THE EPISTEMOLOGY PRESUPPOSED BY PHYSICS AND OTHER SCIENCES
Raphael Neelamkavil, Ph.D., Dr. phil.
((This is the second part of the series in THE LOGIC, EPISTEMOLOGY, AND ONTOLOGY OF PHYSICS AND OTHER SCIENCES.))
1. The Logic of Physics (See the previous discussion's lead-text)
2. The Epistemology behind Physics
The whole of logic, epistemology, ontology, etc. are not the exclusive property of physics, or of any other particular science, or of all the sciences together. Each of them may apply the various general logical, epistemological, and ontological principles in ways suitable to their disciplines, but cannot claim that theirs is the genuine or the possibly best logic, epistemology, ontology, etc.
There is yet another manner, beyond the sciences, wherein (1) the object range and viewpoint range become the broadest possible in epistemology, and (2) the epistemological manner in which the two are connected becomes satisfactory enough to explain both the aspects and the procedures involved between them. This is a philosophical version of epistemology. Even this manner is not complete without including the various logics, epistemologies, and ontologies of the particular sciences.
Before pointing out the special manner in which physics could use the more general aspects of epistemology in itself, let me mention a general trend in science, especially physics. I have seen many students of physics and mathematics mistaking the logical ways in which they do experiments and theories as the same as the conceptual foundations of physics and mathematics.
They do not even think of the epistemology of physics. The clear reason for this is that their epistemology is a crude correspondence theory of truth, and this is outdated. Take any of the best physicists, and we can see in their works the underlying undefined epistemology being closer to the correspondence theory of truth than anything else. I would like to suggest in the following a clear spine of epistemological rudiments for physics.
The pragmatism and scientism at the foundations of practical physics does not accept anything other than the correspondence theory as prescriptive of all the truths of science. Of course, the amount of finality achieved in truths will be the measure of tenability of their truth-probability. But this is to be reserved to the most general truths derivable from any science or philosophy. Low-level truths are much beyond the purview of correspondence between the objectual and the theoretical. Unaware of these facts, most physicists take the difference lightly.
It is a pity that the students of the sciences and also philosophy students with scientistic orientations even think of their ways of permitting truth correspondence to all their truths as the sole possession of scientists, which they suppose are being usurped from philosophy in the course of the past centuries in such a way that philosophy will have ever less reason to exist, or no more reason to exist. Imaginably, in this pride they are encouraged by their presumption of possession of the scientific temper in an exceptional manner.
More evidently, there were and there are physicists holding that their use of logic, epistemology, ontology, etc. is final and that all other details being done by other sciences, especially by philosophy, are a mere waste of time. If you want me to give an example, I suggest that you watch some of the YouTube interviews with Stephen Hawking, where he declares philosophy as a waste of time, or as an unscientific affair. The same sort of claim is to be seen being made by many mathematicians: that logic is a by-product of mathematics, and that philosophers are falsely proud of having logic as their methodology.
The reason why the whole of logic does not belong to the sciences is that the viewpoint from which sensation, thought, and feeling may be exercised in the broadest possible manner is not exhausted even by totaling all the object ranges of all the sciences. Each of them does logic in a manner limited by its object range. How then can their logic be the best possible? There is one and only one general science of which the viewpoint is the broadest. It is that science in which the viewpoint is that of the direct implications of the To Be of Reality-in-total.
Against this backdrop, although the following definition might seem queer for many physicists, mathematicians, and other scientists, there are reasons why I define here epistemology for use in physics. The following definition itself will clarify the reasons:
The epistemology behind physics is (1) the science of justifications (2) for the systemic fact, the systemic manner of achieving, the enhancement of the systemic manner of achieving, and the foundations of systems (3) of rationally derivable and explicable theoretical consequences of human efforts (4) to grasp the connection between physically existent reality and their pertinent realities of all sorts (5) in an asymptotic approach of truth-correspondence from the procedures of knowing (in terms of the pertinent realities of existent realities) onto the physically existent processes of reality, (6) in a spirally broadening and deepening manner of truth probability, (7) which serves to achieve ever better approximations of the epistemological ideal of knowing, namely, Reality-in-general, (8) starting from reality-in-particular, and (9) by use of the highest theoretical generalities pertaining to Reality-in-total and its parts, namely, reality-in-particular.
The epistemology of physics does not take the viewpoint of the To Be of Reality-in-total. But it must obey the primary implications of To Be and the viewpoint of the To Be of Reality-in-total. What these implications are, will be treated below, under “3. The Ontology of Physics”. Epistemology in philosophy may be slightly more general than the epistemology of physics, in the sense that philosophy takes the viewpoint of all physical processes that exist and attempt to view every reality from that viewpoint alone. If not, philosophy has no justification for existence.
Naturally, the epistemology of the sciences will not be so general as that of philosophy. But obedience to it is better for the epistemology of physics; and the advantages of such obedience will be seen in the results of such physics and such sciences.
The epistemology of physics, therefore, will attempt to theorize, know, and predict all that exist, but from the viewpoint exclusively of experimentally / empirically verifiable methods based on what is directly or indirectly before us, namely, the physical processes at our reach. The epistemology of systematically and systemically (i.e., systematically of systems of systems … ad libitum) moving in the use of logic from the given existent physical processes to the details of the not immediately given but ever more minute or ever more distant physical existents is the epistemology of physics. The above definition would, in my opinion, be sufficient to cover as broad and minute procedures as possible in physics. Time has come to appropriate it in physics, lest much advantage be lost for too long.
Not that philosophy does not trust this approach of physics. But philosophy looks for the Categorial presuppositions of existence behind all that is verifiable or verified empirically and empirical-theoretically. These presuppositions are the starting points and guiding principles of philosophy. There is a stark difference between a methodology of this kind and the methodology of basing everything on the truths derived from empirical and empirical-theoretical research. Now from this viewpoint you may judge the following suggestions and determine whether the epistemology of doing physical science is as broad as that of philosophizing.
