make: we wish to say that insofar as the mind apprehends some meaning, it is able to make use of that meaning towards entailing further meaning - that is, towards instigating the flow of experience (thought in this case), towards drawing conclusions from the premises in what it takes to be a logical manner. If it is mistaken in this pursuit, it would not be on account of an illusion of meaning (for it creates its own meaning), but on account of disagreement with a majority of others.


Read my theory: http://www.mm-theory.com

The Physical Universe - One or Many?

Read my theory: http://www.mm-theory.com


In the introduction to our paper Reality and Perception, we defined the terms "indepedent-" and "dependent models of reality", and those of "objectivist-" and "subjectivist theories", in such a way as to render models of reality that were singular and pluralistic respectively. We also offered, further into the aforementioned paper, the chamber metaphore according to which each subjective reality in the subjectivists scheme could be construed as though it were a chamber amongst many others, each housing a conscious subject at its center. This metaphore served not only to clarify what a subjectivist theory entails, but truly highlighted the pluralistic character of reality that dependent models must accommodate.

In this blog post, I would like to reverse this picture. I would like to propose that though there is not one subjective reality that is in every way identical to another, and though each one is nevertheless equally real as any other, there is a way to argue that what they have in common is indeed singular, and that this commonality is, among possible other things, none other than the physical universe that the bulk of objectivists believe in. In other words, though there are many subjective realities, there is only one physical universe. How is such possible given a subjectivist account like MM-Theory? The objective of this post is to answer this question.

We may begin by revisiting our account of identity given in our paper The Universe and 'God' - in particular, the section Equivalence. Let's recall what we said:

There are a couple conditions under which we say that two or more things are identical. We say this when the things in question are actually one and the same thing, or when all their properties are identical in quality and proportion. In the latter case, the things in question are not one thing, but several, and it's the fact that they cannot be told apart except for where they exist in space and time that we call them identical. For example, two baseballs that are exactly the same in terms of their size, their color, their cleanliness, the quality of the stitches and other materials, and all other features can be said to be identical, but if they are indeed two, then there will always be a difference in their place in space and time. It stands to question, therefore, whether they could still be said to be two distinct objects should we somehow take away the properties of space and time that they bear. If their places in space and time are the only features distinguishing them, then to take them away would be to make them unconditionally indistinguishable, and therefore one and the same thing. Although it makes little sense to propose this for physical things like baseballs, it makes more sense for metaphysical things - things like numbers, for example. When we talk about numbers, we are not talking about tangible, physical things that exist in the outer world. There is nothing called "a 5" or "a 9" out there. Because of the metaphysical status of numbers, it makes little sense to say of them that there are two or three that are identical. Either they are different numbers, in which case they are not identical in any sense, or there is only one of them. There is no "a 5" or "a 9", there is the number 5 and the number 9. The only kind of identity that makes sense with numbers is the kind in which there is only one of the number in question. This is true of any metaphysical entity whatsoever, the reason being that metaphysical things do not take physical form, and therefore lack the properties of having a place in space and time, which in turn means they can't be distinguish on this basis.

What this says essentially is that take away the property of the spatiotemporal positioning of a plurality of identical things, and they become not only metaphysical but singular. The question I would like to pose, then, is this: should we or should we not consider the physical universe in its totality as having a spatiotemporal position? And I would like to answer: no. It is perfectly reasonable to consider the objects in the physical universe as having spatiotemporal positions, but when it comes to the physical universe itself, it becomes difficult, if not incoherent, to propose that it too exists at a particular position in space and time. Rather, it is space and time that are positioned in it - and not in any particular position (as though there could be a number of them) but constituting the groundwork of the universe itself as the basic medium in which all physicality takes place and unfolds. The physical universe is chock full of spatiotemporal positions but does not occupy one itself.

An obvious question that this highlights is this: is the physical universe, then, metaphysical? This is a puzzling question in light of the foregoing considerations, but I don't feel we should veer too far from the obvious - namely, that the physical universe is, well, physical - but we nevertheless should recognize this one peculiar feature: that is doesn't thereby occupy a position in space and time itself. I don't intend on delivering a clean and tidy answer to this question - is the physical universe thus metaphysical? - though one might consider my answer (that it is obviously physical) as unclean and not so tidy, but rather to follow the implications thus far derived (that it is without a position in space and time) to the logical conclusion drawn from our treatment of identity above. That conclusion is that there can only be one physical universe.

To put this in terms of the chamber metaphore, we would say that every physical universe - each one that resides in one person's chamber and every other - is separated not by space or time, but by the "transcendental landscape" as we playfully described it in the paper Reality and Perception. The transcendental landscape, being obviously metaphysical through-and-through, thus affords no basis on which to distinguish between one physical universe and another insofar as all features the physical universes in question bear are identical. Therefore, the chamber metaphore, banking as it does on our ability to visualize it, serves us less well than we hitherto assumed (for visualization depends on the simulation of spatiotemporal forms). We are left to rely on our conceptual understanding exclusively to thoroughly grasp these implications.

But how can these implications be reconciled with the point that any subjectivist must hold to according to which every one of us resides within our own subjective reality - unique unto itself and therefore distinct from every other? Does it not follow from this that each subjective reality constitutes its own distinct reality relative to its subject? Yes, it does, but now let's keep in mind that a subjective reality is different from a (or the) physical universe, for although the latter constitutes a large part of the former, there are many things left out, things such as beliefs, values, perspectives, tastes, attractions, repulsions, etc. that will differ from one subjective reality to another and will not easily find a place as physical entities in the physical universe. A rose, for example, might smell sweet to one person (or in one subjective reality) but putrid to (or in) another - and so we may still make use of the relativist language - but when it comes to the question of whether or not the rose itself exists, it can be answered in the affirmative without requiring that we specify which rose is in question - for there is only one.

Needless to say, this new perspective on the plurality or singularity of subjective realities needs much fleshing out. Let us begin by resting everything so far said, and to be said below, on the following principle: that a subjective reality be defined in terms of set theory, and its constituent experiences in terms of members of a set. What we can say to begin with, then - and this will facilitate our discussion a great deal - is that where two or more subjective realities share certain members (or experiences) in common, the sets overlap, and where they don't, they occupy different spaces ('spaces' here connoting something more abstract than physical space). Thus, a group of subjective realities that share a number of experiences in common might be drawn as follows:



Quite easily, as the diagram above evinces, we might assign the experience of the 'physical universe' - broad and whole as that - to the common area they all share. We may assign our differences - in tastes, perspectives, opinions, etc. - to those areas they don't, to the areas corresponding exclusively to that subject whose taste, perspective, or opinion it is. Thus, with the aid the theory of sets and the Ven diagrams it affords, we get a better understanding of what it means for there to be only one physical universe amongst a variety of distinct subjective realities.

But of course, our experience of the physical universe can't be torn away so easily from certain, more basic or detailed, experiences as it can from those considered above (namely tastes, perspectives, opinions, etc.). The latter experiences might be categorized and put asside as those coming after our sensual experiences of the physical universe as an integrated whole. But should the reader be aware of the myriad details involved in building the physical universe from the bottom up (that is, how the mind builds it up) - that is, the experiences coming before and culminate in a wholistic image of the material world - he will know that those details can vary greatly from one individual to another despite the fact that we may end up experiencing the same physical world. One obvious example is that in order to visually apprehend a physical object - say a pizza - we need to experience it from a particular angle. Another individual will have to view it from a different angle. One individual might see it through specific lighting conditions, thereby affecting its color and brightness, while another may see it through different lighting conditions. Therefore, those experiences that make up the whole object - namely, its lines, angles, colors, brightness, position, and so on - will unavoidably differ from one individual to another. These are the properties of the physical objects we experience, and in fact constitute them. How are they, then, the same object - one and singular?

The answer to this comes simple once we understand what a 'physical object' is to a subjectivist. Some might be accustomed to the argument that a physical object is nothing more than the sum of its properties - its colors, texture, weight, position, etc. - but I would like to venture a different account, one that we have already put forward in The Advanced Theory of Mind and Matter - one that doesn't so much give us the account we're looking for but serves as its background. We said in the Advanced Theory:

When I look at my coffee mug, for instance, I not only see some mysterious object composed of a set of elementary visual experiences (like lines, shapes, colors, etc.), I see my mug! What's happening here is that the essence of my mug - that is, my concept of it - is being attributed to what I see, thereby furnishing it with real existence.

