TPF : Metaphysical versus Anti-Metaphysical

[Gnomon]

The problem with this is that you are lacking substance here. Meaningful relations between weightless things does not magically create a "massy world". Substance is what gives mass its inertia, its resistance to change, the ability to support you when you walk. So for example, if the ground was composed of meaningful relations of weightless things, we need to know why these relations are resistant to change. It is this resistance to change which produces the appearance of weight, and the massy world. But telling me that this is the result of meaningful relations doesn't tell me anything, unless you can say why some relations are more resistant to change than others. Does this mean that some are more meaningful than others? Why are some relations more meaningful than others? — Metaphysician Undercover

Good questions! But difficult to answer, due to the material bias of language. So, we resort to debatable analogies between metaphysical Concepts & physical Objects.

Aristotle made a distinction between two kinds of "substance". : 1. Primary Substance -- Being qua Being, or 2. Secondary Substances -- species & genera (i.e. specific instances of Being). As I interpret those categories, Primary Substance is Essence (massless potential), but Secondary Substance is Matter (massy existence). The earthy "ground" I take for granted is Secondary & sensory, hence no mystery. But, the "substance" that "miraculously" gives mass to matter is Primary & abstract. Actually, Mass is merely a different form of Energy : energy transforms into mass, which is the property of matter that is mysteriously attracted to other masses via gravity (L. heaviness).

In my thesis terminology, Primary Substance is the Power to Enform, to give form to the formless. In Einstein's equation, that mysterious ability to create Mass from the massless is "magical" Energy. And according to current Information theories, Energy (potential) is merely one form of generic Information -- the same non-stuff that creates Meaning in a brain. So, shape-shifting Information does seem to be magical -- but it's also material, and that's what brings massless ideas back down to earth.

Relations that are "resistant to change" are eternal & infinite, like Primary Substance : the essence of Being. Meaningful Relations are mental analogies. Physical Relations are thermodynamic ratios.

"More meaningful" in this context can be understood as higher Valence. In a thermodynamic ratio, the relative valences are expressed in higher & lower abstract numbers representing degrees of energy content (hot/cold). But, in mental evaluations, numerator & denominator are evaluated in terms of significance to Self (good/bad).

Any more questions?


Ratio : the quantitative relation between two amounts showing the number of times one value contains or is contained within the other.

Valence : the combining power of an element ; a value that adds-up

The mass-energy-information equivalence principle :
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.5123794

Is information equivalent to energy? :
The bit of information is equivalent to a quantum of minimum energy
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1401/1401.6052.pdf

[Gnomon]

Let's not forget the intense mentalistic bias of forum philosophers who won't/can't ingest any criticisms thereof, attached for the usual reasons to go stories. — lll

Your perception is accurate, even though your aim is off. This forum does have two strategic factions : mental emphasis vs physical emphasis. The pro-Metaphysics posters are talking about human Culture, while the anti-Metaphysics posters are focused on non-human Nature. The "pros" typically have no problem with Natural Science, but as appropriate on a Philosophy forum, they are more interested in Cultural phenomena (e.g. beliefs & practices). So, they necessarily have a "mentalistic bias". Culture is the specifically human aspect of the natural world.

Human culture is difficult to study by means of the reductive scientific method. That's why Psychology and Sociology essentially gave-up on trying to emulate Hard Science, and remain mostly philosophical & holistic in their methods (i.e. induction & argument ; systems instead of parts), and standards of evidence (e.g. logical coherence instead of physical replication). Philosophical theories are also non-falsifiable in that there are no mental "Black Swans" to refute a hypothesis. Testing of Philosophical theories is logical instead of physical. Unfortunately, you can lead a person to Truth, but you can't make him believe it.

Therefore, Philosophy can be characterized as "non-science", but not as "pseudo-science". Because it does not pretend to be producing empirical evidence for physical theories. It's merely trying to produce reasonable models of intangible human concepts. So, the standards of evidence for Philosophy are different from those of Science. That's why your "criticisms thereof" are not "ingested". They may be food-for-physical-belly, but not nourishment-for-metaphysical-thought. Your error is what Popper called the "Demarcation Problem". Hence, you are shooting at pseudo-science, and hitting thin air.


What Is the Difference Between Hard and Soft Science? :
In general, the soft sciences deal with intangibles and relate to the study of human and animal behaviors, interactions, thoughts, and feelings.
https://www.thoughtco.com/hard-vs-soft-science-3975989

Human Culture vs Nature :
Culture can be defined as all the ways of life including arts, beliefs and institutions of a population that are passed down from generation to generation. Culture has been called "the way of life for an entire society." As such, it includes codes of manners, dress, language, religion, rituals, art.
https://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/mph-mod ... ness2.html

Popper's Falsifiability Theory :
* Karl Popper believed that scientific knowledge is provisional – the best we can do at the moment.
* Popper is known for his attempt to refute the classical positivist account of the scientific method, by replacing induction with the falsification principle.
* The Falsification Principle, proposed by Karl Popper, is a way of demarcating science from non-science. It suggests that for a theory to be considered scientific it must be able to be tested and conceivably proven false.
* For example, the hypothesis that "all swans are white," can be falsified by observing a black swan.