Every moment, our body-brain nexus is continuously but finitely in contact with itself and with a finite extent of the environment, more or less simultaneously, but in differing intensities, no matter however elementary. The primary mode of this is through sensation, using all available and necessary aspects of it as the case may be. Thought and feeling are possible only in continuity with sensation, and never without it.
But one special characteristic of the human brain differentiating it from others is that sensation, feeling, and thought can very consciously induct into, and consequently deduce from the presuppositions of, all that exist – no matter whether they are a finite environment or infinite – and all these solely from the finite experience from the finite environment at hand. This seems to be absent in less human living beings.
Moreover, the second, but more forgotten, characteristic of the human brain differentiating it from others is that sensation, thought, and feeling are affective, tending to itself and to others, in the broadest sense of the term ‘affective’. It is the manner in which every human being tends in his/her sensation, feeling, and thought. Hence, all processes of knowing will be coloured by affection.
The manner and then the so-constructed broader background in which sensation, feeling, and thought take place is affection, which we term also love in a very general sense. Sensation, feeling, and thought are the three interconnected modes of tending of the body-brain to itself and to the environment, tend always to connect itself with the environment.
But here too the important differentiating characteristic in human body-brains is their capacity to tend to the environment beyond the immediate environments, and further beyond them, etc. ad libitum. There is nothing wrong in theoretically considering that there is the tendency in humans to converting this sort of ad libitum to ad infinitum, irrespective of whether these environments can really go ever broader at infinity in the content of matter-energy within Reality-in-total. Infinity is another term here for generalizing.
Reality consists of existent reality and realities that pertain to existent realities in their groups. Existent realities are clear enough to understand. Realities pertinent to existent realities are never to be taken as belonging to just one existent reality. They are always those generalities that belong to many existent realities in their respective natural kind. These generalities are what I call ontological universals.
All generalizations tend beyond onto the infinite perfection of the essential aspects of the concepts pertaining to the object-range. Not that the object-range must be infinite. Instead, the tending presumes an infinitization due to the idealization involved in generalizations. This is a kind of infinitization that does not need an infinite Reality-in-total in existence. All the concepts that a human being can use are based in the infinitization of the essential aspects of the concepts in their ideality. But behind these mental ideals there are the ideals, namely, the ontological universals pertaining to the groups (natural kinds) of processual entities in the environment. These are the ideals in the things and are not in us. These too are idealizations at the realm of the natural kinds that form part of Reality-in-total.
Without loving in the sense of tending to, as human do, to the inner and outer environments in their generalities there is no sensation, feeling, and thought. The tending to need not be due to the love of the objects but due to the love of something that pertains to them or to the ontologically universal ideals pertaining to the objects. From this it is clear that the relation between the processual objects and the sensing-feeling-knowing mind is set by the ontological universals in the natural kinds of existent physical processes.
At the part of the mind there should be idealized universals of conceptual quality, because the ontological universals in natural kinds cannot directly enter and form concepts. This shows that the conceptual universals (called connotative universals) are the mental reflections of ontological universals that are in the natural kinds. In short, behind the epistemology of sensation, feeling, and thought there are the ontology and epistemology of loving in the sense of tending to, due to the otherness implied between oneself and the environment.
There may be philosophers and scientists who do not like the idea of love. I say, this is due to the many psychology-related prejudices prevalent in their minds. We need to ask ourselves what the major mode of exercitation of any activity in human beings, and none can doubt the role of love in epistemology. The physical foundations of love too are commonly to be shared with the foundations of other aspects of physical existence.
Such tending by the person is mediated within the person by the connotative universals. Their expression is always in terms of symbols in various languages. These are called denotative universals. Connotative universals get concatenated in the mind in relation to their respective brain elements and form thoughts and feelings. Their expression in language is by the concatenation of denotative universals and get formulated in languages as theories and their parts.
To put in gist the latter part of “2. The Epistemology of Physics”, I suggest that the ontological, connotative, and denotative universals and the love of human agents to these and the very existent processual entities are what facilitate knowledge. The psychological question as to what happens when one has no love does not have any consequence here, because psychology differentiates between love and non-love in terms of certain presumed expressions of love and non-love.
In the case of the natural course of life of humans, the choice is not between love and non-love, but instead, between increasing or decreasing love. We do not speak here of loving other human beings as a matter of ethical action. Instead, the point is that of the natural love that humans have for everything including for sensing, feeling, knowing, etc.
One might wonder here why I did not discuss mathematics as an epistemologically valid tool of physics and other sciences. I have already dealt with this aspect in many other discussion texts in ResearchGate, and hence do not expatiate on it here.
3. The Ontology behind Physics (soon to be given as a separate RG discussion session)
Here I give some basic principles and arguments as to what the theory of knowledge behind physics could be. This does not consist of a full-fledged theory, but only a few foundational principles, arguments, and suggestions.
Questions and suggestions are most welcome.
The final portions of the text may raise eyebrows. But I think the principles set forth there are necessary because it is we humans that are concerned in the theory of knowledge, and not merely existent physical beings.
Thank you Raphael.
Reality is a relationship we form with the real. It’s an ongoing engagement where there is no datum, no ground floor to stand upon, just the appearance of such. It is both essential to a act upon this floor, this stage, but also to remember that it is, however impressive the product ultimately make-believe, a play.
“Science manipulates things and gives up living in them. It makes its own limited models of things; operating upon these indices or variables to effect whatever transformations are permitted by their definition, it comes face to face with the real world only at rare intervals.”
Merleau-Ponty. The Primacy of Perception - eye and mind.
When a scientist talks about veracity, reason, logic and facts with art and philosophy subjective and superseded respectively, they are actually lost. That does not mean that they are producing useless or disappointing material, its just that the next breakthrough, the new paradigm is not going to be coming from them or their work. They are actually abstracted from reality.
The ‘system’ is us and our engagement as complex biological systems and not a conceptualisation that we have assumed to be truth or instrumentation that we have developed to stand in for us.
Virtual reality is a misconception as is artificial intelligence. Their simulations of reality are not embedded, but that’s not what makes them dangerous. What makes them dangerous is our willingness to let go of reality and accept the limitations and 'forget' to verify experientially.