With this idea in the background, we can move into the foreground with the following point: that though the details of the physical objects we experience may differ, they will usually lead us to a common essence - that is, a common object or entity - one that, at least insofar as it projects from a concept, can be said to stand apart from the details (although it will often be fused into the details). So although the particular angle or lighting of the pizza might differ from one individual to another, and therefore occupy different regions in a Ven diagrams, the essence of which these details are properties belongs in the common region. And in a very down-to-earth sense, this way of understanding the places of our experiences accords well with our common parlance. We will agree, in the great majority of cases, that the angles, the colors, the positions, etc. that we attribute to objects depend on whose frame of reference we take. To one person, who has in mind one coordinate system with its own unique origin, might attribute one position or angle to a particular object, whereas another, with another unique coordinate system, might attribute a wholy different position or angle, and out of this we have learnt to be relativistic in our descriptions of the actual state of things. But no one disputes the fact that there is indeed an object there - one pizza! - and this can be taken as a clue for what we have made explicit: that the pizza itself rises above and beyond the relativistic details - above and beyond its position, angle, exact color and lighting conditions - and is a real thing - singular and there in the world for a variety of individuals, with their diversity of perspectives and points of view, to grasp commonly.

I believe this accounts for the question of the variety of sensual experiences competing to be the official properties of objects we perceive in common. But other questions are raised by this idea - that we, in the fray of qualitative diversity that is our subjective realities, share one physical universe - two of which can be posed thus: 1) What can be said of hallucinations - both positive and negative* - for in this case it seems that in one physical universe at least, there will exist some object, but not in another? 2) Are we not obligated to say that if the experience of the physical universe as a whole is one experience, not many, that we all have in common, then the quality of that experience must be precisely the same across all of us? I do not have in mind here the question of the details or properties of the physical universe, for those we addressed above, but rather the question of the essence of the physical objects (or the whole of the physical universe itself) as projected from our concepts of them. To assume these objects, by virtue of a common essence, are one and the same for each subject, we must commit ourselves to the idea that the concepts from which the essence of these objects project are experienced in precisely the same way no matter who we have in mind - that is, the quality of these experiences, the way they feel, must be the same. But a moment's consideration on the range of diversity across individuals, across our brains and the very MODs corresponding to the experience in question, should persuade us that not one of us is that much alike to any other as to experience our concepts in precisely the same way. This latter question is challenging indeed. I will hold off on it for now, admitting up front that I have no easy answer to offer, and focus first on the former question.

In the case of hallucinations, one simple solution that comes to mind is to place the object in that region of the Ven diagram that not all individuals share. When it is no more than one individual who sees the object, this region would be shared by him and him alone. In the case of negative hallucinations (or positive ones that, by shear coincidence, more than one individual have in common), the objects that are in fact perceived would fall into a region that is shared by more than one person. This would entail, of course, that the region in question be shared by a majority of individuals (indeed by at least 99.99% of individuals as the case typically is), and though this may prove difficult to draw, it is well within the logical parameters of set theory. Such a matter is simple enough; a more challenging task is to address what this implies for the physical universe as a whole - that is to say, taking into consideration two individuals - one perceiving the world normally, the other hallucinating a swarm of pink pixies sprinkling their dust on him - are we to say that they experience the same physical universe or two distinct universes that are, though 99.99% similar, not precisely the same. After all, in order for two entities to indeed be one, they must share all features in common.

This question can be answered in much the same way we did the question of the details and properties of objects before the mind amasses them into an integrated and whole object. The key to answering that question was to note the manner by which the projection of essences from concepts raises the object qua object above its mere details and properties. Something similar can be said here vis-a-vis the relation between the physical objects in the physical universe and the physical universe itself. Just as each object therein will inherent from us - that is, from the projection of our concepts - its own essence that raises it above its details and properties, the physical universe as a whole will likewise rise above, in virtue of our bestowing it with its own essence, its constituent parts. This is not to say that, as a result, we regard the physical universe as something other than the collection of its constituent parts - rather, it is to say that it gives us the ability to regard it as a single thing as opposed to - or rather, in addition to - a plurality of things. Nevertheless, it also allows us to regard its constituents in much the same way as we regard the details and properties of physical objects - that is, as relative to the individual who perceives them - despite that the physical object itself may be universal across all (or most) people. Thus, although for the one individual, the physical universe consist of magical pixies showering him with their levitating dust, and for the other it doesn't, it is still the same physical universe. Whether or not it consists of these pixies can be considered, like the details and properties we experience on the most basic sensual levels, relativistically - that is to say, we can still say that relative to one individual, the universe consists of these pixies, and relative to the other, the same universe doesn't.

Now, as I stated above, the second question is a lot more daunting. In fact, I have no solution to it as yet. The best I've entertained hitherto is as follows: Though it strikes me as unreasonable to say that we all experience the concept of a given object in precisely the same way, it is much more reasonable to say that we experience it in approximately the same way. Though this falls short of justifying a license to conclude that we all inhabit the same physical universe (for that demands perfection in the similitude of all features), it does render the problem in such a form that a solution can be brought to bear on it, one we have seen in another area of MM-Theory - namely, the one we brought to the problem of quantum superposition: Determinism and Free-Will. What we offered there was the following: quantum superposition can be accounted for by the unclarity of meaning. That is to say, it turns out to be possible, according to our interpretation of quantum superposition, that the meaning in experience vary in term of how clear it is. In other words, some experiences are extremely close to perfectly clear - meaning that there is nearly no question as to what they project as - whereas others are vague and obscure, their meaning being inherently hard to define - there is a question as to what they project as. If the same account can be brought over to the question at hand - how can the physical universe be one and the same if it seems unthinkable that we could all experience it in precisely the same way? - we might solve the problem such a question hints at in a similar vein. We would say that the physical universe - in virtue of human differences - exists in a state of superposition - and how superposed it is depends on how differently we each experience the physical world. Such an account harkens very loudly to the Many Minds interpretation of quantum mechanics (Quantum Mechanics) though I will not follow the call of that harkening at this point as that is a whole other can of worms unto itself (perhaps after refining my thought on the matter over the course of time, I will post another entry, but not now).

I say this solution is only the best I can bring to the table - not that it settles the matter once and for all - for two problematic reasons: 1) it raises a question as to what would count as sufficient differences between experiences so as for those experiences to project as different entities after all. Incorporating a degree of 'fuzziness' into what things project as certainly makes for a similiar degree of arbitrariness in where the line is drawn between entities that are one and the same but 'fuzzy' and entities that are inherently distinct from each other and multiple. The arbitrary nature of where this line is drawn entails that it is up to us where to draw it, but this in turn entails that it is not inherent to the experiences themselves, nor to the things they project as, but something imposed on it by us and our 'reality designs'. As an example, consider an individual whose mental functioning is, for whatever reason (say because of some brain abnormality), sufficiently atypical of the average man that he projects his concept of objects, of 'things', in a form that can only be called 'approximate' if that term is stretched to include a wide variety of divergent forms, but not so atypical as for everyone to unreservedly agree that it is indeed 'different' from the norm. There is, in other words, a difficult question as to whether he experiences objects or things in the same way, or close enough to the same way, as everyone else, a question that no simple answer bears on. The obstinacy of this question is precisely the first of the problems that plagues the above solution. 2) If we accepted the above solution, we would be overlooking the gross misapplication that the concept of superposition - and therefore the concept of the unclarity of experience - is being employed towards. It is a misapplication because if there is any lack of clarity in experience, that lack must be inherent to the experience in question - at least, if it corresponds to the states of superposition featured in quantum mechanics. But in the present context, the lack of clarity isn't in any one individual's experience - we each project our concepts of objects and things to a sufficiently clear degree as to be reasonably certain about what it is we are expriencing. The lack of clarity here is in some abstract and calculated 'average' of all our experiences. Does such an average exist? Is there any one of us who experiences it? Or is it the case that we each experience only the particular elements, or 'data points', that go into the derivation of this average? Without the unnecessary contemplation over these questions, we can verily answer that this average only exists as an abstraction, a construct invented as a consequence of our analysis on the problem at hand. It does not exist as a fully vivacious experience in its own right. Therefore, how can we posit its existence in its own right? What (or who) is actually experiencing it? Some may, in response to this question, answer: of course, the universal mind is. But then I must reassert the problem: if the universal mind is experiencing it at all, it can only be in the form we experience it, for our experiences are all it has to draw from. And again, not one among us experiences it in the superposed, or unclear, manner required to resolve this problem. The universal mind would merely experience a collection of very clear experiences, each one approximating every other, but no one being a 'meld' of the whole.

But of course, it is a human being who would insist that the world conform to its terms - those terms being precision in the states of things, leaving no room for ambiguity and unclarity. But the fact remains that we are human, and therefore can't escape this insistance, or at least our propensity towards it. This consideration compels me to entertain the possibility that the problem at hand isn't really a problem after all - or rather, that the problem is with us and the constitution of our minds, and not with the nature of the greater reality beyond them. But if so, it is indeed a problem with our minds, and the problem can be articulated thus: we are left wanting for a proper way to conceptualize this arrangement - the arrangement of conceptualizing our experiences and the forms into which they project, their 'fuzziness', and what that says about their unity and plurality in the grand scheme of things - such that we can offer a solution to the above problem and thereby resolve it. We can grant, in other words, that the world beyond our minds doesn't work according to our limited conceptualization of it, but such a granting amounts to nothing more than an assertion that it all works out in the end despite our inability to understand it. Though such an assertion may be true, it is bankrupt of the means by which we can understand it.

