Getting To and From Monism
5Dagon
1unication
5Mitchell_Porter
3unication
3Gordon Seidoh Worley
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2Gordon Seidoh Worley
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2Gordon Seidoh Worley
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2Gordon Seidoh Worley
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2Gordon Seidoh Worley
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2Gordon Seidoh Worley
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2Gordon Seidoh Worley
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2Gordon Seidoh Worley
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2Gordon Seidoh Worley
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We can start from a point of complete skepticism about everything. Regardless of your specific beliefs about the probability of a simulated universe, or if you are a pure idealist, you can say with confidence that at least something exists
If you can say that, you can say a lot more. You can say what experiences and memories you have. There is variance and a perception of time and change. Oops, monism no longer makes sense.
Variance does not have to necessarily entail the existence of a separation of 'background' and 'foreground' substance. It is possible to have a single substance, which, due to dimensionally-symmetrical disturbances (which keep space at a local constant density) can cause higher level representations of those disturbances (ie. particles) to appear to 'move'.
A perception of time does not foreclose on monism either. Time is a measure of when, not a physical thing that can be stretched or compressed. Hence, there is no disagreement with the axiom when we say that time is not made of substance.
It could be argued that this is part of the original axiom, but honestly, you are correct in saying that it is not insinuated by my original claim. So I'll say that this is maybe a secondary axiom, but conceptually linked to the main one.
there's an awful lot of actual physics that you can derive from this axiom
I am curious but very skeptical...
I'll go over it in this comment very briefly — I'm trying to write a post for next week.
Firstly, we consider the global structure of the universe. We would like to have the overall dimensional structure to be the simplest structure required for propagation of matter through a completely locally similar universe. This means that any contraction in any dimension has to be balanced by expansion in another, and in a simple 3D universe, this axiom wouldn't be able to produce the results that we see in reality. Increases in density require fluidity, which requires discrete foreground particles moving past one another in background space. So we must have a perfectly consistently dense universe.
So the structure of a universe must be a symmetrical closed group containing one- and three-dimensional components, i.e. if we assume symmetry and a finite 3 + 1 universe, then having a universe like a Lie group (S1 x S3)² is minimal. This set is the product of two 3 + 1-dimensional components, one of which is very large compared to the scale of humans, and the other is very small.
So a local coordinate system would look like this: (w,x,y,z,W,X,Y,Z)
w-x-y-z is your classic 3 + 1 space, with w acting as a time-like dimension. These dimensions are very large.
W-X-Y-Z is a set of extremely small dimensions that act like the 3 + 1 space above, except that they are so small that propagations can easily resonate around them. It is the presence of these 'inner dimensions' that allows for the existence of matter, that is to say, the existence of mass. By travelling around the inner dimensions, a wave obeying [1] can be “at rest”, as far as larger-scale beings such as ourselves are aware.
“Perception” is a much neglected and much maligned term in the hard sciences. For the avoidance of doubt, perception, as we use the notion in this book, has nothing whatsoever to do with psychology, sense-data or mental interpretation. Perception is more fundamental than that: it falls into the domain of pure mathematics. The relevant fact is this: no entity can perceive a dimension in which it is symmetric. Why not? Because perception is based on distinctions between things — this object here rather than that object there — and an entity with symmetry in an inner dimension cannot, mathematically speaking, make any such distinction with regard to contents of that dimension. Nor, as a result, can the entity perceive the dimension itself: there is simply no physical mechanism by which the relevant data can enter the would-be perceiver.
A subject perceives an object only in those dimensions in which a) object, b) subject, and c) the relationship between them vary.
This theorem underpins much of the model, and a comprehensive understanding of it is a prerequisite for what follows. It has three facets. Firstly, a subject may fail to perceive an object, because the object has no variation. This is trivial. If there’s nothing to be perceived, as on a pitch dark night, then nothing is perceived.
Secondly, a subject may fail to perceive an object, because the subject has no variation. A single photoreceptor the size of a football field cannot track the movement of the football across the field. While this is obvious in analogy, it is not trivial in general, and is of paramount importance to understanding the nature of our physical reality.