We want the easy life, we what to believe that we know and that we are in control given that knowledge. That from the floor we can act it all out.
This is willing disbelief. Total immersion in an illusionary space, which is why I am so interested in all forms of illusionary space and in the development of a more 'meaningful' one.
The derivation of the frame of reference and the measurement paradigm can be traced back to the Renaissance. It's old hat and clearly not performing despite all the compensatory 'engineering' and acceptance of scenarios that simply don't equate with veracity, reason, logic and fact.
Nonsense, not commensurate with sense.
John Jupe,
I do understand this. But the main block to it in the minds of the people and educated persons is that science works. None bothers to think that what works is based on "truths" that seem truths within a given small framework. But here the concept of truth is very very limited.
But they will argue that no universal and absolute truth is possible, and only pragmatic truths are possible. If the pragmatic truths and instruments work and give us machination, why not accept them and be happy?
It is in this context that I seek sufficiently more general and ever more acceptable forms of what they call truths. Of course, these too will not last as truths forever. But at least certain aspects of them will continue to be considered as more true and as parts of future truths.
I do not know if I told you: I am a meditator too. I also teach Buddhist meditation, and some other forms of it. In this context, I am able to at least think and feel that what I call truth/s are not the same forever. Hence, I try to base my thoughts and feelings on what seem best as universal....
Well for sure...the universal truth is us. What fails in science is where the ontology of science ends up running into us as part of the 'observation process'. We cant take ourselves out of the act of observation.
What we have to do is do better than the outcomes of science..
True. What I have been trying is to first of all tell myself that it is better to do the best by being part of the scientific and philosophical community. The second thing I try to do is to get at what seem to be the central concepts, even though my definitions of the central concepts will not be the ultimate definitions. Future definitions will surely continue to emerge, and finally even the very concept would change into something else. And in this context, my search is to isolate those most fundamental concepts that might have a fair chance of being central.
I am extremely aware of the contributions of postmodernism. But it has proved itself today to be a fad because most of those thinkers played with words. Hence, I believe that it is better to seek more central and peripheral and intermediate concepts and then seek their generalities in such a way that at least they may remain for some time.
All that we do in this manner is just conceptual activity, and not life. But soon it can be made life-related too, provided the common basics of all forms of biological processes and all forms of non-biological processes may be identified and made to stick at least for a long time to come!
Preprint MATHEMATICAL SOURCE OF FLAWS IN COSMOLOGICAL THEORIES: MATHE...
Comme je le dis dans Constructivisme, Modalité et Valeurs, l'épistémologie est la construction d3es règles d'acceptation d'une construction, qu'elle soit cognitive ou non.. Cela revient à dire que l'épistémologie est la construction de la normativité et cette construction n'est pas resteinte aux domaines. Ma thèse est que la construction de la normativité (ou épistémologie) est celle de la rationalité et qu'elle ne peut être construite que comme normativité à la fois universelle et permettant les distinctions entre domaines. En particulier, elle doit rendre possible les constructions formelles, celle portant sur une réalité qui peut être commune et la subjectivité.
You have said it well. I have not yet been very much into this realm, since I have so far been working in the philosophy of physics and of cosmology. But the epistemology that I would like to work out is going to be of the kind that you suggested. Elements of this direction can be found in the small lead-text of the discussion.
J'ai lu une première fois ce small lead-text., ce qui m'a poussé à écrire. Dans le constructivisme la notion de vérité, comme correspondance entre un monde conceptuel et une réalité 'autre' n'est plus qu'une notion dérivée. La notion fondamentale est celle d'acceptation ou de refus d'une construction et les critères pour l'acceptation ou le refus doivent aussi être construits, comme tout le reste.
Pour moi il n'y a pas d'interruption entre la philosophie et ce que l'on appelle les sciences. La philosophie (épistémologie) est un retour sur les construction pour construire une normativité pour les accepter ou les refuser. Et cela commence très bas, avant la construction même des structures temporelles, spatiale, des objets ou substances. Dans Après Einstein... je montre qu'il est possible de construire ces notions (temps, espace, objets, masse, force,...) et la normativité (critères d'acceptation) de leur construction jusqu'au début des théories quantiques et la relativité restreinte, comprise comme un chapitre de la théorie quantique. La logique (théorie des propositions) s'inscrit dans cette construction mais n'a plus le rôle de fondatrice et ne constitue pas la totalité de la normativité. La thèse est que cette construction de normativité peut s'étendre au domaines des valeurs sans tomber dans le réductionnisme.
Piergiorgio Quadranti,
Thanks. I liked the way in which you are able to get at the key points that I suggest and to do further suggestions. Wonderful. This is rare. Take me as saying the truth, given my 10 years' (of course, very short) experience in teaching philosophy and philosophy of science, clearly with an eye to find out persons with the capacity to great generalizations. Let me request you to permit me to make an English translation of your comment and put it up (along with the French) in some of the related discussion sessions of mine? Here below is the translation, of course from Google Translator. My French is not so good as my English and German. I speak also Italian, but not as good as English and German.
Please see the translation:
I read this small lead-text for the first time, which prompted me to write. In constructivism the notion of truth, as a correspondence between a conceptual world and an 'other' reality, is no more than a derived notion. The fundamental notion is that of acceptance or refusal of a construction and the criteria for acceptance or refusal must also be constructed, like everything else.
For me there is no interruption between philosophy and what is called the sciences. Philosophy (epistemology) is a return to constructions to build a normativity to accept or refuse them. And it starts very low, even before the construction of temporal, spatial structures, objects or substances. In After Einstein... I show that it is possible to build these notions (time, space, objects, mass, force,...) and the normativity (acceptance criteria) of their construction until the beginning of the theories quantum theory and special relativity, understood as a chapter of quantum theory. Logic (theory of propositions) is part of this construction but no longer has the founding role and does not constitute the totality of normativity. The thesis is that this construction of normativity can extend to the domain of values without falling into reductionism.