But as I said earlier: though it may take some time and investment into thinking, I may yet come up with such an understanding, and should I succeed, I will surely submit another post. In the mean time, let's be sure to keep in mind that this problem only arises in the case of positing that the physical universe is indeed one common experience among us. Should this problem turn out insoluble, we can at least fall back on our prior understanding - namely, that we each house separate and distinct chambers, lonely as that sentiment may be.


* For those who are unacquainted with the term 'negative hallucination', it is the failure to sense some actually existing object despite that the object is impinging on the senses in such a way that, under otherwise ordinary conditions, one would perceive the object (not seeing it when it is in fact there).


Read my theory: http://www.mm-theory.com

Physicalism vs. Subjectivism - A Conflict of Accounts on the Flow of Substance

Read my theory: http://www.mm-theory.com


Physicalism has it that causation works through the motion and interaction of material objects in space and time. MM-Theory puts a different twist on this: it has it that causation (if it can be called "causation") works through experiences flowing from one form to another; even this flow, however, works in a different direction from that assumed by the physicalist - we might call it "perpendicular"; the reader might recall from an analogy we drew in the Advanced Theory how fitting this term - "perpendicular" - is, for in the analogy of the auroras borealis, we saw how the apparent motion of lights across the sky was, in reality, motion of particles down from the sky - perpendicular to the apparent motion. Likewise, in MM-Theory, we say that the apparent motion of physical objects across space - that is, across our visual field - is only a consequence of the "real" motion of experiences streaming into our minds through our visual field - perpendicular to the apparent motion.

Though my aim in this post is not to question the logic that stands behind this line of reasoning, it is to question a deeper logic that underlies MM-Theory more at its core, one that the aforementioned line of reasoning would seem, if one were to delve into it carefully enough, to undermine. For if we grant, in spite of our disagreement with the physicalist, that his is nevertheless an adequate description of the typical manner by which we experience material reality, we in the same stroke renounce any right to invalidate his claims. Yet this is precisely what our analogy seems to attempt; it seems to purport that the physicalist, in his attempt to describe his experiences as such - a move our theory sanctions as justified on its own grounds (just as it does for any experience) - is "wrong" and that our account of motion and causation, which works "perpendicular" to that of the physicalist's, is "right".

Up to this point, one who is familiar with MM-Theory might find this point of contention relatively easy to resolve - that is, so long as we bring in a few inter-reality rules - namely, the rule of applying reality qualifiers. We could say, quite simply, that in the physicalist's reality objects move through space and cause other objects to move by interacting with them, whereas in the subjectivist's reality objects, or rather experiences, flow from one form to another in a "perpendicular" direction to that of physicalist's objects. This would be all well and good, and would settle the matter, if it weren't for the fact that in this particular case we are dealing not merely with "reality designs" (as defined in the paper Reality and Perception), but with a particular kind of experience. In this case, we are dealing with non-cognitive experiences - the visual beholding of objects moving through space and, in a temporal sequence, leading from one event to another (the latter we might interpret as "causation" but more on this in a bit). If this is truly the best description of our visual experiences, then we really have no right, given MM-Theory, to dismiss the reality of objects moving through space and events unfolding in time as merely the domain of the physicalist's design for reality. Such a dismissal can only rightfully be carried out if the design in question were purely cognitive - a theoretical doctrine through-and-through - and though there is certainly a theoretical component of the physicalist's doctrine, there is also clearly this empirical grounding which is not nearly as subject to interpretation and relative to one's belief. We all experience the physical world as constituted by objects in motion and events giving way one to another. Given that MM-Theory sanctions such an experience as valid - that is, as "real" - we really have no right to dismiss it as merely the "physicalist's reality" - it is our reality too.

How to reconcile this with our account of the "perpendicular" motion of experience is the aim of this post. To begin with, we should take stock of a few of the most basic tenets of MM-Theory - two in particular. First is that in order for a thing to be real, it must be experienced as such - that is, as the thing it is. This includes physical objects and their motion through space. It should require no reminder that our visual beholding of physical objects finds its roots in specific MODs in the brain, but it might require such a reminder for our experience of motion. Indeed, the latter can be linked to specific neurons geared to perform the very function of detecting motion. Therefore, we can assign the experience of motion - that is, the visual beholding of it - to these neurons, and thus cast it as its own unique experience. As such, it projects as its own unique "real thing" - namely, motion. The second tenet we want to bring in from MM-Theory is that of flow - or the law of entailment - which says that the manner by which experiences flow is by one entailing another. What we want to note from this for the present purpose is how this differs from the corresponding principle of physical motion. With respect to the latter, we generally think of motion as a mechanical matter, as pushes and pulls governed by laws of cause and effect, whereas with respect to the former, MM-Theory has it that experiences flow by the fact that the meaning in the antecedent one "entails" that of the ensuing one. I add the quotes to "entails" for emphasis - not merely because MM-Theory attributes a customized definition to the term (which should be clear at this point), but because of the importance of reminding the reader of the origins of that very customization - namely, that it draws on the analogy of logical entailment (for example, the rule underlying modus ponens) - for we rarely consider logical rules an example of mechanics - more an instance of semantics and what follows therefrom.

The first of these tenets would seem to bring the present problem to the surface, whereas the second is the key to resolving it. Part of this resolution, however, depends on being very clear about what the first tenet proposes, and therefore the mentioning of it is quite important. The importance of the latter can be stated as follows: it would be one thing to insist that the existence of physical objects depends on their being projected from experience - in this case, the visual beholding of them - and that thereafter their motion depends only on their existing in space and time and their being subject to the laws of mechanics - but it would be entirely another thing to insist that this motion too depends, not so much on the existence of physical objects in space and time and their being subject to mechanical laws, but on experience. In the former case, we might account for motion by appeal to what might be termed "meta-experiential principles" - that is, principles of motion that would fall outside the dominion of experience, and for all intents and purposes would be equivalent to the traditional laws of motion we find in classical mechanics - that is, as an objectivist would have it. The existence of physical objects would remain dependent on experience of course - namely, the visual beholding of them - but, as the argument would go, once extant, the laws of classical mechanics would "take over" as the means by which such objects would move through space and time. Consequently, such an argument would entail that there are other things besides experience - namely, laws of motion - and though the form they would take are obviously quite abstract and intangible, we could not defend the claim that all can be reduced to experience - there would be more to existence than that. It is important to appreciate, therefore, the strict conditions that MM-Theory places over the "realness" of any phenomenon - even when it comes to phenomena that are as abstract and intangible as motion itself - for that condition is that being real just means being rooted in an experience. Thus, motion must depend for its realness on one's experiencing it. What this means, then, is that to commit ourselves to MM-Theory is to commit ourselves to the "perpendicular" path of flow as the "true" direction by which those things that really exist unfold. We are then challenged to account for how motion can exist at all if we are to concede, as we should, that its direction of flow seems verily at odds with that of experiential flow.

As stated, the key to resolving this rests in the second tenet expounded above - namely, that "flow", as defined in MM-Theory, is not to be understood in terms of mechanical causation - or even remotely akin to it - but in terms rather akin to logical entailment. To put this in yet more refined terms, experiential flow should be understood in terms of reasons - that is, reasons for whatever phenomenon in question is projected, reasons that would account for, make possible, justify and necessitate the reality of that which is being experienced. To put the idea of mechanical causation in yet more refined terms, we might say that it is nothing more than the manner by which physical events are ordered in a temporal sequence, the arrangement of which is presumably necessary. From the subjectivist point of view that MM-Theory grants, the experiences preceding that of motion are the reasons for why motion exists in the first place; they do not cause motion (at least not in a mechanical sense), but justify motion and its existence. But even having said this much, the physicalist will still find fault with it, for not only does he maintain his disagreement with subjectivism on the whole (which is of no concern to us at present), but maintains that his account for the reasons or justifications underlying the motion of objects resides in the causal nexus that characterizes the interactions between those objects. In other words, it is not, the physicalist insists, something prior to, or "outside", our experience of physical reality that supplies such reasons and justifications, but something inside and between the objects therein - this he calls "causation". So indeed, he concludes, what accounts for the motion, or "flow", of the basic things of the universe (not experiences, as we would have it, but physical objects) works parallel, not perpendicular, to the motion of those objects - for this motion, along with all physical interactions, is none other than the manifestation of causation at work.

