Unknowable Ontology?

[AnssiH]

Originally Posted by watcher

ontology doesn't meant to refer to actual reality without human definitions.

If you take it that way, then you are not talking about the same topic as the people who invented the words "ontology" and "epistemology".

If you are interested of their topic, I think you need to start from the beginning. Here are some questions to think about, relevant for getting started:
- Which entities, if any, are fundamental?
- How do the properties of an object relate to the object itself?
- What is a physical object?
- What does it mean to say that a physical object exists?
- What does it mean to say that a non-physical object exists?
- Why do we keep talking about "objects"?
- What constitutes the identity of an object?
- When does an object go out of existence, as opposed to merely "changing"?

Then, to get a step further, add the fact that our world model is fundamentally build on top of unknowns. I can tell you you will not find any real answers to those questions. But you will find a lot of beliefs. Lots! And in some cases very emotional attachments to those beliefs, for various reasons. In all cases, it is interesting to think about the foundations of those beliefs. If you can track them, you will see the circularity in reasoning, and consequently the importance of self-coherence to our ideas about the world.

Perhaps you subscribe to your definition of "ontology" because you recognize that when it's defined as "reality without human definitions", it is - by definition - unknowable, and thus you may think it is meaningless as there can be no answers?

It is only meaningful in terms of pointing out that our personal ontological ideas are whatever we dream up for ourselves, and pointing out that many valid ontologies can always be dreamed up, and most importantly pointing out that our ontologies always include facets that arise from epistemology. Most importantly, the idea of "identity of an object".

i am saying that we can make direct representation of what actually exists.

Your use of words "representation of" implies you do draw some difference between "a representation" and "the ontological form". Notice how I needed to use that word "ontological" in there? It is meaningful in exactly this context.

Albeit your use of the word "direct" is lost in me. How do you tell between "indirect" and "direct" representation of reality?

-Anssi

[watcher]

anssiH, from wiki

Metaphysics investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. Cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics. It is concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world

A central branch of metaphysics is ontology, the investigation into what types of things there are in the world and what relations these things bear to one another. The metaphysician also attempts to clarify the notions by which people understand the world, including existence, objecthood, property, space, time, causality, and possibility.

Ontology (from the Greek ὄν, genitive ὄντος: of being (neuter participle of εἶναι: to be) and -λογία, -logia: science, study, theory) is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences

A traditional realist position in ontology is that time and space have existence apart from the human mind.
Idealists, including Kant claim that space and time are mental constructs used to organize perceptions, or are otherwise surreal.

it was Kant who invented the "things in themselves" and they are beyond our knowledge. this was a necessary prelude for him to put god in the equation of his philosophy. a major spin off of kant's philosophy is of course a separate philosophy of the mind. this is huge subject in itself. it can be argued that the mind is universal, in t his view, it is the determinant of reality. and thanks to Qm it's making a comeback in mainstream philosophy. also in QM the unknowability of things were said to be intrinsic to nature and not a result of our lacking in knowledge of it, this is dead end in physics, and you don't want to g o there.

the point is that your view is just a small part in the whole shebang of ontology and you cannot take your view as a true representative of ontology. for one, i think you are confusing the symbolic contents of the mind from the mind it self as the true organ of perception. that is why you are denying the validity of the human mind to know what actually exists.

i mean directly is that while you have given up on ontology, you wanted to make a model purely based on our knowledge alone. never mind what actually exists. the realist view of ontolgy is to pursue the fundamental essence/substance or first principle of existence. relevant to physics, the nature of space, time and motions are investigated to look for its causes or substance.