Just now I have revised the lead-text of this discussion. Soon I will put it up as a PDF for general use.
Preprint THE EPISTEMOLOGY PRESUPPOSED BY PHYSICS AND OTHER SCIENCES R...
Apologies for coming into this conversation late...working with Martin Burckhardt in interviewing various intellectuals, we’re always surprised that folks are forgetting the pre-history of epistomological knowledge, meaning science comes from and is built on Philosophy. More to the point is that our Psychotope, or operating system of reality is built on the Alphabet which allows us to manipulate things symbolically in logic. Where this gets interesting is when you start looking closer at Philosophy and realize it’s a Machine...
J'abonde dans le sens de Hopkings Stanley car (1) l'épistémologie n'est pas un simple commentaire sur les théories physique, mais (2) est la construction de la normativité qui permet de les accepter ou non. (3) Or à la fois les théories et les normes résultent d'une construction. L'épistémologie génétique de Piaget impose de chercher les point de départ le plus faible possible pour toutes ces construction et les premières règles qui les contrôlent. Non seulement la compétence linguistique doit être elle aussi construite mais l'activité créatrice des nouveauté, sans laquelle aucune théorie (simplement formelle ou portant sur le réel) n'existerait pas, peut (et doit) être inscrite dans un cadre conceptuel (paradigme épistémologique) inspiré par l'activité de communication et non la simple réception d'information. Toute théorie (physique comprise) ne peut être que le prolongement des ces première phases de construction. J'ai montré que cela est possible, en reconstituant les structures fondamentales de temps, d'espace et des objets classiques, en reconstituant les notions classiques de masse et de force, en proposant une théorie de la mesure pour la mécanique quantique et en recomprenant la relativité restreinte comme un chapitre de la mécanique quantique. En outre, la construction de la normativité est en commun avec celle des valeurs et des normes juridiques. L'unité et l'universalité n'est pas à chercher dans une nature des choses mais dans les règles de construction.
I am out of station. I will be able to reply only on the next Wednesday. Am sorry.
"But behind these mental ideals there are the ideals, namely, the ontological universals pertaining to the groups (natural kinds) of processual entities in the environment. These are the ideals in the things and are not in us. These too are idealizations at the realm of the natural kinds that form part of Reality-in-total."
This sounds like some type of Aristotelian realism about universals. While that may be an appealing theory for physics, where an electron is an electron, it's more questionable in biology, which has many "fuzzy" concepts with indistinct boundaries.
In my simplistic Burckhardtian understandings, the question is if there’s any culture that doesn’t use the Alphabet — which we refer to as the Greek Alphabetic Machine or the Typenrad — that’s developed “Natural Philosophy,” to which his answer is no. What’s so curious is the notion of the Alphabetic Machine that defines stoichos as both the letter/number characters and the elements as terms of symbolic logic have become so transparent that we no longer see how deeply embedded we are in an outsourced unconscious Machine. As a science, biology is based on Philosophy, whose pre-history is the Alphabet. I would refer folks to Martin Burckhardt’s Philosophie der Maschine if they are interested in this notion.
William Cornwell,
Are space and time idealizations? Are they all Aristotelian notions? I would be happy if you could give a few more details as to why you thought so.
From a Burckhartdian perspective, we’d note in Kantian Philosophy that they’re Apriori, preceding any empirical observations. However, Kant linked them to mathematics, forgetting that the time of his Epoch was based on the Middle Age’s mechanical Clock. Before that, folks divided the day between when the sun was out and when it wasn’t, which varied according to the seasons — as did the hours length — so time is not an idealization but a social practice allowing for the division of labor, the equation of time is money, mathematical laws of physical laws, and the synchronization of society according to the mechanical clock…
Society used and uses time and space not because they are merely societal entities or notions. Instead, time and space are epistemic abstractions, which is why Kant named them a priori. For him, they were a priori sensibility, and through these and these alone were they linked to mathematics. This is much roundabout, but he had no other way.
Now, merely for these reasons we cannot say that they are just mathematically a priori. More importantly, for Kant, space and time are a priori for sensibility. Hence, the primary sense of space and time are for him epistemic (based on the one important aspect of it, namely, sensation).
In the sense of being a priori, space and time are not to be seen anywhere as existents, but as epistemically pertinent to all existents. This is why I have called them epistemic abstractions (i.e., not existents). But they are epistemic abstractions, and not ontological, because they do not pertain to existents.
What do you think of this argument? Please feel free to respond also by connecting them to any other notion, as you find useful.
I am trying to construct the physical-ontological counterparts of space and time in a directly physics-compatible manner. I hope to upload this document in a week or so.
Neelamkavil a écrit their epistemology is a crude correspondance theory of truth, and this is outdatet… Selon Aristote, cette correspondance est rendue possible par le fait que les objets nous communiquent leurs formes, ils nous informent. Le paradigme épistémologique est celui d’un sujet qui rencontre un objet qui agit sur son intellect passif.
L’épistémologie de Piaget montre combien ce paradigme n’est pas pertinent pour décrire les premières étapes de la construction des connaissances par un nouveau-né. Si l’on veut élargir the realm de l’épistémologie jusqu’à y inclure les travaux de Piaget (de l’éthologie et de la psychologie cognitive), il faut proposer un autre paradigme. Je propose une épistémologie constructiviste.
1. L’épistémologie (constructiviste) considère des textes (scientifiques) pour lesquels elle doit construire une normativité, c’est-à-dire des critères pour les accepter ou les refuser plus ou moins partiellement. L’épistémologie est la construction de cette normativité.
2. Tout savoir résulte d’une construction et toute construction suppose une situation initiale, qui ne résulte pas de cette construction.
3. L’épistémologue doit ainsi écrire un texte (Tép) dans lequel
i. Il doit proposer des critères selon lesquels il accepte, dans le texte considéré Tobs, la description des données, proposée par l’Observateur qui a écrit le texte Tobs.
ii. Il doit proposer des critères d’acceptation de la partie du texte Tobs, présentant la construction effectuée par l’Observateur sur les données.