Our reply to this can be put as follows: indeed, we have granted that motion must exist for us (as subjectivists) just as much as it does for the physicalist, for it is directly grounded on an elementary experience of the human mind. But we need not grant the same for causation, for as David Hume made evidently clear, and with which the great majority of philosophers now-a-days agree, causation is not the sort of thing that can be classified into the same pigeonhole as other empirically verifiable phenomena. Physical objects are most definitely real, for we experience them quite acutely. Motion is likewise real, for we experience it with equal acuity. But causation? What Hume has shown is that when it comes to the question of causation, we are deep within the sphere of cognitive experience. It is true - we believe that one event following another, even with flawless consistency throughout our past experience, is an instance of a causal relation. We will often disagree on what causes what, or whether two terms are indeed causally connected or merely correlated – or even nothing but sheer coincidence. We do not see, Hume concludes, causation - we infer it.

Inference, it need not be stressed, is a cognitive act. Therefore, unlike in the case of motion, we do have the right to dismiss the case of causation linking physical events as holding merely within the physicalist's reality design, and to say of it that it is true relative to the physicalist's theoretical doctrine. The alternative doctrine offered by MM-Theory, featuring as it does an account of flow in terms of “entailment”, holds within the context of an utterly different reality design, and therefore, all such designs holding true relativisticly, need not concern itself, under the guidelines of inter-reality rules, with the physicalist’s doctrine.

Yet there is one last rebuke from the physicalist. So causation is not directly experienced, in most cases, through any mode other than cognition, but there is one case that can't be so easily formulated, and that is the case of motion itself, for motion is, in a sense, a form of causation, and if you are not prepared to dismiss motion as unreal, then neither ought you to dismiss causation in this form as unreal. What the physicalist means to convey by this argument is that one can justifiably trace the cause of a object's being in a particular spatial position to it's having been in another spatial position just a moment before and that, in that position, it was in a state of motion that brought it into the current position (and it need not have come to rest in the current position - objects in motion will continue in motion). If its motion is real, in other words, its being at any one position in the course of that motion must be accounted for by the fact that its being in motion brought it to that position.

In this particular case, we can grant the physicalist the truth of his claim, for if we insist that motion is necessarily real (being a projection of experience), then we must also grant that it functions as, or takes the form of, a particular variety of causation (namely as described just now) - that, after all, seems to be precisely what motion is, and therefore what the experience of it projects as. But this defense of causation, and physicalism in general, is not as detrimental to our form of subjectivism as it might at first seem. It is important to distinguish between our claim that the experiences preceding that of motion serve as the reasons or justifications for motion, and the claim - which we are not making - that those preceding experiences give reason for and justify the mere existence of objects at any particular point in the course of their motion. In other words, it is important to understand what is being justified by these preceding experiences; it is not the state of an object at a "snapshot" in time, but the entire lifespan of its motion insofar as that lifespan constitutes and exhausts the full experience of the object's motion.

Now this is an interest, and quite peculiar, point. It seems to imply that in order to have the experience of motion, such an experience must be had throughout an extended period of time - neither motion, nor the experience thereof, can exist in an instant of time. This is interesting, for it cannot be said of any experience (one can, for example, imagine the experience of seeing red in an instant of time), but in the same breath, it should not come as too much of a surprise. We have, after all, argued (in the Advanced Theory) that the experience of motion is one of the foundations for the more general experience of time (the other two founding experiences, the reader might recall, being memory and anticipation). Thus, in being temporally extended, the experience of motion creates time - or at least, one of the seeds from which a full temporal dimension can grow.

Understanding this certainly helps to come back to the physicalist's point and reply as follows: those experiences which precede that of motion can very well serve as the reasons and justifications of the latter while at the same time allowing that the mechanical cause of the moving object being at any one particular spatial point is that it had moved there from a different point. This is allowed precisely because what is being justified or given reason by the preceding experiences is the entire course of motion - the one comprising the object and its occupying all spatial positions in question. In other words, the mechanical cause that brought the object from one point to another just turns out to be an aspect or constituent of the experience of motion. What the preceding experiences are in fact justifying are the whole causal nexus insofar as it constitutes the motion being entailed.

Naturally, this needs to be understood against a caveat: such preceding experiences cannot extend their justificatory power beyond the scope of the present experience of motion. That is to say, we do need to distinguish between motion as it unfolds in the present moment (i.e. as it is presently experienced) and motion as it continues on into future moments or has continued from past moments. The latter intervals of time are, by definition, not experienced as occurring in the present. They can, however, be said to be experienced in other forms - namely, as memory and as anticipation (or as future predictions and reconstructions of the past) - but as the reader will surely concur, these experiences are highly cognitive in their characterizations, and therefore subject, with recourse to Hume once again, to the same treatment given to the physicalist's doctrine of causation generally. Thus, causation, the kind that parallel's the flow of physical objects through space, can only be granted the same reality as motion insofar as the motion in question, which such causation would after all be constituted by, is experienced in the present moment (however extended that moment so happens to be), and any other brand of causation - even that linking the motion of objects into future and past intervals of time (i.e. those that are beyond the scope of present experience save cognition) - stems purely out of cognitive inferences, and is therefore subject to the rules of relativism that our subjectivist stance allows for.

To conclude, then, there is no contradiction between the two world systems - that of physicalism and MM-Theory - at least in respect of the direction of flow, vis-à-vis the form of substance, that each one posits - not so long as they are well understood. In the first place, though the flow of substance in each case is rightfully described as "perpendicular" to each other, there is a world of difference between what is connoted by the term "flow". In the one case, physical motion is connoted; in the other, entailment. The meaning of these two versions of "flow" is such that they are not mutually exclusive in the least. The one (motion) constitutes something in existence, the other (entailment) that which justifies or gives reason to its existing. To put this another way, both are needed in order to have either, for in order that physical motion exist, some underlying reason must support that existence, and for that underlying reason to hold, it must necessarily give way to the existence of physical motion. The fact that physical motion requires an elongated interval of time in order to be complete is of no consequence to its coming from the preceding experiences that justify or give reason to its existence - for as we made clear in the Advanced Theory, any experience prior to those we call the human ones need not be bound to time themselves - they may very well hold sway throughout the whole lifespan of the experience of physical motion - from beginning to end - the former being grounded in a timeless state all the while. And in the second place, the entailment of experiences, being atemporal as it is (at least in some cases), can subsume temporally extended experiences (such as motion) into its network as mere nodes. That is to say, for example, that supposing we visualize the preceding experiences leading to the experience of motion as two nodes connected by an edge (that edge representing the entailment of the latter from the former), and the experience of motion leading to yet other human experiences (for example, a cognitive analysis of the motion under observation) as the latter node connected by an edge (again representing entailment) to a third node, we would have every right to allow that the middle node should represent the experience of motion however much it must take place throughout an extended period of time. We are allowed this precisely because of the atemporal character of the network so depicted (or at least its irrelevance to time), for in that case time itself, and therefore motion too, can be represented as a single node among all the others in that network. We come to a point, therefore, where we can conclude with this: that the flow of experience, best depicted as a timeless graph, should in no way conflict with the flow of physical objects through space (and time), for not only are they worlds apart in their basic character, and therefore perfectly compatible with each other in the ways we have expounded in all the preceding, but mutually imply, and in a sense depend on, each other.


Read my theory: http://www.mm-theory.com

Corrections to Is Logic Contingent?

Read my theory: http://www.mm-theory.com


It has come to my attention that I need to make a couple corrections to some things I said in the post Is Logic Contingent? One is that I rested my argument of the necessity of logic on physical law when MM-Theory clearly has it the other way around. I said:

Now I want to bring this discussion to a close by following it through to its logical conclusion - namely, that the scope of necessity spans far beyond formal logic. Patterns of thought which would be ordinarily deemed illogical and plagued with fallacies of every sort would be deemed necessary by the one who believes them. The necessity he feels is not to be found in logic, but in the narrow range of possible streams down which his thought can flow. This range is narrow because the neural wiring in his brain is configured in such a way to allow only for that particular flow of thought during that particular instance. In other words, the necessity is to be found in the rigidity of the physics of his brain. Whether he is extremely practiced in the science of logical thinking or hasn't got a clue, his brain and the neural circuitry within it are configured in a particular way. Given that configuration, the particular style of thought it makes possible - logical or fallacious - is necessarily the style of thought he employs. He can't help it. The laws of physics hold even in his logic depleted brain.

But as MM-Theory would have it, the laws of nature and the necessity which we attribute to them only serve to represent the necessity of the experiences that correspond to them. Far from being dependent on the necessity of natural laws, MM-Theory puts the necessity of experiences the other way around - that the necessity of natural laws dependent on it.