Substance is a core concept of ontology and metaphysics. Indeed, philosophies may be divided into monist philosophies, and dualist or pluralist philosophies. Monistic views, often associated with immanence, hold that there is only one substance, sometimes called God or Being.

now kant did some take with space himself, he said that space is a necessary "a priori" . space is not a concept, it's intuitively known and logical deduced that our knowledge of it is not necessary for it to exist but it is necessary for all things to exists. including the brain with mind and all.

i think your a priori is that only information and its organization can truly represent reality. this is only a "specialization" on a particular branch of ontology. and let us not be hypocrite. epistemology is also an attempt on ontology, to say things are unknown is describing already the property of its nature. a more general, simpler and less unnatural and more attuned is for us to study the substance of reality, substance is more simple to grasp and we can intuit with it readily because we are it. we are the substance of the universe.

[Doctordick]

Well, a look at my e-mail indicated that Anssi had posted to this thread and I was curious as to what he had to say. And following that I found watcher's post. I have a few comments to make. In watcher's post, he quotes wiki: “A central branch of metaphysics is ontology.” To this I absolutely agree, “the investigation into what types of things there are in the world and what relations these things bear to one another.” The problem here is twofold, first solid analytical examination of the subject of ontology has not been done since the death of Aristotle, what, some three thousand years ago? Second, our capabilities or organizing exact examination has increased beyond measure since that date. Also we have the quote, “The metaphysician also attempts to clarify the notions by which people understand the world, including existence, objecthood, property, space, time, causality, and possibility.” This is not a trivial subject to be approached with no serious thought.

Originally Posted by watcher

it was Kant who invented the "things in themselves" and they are beyond our knowledge.

Beyond our knowledge does not mean beyond thinking about.

Originally Posted by watcher

this was a necessary prelude for him to put god in the equation of his philosophy. a major spin off of kant's philosophy is of course a separate philosophy of the mind. this is huge subject in itself. it can be argued that the mind is universal, in t his view, it is the determinant of reality. and thanks to Qm it's making a comeback in mainstream philosophy. also in QM the unknowability of things were said to be intrinsic to nature and not a result of our lacking in knowledge of it, this is dead end in physics, and you don't want to go there.

Ah, but I do want to go there! The failure to go there intelligently is a major fault of modern physics. The idea that “unknowable things” can not be explained, or rather, unknowable things can not be presumed identified, is ridiculous. What do you think Gods and religion are all about? These are invented things; invented to provide explanations to things that otherwise could not be understood.

What I do, and what every competent objective scientist should do, is to regard the ontological elements (those unknowable things) as actual “unknowns”; things we cannot know that we understand but that each and every explanation put forth by humanity is required to explain. That means that, with regard to the explanations (the epistemological constructs we choose to “have faith in”) these “unknowable” things are defined! But, those definitions are moot as they depend directly on the correctness of the epistemological constructs which depend upon them which can never be proved correct (they are all theories guy, whether they are talking about God or nuclear transitions).

Originally Posted by watcher

...you are confusing the symbolic contents of the mind from the mind it self as the true organ of perception.

The mind itself is a thing of presumed existences: i.e., it is a consequence of a world view which has already established definitions of those “unknowable” things.

Originally Posted by watcher

...now kant did some take with space himself, he said that space is a necessary "a priori" . space is not a concept, it's intuitively known and logical deduced that our knowledge of it is not necessary for it to exist but it is necessary for all things to exists. including the brain with mind and all.

And I am to take Kant as the final authority on what does or does not exist? Why don't you just take the Bible as the authority?

And your final statement is totally off the wall!

Originally Posted by watcher

I think your a priori is that only information and its organization can truly represent reality. this is only a "specialization" on a particular branch of ontology. and let us not be hypocrite. epistemology is also an attempt on ontology, to say things are unknown is describing already the property of its nature. a more general, simpler and less unnatural and more attuned is for us to study the substance of reality, substance is more simple to grasp and we can intuit with it readily because we are it. we are the substance of the universe.

So long as you can “intuit it readily” I guess we have to accept your position as the final statement.

Anssi, I am happy to have met you.