4. Les constructions ne se réduisent pas à des déductions. Cela est certainement le cas pour les premières constructions, à partir de la naissance, avant celles des mathématiques et de la logique, mais cela reste toujours le cas sur n’importe quel niveau de construction.
5. Il s’ensuit que la construction des normativités se greffe sur les constructions qui se succèdent.
6. Les travaux de Piaget fournissent des critères pour considérer une situation initiale comme fondamentale.
7. L’épistémologue propose de décrire les données de cette situation fondamentale par :
a. Des données individuelles, ou individus. Ces données ne sont distinctes par autre chose qu’elles-mêmes. Il s’agit de données déictiques.
b. Des prédicats dont les extensions seront appelées des domaines, et qui sont disjointes. Ces prédicats n’acquièrent ni ne perdent des arguments.
c. Un prédicat, qui correspond à l’expression ‘…est réel’. L’extension de ce prédicat est variable et ces arguments, dans la situation fondamentale) sont les individus et leur subsomption sous les prédicats de domaine.
d. La paire, constituée par la subsomption et la non-subsomption d’un argument sous ‘…est réel’, sera appelée changement.
e. Tout changement est une donnée. Une structure n’implique pas le changement et un changement ne détermine pas la structure que l’on peut construire sur lui. En revanche, étant une donnée, il est la manifestationdu réel, qui ne se manifeste que par lui. Il est toutefois possible d’affirmer la réalité d’une structure même lorsqu’elle ne présente pas de changements.
L’activité de sujet comporte des
f. Arrêts sur des plages, constituées par des données ou des termes construits à partir d’elles.
g. La construction de termes nouveaux, qui ne sont pas des données.
Cette construction est du cœur de l’épistémologie constructiviste. Cette notion a été développée à partir de la notion de termes théoriques (Carnap, Sneed, Moulines, Balzer, van Fraassen). Cette construction, je l’ai appelée poïesis. Il ne s’agit pas d’une déduction. Elle est à l’ouvre dans la notion de bifacialité du signe, proposée par de Saussure. Ainsi le nouveau paradigme épistémologique n’est plus la rencontre du réal mais la construction d’un sens à partir d’un texte.
Piergiorgio Quadranti,
Thanks. I am out of station. I shall reply as I return home, say, on 9 Aug. If yo find it difficult to write in English, you can write also in Italian or in German. As for French, I should read slowly...!
PHYSICAL-PROCESSUAL REPRESENTATION OF IRRATIONAL NUMBERS
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Physical-Processual_Representation_of_Irrational_Numbers
THE ONTOLOGY BEHIND PHYSICS
3.1. Traditional Physical Categories
https://www.researchgate.net/post/The_Ontology_behind_Physics
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Grounded_Physical-Ontological_Categories_behind_Physics
Grounded (New) Physical-Ontological Categories behind Physics
Preprint THE ONTOLOGY BEHIND PHYSICS: CRITIQUE OF TRADITIONAL PHYSICA...
A SIMPLE GAME-CHANGER CAUSALITY FOR PHYSICS: Beyond the Two Millennia
https://www.researchgate.net/post/A_SIMPLE_GAME-CHANGER_CAUSALITY_FOR_PHYSICS_Beyond_the_Two_Millennia
https://www.researchgate.net/post/DEFINITION_OF_THE_ONTOLOGY_BEHIND_PHYSICS_5_Paragraphs
DEFINITION OF THE ONTOLOGY BEHIND PHYSICS (5 Paragraphs)
THE ANOMALY IN MATHEMATICAL / THEORETICAL PHYSICS (Short Text)
https://www.researchgate.net/post/THE_ANOMALY_IN_MATHEMATICAL_THEORETICAL_PHYSICS_Short_Text
Answer to ‘The aAnomaly….’
Grossly spoken, your criticism, worry, care is miny (even if my knowledge of physic and mathematic is smaller as your). I renounce (refuse) to construct ontology (‘view’ on reality) a priori or fund in the analysis of the knowledge humanity (myself) has already construct for him. Now born child doesn’t have such notions. Then they have ben construct. The question become are this construction acceptable? To answer I must propose a construct I accept. To do it, I preserve the actual physic, mathematic, logic but only as goal and I make a total ‘épochè’ (mettere fra parentesi)of the actual constructions. Then I must construct each notion ab ovo. I can present and speak of him in French or English but his construction is a construction of a new formal language. New because the mathematic, logic must construct too and this construction exact new procedure I call poïesis. The construction is real only if it is built on initial reality and specially on change (with time). I needed 40 years to prove it is possible. But I done (I hope) (time, space, colours, objects, mass, force, Young experience (interference and beginning of quantum theory, special relativity, …and now La construction de l’humain).
(I will aswer your other message, but I need time)
I do understand the concerns tat your intervention expresses. But can we not understand the problems better if we understand "construction" and "construct" in terms not merely of human minds but also of nature that causes the constructs in our minds in various ways that are of course highly veiled and do not mirror the whole of reality to us?
I try answer as clear as your question. We can and must understand "construction" and "construct" in terms not merely of human minds but also of nature that causes the constructs in our minds . But
1. The notion of causality isn’t enough to describe the relation between nature and the development of our minds.
2. My mean difficulty is how can a human being become able to construction this question? The growth of the minds of a newborn can’t begin with the level of construction this question requires. Other side, the meaning of terms of this question and their pertinence can only be controled with an explicit construction. Then I meet again the same question: how can the construction by a newborn begin and growth? I hope to have already, even if partial, answered this question.
3. The criteria of validation appertain to this answer.
4. The notion of mirror is semantic (or pertains to theory of models) and Aristotelian (Tarsky): truth as correspondence. I think the notion self of truth had loss importance in favour of acceptability.
I agree fully with your comment in (4). I used to call it truth-probability too.