The other point in need of correction is not so much something I said, but something I may have inadvertently insinuated: that if the necessity of our thoughts, when conforming to formal logic, are determined by the "third term" defined in the post Is Logic Contingent?, then it would seem I am going against the main crux of my argument for the necessity of entailment laid down in the Advanced Theory, thereby quite probably compromising MM-Theory as a whole. To explain further, I argued, in the Advanced Theory, that the necessity of entailment is evident in (if anything) the logic of our thoughts. It was argued that this necessity is evident in the way our thoughts - or more particularly, their meaning - seem to lead irrevocably to their conclusions - and further that this irrevocability can be understood - that is, we can understand why the logic holds. In other words, some third term outside our thought is not needed in order to understand the necessity of entailment. We need only to grasp the meaning of the thoughts themselves. But if what Is Logic Contingent? argues for is that no such necessity would exist, or be possible, were it not for this third term, then it essentially argues that the meaning in thought, even logical thought, is not sufficient, thereby undermining the argument put forward in the Advanced Theory. It might still be argued that the necessity of entailment is still there - in the combination of our thoughts and the third term - but this can only function to weaken the overall argument in support of necessary entailment, for in that case, the one thing I could point to (namely, logical thought) as a sure example of necessary entailment (for all rational thinkers should agree that logical thought has the character of necessity to it) has been stripped away, and we are left to rely on some hypothetical "third term" of which we are not even epistemically aware (as will be argued below), let alone doubtful over the necessity with which it flows. If I had trouble arguing for the necessity of the flow of experiences in general (for example, as applied to something as far removed from logic as emotions) - which the aforementioned post was supposed to facilitate - then what hope have I to convince my readers of such necessity if not even the logic of rational thought can be held up as an example?

If I can clear up the latter misunderstanding, it will be that much simpler to clear up the former.

The key to clearing up the latter misunderstanding (about the necessity of entailment) is to identify this misunderstanding in the supposed separability of the logical thoughts from the third term that makes them necessary. The latter should not be understood as supplementing our thoughts, but as inhering in them. In other words, it makes little sense, as we shall see shortly, to suppose that such thoughts are even possible without the involvement of the third term (though the third term itself is quite variable), for the latter is an indispensible part of what makes up our logical thinking.

To see this, we must compare the neurology of the third term with that of logical thought generally. The third term, the reader will recall, is just the local form of the UOS corresponding to the atomic structures constituting the neural circuitry associated with logical thought. Thus, logical thought must be a special application of the third term, or a particular form it sometimes takes on, just as the firing of a neuron is a special application, or particular form, that the atomic structure of the neuron takes on. The firing of a neuron consists partially in the exchange of sodium and potassium ions across the cell membrane via ion channels. This is clearly an instance of atomic structures undergoing atomic activity, and therefore corresponds to particular experiences that serve as local building blocks for the UOS. The "third term" is just the expression we use to signify these experiences. Obviously, then, one can no more separate the third term from the thoughts themselves as one can separate the atomic structure of the neurons in question from the firing of those same neurons.

The third term is therefore a very intrinsic part of the constitution of our thoughts as they conform to logic, and the latter would be quite impossible without the former. On the other hand, this inseparability doesn't hold the other way around. One can obviously have the atomic structure of a neuron without that neuron firing, and so the third term can be experienced (below the level of epistemic awareness) without experiencing thought.

Now there still remains a question of the variability of the third term - how its quality differs from one person, whose thinking patterns adhere consistently to logical form, to another, whose thinking patterns may not. As it concerns the latter person, she may sometimes experience the third term differently, thus permitting logical mistakes from time to time. But if the third term is an intrinsic part of our thoughts, then it follows that the thoughts themselves - as a whole - must feel different.

A few implications can be drawn from this: 1) if they feel different, then the words we use to express such thoughts - for example "Socrates is mortal" - are the same merely at the level of language, and underneath - at the level of inner experience - we can expect to find some degree of diversity between one person's understanding and that of another's of what such words denote. Yet such diversity would not be enough - or at least, would not be of the right kind - to warrant a different usage of words (for example "Socrates is alive"), for any change in the wording can still be expected to have the usual consequences - namely, denoting a whole other idea. The diversity in question is not in respect to the idea one or another individual understands, but in why that idea should, in combination with other ideas (i.e. other premises), lead to some logically prescribed conclusion by necessity. What needs to be understood is that this "why" (the answer to which comes as the third term) constitutes an intrinsic part of the idea in question, and that the quality defining this idea is affected (in part) by it. Since the latter can vary from one person to another, so can the thought affected by it, but not in such a way that a different manner of verbally expressing the idea is warranted. In short, it's the same idea, only somehow experienced differently.

2) Such differences in how we experience the same idea can only manifest through the manner in which they entail subsequent thoughts (for example, the conclusions drawn from a line of reasoning), for this, as should be clear at this point, is the key consequence to be expected from differences in the third term. It could not manifest through any direct epistemic awareness. This is true not merely in the trivial case of our lack of access to anyone's thoughts but our own (thereby making comparison impossible), but in that we have no epistemic access to the third term residing in our own thoughts apart from our epistemic access to the thought as a whole. It may be the case that as the third term "colors" our thoughts (i.e. it contributes its share to the overall quality of our thoughts), this color can be known to us (epistemically) as a part of being epistemically aware of the thought itself (for these notions are more or less equivalent), but apart from this overall quality (or "color"), we cannot discern (epistemically) any detail below this level of scale. This, of course, means that we cannot discern any third term apart from the overall quality (or meaning) of our thoughts. Thus, as far as our epistemic awareness is concerned, to experience the thought is indistinguishable from experiencing the third term in it.

These foregoing considerations restore our original understanding of the necessity of entailment. The third term is the ground on which our thoughts lead to their conclusions with necessity, but only because it makes up a vital part of those thoughts - contributing to their very meaning - and hence such necessity and the entailment that follows still finds its roots in that meaning.

This improved understanding of the role played by the third term in our thoughts should facilitate the correction needed vis-a-vis the other point of contention mentioned at the beginning of this post - namely, that the necessity of logic rests on the necessity of physical laws and how this point conflicts with MM-Theory's reversal of it. The correction of this conflict is carried out quite simply by resting the argument made in the post Is Logic Contingent? on the third term itself rather than on the laws of physics manifest in the brain. This can only be done, of course, after having clarified the role played by the third term in logical thinking, which is why the latter had to be established first. Having established this clarification so, we can rephrase the point made in Is Logic Contingent? in full conformity with MM-Theory - namely, that the physical laws manifest in the brain fill their usual role as material representations (rather than necessary conditions) of the necessity of entailment as experienced in our logical thinking. This necessary entailment continues to be understood in terms of the meaning of our thoughts, only now enriched by the conjecture that this meaning can be reduced further, at least partially, to the third term which has been our focus up to this point (albeit without any epistemic awareness of it apart from the thought as a whole). Nonetheless, the notion that a particular logical thinker can't alter the logical necessity of his thoughts because of the rigidity of physical laws playing out in his brain still serves a purpose; it serves to represent the inherent necessity of his thoughts and the manner by which they entail. Particularly, to consider the fact that these same physical laws reduce to the level of atomic activity guides us in understanding the manner in which his thoughts reduce to, among other things, the third term and the manner by which it contributes to the necessary entailment of his thoughts. To put this another way, the type of relation that bears between the atomic activity within our neural circuitry and that neural circuitry itself is the same type of relation that bears between the third term and the thoughts that reduce to it. Thus, an appeal to such atomic activity and the physical laws that make it, along with any neural events that reduce to it, necessary is still an adequate account, at least as a representation, of the necessity by which our thoughts entail, and the point made in Is Logic Contingent?, which is just such an appeal, ought to be construed in this sense.

Lastly, this should not take away from the intended force of that post - namely, to bolster the claim that necessity spans beyond the scope of logic alone - for one can verily see that even in the case of illogical thinking, the third term is still alive and well, accounting for the sense of necessity in such thinking, and in fact determining the necessity of such thinking. It was never a question of whether the laws of nature are conditioned by or the condition for the necessary flow of experience, but one of their generalizability. To see that the third term must be active in both cases of logical and illogical thinking serves to reinforce this generalizability. By reducing the necessity of logical thought down to the third term, which in turn is represented by atomic structures, one has every right to generalize not only the third term in like fashion to atomic structures throughout all material systems in the physical universe, but to the manner by which it determines the necessary flow of all experience. To see this generalization at work in the case of illogical thinking is confirmation of this move, and this counts as the special edge I hoped to structure my argument around in Is Logic Contingent?.

