Much ado about nothing. 
Waiting for Godo.
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You should phrase this as, ‘the manifold of time and space’. Then you might see that the fact tha we live in a complex world doesn’t put us in a position where we cannot analyze and talk about distinct aspects like time and space, even though they are related. ‘We live in a world of sights and sounds’, doesn’t mean that we cannot talk about each of these separately. We live “within the time space manifold” doesn’t mean that we cannot analyze and talk about these two separately.
This singularity is the product of the relativity theory which I reject. I reject it because it provides us with a false relation between time and space. Therefore I reject also the Planck limitations based in this theory. But the reality of these limitations is useful toward understanding.
What has been revealed however, by the use of this relativity theory, and the employment of the speed of light as the constant for measurement of velocity, and as a limit to the measurement of time, is that there is also a boundary, or limit to observable activity. This boundary manifests as the Planck boundary, by the application of conventional theories. The existence of this boundary implies that there are activities beyond this boundary which are not observable.
These activities cannot be described as “physical” nor as “material”. They are beyond the limitations imposed by these concepts. That there is “a singularity” here is simply an unsound conclusion derived from the unsound premises of the theories employed. If we deconstruct those theories, and move along to something more truthful, we ought to be able to get a better understanding of the (immaterial) activities which occur at this level.
Incidentally, I believe this is what both “string theory” and “quantum loop gravity” do, attempt to get an understanding of things beyond the Planck level.
I agree that this is only speculation. And, I also agree that theology and mysticism are very much applicable and useful to this speculation. Theology and mysticism give us a completely different perspective on “time”. The issue being that physics is locked into a specific perspective imposed by Newtonian determinism, and Einsteinian time. Along with that, it seems like the most respectable religion in the current sociological condition is scientism. This limits the common acceptability of speculation to that based in theories of physics; these are theories such as those mentioned above, effectively excluding well educated metaphysicians from reputability in their own field. Good principled ontology is rejected in favour of scientism.
That might be what you are saying, but I am arguing that at the base it is completely immaterial, and not even subtly material. Consider what the evidence of Planck scale indicates. There is a level, beyond which the motion of material things is not continuous. the particle is detectable here, then after a very short period of time, it is detectable there. It is not detectable between, and does not continuously traverse the space between here and there. This implies that during that very short period of time, something immaterial occurs which makes the particle disappear from here, and reappear there. This activity cannot be called “subtly material” because it is determined as unobservable, and therefore not an activity of the material particle itself.
This type of (immaterial) activity must occur everywhere, in the brain and in inanimate objects. However, in the brain, and in living beings in general, there must be something (commonly called the soul) which manages and harnesses this immaterial activity, effecting material change according to purpose.
That there must be physical (material) change which correlates to any and all passage of time, is the falsity, demonstrated by the limitations of Planck scale to be a falsity. Evidence indicates that there is a boundary to physical change, yet time still passes. In that time which passes, some sort of change occurs. Why would you conclude that this change must involve a form of “extension”? In the equations of physics, time has an inverse relation to space. So if space is described by 'extension", we’d be better off to call this “intension”, though this word already has a slightly different meaning.
I don’t buy this. Because we have no immediate access to it, does not imply that we are incapable of understanding it. There is really very little, if anything, that we have immediate access to. The challenge is to correctly understand the medium, so that we can separate the immediate from the mediated. If this requires mystical and theological terms, that is what it means to proceed philosophically. It is not throwing philosophy out the window, to the contrary.
Basically, that sums up the history of philosophy. Why not continue the tradition?
Let’s attempt a different approach, since you and I agree on a lot, but disagree on this point.
Let’s grant that the mind is not a “physical process” (whatever that means), what is gained by way of expanding our knowledge? So we have something in us that is that is an exception from nature or a radical divergence from it. That makes mind very rare indeed.
Of course, independently of this, it is true that large swaths of the world are mental constructions.
Now lets assume that the mind is a “physical process” (again, whatever this means). The mind is still something extremely rare in nature, and the world is still a mental construction, in large parts. But then we can say (or I can) that the mind arises from the world, in extremely rare circumstances.
I am not seeing a big benefit in saying that the mind is not physical. I’ll only add that it seems to me to be at best an assumption, that we exhaust “the physical” by saying that whatever it is, the mind isn’t part of it. It seems questionable to me that we know enough about the physical to say that we are able to exhaust what it is. History has surprised many times over.
