Originally Posted by Doctordick
Well sort of, yeah; but you make it sound like I am holding something over your head. I hope you don't think that I am forcing you into something.
I think we have a starting point. Maybe it would be best if we just used the word “noumenons” to indicate the nature of reality instead of my “valid ontological elements”. Or maybe we can call “valid ontological elements” to be ontological elements which can be directly related to these noumenons. I really don't see any real conflict there as, from my perspective, neither can be exactly “known”. What is important is that the purpose of our world view is to explain “what we know”: i.e., these noumenons or valid ontological elements, whatever we choose to call them. Unless you complain, I will use the the two terms as if they mean exactly the same thing and, when I use the term “know” I will be referring to exactly this same collection of noumenons totally sans understanding.
My first step in constructing that “map” of what we know is to assert that then number of these noumenons which reside behind our explanation has to be finite. I assert this because the word “infinite” means literally that no matter how many are explicitly taken into account as being behind your current world view, there are more that are not yet included. It follows that, if you have a current world view, the number behind that world must be finite otherwise, you are not including some.
Just as an aside, there are those who would say that it is possible to have something which is infinite behind that world view; I hold that such a view is unacceptable as that infinite entity is either one thing or it is divisible in which case it is not “elemental”. The issue is that you cannot take into account an infinite number of elemental entities as individual entities, not that an infinite number of elemental entities can not exist.
I invented and presented my definition of time as follows: “the past” is what we know (those noumenons on which the map is built); “the future” is what is not known (those noumenons which have yet to become relevant to that map). “The present” is the boundary of the past: i.e., noumenons added to those which are already part of our map.
The purpose of “time” was to allow our world view to accommodate changes in “what is known”: i.e., new noumenons. From the above it should be clear that “the past” can be seen as a collection of “presents”. We can see what we know as proceeding from “nothing” to what we now know as a collection of changes in “what we know”. Again, the number of “presents” we can actually know must be finite (same argument as above). If their number is finite, they can be indexed and I will call the index “time” and represent it with a number referred to as “t”.
Likewise, I defined another numerical index, which I called x, to identify a specific noumenon making up a specific “present”. At this point you should see that “the present” has been conceived as possibly consisting of more than one noumenon. If that is the case, I am going to further state that “order”, with respect to one another, cannot be a characteristic of these simultaneous (simultaneous meaning “occurring at the same time”) noumenons as “time” was introduced for that exact purpose.
So, at this point, the noumenons (or valid ontological elements available to construct that map) can be seen as a collection of discreet points in an (x,t) plane. The important point being that there exists no collection of noumenons which cannot be so displayed.
Now I earlier defined an explanation to be a method of generating expectations from known information. At this point, the “known information” in our map consists of a set of numbers. Now, down the road, when one has a viable explanation of reality, these noumenons (or valid ontological elements) will be identified by that explanation. The totality of the explanation includes explaining the meanings of the words used to identify those elements. The actual symbols used to identify these elements is of no real significance at all. It could be in English, it could be in French, it could be in Chinese or it could even be in Linear A (a currently undecipherable language) which someone would have to learn first. Actually, people seem to forget learning the other languages is also an important necessity prior to understanding an explanation in one of them. So the only real difference is that a specific explanation requires a specific set of indices which are internally consistent under that explanation: i.e., the idea that our references are numerical indices is no limitation on the explanation at all.
Earlier I stated that my only interest was in flaw free epistemological constructs (explanations lacking a flaw of any kind). Qfwfq was apparently confused by my justification for such a step so I don't know if he has just decided to vacate this discussion as irrational or was appeased by my attempt at clarification given in post #8 (this thread). At any rate, the next step is to begin the analysis of explanations in general given the basis outlined above (a collection of discreet points in an (x,t) plane).
As an aside, it should be clear that any flaw free explanation must explain each and every ontological element upon which it is based whether those ontological elements are valid or not. Any demonstrable error in that explanation will invalidate it. Thus we can be confident that a flaw free explanation must explain all valid ontological elements as they are a mere subset of the ontological elements it is required to explain. It follows that there is no real need to worry about whether or not the actual ontological elements required for that explanation are valid.
The absolute first step in that analysis is to recognize that, under my definition of an explanation, there exists only one explanation which requires no epistemological construct at all. That is what I call the ”what is”, is “what is” explanation. That explanation amounts to nothing more than a table of ontological elements available at a specific time. It is a table of the x indices associated with each t index which constitute the past (what is known). A flaw free ”what is”, is “what is” explanation is one which is consistent with the known past. (A valid ”what is”, is “what is” explanation would be one which was a table of valid ontological elements available at each specific t.)
One problem with the ”what is”, is “what is” explanation is that it gives us not a hint as to what to expect; but that does not mean that it yields no expectations. The expectations yielded by the ”what is”, is “what is” explanation are: exactly what was seen so long as the index t refers to the past and exactly equal probability for all possibilities when the index t refers to the future.
If one's expectations are to be seen as given by a mathematical function of those points defined by the indices in that (x,t) plane then the abrupt change in the nature of that function at the boundary of the past (i.e., the function changes abruptly in what has been defined as the present) is a very interesting phenomena. It is essentially equivalent to the phenomena often referred to as “the collapse of the wave function: our expectations go from zero everywhere (from a mathematical perspective, the (x,t) space is continuous so equal probability for every point is exactly zero) to one for every entry in our ”what is”, is “what is” table of indices and zero for every point not in that table.
Note that the above analysis is valid for all pasts within the referenced data. Prior to any specific present becoming part of “the past” the expectations are exactly as describe in the previous paragraph (there is no prediction) and immediately after that present becomes part of the past the entries in the table become fixed (and the actual indices in no way contradict the expectations as they could have been anything).
What makes that explanation “flaw free” is that it yields exactly the ontological elements upon which it is built (including the temporal relations). What makes it worthless is that it makes utterly no usable prediction. What makes it interesting is that it defines exactly what kind of conditions any “flaw free” explanation must fulfill: it must match the ”what is”, is “what is” table exactly. The only difference between a valuable explanation and our ”what is”, is “what is” explanation is that the “valuable” explanation yields non uniform expectations outside that defined ”what is”, is “what is” table: i.e., it establishes some kind expectations above and beyond “anything goes” and gives non zero expectations outside the established past (it is capable of making predictions).
If you have arguments with what I have said, I am ready and willing to defend them further. If you feel my deductions so far are rational and acceptable, I will proceed further.
Looking to hear from you -- Dick
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