Read my theory: http://www.mm-theory.com

A Second Look at the Problem of Contradiction Ridden Realities

Read my theory: http://www.mm-theory.com


In a previous post, I argued, rather dogmatically I admit, that the problem of any conflicting beliefs within the same subjective reality can be resolved by taking the underlying principles on which dependent models of reality are based to their logical conclusions. These logical conclusions would yield, among other things, that contradictions between propositions (i.e. beliefs) can't exist except by way of projection. Consequently, the suggestion, as uneasy as it may be, that any oblivion to their existence, which is to be expected in the minds of those who hold such contradictory beliefs, would amount to a failure for such projection to occur (thereby removing the grounds on which such contradictions can exist) ought to be taken seriously for what it logically implies (namely, that that's all there is to it). The uneasiness of this suggestion was simply chocked up to the difficulty with which we struggle over dispensing with the deeply rooted (perhaps culturally, perhaps psychologically) Platonism that our minds seem in the habit of clinging to. Platonism will reinforce a strong leaning towards an independent model of reality in which a "Truth" is a real (i.e. non-mental) absolute and metaphysical entity whose existence persists independently of one's mind. Thus, any contradiction that may exist between such Truths is also real, absolute, and independent of one's mind, and furthermore itself takes the form of a truth (in virtue of its being subject to formulation as such). The conclusion we are persuaded to draw from this is that no system of thought (i.e. belief) could be sustained as a projected system of truth should there be any contradiction therein. Thus, if any one subjective reality consisted of even a single contradiction, the notion of its projecting as a reality is, at best, problematic, and at worse, impossible. But the solution we entertained in the aforementioned post consisted of a wholesale rejection of reality as an independent model would have it, thereby freeing us from the condition under which a contradiction must exist as a real, absolute, and independent entity. Adopting a dependent model instead, it is our right to posit that contradictions exist only insofar as one is aware of them - and only for the one who is so aware. For anyone else - i.e. those who remain ignorant of such contradictions - those contradictions will not project, and consequently will not exist.

It is the dogmatic flavor of this solution, however, or rather the uneasiness of the aforementioned "suggestion", which has left me open to, and in search of, a more persuasive and conciliatory solution. I believe I have found one, and I will spell it out in this post.

The inspiration for this solution comes from Hume and his skepticism of causation, for I recognize between the two - his skepticism and ours over contradictions - a close kinship in terms of the rationale underpinning them. I'd like to show how the difficulty over the rejection of either concept - in Hume's case, that reality must be exhaustively and causally deterministic, and in ours, that reality must be contradiction-free - as groundable on the same (at least in form) argument. I plan to approach the problem from the same angle as well - namely, through an examination of the relevant concepts (that is, "reality" and "contradiction") - with the aim of exposing their logical compatibility. That is to say, just as Hume showed that there is nothing logically inconsistent with the notion of reality consisting of uncaused events, I in a similar vein wish to show that there is nothing logically inconsistent with the notion of a reality consisting of contradictions between its constituent truths. If I can show this, then I can argue for the possibility of a contradiction ridden thought system projecting as a reality. Should any uneasiness remain after all is said and done, such uneasiness can be chocked up to the same uneasiness that plagues the notion of a reality potentially housing acausal events.

My first task, therefore, is to briefly summarize the Humean argument against necessary causation. It is as follows: We can prove neither empirically nor rationally that a sequence of events is causally related. Two events, the one immediately following the other in time, can only be said to be correlated. There is nothing in time between the events, in other words, that we can identify as a proper "cause". For all we know, the two events occur together purely by coincidence, or a third variable exists unbeknownst to us that causes both. We only ever infer a causal relation after repeated experiences with the two events, and only when such experiences consistently turn out the same. But there is no guarantee that this inference is true. Hume calls this inference a "habit of constant conjunction", which is to say that when two events are constantly conjoined in experience, the mind develops the habit of expecting the consequent event every time the antecedent one occurs. The term "cause", according to Hume, is just the word we use to express this expectation.

That's the argument against any empirical proof of causation. But Hume also puts it in terms that undermine any rationalist proof. As the rationalists would have it, we know causation by way of the principle of sufficient reason, which states that all things have a reason, and in the case of worldly events, a cause. The rationalists would like to take this principle as a hard and fast rule of logic, one akin to the law of contradiction or excluded middle. But if the term "cause" refers merely to an expectation, one rooted in something as contingent as a habit of the mind, then it hardly qualifies as a rule of logic. Thus, Hume contends that the principle of sufficient reason is not grounded on anything remotely as firm as an immutable rule of logic. Rather, it is grounded on the same habit of mind, the same expectation, with which we infer particular causes. Even if we were to concede that, from a statistical standpoint, this expectation is highly reliable in most cases, it is nevertheless an inductive leap. This is Hume's famous Problem of Induction, which is often phrased as "the future is under no obligation to mimic the past" and holds even in the case wherein the past has a perfect record (i.e. no exception to the causal rule exist on record). In other words, Hume argues a strong case for the absence of any rule of logic, and thus any rationalist proof, necessitating that any event be caused by, or the cause of, another.

That's the Humean argument against proof of necessary causation, but there is a larger - and deeper - message we get from this, one that is significant for our present purposes. Namely, it is that we sometimes mistake mere human inclinations or modes of thinking with logical necessity or proof. We have a tendency, even a desire, to assume causal relations linking events constantly conjoined in experience, and we often mistake this tendency or desire with certitude or proof. Note how this mistake is no proof of the contrary either - namely, that such conjoined events are not causally related - but only an overestimation of the grounds we have for asserting causal relations. Hume's skepticism is not a radical shift to the opposite pole, but simply a withdrawal from polarization one way or the other. In fact, it isn't even clear whether Hume doubted causation at all - only that if he did believe in it, he recognized that he must ground such a belief on induction - that is, faith.

To show the relevance of this point to our present purposes, let me rephrase it in terms of concepts. In particular, let me rephrase it in terms of the concepts "reality" and "cause". When isolated from its intricate connections with the latter, the former concept (reality) can be understood as compatible with an acausal picture of how events unfold. If Hume is right, and our concept of "cause" refers to an expectation for a consequent event to follow an antecedent one, then it is based only on constant conjunction in experience, and not any principle of reason. Reason is therefore free to entertain the possibility that reality may consist of uncaused events, and thus it follows that the concept "reality" is not antithetical to the concept of acausal events occurring within reality.

I believe we ought to understand the relation between reality and truth contradictions in nearly symmetrical terms - that is to say, we ought to understand that the concept "reality" is not antithetical to the concept of contradictions subsisting between the truths descriptive of reality. Just as the concept "cause" denotes (for Hume) more a habit of expectation borne out from experiencing constant conjunction than an inherent feature of reality, for us too the concept "contradiction" ought to denote something other than an inherent feature of reality. It ought to denote (that is, we ought to recognize that it denotes) something psychological. And what is that psychological something? It is none other than a feature of (or rule for) logical thought. That is to say, the term contradiction denotes the rule: free your thinking from opposing propositions as a means for conforming to logic.

The key to understanding the force of this argument, not to mention that of Hume's, is to keep in mind the distinction it makes between the concept of reality* and reality itself. The focus of the argument is on the former, not the latter. It is an analysis on the meaning inherent in the concept "reality", and how nothing antithetical to the concept (or meaning) "contradiction" (derived from a similar analysis) follows from it. That is to say, just as one can imagine the possibility of reality tolerating uncaused events, one can also imagine the possibility of reality tolerating contradictions between certain truths pertaining to it.

This is different from imagining contradictory propositions both being true simultaneously. An example of the latter might be to imagine Socrates being both mortal and immortal at the same time, of which I have no qualms conceding its inconceivability. An example of the former, on the other hand, might be to consider the possibility that reality is such that, despite the impossibility of conceiving it, Socrates is somehow both mortal and immortal simultaneously. The difference between these two examples, in other words, is that the former presses us to conceive a logical impossibility whereas the latter presses us to conceive merely the possibility that what is logically impossible is, in fact, actual (i.e. that reality does not conform to logic). The former is, as a rule, inconceivable, but the latter is only about something inconceivable, but may itself be conceivable.

This latter point brings to light a correlate to the argument presented here - namely that whereas the concept of reality is not antithetical to the notion of its tolerating contradictions, logic is. That is to say, whereas one may be able to conceive that reality may tolerate contradictions, one cannot argue logically for such contradictions. So whereas I may be able to assert as a brute fact that Socrates is somehow mortal and immortal simultaneously, and genuinely believe it without any degradation incurred to my concept of reality, I cannot argue for it logically (though I may think I can). If one finds, in other words, that contradictory conclusions can be drawn from the same supposedly logical line of reasoning, that is a sure sign that an error exists in the presumed logic. Be that as it may, the fact remains that reality, or at least our concept of reality, is such that it is not at all incoherent to suppose that it may persist fraught with contradictions independently of our minds. Though such a notion is not incoherent, it is beyond the reach of demonstration by means of logical argument. That is to say, one could never demonstrate by means of a logic proof that two or more contradictory conclusions accurately describe reality.

