Math constrains what the physical or the metaphysical ‘tries’ to do in that they can’t choose otherwise.
Well, thanks for the reply. You put your points very well, but I still can’t help but feel they’re rather philosophically impoverished. Again the reason I keep harking back to history is the conviction of there being a forgotten wisdom in the Western tradition. This forgetfulness constellates around the very point at which the Medieval synthesis collapsed along with the geocentric universe. Now of course I recognise that medieval cosmology was mythological and its Aristotelian physics thoroughly outmoded. But at the same time, the worldview provided a narrative within which the Universe was meaningful, and mankind a part of that meaning. I’m not suggesting any kind of return to that worldview, as if it were even possible, but for the recovery of a worldview within which that sense of meaning is still possible. And modern physicalism does not provide that.
Instead, we have a world picture of a meaningless cosmos guided by blind forces absent any purpose. There’s a profound division between the human subject with her cares and search for meaning and the abyss of meaningless that the vast universe (which is no longer really a ‘cosmos’) presents us with.
But I think that picture of the world which reached its apogee in the mid-20th century is also starting to crumble. Materialism is under question from many perspectives, some within science itself.
But please notice the assumptions behind that statement. Modern physics beginning with Galileo starts with abstractions and exclusions.
Abstractions, because its calculations assume theoretically perfect interactions between ideal bodies - perfect planes, points, straight lines, and so on. This is elaborated at great length in the book How the Laws of Physics Lie, Nancy Cartwright, 1983. ‘Nancy Cartwright argues for a novel conception of the role of fundamental scientific laws in modern natural science. If we attend closely to the manner in which theoretical laws figure in the practice of science, we see that despite their great explanatory power these laws do not describe reality. Instead, fundamental laws describe highly idealized objects in models.’
So these are not ‘basic axioms of existence’, they’re the working assumptions of physics. Saying that they are the most fundamental level of existence IS physicalism. I am arguing that these then occupied the vacuum left by the collapse of faith in ‘the Word of God’, hence the sense of almost religious zeal that underlies the writings of the convinced materialist.
Exclusions, because the model also presumes a division between ‘primary attributes of matter’ and the ‘secondary qualities’ which are said to inhere in the individual consciousness (arising from the combined works of Galileo, Descartes, and John Locke). Here the stark subject-object divide has been set up, with the individual conscience as the ‘arbiter of morality’ facing an indifferent world of brute physical stuff. But this too is a construction.
I must say that I think that you do not give sufficient attention to emergent behavior, by which things can become effectively ‘real’ even though they may not be part of the lower-level fabric of the universe. While you are opposed to physicalist reductionism, it seems you cannot help but equating ‘physicalist’* monist views of the universe with it as if you are blind to that there are alternative ‘physicalist’* monist views of the world.
Things like meaning, values, morals, etc. that you may find lacking in my view of the universe may not be part of the universe at a low level — they may not be ‘real’ in the sense that they do not exist a priori independent of anything else within the world — but that does not mean that they are not emergent upon embodied human existence, and that they make themselves effectively real in their impact upon humans as they actually exist in human societies.
Hence I myself cannot help but think that you may be pigeon-holing views of the world such as mine in terms of your own conception of what ‘physicalism’ is, that you cannot see past your own preconceptions here.
* I put ‘physicalist’ in quotes because strictly speaking the sort of scheme that I am for does not place physical matter at the lowest level of things, but it is still ‘physicalist’ in the sense that there is a low-level layer of particles, waves, and fields that subsequent layers are built upon.
What I’m getting at is that the “real things” are mathematically articulated. A certain kind of physicalist tacitly projects the “meaning” of physics math as “true reality.” But then some ask “what breathes fire into the equations ?”
For context, I don’t like idealism or physicalism or any kind of monism or any kind of dualism. Instead just a genial-flexible pluralism looks best to me.
Because it is a part of the grammar of such expressions. Physicists express themselves mathematically, then folk are surprised that mathematical expressions work for physics. 
Is there a basis for limiting this fascination to math, or does it extend to any analytic logical system? Does 1+1=2 live in the same reality as modus ponens?