Have fun -- Dick

[watcher]

What I do, and what every competent objective scientist should do, is to regard the ontological elements (those unknowable things) as actual “unknowns”; things we cannot know that we understand but that each and every explanation put forth by humanity is required to explain.
That means that, with regard to the explanations (the epistemological constructs we choose to “have faith in”) these “unknowable” things are defined!

you got it in reverse. things are not unknown. we just don't understand them. e.g. space is not unknown to you, your just ignorant of its nature/properties. you just have to understand its mechanics or dynamics, a mechanism can be defined in a manner of ways. definitions only help organized our thoughts not determines our understanding of this things. to define something it is assumed that you have already understood what you are about to define. therefore definitions are not fundamental.

But, those definitions are moot as they depend directly on the correctness of the epistemological constructs which depend upon them which can never be proved correct (they are all theories guy, whether they are talking about God or nuclear transitions).

yes, this would fall under godel's incompleteness theorem. then your analysis is no better than say a field model or a particle model or a wave theorem for the universe. and they do have their own mathematics to brag about. and let me take this opportunity to tell you that mathematics is not the only universal language. math origin was in geometry, geometry are waves frozen in time. waves are vibrations. everything in the universe communicates in waves. now you may want to investigate that, hmmm

So long as you can “intuit it readily” I guess we have to accept your position as the final statement.

no, just like you i am promoting an idea, LOL
interestingly though, all the great theorists were highly intuitive persons.

[watcher]

The mind itself is a thing of presumed existences: i.e., it is a consequence of a world view which has already established definitions of those “unknowable” things.

what you are defining the mind to be is that all our perceptions and conceptions of our surroundings is "filtered" and interpreted by our biases. is it not? there is a subtleness that you have overlooked here that leads you to give up on knowing what is out there and be contented to represent this "ontological elements" with mathematical abstraction and symbolic notations. iow, you have given up the question of what exists and proceeded to answer the question what can we say about it albeit you claimed though in a precise way using your analysis.

what you have overlooked is the subtle distinction between the perceiving/conceiving entity which i have called the organ of perception and the objects of perceptions/conceptions. while you have attack the problem from the latter by making precise analysis of these objects, i depended on the former as the knower of these ontological elements.

so you see i am not discounting what ever method you have devise to represent in a notation how the universe works, i just don't like exclusivism.

[coldcreation]

Originally Posted by watcher

after failing to unify the electro and gravity field, [Albert Einstein] wrote ...

All these fifty years of conscious brooding have brought me no nearer to the answer to the question, 'What are light quanta?' Nowadays every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks he knows it, but he is mistaken. … I consider it quite possible that physics cannot be based on the field concept, i.e., on continuous structures. In that case, nothing remains of my entire castle in the air, gravitation theory included, [and of] the rest of modern physics. (Albert Einstein, 1954)

Since that letter to Michael Besso it has been realized that Einstein's general theory of relativity could be simplified further by working with real wave motions of a continuously connected space, in addition to continuous fields.

It would have been impossible for Einstein (or anyone else) to have come up with a unified theory fifty years ago when that letter was written. That is because the quantum field theory Yang-Mills equation for all standard model forces was only discovered late 1954 and experimental verification was only observed in 1983 (at CERN) when the electroweak gauge bosons were detected.

Even today a completely unified theory remains elusive, and will so without hard experimental evidence. Particle physics was in shambles when Einstein passed away. And it was likely sensible for him to keep his distance from it. Most models from the mid-20th century are today deemed untenable.

That is the beauty of science, as opposed to ontology, metaphysics, or theology, its relentless advance forward is continuous.

But even in a perfect world in which Tom, Dick and Harry all won Nobel Prizes, disagreement would still seem inevitable (at least for now).


CC

[AnssiH]

Originally Posted by jedaisoul

Hi AnssiH
Are you aware of anywhere I can read an exposition of the "fundamental equation". I.e. Not just the mathematical equation itself, because that is likely to be meaningless to me, but an exposition of the meaning associated with the equation, and its derivation. I'd like to know how it brings together in one expression "the entire realms of physics represented by Newtonian mechanics, quantum mechanics, electrodynamics and relativity (both special and general)".