Nonetheless, the world is chock full of people who really believe in the possibility, or even actuality, that reality tolerates contradictions. This alone is enough to prove the point being made here - namely, that the concept of reality can survive such a notion (however uncomfortable that makes us feel). These people recognize our propensity to find logically consistent accounts of reality as merely a human need, much like Hume recognized the same of causation, and not something we directly perceive in the inherent nature of reality herself. Reality, these people will tell us, cares not for such trivialities as human needs and modes of understanding, and is not affected one iota by these. If reality can be described by contradictory propositions, then it is too bad for us if this puts us ill at ease. The reason why these people are able to propose this is precisely because the concept of reality is such that it can be proposed. Reality is conceived such that it exists and maintains its inner structure and nature independently of our minds and the logic with which we aim to understand it.

The prevalence of so many people who can bring themselves to believe such things is not the only support for such a notion. There is also scientific evidence that reality may in fact feature phenomena that can only be described in this contradictory way - namely, the phenomena, given by quantum mechanics, known as the superposition states of particles. An example of this is the fact that particles sometimes seem to spin in both directions at once. That is, they can spin "up" at the same time as spinning "down" (mind you, the terms "up" and "down", or "spin" for that matter, are technical terms which don't precisely carry the same meaning as the "spin", whether "up" or "down", of an ordinary macroscopic object like a ball or a planet). Another example of a superposition state is how the momentum of a particle will never be determined as one precise value (such as 100mkg/s or 200mkg/s). Instead, particles will always have some range of momentum with no clear boundary marking the limits of this range. For example, the act of measuring the momentum of an electron can be said to yield something in the range of (say) 100mkg/s and 200mkg/s with a probability of 95%. What this means, in other words, is that the particle is moving at a whole range of speeds all at the same time. It is moving with both momentums 100mkg/s and 200mkg/s - and every other value in between - simultaneously.

Now, although such notions as spinning up and down at the same time, or moving at different speeds at the same time, jar the intellect for sure, it is still questionable whether it warrants interpreting reality as featuring contradictions. One objection that might be raised against this interpretation is that a true contradiction takes the form of "A and not A" whereas for a particle to spin both up and down simultaneously can only be formulated as "A and B" (where A="The particle spins up" and B="The particle spins down"). One might infer that spinning down is semantically equivalent to not spinning up, but that is the crux of the objection. Those who hold to this objection would be those who take the findings of quantum mechanics to indicate that it is not true that a particle's spinning down entails its not spinning up - that is, particles can spin in both directions simultaneously. In other words, where the proper formulation of the proposition in question is "A and B" (as opposed to "A and not A"), both "not A" and "not B" can be ruled out precisely because both A and B are established and take priority. Essentially, the point would be that spinning up and down is no different for a particle than being red and soft is for a sweater. Though the former may seem contradictory, this is a mistake on our part - that is, our intellect is merely built to interpret the former as contradictory, and that beyond our intellect, such an interpretation does not hold sway.

Yet another objection might follow: that the term "superposition" is best understood to denote a state that is, for all intents and purposes, inconceivable to us, and when we describe such states as (for example) "a particle spinning up and down simultaneously", this is only the closest approximation we can articulate given the limits of our language and understanding. In other words, it is not true to say "the particle spins both up and down simultaneously" - not exactly - for whatever is the case, it cannot be put into words at all. Thus we have no right to describe the superposition states of particles in contradictory terms - at least, not on the grounds of these considerations.

That being said, such objections are ultimately inconclusive - the first because if B did connote "not A" (or A connoted "not B"), we would have the same findings, and although A would certainly still be one of them, "not A" would, in virtue of B, also hold true - and we would be forced to concede that reality operates under contradicting principles. The second objection is inconclusive one two grounds: first, that although superposition states might denote occurrences in reality that are incomprehensible to human understanding, the alternative - namely, that there is nothing wrong with our understanding and contradictory states are in fact what we have - has not been ruled out. Secondly, even if superposition states do denote incomprehensible occurrences in reality, it doesn't follow that those occurrences will unfold according to the rules of logic (or any set of rules that guarantee freedom from contradiction). The only thing that would follow would be that we are dealing with unknowns, and reality may yet feature contradictory states.

But whatever the case, quantum mechanics has certainly bolstered notions of contradictions in reality and made them more plausible to a great many. But none of this can be taken to either logical conclusion - that reality features contradictions or is consistent through-and-through. Therefore, I implore the reader to note the following about my overall argument: that I never once said, nor will I ever say, that reality is subject to description by means of contradictory terms. This is where the distinction between the concept of reality and reality itself, a distinction we admonished the reader to heed earlier in this post, is most relevant. The argument so far no more suggests that this is the case, or is even possible, than Hume's argument suggests that acausal events actually happen or are possible (quantum indeterminism, as we've just seen, seems to suggest otherwise, but this is neither relevant to the force of Hume's argument nor conclusive on the matter). It might be the case that reality can be described in contradictory terms (at the peril of MM-Theory, of course), but nothing of the argument so far supports or denies this. It is simply not for us to say. What we are saying here is that the concept of reality (not reality itself) is consistent with the concept of its featuring contradictory states (and this without the concept of reality being inherently contradictory in and of itself). Thus, a reality design that features contradictory elements may still project without negating its standing as a reality.

We would nevertheless like to stay consistent in our analysis of reality and our quest to understand, for if ever we arrived at contradictory conclusions, we ought to urge ourselves to re-examine our analysis and find the logical blunders we inadvertently stumbled over. What we want in the end is a thoroughly consistent account of reality, one that will survive any onslaught of criticism and panel of objections. That is why in building MM-Theory, we will always strive for logical consistency (or as close as we can get) despite arguing for the possibility of projecting reality containing contradictions. The latter may be possible for some arbitrary individual, but we don't want that for ourselves. Contradictions in a reality can only function to weaken the arguments in support of it, and so long as such contradictions exist, they can be exploited. Thus, we still want to avoid contradictions for all the usual reasons.

Yet I anticipate the following objection: to permit any arbitrary system of belief, however fraught with contradictions, projects those contradictions along with the reality that houses them, thus by implication making those contradictions real in the Universal Mind of MM-Theory. MM-Theory, in other words, features those contradictions. We can reply as follows: we ought to keep in mind that although such contradictions will, in virtue of projecting, become real, they are still cognitive, or propositional, in nature, and so their realness - or rather their truth - is just as MM-Theory says it is - namely, relative. That is to say, the contradictory propositions in question are only true relative to a particular reality design. More specifically, they are true relative to the reality belonging to the beholder - that is, the one who believes in them. They are not necessarily true of MM-Theory itself. They may be true in MM-Theory - or rather in the Universal Mind as depicted by MM-Theory - but this is wholly different from the notion that they are true of MM-Theory (or the Universal Mind). The latter notion is nothing more than a gross misunderstanding of the relative nature of truths (i.e. beliefs, propositions, etc.). However much such truths may be found in the Universal Mind, they are not about it - rather, they are about a completely different reality design, one that stands as an alternative to MM-Theory. We may still have to concede the truth of their relation to each other being a contradiction (for that, I'm sure the reader will agree, would be true in all possible worlds), but this is no more detrimental to the logical consistency of our theory than conceding that a fairy tale or the delusions of a raving schizophrenic might feature contradictions is detrimental to the logical consistency of any ordinary understanding of reality.

After all is said and done, I personally feel that this reconciliation on the problem at hand is superior to the one entertained previously (that is, in the previous post that this one is a follow up to), not only in that it frees us from the burden of having to brutely deny the projecting of contradictory beliefs in the subjective realities of those who hold such beliefs, but also in that it entitles us to posit this projecting even when the subject consciously accepts his reality with those very contradictions (i.e. as someone who believes reality can be described in contradictory terms). Such a double edged sword is a suitable note to close on. We can assert, with the above rationale, that no need exists to account for the projection of whole realities (or at least, reality designs) when those realities consist of certain truth contradictions because the projection of reality proper (i.e. as the concept of reality) is utterly unaffected by such contradictions persisting within it. Thus, in conclusion, we will leave the issue as such - namely, as a non-issue.


* This is the concept of reality qua reality - that is, regardless of any consideration of what reality consists of or contains.


Read my theory: http://www.mm-theory.com

Rewrote Advanced Theory

Read my theory: http://www.mm-theory.com


I have recently rewritten large portions of the Advanced Theory. In particular, I have rewritten my account of selfhood - what it is and how to explain it - and my account of space, time, and momentum, and what they represent vis-a-vis their correspondences beyond human experience. I would advise the reader to check them out.


Read my theory: http://www.mm-theory.com

Clarifications on the Reduction of Experience

Read my theory: http://www.mm-theory.com/


From early on in writing the papers for my website, I've always wanted to make something clear but both procrastinated and couldn't find just the right spot for it. I'll clarify it here. It concerns the reductionist approach we seem to take towards experiences at various points throughout the website - at some points decomposing experiences into their parts, at other points showing equivalence relations - but all the while passing over in seeming ignorance the fact that we declared experiences to be the fundamental elements of the universe to which all real things reduce, and beyond which no further reduction is necessary. So I feel this needs to be accounted for.