This representation fails because the present is not a moving object. The present persists. And it is spatially distinct from the past and the future; it is separate. It is not enough to say that it is simply different; we must introduce spatial concepts in order to understand the difference. For example, what happened a hundred years ago is different from what happened fifty years ago. Here, it is not enough to say that the difference between 100 and 50 is a greater or lesser difference, but rather that it is a difference in cuasi-magnitude. We therefore say that 100 years ago is further removed from the present than 50 years ago. The spatial representation is appropriate here and helps us to understand the difference.
The only reason you have given for saying that this is unacceptable is that time is continuous. But I have already shown that this is not a problem. For the difference remains present within that continuity—a continuity which is precisely the property of the line. It is from the spatial line that notions such as ‘farthest’ and ‘nearest’ derive, depending on where we position ourselves on the line. Spatial representation is still necessary and adequated. The question es why is necessary and so adequated.
You are of course under no obligation to address what is a direct criticism of your OP.
You have chosen to structure your account around a mistake, supposing a discontinuity between mind and substance. The result is an inability to account for how one lifts one’s hand. The discontinuity between mind and matter you rely on is presumed by you, not shown by you.
You treat “equality” as a quasi-object, as is the want of Platonic scholarship; “being equal” as an ideal or form floating in some esoteric space. But “equal” is what we do; it’s the marking of two items as interchangeable; it is defined extensionally in this very way by the act of interchange.
And so there is no need for some non-material realm in which “equal” is located; that Platonic myth ought be laid to rest. What makes things equal is what we do with them, and mind is not a different sort of substance to matter, but what is done with matter.
This does not just counter your position, but shows how it was ill-founded from the start.
Indeed, just as the Emperor’s new clothes are stunning just so long as all acclaim that it is so.
Although, as it is written: “A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight.” (Proverbs 11:1) Of course, the point of a false scale is that it gets everyone to treat things as equal when they are really not. Yet if things are equal only in virtue of being called so, then there could be no false scales (except in virtue of being said to be so). This, however, would seem to collapse the distinction between “what men say,” and “what is.”
Your rhetorical flourish as usual hides the small argument it contains. You think you have the Hand of God reaching down to correct your balance. But all you actually have are more acts of balancing. A false balance is indeed an abomination; but you will not find the balance false by prayer; you will find it false by comparing it with yet another balance, and yet another; and by refining what you do with the balance.
It’s not only what we say, but what we do. That interaction with the world is were truth lies.
Thanks for your comments, but your response is rather confusing. If ‘large swaths of the world are mental constructions’, then you’ve already conceded the falsehood of physicalism. But then, it’s also difficult to say how you would distinguish between the ‘mental swaths’ and the remainder, so here you’re setting up another dualism.
In any case, the argument from equals is not about the rarity of mind. It’s about what mind is and what it does — specifically, what it grasps and whether that grasping can be accounted for within a purely physical framework. To refer back to the original post:
You’re viewing it through the perspective of Cartesian dualism, which it is not. True, there is a kind of dualism in Plato, but it is of a different kind. It was to become articulated later in Aristotle’s hylomorphism, the dualism of matter and form, not matter and mind, which is very different to Descartes (for which see Descartes’ Ghost).
But that is an act of judgement. It is something humans do when exercising judgement.
‘wont’.
I’ve said repeatedly that there is no no-material realm in any sense other than the metaphorical. Intelligibles such as ‘equals’ are not phenonenal existents, they’re obects only n the sense of ‘objects of thought’. I do advocate a style of Platonic realism, that is, I hold that such intelligibles are real. They’re not real as denizens of an ethereal realm but invariant acts of intellect.
Our world — the world lived and thought, the world in which we make judgments and move about — is held together by such judgements. But they’re not found amongst the objects of the physical sciences. As Edmund Husserl was to say millenia later than Socrates
…all knowledge, all science, all rationality, depends on conscious acts, acts which cannot
be properly understood from within the natural outlook at all. Consciousness should not be viewed naturalistically as part of the world at all, since consciousness is precisely the reason why there is a world there for us in the first place.
Not really. The critique of Cartesian Dualism works for your… Platonic dualism of matter and form itself a category mistake of immense proportion. In any dualism, there remains the problem of how the duality, once mooted, interacts.
Indeed, you have. But you have not understood that this does not help you; indeed, it hardly makes sense. How does treating “being equal” as a metaphor explain anything?
In logic, A=B is true exactly when the truth value is conserved when A is substituted for B. That’s what “=” does.
This explanation tells us what to do with “=”.
Now that is so very much clearer than floating metaphorical non-realms.
Take care: when you talk of judgements, that you do not fall victim to Tim’s point against relativism: If it’s only the judgement that counts, then how we judge is arbitrary.
It ain’t just judgement; it’s judgement in the world.