About (1): I too have been of your opinion on the relationship between nature and the development of minds. But what I stumble upon is the question: What other than causality can answer this, if freedom is a different manner of causation? (https://www.researchgate.net/post/Dichotomy_between_Universal_Causality_and_Freedom_A_Reconciliation)
Now about your concern in (2): I think the principle of graduality can answer in some sense. In (3) you have expressed in gist a very fundamental philosophical question. The criterial of validation must take into consideration what you have said in (2). But would it appertain (2)? ['appertain' = 'pertain to']
“I have been attempting in a book project to re-interpret the notions of CAUSALITY, DETERMINISM, CHAOS, FREEDOM, etc. purely physically. Still I find a way to place the concept of freedom within universal causality. Does anyone think that this is impossible? Is there dichotomy between universal causality and freedom?
What means ‘physically’? This notion is ambiguous. Al difference between (real) domains arises from these of them (real) they are built on, as difference of meanings arise from difference between texts they are meaning of. Causality and freedom are meaning built on the same text (better: context) but built by different choices of their parts (subtexts). Then Causality and Freedom are compossible on the same context even if different. The rules of construction are the same as we read all texts in a context with same rules.
If universal causality means all is insert in processes (the text), then are universal causality.
By existent I mean anything in finite Extension and finite Change. But by physical I mean anything that has to do with (1) existent in finite Extension-Change and (2) the simple and complex attributes and their concatenations (i.e., concepts, statements, theories, and discourse of any type) about them.
But if you say that causality and freedom are texts and/or sub-texts, then do texts exist as existents or as texts? Wherefrom is the justification to call them all merely as texts / discourses? The contents of texts / discourses, if they have any reference to existents, then will the origin of these texts / discourses be the existents of which they are and the existent that the (human) brain is? Or, should also the existents and humans brains (which too are existent) be called texts / discourses?
There are many hermeneutic philosophies. Seems like they are already the past. But an ontology of hermeneutics which speaks of the contents of texts as objects should have had their foundation in the existents and their pertinent attributes (like the qualities / universals and their conglomerations).
If these universals and their conglomerations are merely in texts / discourses, are we not begging the question?
I accept your definition of ‘physically’. This means for me ‘with spatial structure and always with time’.
You say:
‘But if you say that causality and freedom are texts and/or sub-texts, then do texts exist as existents or as texts? Wherefrom is the justification to call them all merely as texts / discourses? The contents of texts / discourses, if they have any reference to existents, then will the origin of these texts / discourses be the existents of which they are and the existent that the (human) brain is? Or, should also the existents and humans brains (which too are existent) be called texts / discourses?’
I see, my expression ‘Al difference between (real) domains arises from these of them (real) they are built on’ is ambiguous. Is this expression I don’t speak of text but only from domains. My thesis is the paradigm for the (scientific/rational) construction on a domain isn’t the Aristotelians meeting of a subject and an object but the construction of a meaning on a text. In a laboratory isn’t no text, only ‘physical’ objects. To assertion observe constructs a meaning on, is acceptable only if I consider a deeper level of such construction as present in the construction of experimental knowledge as in the communication between organisms and subjects. This level (and activity) exists before the construction on linguistic competence and allows it. I call this activity poïesis. It is the translation of notion of (construction of) theoretical term’. The expression … they are built on as difference of meanings arise from…can understand as merely comparison, eve it is more.
This response from you is more acceptable. And let me comment: You are a very honest person. I am able to see the openness to criticism. Thanks. I too am so.
Will write later. Am busy working on the correction of a Dissertation of a former sutdent of mine.
I’ve been talking more about this conversation with my colleague Martin Burckhardt in terms of the Psychotope’s staging, and what we find so fascinating is how Physics acknowledges its epistemology is built on an axiomatic (=metaphysical) foundation of sand that we refer to as the ‘field of the real’ – which the Philosophy of Science crowd would know as the Wahrnehmung of episteme, or ‘taken as truth, but not the truth itself.’ And what I think is so wonderful is your conversation seems to be trying to bring that foundation into sharper relief, which we both feel is most admirable as we’ve always been fascinated with the weirdness of how Philosophy and its Science children never notice this and become very nervous whenever we start to question it in our conversations.
In Burckhartdian thinking, it’s the Universal Machine’s Psychotope that provides the metaphysical veil between what’s perceived as being real as a-letheia and ‘field of the real’ which I learned from Dr. Hubert Bert Dreyfus as the inter worldly entities when he taught about the Heideggerian Dazwischen-Sein. It’s very strange how the Sciences and their Epistemologies, as the children of Philosophy, almost always forget that Philosophy’s pre-history is based on the Greek Alphabet, which we refer to as the Typenrad, that provides the stoichos. Not only do the stoichoi denote the alphabetical letters but they refer to the elements as well. So you might say: no natural philosophy without alphabetical letters. So the alphabet is the scriptural basis of symbolic writing, which later on turns into natural laws and the Eternal Logic Signs that found our Culture – changing us from tribal beings living in a world of demons and magick into Human Beings who’ve developed our Universal Machine’s rationality that we’ve outsourced as an unconscious Psychtope from which our Cultural Psychoplasms are relieved-out from. Once you grasp this, it becomes clear it’s the Psychology of using our Universal Machine that becomes important when explicating a Science’s Epistemological underpinnings, which is usually left under-the-table…especially how the skepticism inherent in Science’s institutional drive gets lost in the res publica’s mediality – specifically in the public trust in Science and its findings.
Currently, we’re conversing on how using symbolic logic is a kind of transubstantiation of Real Presenz… If any of you are interested, Dr. Burckhardt and I would welcome you to join us in an interview discussing this in our growing conversation with various disciplines...
Hopkins Stanley,
Thanks for the response with a discussion from a slightly different viewpoint, and for the invitation. As regards the invitation, I would like to know the sort of discussion desired -- especially as to whether (1) it will go the medicine-and-psychology discussion way or (2) it will remain within the philosophy of science, and of course treating psychology etc. as parts of the family of sciences. The second is acceptable for me. Of course, philosophical interests other than that of the philosophy of science are welcome for me. To me this aspect has become clear as I read your response.