Does the question I pose itself, which relies upon pattern recognition between logic and math, which is the engagement in inferential reasoning generally, in the same family as math?
To be completely honest, I think that logic is equally privileged with math, for the simple reason that without some underlying logic one cannot arrive at any conclusions about the world at all, that all one can do is make assertions — those who seek to treat logic as a mere human creation find that they have nothing to replace it with, and often contradict themselves by inadvertently attempting to use logic to disprove logic and thereby affirming logic.
I mostly agree with you. But I’d like the emphasize the difference between “logic is human” and “logic is mine as an individual human.”
We explain ourselves to other humans. We try to convince other humans that this or that claim is “good.”
So I agree that “logic is bigger than me somehow,” but it doesn’t ( obviously) “have” to be “bigger than humanity.” Or, more exactly, bigger than a generalization of humanity. Our biology doesn’t look crucial here. Because we might modify our genes, still enjoy Shakespeare, or talk about Plato with a purple lady from Neptune.
Disagree. Physicalism seems to have no requirement that the laws of physics be fully understood. We’re all quite aware that they’re not, and that fact doesn’t falsify physicalism.
Hence the general demise of materialism, differing in that it suggests matter being fundamental, as opposed to physicalism which says there’s nothing additional off to the side, but it allows material to supervene on something more fundamental.
I think you’re using one pair of words for two different things. There’s the human concept of mathematics and physics, which are used to model the world, and there are the laws and mathematics themselves (different than the approximation that is the models) that determine the nature of this universe.
A simulation might be an example, yes. Not all of them are. Few video game worlds can be accurately modeled with mathematical models, but then few video games depict physicalist worlds.
Sounds like a suggestion that our concepts of the laws are proscriptive, not just descriptive.
But then some ask “what breathes fire into the equations ?”
That’s a problem only for those that feel a need for fire to be breathed into things.
Again, a question to be answered only by those that assign such things to one or more realities.
I think, way down in fundamental pure mathematics, they go on for chapters about basic mathematics before they derive 1+1=2. Same ‘reality’ I guess, but not same level or branch. I was wondering if perhaps law of form might form some of the foundation to it all.
So my concern is fishing out the meaning of this difference. Are the laws “in principle” capture-able in human mathematics ? Are the laws “more than abstract form” ?
My “complaint” is that the “physical” is no longer physical when drained of its qualitative-sensory presence. If the “truth” about reality is mathematical, what makes it “more” than the “meaning” of this math ?
Sorry, I was joking, a bit. I just found it odd that simulations, intelligent design and God, were in a discussion about multiverses. All three involve speculation which goes beyond what we can logically, or mathematically say about the universe, or the world we find ourselves in.
From my POV, “laws” just describe our expectations. We tend to expect what has happened already. We expect patterns to persist. No deductive justification.
But we find this “expectation” there in the object itself. We comport ourselves expectantly. But our tools can surprise us. Why won’t this damned car start ?
Right. No fact can, because it’s a metaphysic.
And how would you go about comparing them?
The multiverse thing came up to help explain how we find our universe the way it is. Some of the types help with this explanation, and some don’t. The simulation one didn’t help, but it’s very much one type of multiverse: One can run multiple simulations. God can create countless universes for whatever purpose it finds in them.
All three involve speculation which goes beyond what we can logically, or mathematically say about the universe, or the world we find ourselves in.
Sure, but the same can be said of whatever the truth happens to be. Were we to hit on it by accident, there’d be no way of knowing it’s the right one out of who knows how many alternative interpretations. And this is presuming there is actually one ‘truth’ about it.
Abstracting is a mental exercise. Humans are not the only ones that do it. The laws of the universe (the mathematics going on) would not supervene on some entity abstracting it. That would be circular.
If you don’t see a difference between the concept of (abstracting) mathematics and mathematics itself, then you’re idealistic about mathematics. I’m not, but I happen to be idealistic about objective existence, but not idealistic about relational existence. That means I find the former to be a mental concept only, with no ding-an-sich about it.
Are the laws “in principle” capture-able in human mathematics ?