So you say. Various strains of hylomorphism are still vigorously defended by modern philosophers. The ‘problem’ you refer to is only a problem if ‘mind’ and ‘matter’ are depicted as separate substances. I’m not doing that.
That is beside the point. You’re taking for granted the very faculty which the argument draws attention to.
…defended only because they are critiqued. It won’t do to take it as given.
Not quite. If form and substance are seperate, as in your dualism, there remains the problem of how substance takes on a form. Yes, you have your answers, but to many other eyes, they are ad hoc and question begging.
Not so much. It is exactly the point - equality is done, as much as found. Calling it a metaphor is, on the other hand, useless. To my eye, and to others, you are creating a pseudo-problem by your use of language.
I’m not taking it as given. I’ve presented an argument for it, which you’ve yet to engage, other than by mischaracterisation of it.
It’s a nonsense to say that ‘equality is done’. Yes, I ‘do maths’, and, as it happens, I do it pretty badly. Why do I do it badly? Because there are mathematical concepts I don’t grasp. But that ‘grasping’ is surely not done by the hand, but by the mind.
‘Equals’ and other mathematical concepts are not metaphors. I’m saying the use of the term ‘object’ as in the expression ‘intelligible object’ is a metaphor. And a troublesome metaphor, as it what leads to the very reification of ideas, that you are accusing Plato’s philosophy of. Then the question becomes where is this object? How does it interact with material objects? And so on. If you looked at the Eric Perl text I provided by way of reference you would see that all of this is based on a mischaracterisation.
No it isn’t. here:
2+2=4
1+3=4
Given that “=” is a rule that sets out when it is legitimate to substitute, we can also write:
2+2=1+3
See?
Notice that the whole process did not require metaphor or platonic realms.
You said:
If your point is the trivial one that equality is not a thing like a cat or a chair, then we agree. If form and substance are separate, you owe us a non-question-begging account of how they connect.
The alternative is not to say that form and substance are not seperate, but to set aside the very game of form and substance. It doesn’t get us anywhere.
“I refute it thus!”
After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley’s ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, "I refute it thus.
— James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson
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Indeed, a very Wittgensteinian move: Show it, rather than say it.
The rock counts as the refutation.
What is the falsehood entailed by physicalism? What do you mean by the word? Dennett whom we both don’t like is a physicalist, Rovelli is a physicalist too, but they are very different.
What remainder? There is the “construction of the mind on the occasion of sense”. That’s what we interpret.
As for the ground of these objects (what is in the world absent us), we don’t know enough to say if they are mental or if they are non-mental.
As Betrand Russell pointed out:
“Having realised the abstractness of what physics has to say… It used to be thought ‘‘mysterious” that purely physical phenomena should end in something mental. That was because people thought they knew a lot about physical phenomena, and were sure they differed in quality from mental phenomena. We now realise that we know nothing of the intrinsic quality of physical phenomena except when they happen to be sensations, and that therefore there is no reason to be surprised that some are sensations, or to suppose that the others are totally unlike sensations…physics tells us nothing as to the intrinsic character of matter.”
One could say that a intrinsic property of matter is experience, and other things as well, such as sensations.
I don’t see a dualism here.
Of course I see. But it is tangential to the point of the argument. What I’m saying is that ‘the faculty which sees’ cannot be reduced to or equated with brain states as per D. M. Armstrong, Materialist Theory of Mind. Do you see?
I’ve given a set of examples a number of times the last few weeks, but I’ll recap them here for your benefit.
From Eric Perl, Thinking Being.
These three passages — from Russell, Feser, and Perl — converge on the same point from three distinct philosophical schools: analytic , Thomistic , and Neoplatonic.
The question “how do form and substance connect” assumes a Cartesian framework in which two separate substances — mind and matter — require a bridge. But that is precisely the framework these passages are arguing against. The intelligible content of things is not a separate substance requiring connection to the physical. It is the very intelligibility of things — what they are, their whatness — accessible to reason rather than sense.
Russell shows that universals are neither mental nor physical — not thoughts, but objects of thought, the same for all who grasp them. Feser shows that what the intellect grasps is categorically different from any mental image — exact, determinate, universal where images are always approximate, particular and private. Perl shows that the Forms are not occult entities in another world but the intelligible identities that constitute the reality of sensible things — not perceived by the senses, but grasped by reason.
The argument from equals in the OP belongs to this tradition. The equal itself is not a separate immaterial thing. It is what reason grasps when it recognises equality — an invariant, necessary, universal principle that cannot be derived from or reduced to sensory experience, but without which sensory experience cannot be rendered intelligible at all.
In the same way chomping into a hamburger counts as refuting arguments for veganism I suppose. 