Thirdly, a subject may fail to perceive an object, because subject and object have the same variation, as when both measuring ruler and measured object stretch by the same factor. No stretch is perceived. This is not trivial either.
What happens when matter (us) perceives matter (our surroundings)? Well, matter is constructed of waves travelling around the inner dimensions; this requires that matter waves resonate in the inner dimensions; in turn, this requires that matter waves have inner-dimensional symmetry. So, according to subject-symmetric imperceptibility, the inner dimensions must be imperceptible to any entity built of matter, whether it be a human being or a piece of laboratory equipment. Hence, while it may seem, at first glance, reasonable to question the whole affair, asking, “Why has no one ever seen these extra dimensions?”, the question itself is, in fact, a misunderstanding of the relevant mathematics. The very act of perception is, by definition, matter-based, so any dimension or dimensions that go symmetrically into the generation of the phenomenon “matter” are automatically imperceptible.
From here, we can attempt to find what is observable and what is not, and build up and understanding of the mechanisms behind the generation of higher-order concepts like matter & mass.
- ^
This is the wave equation. Small disturbances Ψ in the substance of the universe obey the eight-dimensional wave equation .
Your arguments don't prove monism. I'm not sure if they really prove anything, but if they do, it's that stuff interacts. But I'm sympathetic to what you're trying to think through here, and I'm glad you posted your thoughts so we can discuss them.
To pick on one point to dissect, there's no reason to conclude that if existence were made up of two different things then they wouldn't be able to interact. There are flavors of pluralism other than tradition mind/matter dualism that give an account of how this would work, and even dualists propose that there exists a bridge, often said to be located uniquely in humans, that links the two. So you'd either need to engage more deeply with the ways pluralists claim that different types of stuff interact to disprove their claims, or give a constructive proof of monism rather than an indirect proof.
On a broader point, though, I want to warn you that you're digging into metaphysics here meaning you're trying to answer questions that go beyond our ability to know. There's not no value in exploring these ideas and seeing what you can learn from wrestling with them, but the question of whether the world is made of one fundamental type of stuff or more can't be answered because we exist inside the world and thus have limited access to know that world because our knowledge of the world is always contingent on the world itself. We can at most know what things look like "from the inside", but this limits our ability to make claims about what the world actually is. We face similar problems trying to reason about questions like the simulation hypothesis, moral realism/anti-realism, etc.
With regards to the bridge-based dualism that you discuss here, and indeed every single flavour of pluralism, I would argue that if you're making a gradual distinction between X and Y through a bridge Z, then it is not logical to say that either X, Y, or Z has an implicit existence outside of the whole {X,Y,Z} set, which could be inferred as a monism. All flavours of pluralism fall into this format, in which people pick certain world-qualities and claim they are different to one another (which is true) but then do not understand that by fact of their having-to-interact, this means that they have to share at least some gradient-similarity.
Here's another formulation of that:
A) If there are differences of type between X and Y that are expressible in a gradient, then there's a function that can explain this, which would have to explain both X and Y, and could be regarded as an X-Y monism.
B) And if there is a flat discontinuity between X and Y, then how can they interact? There would be no bridging function Z(X,Y), and there would be no possibility of them having any sort of linked existence.
So either A) is true and {X,Y} is explicable by monism, or B) is true and X and Y cannot interact, and therefore cannot both exist.
∴ A) has to be true.
I would argue that my arguments put forth here do prove a monism of sorts, but merely a logical one. We actually have to use this logic (which I have done partially in another comment, but I'm rate-limited right now...) in order to move towards an explanation of a physical monism.
And as for the exploration of metaphysical questions, I'd say that this point of looking at things "from the inside" is an incredibly interesting one. If we know we are looking at something from the inside at all? If we know we are inside something, then can we infer the existence of an 'outside' from this concept? These are all very complex questions and I think we'd be able to argue for days on them.
B) And if there is a flat discontinuity between X and Y, then how can they interact? There would be no bridging function Z(X,Y), and there would be no possibility of them having any sort of linked existence.
Yes, but what's the argument for why such a function Z could not exist? What does it mean for there to be a discontinuity between X and Y?