Demarcation Problem :
For Popper the central problem in the philosophy of science is that of demarcation, i.e., of distinguishing between science and what he terms “non-science” (e.g., logic, metaphysics, psychoanalysis, and Adler's individual psychology).
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/

Induction vs Deduction :
Induction is a specific form of reasoning in which the premises of an argument support a conclusion, but do not ensure it. . . .
Deduction is a form of reasoning whereby the premises of the argument guarantee the conclusion.
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/en ... hilosophy)

Note -- Philosophy does not speak of physical Reality, but of mental Ideality.

https://www.quotemaster.org/images/77/7 ... b5ec91.jpg

[Gnomon]

Does Kastrup think E & M are not correlated mathematically? What does the "=" sign in E=MC^2 mean? — Gnomon
He does, and of course that's true. But I was leery of the 'intangible energy' idea, as if that amounts to anything more than or other than physics. But I'm considering the idea that even the humble "=" sign has no physical equivalent, it's a purely rational idea, but without it maths couldn't even begin. — Wayfarer

I assume you got that idea from Kastrup's Materialism is Baloney, which I haven't read. But, I have read The Idea of the World. His worldview seems to be similar to my own Enformationism, in which Information (meaningful relationships) is the Ontological Primitive. However, I locate that "primitive" in the mind of the Programmer, not in the multiple minds of her avatars or creatures. Therefore, what seems "tangible" to me, should also seem real to anybody else.

In other words, Reality is objective, not Subjective. So, what I experience as Energy or Matter is actually out there. It's only my interpretation, my model of reality, that exists subjectively in my mind. Yet, we all -- energy, matter, & me -- exist in the imaginative Mind of God (the Enformer), so to speak. In which case, the "Idea of the World" is generated by the Cosmic Mind, not by me. Consequently, I have to take Einstein's word for it that Energy is mathematically (logically) correlated with Mass, but neither is itself a material object, but merely a Potential for causation and for materialization.


Do we know what matter is? :
That leaves the question of mind vs. matter. What is primary? What is, in Kastrup’s words, the “ontological primitive”? Rovelli says it is all relations, yet there can be no relations that we know of without stuff. Relations don’t operate in a void. What is the stuff that makes relationships work? Kastrup says it is mind. That mind, or Mind, generates the perturbations of energy in the medium of mind and we call those perturbations the stuff of reality.
https://medium.com/top-down-or-bottom-u ... 5a335ac874

[Gnomon]

Primary substance, as defined by Aristotle is the individual, the particular, such as the individual man, or individual horse. Secondary substance is the species such as "man" or "horse". — Metaphysician Undercover

I can't claim to be an Aristotle scholar, but I got my definition from a philosophical dictionary. In the definition below, I don't concern myself with the confusing "qualifications". Instead, I interpret the distinction in a way that makes sense for my Enformationism thesis. The term "substance" today is usually defined as the material from which a thing is constructed : as a sculpture from marble or clay. But, in my thesis, I'm more interested in the mental or metaphysical concept (Platonic Form or Essence) of which the sculpture is an imitation. So I typically use "substance" to mean Real Matter, and "essence" to mean Ideal Mind. See below.

PS__Likewise, Information has "qualifications" that can be confusing if not carefully defined. In essence it is Ideal & Universal, but in particular, it can become Causal Energy, or Material Object. I didn't just make this up. It's where Information Theory has developed : that shape-shifting Information is the essence of reality : matter, energy & mind.

How does Aristotle define substance? :
Aristotle defines substance as ultimate reality, in that substance does not belong to any other category of being, and in that substance is the category of being on which every other category of being is based. Aristotle also describes substance as an underlying reality, or as the substratum of all existing things.
https://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/ ... sophy.html

7. Substance and Essence :
One might have thought that this question had already been answered in the Categories. There we were given, as examples of primary substances, an individual man or horse, . . . Ζ.3 begins with a list of four possible candidates for being the substance of something: essence, universal, genus, and subject. . . . Aristotle’s preliminary answer (Ζ.4) to the question “What is substance?” is that substance is essence, but there are important qualifications.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aris ... taphysics/

Essence :
In philosophy, essence is the attribute (or set of attributes) that makes a thing be what it fundamentally is. It is often called the “nature” of a thing such that it possesses certain necessary, metaphysical characteristics or properties in contrast with merely accidental or contingent ones.
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Essence

The notion of noble Lincoln is the essence (primary substance) of which the marble is the material (secondary substance) :
THE SHAPE IS NOT THE FORM
http://enformationism.info/enformationi ... _05_06.jpg

[Gnomon]

Essence is "substance" in the secondary sense, notice "universal", "genus", "subject". That is how secondary substance is defined. In the primary sense, substance is defined as the individual. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is another example of the philosophical problem with our materialistic (matter-based) language. Aristotle defined "substance" from two different perspectives (the "qualifications" I mentioned before). When he was trying to distinguish his pragmatic philosophy from Plato's idealistic ideology, he took matter as the primary. But when he was trying to define his notion of "hylomorphism", he had to distinguish the Actual material (hyle=stuff) from the Potential design (morph=pattern). Hence you have a which-came-first dilemma : the mental idea or the material actualization of the design?

Since I'm an Architect, I tend to think that the mental image (imaginary structure) is prior to the physical building (material structure), hence primary. And morph/form is what I mean by Aristotelian "substance" as the immaterial essence of a thing. I realize Ari's ambiguous reference is potentially confusing. My Enformationism worldview is plagued by many similar dual-meaning words : such as physical "Shape" vs mental "Form". Do you know of another philosopher who found a non-ambiguous term to distinguish between Substance and Essence?


hylomorphism, (from Greek hylē, “matter”; morphē, “form”), in philosophy, metaphysical view according to which every natural body consists of two intrinsic principles, one potential, namely, primary matter, and one actual, namely, substantial form. It was the central doctrine of Aristotle's philosophy of nature.

Two kinds of Structure :
1. mathematical structure is an imaginary (idealized) pattern of relationships (links) without the nodes.
2. physical structure is the actual nodes arranged into a pattern resembling the mental design.

https://www.socialsciencespace.com/wp-c ... -nodes.jpg