What was argued was not that experiences are irreducible, but that reduction isn't necessary if one's goal is to find the ultimate basis for things. At no point was it argued that experiences can't be decomposed - they certainly can, and indefinitely. What was argued was that such reduction gets one no closer to a fundamental basis. Albeit, this was the very argument leveled against physical reduction, and was the prime reason for abandoning it. However, the reason why this warrants abandoning physical reduction, but not that of experience, is very subtle. The reason is that with physical reduction, one begins without a grasp on the ultimate basis for the physical phenomena in question - the essential character of their manifestation, the reader will recall, being contingency through-and-through - whereas with experiential reduction, one begins with such a grasp - the essential character of their manifestation being necessity. Thus, in both cases of reduction - physical and experiential - the decomposition of the object of interest into its parts, though easily done, is futile and pointless. In the one case, the ultimate basis for its existence is absent at no matter what level of reduction, and in the other, it is there at every level. In the one case, one can't attain an ultimate basis, in the other, one has no further need to.

Perhaps the best account of this given in my website is figure 3 of The Advanced Theory which shows that we reach an ultimate level of reduction by reducing the physical to the experiential, yet at the same time, one can reduce either the physical or the experiential along physical or experiential lines (respectively) indefinitely. The point we want to get across, however, is that one can do so until one is blue in the face, and one will be no closer to an ultimate basis for anything. If one reduces along physical lines, one gets no closer to the experiential hierarchy of reduction because such a reduction heads in the wrong direction, and if one reduces along experiential lines, one still gets no closer but this time because one is already there. However, if one reorients the direction of reduction - by 90 degrees clockwise according to the figure - one is not only able to reduce the physical to the experiential, but one stops there content to have found where the path ends.

There is also the matter of our epistemic awareness of our own experiences. We argued, at one point, that even those experiences of which we have epistemic awareness can be reduced beyond the level of such epistemology. We argued this on the grounds that their physical counterparts - namely, neuro-chemical phenomena - can likewise be so reduced. But at another point, we argued that anything and everything that an experience can be reduced to must be experienced through-and-through. We said:

Meaning is always beheld - it is always "inside". It must be because, as the core essence of experience, it must be felt... Because there is nothing in an experience that is hidden from the beholder, it will be felt down to its very depths, right down to the fundamental level where reduction no longer holds.

But if we lose epistemic awareness beyond a certain point of reduction, in what sense can we continue to say that the experience is "felt down to its very depths"? We can say this in the sense that what an experience feels like is different from our knowledge of it. Our lack of epistemic awareness past a certain level only means we won't be able to identify - epistemically, cognitively - any one detail or component apart from the full collection consisting of every other detail or component. But we can certainly know and feel the whole collection. The thing is, the question of what the whole feels like and that of what the components feel like - that is, the components collectively - is, essentially, the same question. So to feel the whole is, ipso facto, to feel the parts - but that is, to feel the parts collectively - and why should it be any other way? If we carry out our reductive analysis properly, we shouldn't deduce the presence of any one, or any subset, of details or components separately from the rest. The parts we uncover in the final analysis should come along with every other part that belongs to the original experience.

But then the issue is complicated by the introduction of equivalence. Following that concept is the implication that none of the details are there in the original experience. The reason why the original experience feels uniform and homogenous is because it is uniform and homogenous. The only experience that exists therein is the one we are epistemically aware of. But this is not as problematic as it might at first blush seem. Equivalence is a useful concept for understanding the sort of reduction that applies to things whose essential character is semantic as opposed to physical, objective, tangible, or something of that variety. The sort of reduction in question is such that the meaning at every level is the same, and indeed one, but the forms or expressions of that meaning are not only different but not even the same entities. This is completely unlike physical reduction whereby the sum of the components just are the whole - that is, they are the same entity - but with equivalence, the whole is more than the sum of the parts.

So albeit the issue is complicated by equivalence, it is not complicated in a way that proves to be a problem for us. Notwithstanding the fact that one can still trace a path along a reductive line (however much that line is defined in terms of equivalence), the worry over how one feels the components imbedded in one's experience despite having no epistemic awareness of any subset of those components is nicely done away with. It is no longer a question of how one feels these components, for the components aren't actually there. There is nothing to feel but the whole experience - uniform and homogenous - and because any equivalent set of experiences would bear exactly the same meaning, the subject, having only epistemic awareness of the whole, of the singular meaning, would discern not one distinguishing feature between the equivalent experiences. Essentially, what this means to say is that one can't feel any other experience than the one that is uniform, homogenous, and whole, for one discerns only one singular meaning. To feel a whole set of experiences, though it may be equivalent to the single one, would be to discern more than one detail therein - that is, to be epistemically aware of more fundamental components - and indeed this may be the case in certain hypothetical scenarios. For example, we could conceive of brains whose epistemic centers were sensitive not only to whole neurons firing from within other centers, but activity below the level of neurons - activity such as the passing of potassium and sodium ions through channels, or the release and binding of neurotransmitters to receptor sites. We can safely say that whatever experience we think we're feeling - because we are epistemically aware of feeling it - we are not only correct in thinking this, but it is the only experience we're feeling. Any other set of experiences we might reduce it to isn't so much there "in" the experience, but merely equivalent to it.

Having said this, a final word is perhaps in order - a word to address the principle we laid down for the interchangeability of equivalent experiences. We said that:

...there is no basis upon which we can proclaim any one experience as the "real" one and the others simply waiting to pop into existence should there be a need to replace it. Where their realness is concerned, they are all on equal footing...

Now it seems we are retracting this statement. It seems as though we are saying that only the singular and whole experience we are epistemically aware of - the one we feel as uniform and homogenous - is actually there. This may be true, but it is not to be taken in an absolute sense. It is true relative to one's epistemic awareness. If we like, we can decompose the experience - or contrive an equivalent set - and treat that as what's, in fact, being experienced - and there would be no error in this - but what we must do in addition is to carry out a similar substitution for the epistemic awareness associated with the original experience. The reason for this become clear when we examine the same maneuver as it applies to the physical brain. Suppose, for example, that the original experience was a visual one, and its neural counterpart was a neuron from the occipital cortex. When we replace the experience with a set of equivalent ones, this move corresponds to a decomposition of the neuron into its parts - say its molecular constituents. But the catch is that it makes little sense to decompose the neuron like this without decomposing every other physical system whose relations to the neuron are relevant to this scenario. In other words, a good rule of thumb to follow in these mental exercises - perhaps a must - is that when we reduce any one component of a system to its parts, we ought to do the same for every other part. In that case, to reduce the visual experience to a set of equivalent experiences, we must also reduce the experience of being epistemically aware of the original experience - we must consider the set of experiences that are equivalent to that epistemic awareness, and at the same level of reduction to which we have taken the visual experience. It follows from this, however, that the experiences we would be considering are not the epistemic awareness we are familiar with. They are a different, though equivalent, set. That being said, we have no reason to expect that the set of experiences equivalent to the visual one we started out with should come along with any epistemic awareness. We would essentially be epistemically unconscious of them.

In brief, the one experience we are epistemically aware of is felt in isolation from any other equivalent set because it is uniquely associated with our epistemic awareness, and the other equivalent sets in question might indeed be said to be "on equal footing" with respect to their ontological standing, but they wouldn't be associated with our unique position in and perspective on the grand system of experiences that is the Universal Mind. Such a position, such a perspective, is defined in terms of human experiences - that is, the experiences we are familiar with. These experiences are what make us human, and without them, we wouldn't be ourselves. In other words, to replace any one with another equivalent set would entail replacing them all, and we would be left with a mind that isn't us - at least, not us as we know ourselves.

Having said such a mouth full, I would like to close this post by addressing one last concern. That concern is the dependence of all experiences on other experiences prior to them - that is, on the experiences that entail them. This might come off as confusing to some because it seems to conflict with the principle of the independence of experience from anything but itself due to its roll as the fundamental basis for all things real. This independence is independence from anything below it in reductive terms - that is, unlike a rock which is dependent for its existence on its constituent atoms, an experience is not dependent on any constituents. Again, though, it can be decomposed into constituents (or shown to be equivalent in any case), but not that it depends on any. When it comes to entailment, however, we are dealing with a different sort of dependence. This dependence is akin to causal dependence - that as, as with physical things, they depend on a prior cause for their present state of existence (though I'm reluctant to use the word 'cause' in the case of experiences as causation is too mechanical a term, and not semantic as is the nature of and reason for the flow of experiences). This, however, is not reduction; it is a manner of explaining the origins of things. It is following a path in time rather than scale. Furthermore, although we may have to concede that all experiences are dependent on antecedent ones, we can say that all such antecedents are still experiences, and thus experience in general is independent from anything save itself.


Read my theory: http://www.mm-theory.com/