I acknowledge that this question should really be addressed to Dr D, but as you seem to be familiar with the equation, you may know the answer...

I replied to a different thread. Somehow this seemed appropriate:
An explanation of what I am talking about.

-Anssi

[AnssiH]

Originally Posted by watcher

anssiH, from wiki

Ontology is referring to the ideas of "what exists". Because many predictionwise valid specific ontologies can always be built - it's just a matter of changing some man-made definitions in self-coherent manner - that means the question about "what really, actually, ontologically exists" turns into "what is reality like devoid of those human definitions that can always be arbitrarily chosen" (and that is why Kant came up with the concept of "noumena").

In some peoples minds though that is the same as choosing one of those "specific ontologies" to be valid (on undefendable grounds of course). For example, the interpretations about the QM formalism are often called "ontological interpretations", i.e. they are stabs at explaining what sorts of entities give rise to the behaviour that we see, but none can be defended.

The stuff you bolded and underlined "a traditional realist position in ontology is that time and space have existed apart from the human mind" is an example of specific ontology, not "the ontology". Perhaps you underlined it because you have misunderstood what I'm saying. I am not talking about idealistic ontology and it is very tiring that you think I am.

Concentrate a bit now ->

i think your a priori is that only information and its organization can truly represent reality. this is only a "specialization" on a particular branch of ontology. and let us not be hypocrite. epistemology is also an attempt on ontology, to say things are unknown is describing already the property of its nature.

First, I wouldn't say "epistemology is an attempt on ontology". Ontology is about the ideas of "what exists" or "what world is made of", and by "specific ontology" I mean some specific world model that some person might have in his head about reality.

Epistemology is the study about "how do we know about world", i.e. it is about the methods of "knowledge". The result of that process can be a specific ontology (essentially assumptions). So you could perhaps say "a specific epistemological construct leads to ontology", but epistemology as a field of study is not an attempt on ontology and people should be careful to not confuse them together.

Your main objection here seems to be that in your opinion, my assertion that ontology is something fundamentally unknown, is also an assumption. Given the common definition of "ontology", your objection would be that it is merely an arbitrary assumption that multiple valid ontologies exist.

Or another way to put it, if I say one cannot know with absolute certainty that their particular world model is ontologically valid, you say "you can't know that with absolute certainty either". One cannot know with absolute certaintly that their worldview is not absolutely certain?

What I am really saying is that whatever ontology you choose, you got that from giving names to familiar patterns/circumstances, and the form you have in your head - certain entities with persistent identity, having certain properties etc - that contains very many purely epistemological facets, for instance your idea of "identity" of objects. When does an object "change" and when does it "go out of existence" that's entirely a function of chosen definitions, and there does not exist information to defend between alternative views there.

That is why I am saying - with absolute confidence - that doubt exists about any specific ontology. If you trace that down, you see the confidence does not arise from any claim about what reality is like, but from the very definition of "ontology".

and thanks to Qm it's making a comeback in mainstream philosophy. also in QM the unknowability of things were said to be intrinsic to nature and not a result of our lacking in knowledge of it, this is dead end in physics, and you don't want to g o there.

Well first, I don't like the idealistic type QM interpretations any more than you do. Second, what you call the dead end of physics is exactly where I want to go, except that I wouldn't call it the dead end of physics any more than relativity or QM formalism was the dead end of physics. It is just a shift in perspective that needs to be made. Einstein felt non-determinism was the dead end of realism. That's silly, he was just very used to the idea of deterministic reality, "so what?" I would have asked him. Here people are very used to the idea that reality really is made of the entities that we define, in the sense that those entities really do contain an identity with them, like some sort of metaphysical token they somehow carry with them. (Once again I am referring to Bell experiments)

If you take the perspective that our idea of those "persistent objects" arises from definitions that only refer to familiarity in circumstances suddenly the QM strangeness is not strange at all. So, not so much a dead end of physics as it is the death of some stubborn and intuitive, but fundamentally undefendable ontological assumption about reality.

the point is that your view is just a small part in the whole shebang of ontology and you cannot take your view as a true representative of ontology. for one, i think you are confusing the symbolic contents of the mind from the mind it self as the true organ of perception. that is why you are denying the validity of the human mind to know what actually exists.