One thing that I forgot to stress in my lead-text of the discussion is this: However well we may create strong / stable / standing (stoikos) foundation for the sciences, however well we may seek out the epistemological and ontological roots of the sciences, the fact remains that others will either re-deepen them (which would be a very a happy news), or dilapidate them (which is a sad news but meant for the betterment of the same notion of foundations and of humanity), or usually do both together (which is often the case).
I remain always open to this possibility, but go on developing whatever I can. One concern that I have is that the discussion might diverge to some sort of hermeneutic discourse based on the traditions of philosophical hermeneutics that has been built up mostly for the purpose of enhancing literary and other kinds of interpretation. (Not that I have not been into this. I have done it a lot, especially during my Master studies in philosophy. But now I distance myself a lot from it all. The later phase of Heidegger has been a fascination, but I do not indulge in his works now.) But this may prove counterproductive.
Hence, shall we continue to discuss some more details of the epistemology of science, including your perspectives?
Waiting to read your ideas.
Raphael
Am interested and my position is near to pf. Neelankavil. (Nevertheless I don’t speak well English)
This is a serious and somewhat complex matter to discuss:
NON-FOUNDATIONS OF ‘WAVICLES’ IN EINSTEIN-PODOLSKY-ROSEN PARADOX: Bases for Quantum Physics to Evolve (Maybe a physical-ontological Breakthrough)
https://www.researchgate.net/post/NON-FOUNDATIONS_OF_WAVICLES_IN_EINSTEIN-PODOLSKY-ROSEN_PARADOX_Bases_for_Quantum_Physics_to_Evolve_Maybe_a_physical-ontological_Breakthrough
AGAINST COSMIC ISOTROPY, CONFORMAL CYCLIC COSMOS, ETERNAL INFLATION, etc.: A Critique of Identity, Simultaneity, Cosmic Repetition / Recycling, etc.
https://www.researchgate.net/post/AGAINST_COSMIC_ISOTROPY_CONFORMAL_CYCLIC_COSMOS_ETERNAL_INFLATION_etc_A_Critique_of_Identity_Simultaneity_Cosmic_Repetition_Recycling_etc
Preprint A SIMPLE GAME-CHANGER CAUSALITY FOR PHYSICS Beyond the Two Millennia
Raphael Neelamkavil
Many thanks for your well-thought out response, and apologies for taking so long to reply. I’ve been conversing with Martin Burckhardt about articulating exactly where our Burckhardtian thinking lives epistemologically. Truthfully, it’s been an interesting issue that he’s been exploring for 36 years, having found cultural theory the best descriptive moniker for what is really about the end of Philosophy and Anthropology and what lies in its excesses. He comes from a background in Computer Science, Statistics, Economics, Psychology, Philosophy, Art History, and Literature – while I come from an academic clinical background in Nursing and Medical Science informed by Heideggerian/Levinasian Phenomenology. I’d always been fascinated by how such brilliant academic Clinicians did this funny dance of explaining the veracity of their statistical results with anecdotal hunches to support the probabilistic nature of their findings with the caveat that ‘it’s an art and a science.’ We started our project with my desire to translate his works that accurately described my clinical experiences into Englisch. As these things go, it quickly expanded into an ongoing conversational project aiming to examine and describe the Greek Miracle’s cultural coherency that Philosophy and Science float upon. In particular, the Greek pre-historical meaning of mechné as a defrauding of Nature that proceeded the development of any material device. We refer to it as the Universal Machine of Rationality, which the Greeks conceived as a psychic economy.
Our project is currently having conversations with intellectuals and academicians from various disciplines looking at the transition from the Middle Ages’ Mechanical Clockworks into Modernity’s third Universal Machine of Digitalization, which began with the discovery of the Vacuum, Empirical Science, Boolean Logic, and the second law of Thermodynamics. I came across your conversation, and we thought it would be wonderful to see if someone looking so closely at the foundations of Physics, particularly Quantum Mechanics (with such a serious examination of probability and observational effects), would be interested in being interviewed and joining this conversation. Apologies if it feels like our aim would devolve into any sort of literary discussion, which is far from our intent.
Best…Hopkins
Piergiorgio Quadranti
Thank you so very much for your interest in our conversation. While I’m not fluent in French or German, Martin is fluent in German, can understand French, albeit a bit rusty, and is interested in talking with you to explore what kind of conversation we could have. Please let me know the best way for him to contact you?
Best…Hopkins
Hopkins Stanley, thanks. I searched in the internet about Martin Burckhardt. He is a cultural theorist with studies in various subjects and working also in computer culture. He is a prolific author too.
I have already informed myself about your background and interests, especially in the nursing and medical fields, and then in other areas.
Whereas I am, so to say, a recluse for the philosophy of physics and of cosmology. I have not made many public appearances or panel discussions.
READ THE FOLLOWING FROM WIKIPEDIA:
"In 2022, Martin started Ex nihilo with his American translator Hopkins Stanley. Ex nihilo is a German-English Substack Salon that he developed as a gathering place for conversations about the enigmatic issues affecting our time including effects of the current Attention Economy, the political Apocalyptic Millennialism underlying our cultural response to our current Climate and Energy crisis, and other issues associated with our psycho-economic shifting into Modernity’s digital age. It also contains current essays in both German and English, as well as a repository of English translations of his early works.
Since publishing his Philosophie der Machine, he’s been writing a five part series on the Psychology of the Machine, of which the first volume — Über dem Luftmeer: Vom Unbehagen in der Moderne was published in 2023."
THIS MAKES ME DIFFIDENT. I HAVE NO MUCH INTEREST IN THESE TOPICS.
I write down my ideas, try to improve them, and am on a life mission to develop a new manner of thinking about the cosmos, life, the sciences, etc., in a purely theoretical manner and not political, artistic, environmentalistic, literary, etc....!
I am good in English and German. But I do not know whether our interests meet. I am also unaware of what sort of a conversation you expect of me.
Raphael
Hopkins Stanley
Would you kindly tell me what sort of discussions you have been planning for us? My question is very pointed. Are these going to be on any one specific topic, or a few? Would I be able to know the sort of topics under plan? Or, do you mean to have general discussions which begin with some themes and then lead to wherever each one of us leads it to? Are they video discussions or discussions on a website for expressing our views?