We create functions (or rather functors) between different categories of things all the time, and there always exists at least one functor between any two categories (other than between the empty category and any non empty category). This seems to trivially prove that we could have two different categories of stuff that don't interact and yet nonetheless are bridged, even if that bridge is trivial.
Your second paragraph reads to me in this way: We can create functions between anything that exists, as long as it exists. (ie. the empty category is simply non-existence) — I hope I'm right in reading that, since that argument is exactly what I'm trying to get at.
According to that statement, it is logically impossible to have a flat discontinuity between X and Y that could not be trivially bridged by a function — ∴ such a function Z could not not exist, which then proves that every X-Y pair can be bridged, which means that B) in my previous argument cannot be the case, then A) has to be the case, and therefore we arrive at a logical monism.
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I'd also say that if things do not interact, but then are bridged, then they interact by virtue of that bridging. Assigning a function which bridges two disparate, non-interlinked concepts makes them linked. For example, I could merely state that a rock on an extremely distant planet and my computer are not linked (by virtue of their being too far apart to ever possibly interact) — but even by linking them in this trivial fashion, they are linked. In fact, how would I know about this rock, and link with it, if they were too far apart to interact?
I would go one step further and say that I can even trivially link with things that don't actually exist. The only thing I'd say that you are unable to create a bridging function to is, as you said, the empty category.
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Also, can I just say thanks for taking the time to read through this. I've been lurking for a while on LW and the response I've gotten for writing this post has been lovely. Cheers.
1According to that statement, it is logically impossible to have a flat discontinuity between X and Y that could not be trivially bridged by a function — ∴ such a function Z could not not exist, which then proves that every X-Y pair can be bridged, which means that B) in my previous argument cannot be the case, then A) has to be the case, and therefore we arrive at a logical monism.
Yes, so to return to case A:
A) If there are differences of type between X and Y that are expressible in a gradient, then there's a function that can explain this, which would have to explain both X and Y, and could be regarded as an X-Y monism.
I kinda want to just say "wtf X-Y monism is not monism it's now made up of two things that's definitionally not what monism is".
To get a little more into why I think it's not worth doing metaphysics, there's this common pattern where, in order to describe reality, all metaphysical claims must converge to account for our observations. See, for example, this post on how moral realism and antirealism, in order to respond to objections, end up being more like two ways of framing the same theory rather than two actually different theories.
I think we're seeing that with your case A. Dualism posits that there are two things, like mind and matter or perhaps phenomena and noumena, and to explain how it is that we observe these two things interacting, we describe them as having a bridge between them, such as some special thing ensouled in humans. You argue this means there is one thing, but dualist counter that thoughts and things like mathematical objects aren't real in the same way a tree is because you can touch a tree but you can't touch a rectangle (though you can tough a thing that approximates the shape of rectangle), thus there are two things. Monism argues that since there's a way to link the two they must be the same thing, that thing being made up of X, Y, and Z.
But now both positions have converged to give functionally equivalent accounts of the world. I further claim that any version of any metaphysical claim that is true with respect to observed evidence will be similarly functionally equivalent, which means we have no way to distinguish them except by non-observable evidence, which we can't observe, so we can't use it to make a determination between them. Thus disagreeing but true with respect to observed evidence metaphysical positions collapse, and end up being more like an argument between people looking at an optical illusion that's both a duck and rabbit.
I think there is some value in figuring out metaphysics insofar as it helps us to dispense with obviously false metaphysical theories that people get sucked in by, but once we get to metaphysical theories that are coherent w.r.t all observed evidence, we hit a wall at which point doing more metaphysics can't tell us anything we don't already know, and exactly which flavor of metaphysical framing we adopt is mostly a matter of opinion, taste, and usefulness for our own thinking.
To get a little more into why I think it’s not worth doing metaphysics
Surely you can value whatever you like...or are you saying its not possible to make progress in metaphysics ?
all metaphysical claims must converge to account for our observations.