You completely mis-read me there, I hope the above explains it better.

i mean directly is that while you have given up on ontology, you wanted to make a model purely based on our knowledge alone. never mind what actually exists.

Given the definitions I gave above, I can't build a model based on "what actually exists" can I? What I think exists is whatever I defined to exist. Of course it is overlayed on reality, the problem of course being that many models can be overlayed on the same exact reality.

the realist view of ontolgy is to pursue the fundamental essence/substance or first principle of existence...
.
.
.
...a more general, simpler and less unnatural and more attuned is for us to study the substance of reality, substance is more simple to grasp and we can intuit with it readily because we are it. we are the substance of the universe.

That is sort of the problem. The irresistible urge to see everything as substance/entities/anything with identity. Well not so much an urge as an epistemological requirement. All the while it is in no way an ontological requirement! That conundrum is essentially the topic Kant was talking about, and also Korzybski and in a sense also Kuhn.

In your posts you put forward a lot of concepts as "things that exist", and suggest we just don't know their properties. What is that if not a case of making ontological assumptions?

Last but not least, I would say the philosophy called "objectivism" is in my mind pretty much the same as "constructivism" with the difference that they take only the defined things as "meaningful" but undefined and self-contradictory things as things that don't exist. Whereas constructivists don't refer to the validly defined things as "things that exist", meaning they are immaterial references to something that exists.

So you can see, it's very confusing for a constructivist to converse with an objectivist; they refer to the same ideas in very different manners. I know Rade likes to talk about objectivism a lot and I get the feeling that you are aligned to those terms a bit too. I think the only real problem for an objectivist comes from the difficulty of coming to terms with the idea that identity itself isn't objective property of reality :I

-Anssi

[watcher]

Originally Posted by coldcreation

That is the beauty of science, as opposed to ontology, metaphysics, or theology, its relentless advance forward is continuous.CC

science cannot advance without philosophy.

"How does it happen that a properly endowed natural scientist comes to concern himself with epistemology? Is there no more valuable work in his specialty? I hear many of my colleagues saying, and I sense it from many more, that they feel this way. I cannot share this sentiment. ... Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things easily achieve such an authority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterable givens. Thus they come to be stamped as 'necessities of thought,' 'a priori givens,' etc.

"The path of scientific advance is often made impassable for a long time through such errors. For that reason, it is by no means an idle game if we become practiced in analyzing the long-commonplace concepts and exhibiting [revealing, exposing? -Ed.] those circumstances upon which their justification and usefulness depend, how they have grown up, individually, out of the givens of experience. By this means, their all-too-great authority will be broken." Einstein, 1916, "Memorial notice for Ernst Mach," Physikalische Zeitschrift 17: 101-02.

I think the only real problem for an objectivist comes from the difficulty of coming to terms with the idea that identity itself isn't objective property of reality

reality present itself objectively through identity.
without identification, there is nothing for you to work with,
and you are with the same boat as an objectivist.
the only problem with constructivism was while you are living and functions in the "real world", you have constructed your worldview in utter abstraction. and thus fall prey to the pitfalls einstein had cited in the above post,
and afterwards, the temptation to ask "what is the physical meaning?" of my equations will set in. an ontological issue you cannot escape.

[coldcreation]

Originally Posted by watcher

science cannot advance without philosophy.

It can be said too that philosophy cannot advance without science.

As areas of scientific endeavour proliferate and expand, so will the philosophical questions that they generate.

What is the point you're trying to make?