Kindly write to me. If you prefer my email, very good. This is my personal mail address: [email protected]
Thanks.
Raphael
Preprint ESSENTIAL LOGIC, EPISTEMOLOGY, AND ONTOLOGY BEHIND PHYSICS, ...
WHAT IS THE MYSTERIOUS STUFF OF INFORMATION? A Short but Clear Definition
https://www.researchgate.net/post/WHAT_IS_THE_MYSTERIOUS_STUFF_OF_INFORMATION_A_Short_but_Clear_Definition
Dear Raphael Neelankavil, I tried to sketch the frame of my epistemology. I don’t know if it is readable and intelligible. Nevertheless, if you take interest, I can explain more, rectify, discuss… It was not easy to condense without a common frame.
If you want, I can sketch the further constructions.
(I apologize for my English.)
Piergiorgio Quadranti. Please see:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Can_linguistic_idealism_the_position_that_language_determines_the_world_hold_in_any_sense_of_the_term_world_If_yes_in_which_sense
But you have been telling me that everything is a construction / construct! Existent things / processes are there outside, not in constructs!
Piergiorgio Quadranti,
In the paper you sent me, "Theory of Poesis 2", you began the discussions with the following statements:
"Epistemology is a comment on text. Its aim is to purpose criteria to accept it. This means, epistemology is the construction of a normativity (criteria) for writing and accepting texts."
FOR ME, EPISTEMOLOGY IS NOT A COMMENT ON A TEXT. IT IS MUCH MORE. IT IS WITH THIS YOUR PRESUPPOSITION THAT YOU HAVE CONSTRUCTED "CONSTRUCTION" AND THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTIVISM IN A DETAILED MANNER.
I do not think that any philosopher or scientist would accept "Epistemology is a commont on text". If this assumption is removed in a way that includes the how and why of perception, cognition, thought, etc. and then of course texts, it would be acceptable enough.
Hence, I would not like to start a discussion with such a statement.
Preprint COSMIC ISOTROPY, CONFORMAL CYCLIC COSMOS, ETERNAL INFLATION:...
THE PLANCK ERA / QUANTUM ERA and “DISAPPEARANCE” OF PHYSICAL CAUSALITY: “OMNIPOTENCE” OF MATHEMATICS
https://www.researchgate.net/post/THE_PLANCK_ERA_QUANTUM_ERA_and_DISAPPEARANCE_OF_PHYSICAL_CAUSALITY_OMNIPOTENCE_OF_MATHEMATICS
Dear Raphael Neelamkavil, y send to you my translation win italin with several corrections. I will correct the english versio after your criticisms.
Tanks
Giorgio
In order to connect physical processes with the epistemic aspect of our perception and theorization of physical processes, I pose the following questions:
Are there consistent physical theories which exclude causality completely from the cosmos? Or, do they exclude causality from some portions of the cosmos and permit it in some other portions of it? In that case, how do they permit any realistic physical connection between the causal portions and non-causal portions of the cosmos?
Now, the final question is: Can epistemology be in-formed in the causal nature of the cosmos?
You ask: In that case, how do they permit any realistic physical connection between the causal portions and non-causal portions of the cosmos?
This is a very question. But what means ‘realistic physical connection’? This cant means immediately ‘causal’. To answer, I must construct the notions of process, probability, causal relation, spontaneity (and freedom) and supervenience. I have already made but I must concentrate it. I will do as soon as possible.
The final question (Can epistemology be in-formed in the causal nature of the cosmos?) become how cosmology can be inserted in the (reached by) the constructivism. This supposes first to reconstitute the situation (empirical level) for cosmology. I have reconstituted such level for special relativity, I catch a glimpse of general relativity. Without such empirical level it seems my impossible to know the reality of cosmological theory.
Giorgio
Could you please show that "‘realistic physical connection’ cannot immediately mean ‘causal’"? Not via your construction theory. If everything is a construction, and you obviously mean by construction a text, then all sciences turn out to be a hermeneutics. If you think so, you can continue so. But I feel that the existence of things is more primary than the texts (in a general or restrictued sense) about them. Any realism that takes the existence of physical processes as primary is a realism.
Hence, how to connect realistically the causal portions of reality and the so-called non-causal? This is what I have meant.
Preprint PLANCK ERA or QUANTUM ERA,and ”DISAPPEARANCE” OF CAUSALITY. ...
I don’t know if you have received my reply. I send it again.
Giorgio
Preprint CAUSAL HORIZONAL RESEARCH: A METHODOLOGY IN PHYSICS Raphael ...
https://www.researchgate.net/post/WHAT_IS_INFORMATION_WHAT_IS_ITS_CAUSAL_OR_NON-CAUSAL_CORE_A_Discussion
https://www.researchgate.net/post/LINGUISTIC_HERESY_BEHIND_SELF-ORGANIZATION_SELF-REFERENCE_INTENTIONALITY_PHYSICAL_AND_BIOLOGICAL_SELF-INTERACTION_etc
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Preprint LINGUISTIC HERESY OF DENOTATIVE ABSOLUTISM: PHYSICAL-BIOLOGI...
https://www.researchgate.net/post/ONTOLOGICAL_DIFFERENCES_OF_CHARACTERISTICS_OF_ARTIFICIAL_AND_BIOLOGICAL_INTELLIGENCE_ALGORITHMS_AND_PROCEDURES_Against_Exaggerations
https://www.researchgate.net/post/WHY_EXACTLY_THE_WAVE-PARTICLE_DUALITY_Phenomenal_Ontological_Commitment_POC_as_the_Solution
https://www.researchgate.net/post/UNTENABLE_REIFICATION_OF_CONCEPTS_IN_PHYSICS_With_Examples
https://www.researchgate.net/post/DOES_CONSCIOUSNESS_EXIST_OR_IS_IT_LIKE_INFORMATION_A_Very_Short_Text_for_Discussion
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