They must retrodict the same observations -- phenomena -- but that doesn't mean they have to agree on the behind-the-scenes mechanisms .
which means we have no way to distinguish them except by non-observable evidence,
Non observable "evidence" can consist of conditions like simplicity and consistency, which are accessible, even if not to the senses. They are also used in science.
They must retrodict the same observations -- phenomena -- but that doesn't mean they have to agree on the behind-the-scenes mechanisms .
That's true. But the behind-the-scenes mechanisms kind of don't matter then, other than as useful intuitive models. And I'm not saying there's no value to be had in good intuitive models. Just that treating metaphysics as something other than looking for fake frameworks is not useful.
It you place a terminal value on knowing how things really work, then it has a value for you, even if it's basically academic and lacking in instrumental value
Instrumental value doesn't float free of terminal value..it's got to be instrumental for something.
Sure, but I argue that you can't know metaphysics anyway, so it has no value even if you think you know it!
Know for certain? I think you have.conceded that some metaphysical claims are less likely than others.
Yes, of course, because metaphysical claims are still claims, and some of them are clearly false because they contradict available evidence. However, once we have a metaphysical claim that can't easily be disproven, now we have a claim that's up against the limits of our ability to know, and an important aspect we're leaving out here is that metaphysical claims make claims about the unknowable (otherwise they would be physical claims, not metaphysical ones).
The best outcome a metaphysical claim can hope for is "not yet proven wrong".
mathematical objects aren't real in the same way a tree is
I'd argue that this is largely meaningless, since if it is a purely mental concept, and all mental concepts have to supervene on physical reality (for it makes no sense to have a thought without something actually existing — this is not to say that I think that qualia doesn't exist) — then mathematical objects are real in the same way that a tree is, through our understanding of them.
exactly which flavor of metaphysical framing we adopt is mostly a matter of opinion, taste, and usefulness for our own thinking.
Ok, I'd say that this particular definition of the world as a monistic thing is extremely useful, and the proofs that you can get with regards to physics retroactively justify the world being a monistic thing.
Dualism makes no sense because if you agree that the two things interact through some sort of bridging concept, then surely, the concept as a whole must be continuous, and therefore one thing. Sure, I can say that yesterday and today are two different things, but I understand how they interact with one another. Yesterday becomes today via a process called a calendar, which explains both yesterday and today. Yesterday and today are just second-order concepts to the first-order concept of the calendar. (And I suppose the zeroth-order concept of time...)
Plus: Occam's Razor! I know it's a lazy, incomplete argument to rely on, but I really think that this sort of monistic metaphysics solves literally every problem. Argument? You're both one. Debate? You came from the same place. Physics? That's for my future LW posts!
Plus: Occam's Razor! I know it's a lazy, incomplete argument to rely on, but I really think that this sort of monistic metaphysics solves literally every problem. Argument? You're both one. Debate? You came from the same place. Physics? That's for my future LW posts!
Good luck!
(This is not sarcastic, I mean it sincerely, because even though I assign a high probability to your failure, I think you'll learn a lot in the process.)
I'd argue that this is largely meaningless, since if it is a purely mental concept, and all mental concepts have to supervene on physical reality (for it makes no sense to have a thought without something actually existing — this is not to say that I think that qualia doesn't exist) — then mathematical objects are real in the same way that a tree is, through our understanding of them.
I don't exactly disagree here, and just to be clear I'm not actually trying to make a case for monism or dualism or pluralism or any metaphysical stance, but a dualist would obviously object that you are eliding the important difference between mind and matter because humans have a good bridge between the two and it allows them to interact with the mental as if it were physical, which is the whole point of the mapping.
(What I am fundamentally trying to get you to see, if it's not clear, is that metaphysical arguments are actually arguments about intuitions disguised as arguments about the nature of reality, and that you can make any set of intuitions comport with observation given the right framing.)
I very much understand your comments on metaphysics and its general circularity, or ability to only prove things which they take as axiomatic.
So, if this is such a stumbling block, then how about we start by just assuming the single-substance universe, and work up from there with the physics? Have you read my response to Mitchell_Porter? I'm extremely interested in getting into the meat of things, because as much as what I'm saying is ridiculous, I've really put together the maths and it does largely check out.