Maybe not. It depends on what mathematics is discovered (not invented) by humans before humans go extinct. AI seems to already be outpacing humans in mathematics, doing PHD level work, demoting mathematicians to the task of verification, as long as they’re still able to follow what the AI is doing. So what if AI manages to create a viable unified field theory but humans are incapable of understanding it? In that case, the laws are in principle capturable by expressible mathematics, but not necessarily capturable by human expression of mathematics.
That’s your choice. AFAIK, physicalism (that which it describes, not it being described) has no requirement of qualitative anything.
Those are the human created descriptive equations, distinct from the actual proscriptive laws. Yes, humans, like almost any being, need to predict. We’re evolved to do that.
Haven’t I been doing that in these posts?
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To each their own, of course ! But a “physical object” without sensory quality is dehydrated water from over here.
I’m coming at this from something like Mach’s position, which is close to Einstein’s in “Physics and Reality.”
The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of every day thinking. It is for this reason that the critical thinking of the physicist cannot possibly be restricted to the examination of the concepts of his own specific field. He cannot proceed without considering critically a much more difficult problem, the problem of analyzing the nature of everyday thinking. On the stage of our subconscious mind appear in colorful succession sense experiences, memory pictures of them, representations and feelings. In contrast to psychology, physics treats directly only of sense experiences and of the " under- standing " of their connection. But even the concept of the " real external world " of everyday thinking rests exclusively on sense impressions. Now we must first remark that the differentiation between sense impressions and representations is not possible; or, at least it is not possible with absolute certainty. …
I believe that the first step in the setting of a " real external world " is the formation of the concept of bodily objects and of bodily objects of various kinds. Out of the multitude of our sense experiences we take, mentally and arbitrarily, certain repeatedly occurring complexes of sense impression (partly in conjunction with sense impressions which are interpreted as signs for sense experiences of others), and we attribute to them a meaning–the meaning of the bodily object. Considered logically this concept is not iden- tical with the totality of sense impressions referred to; but it is an arbitrary creation of the human (or animal) mind. On the other hand, the concept owes its meaning and its justification exclusively to the totality of the sense impressions which we associate with it. The second step is to be found in the fact that, in our thinking (which determines our expectation), we attribute to this concept of the bodily object a significance, which is to a high degree independent of the sense impression which originally gives rise to it. This is what we mean when we attribute to the bodily object " a real existence."
The justification of such a setting rests exclusively on that fact that, by means of such concepts and mental relations between them, we are able to orient ourselves in the labyrinth of sense impressions. These notions and relations, although free statements of our thoughts, appear to us as stronger and more unalterable than the individual sense experience itself, the character of which as anything other than the result of an illusion or hallucination is never completely guaranteed. On the other hand, these concepts and relations, and indeed the setting of real objects and, generally speaking, the existence of " the real world," have justification only in so far as they are connected with sense impressions between which they form a mental connection.
Note : I think “representation” is best read as the connection of a sensation to a public sensory object. While a “hallucination” is a sensation that I don’t connect to a sensory-shared object.
Just because Einstein sounds like a phenomenalist here ( in the style of Mach and Mill) doesn’t mean that “phenomenalism is the best.” Of course. But some may be intrigued. Why this priority of "sensation " ? In the ancient times ( Mach versus Boltzmann, etc.), “sensation” was “obviously” important to “empirical” science.
Understandable that you might suspect that, but no. I don’t think there is “immaterial meaning” apart from “quality” ( “sensation,” etc.) Or that “quality” (sensation, emotion, etc.) is therefore “meaningless.”
I don’t think that “experience” refers to something “inside” of subjects. Don’t believe in “qualia” either. I think “qualia” are an awkward way to try to account for the “presence” or “quality” of objects.
Is mathematics not, like all other human domains of practice, expression and inquiry real as such, while also being uniquely based in the material reality of diversity, difference, identity, logic, number and quantity?
What do you mean by ‘material reality’? In what sense is mathematics ‘based on material reality’?
The materiality of lived experience is endlessly diverse…the matrix of the many…number is thus intrinsic.
That’s a non sequitur.