On Ontology

Simon Iff

*Addendum: I do publish something here which I wrote in 2011 for the people I am working with, I have all the rights to the text as it is wholly mine, but it is not yet officially copyrighted elsewhere. As it would really fit into, and perhaps help, with those parts of debates here that concern ontology - like those about the origin of Liber Al, the existence of preternatural entities or aliens, the existence of astral planes etc. ... I have decided to pre-publish a snippet of this my work here.

Small portions may be quoted for the purpose of debating the topic of Ontology if attributed to abovementioned author; bigger portions if responding on the present thread of publication only.

The complete text will be published as part of a bigger work during the course of the next year. All this being the case, please respect the preliminary copyright notice issued in accordance with the text's purpose here. Thanks!*

Differentiation of Facts & Beliefs

It is essential for the ability to differentiate between beliefs and facts, between unprovable ideas and knowledge, to understand that any fact will offer testable predictions about the future, while a belief will not. Facts can be derived from potential facts by being suitably verified in their predictions. Beliefs can be shown to be potentially destructive pieces of information as they will - in any case (!) - either claim a difference where there is none or make wrong predictions about the future. Anything that constitutes a potential fact must have the two attributes of having an observable difference that can, at least in principle, be tested (very- or falsified).

Experience-Oriented Empirism

As anything deserving the name of science can thus be shown to be a form of experience-oriented, empirical process, the process of knowledge generation can be formulated as a closed loop between induction and deduction:

Induction means the summarisation of many facts into general laws or principles which, in turn, are further summarised into one or more models.
Deduction means the derivation and prediction of future facts from the aforementioned general laws or principles. These predictions, when compared with the empirically observed facts, lead to the decision to keep, alter or discard the relevant laws or principles in all models concerned.

The process of science can therefore be formulated as the memetic evolution of information - models and laws or principles:

If the principles or models are kept this corresponds to retention.
If they are falsified or discarded this corresponds to selection.
And if they are altered to better fit the facts this corresponds to mutation.

To avoid ideological fallacies - not only those stemming from occult or esoteric concepts, but also some that have become the norm in parts of the scientific establishment (especially the so-called „sceptics” movement) we do not use the third kind of inference, termed abduction.

We are exclusively interested in „what-for” predictive models that were derived by synthetic a-posteriori methods - i.e. via the aforementioned induction-deduction loop. We are not interested in „explanatory” „why” causal models that were derived by analytical a-priori reasoning, i.e. abduction. The reason for this is that we are, in principle, not interested in „why” our models were „true” after an observation but exclusively in their predictive value for the phenomena that we are interested in. We should perhaps add that analytic „why” explanations (aka abductions) have limited sense if one is trying to understand the implications of a model or the interactions of the principles it consists of, but if one indulged in that activity it should be kept in mind at all times that its results only give information about the internal workings of the model reflected, but none at all about the relationships between the model and experiential reality!

Holistic Functionalism Paradigm

Any science needs a paradigm fitting for the object of its research. Any specific point of view on the relationship of models and experiential reality - therefore also the nature of models and reality - is called a paradigm. Paradigms can be roughly differentiated along the lines of two differentiations: Realism versus constructivism and materialism versus spiritual worldviews:

Realism assumes that the world is how it is entirely independently of what we think about it. Models, from the viewpoint of realism, are pictures of the world that get closer and closer to „the real picture” as time and research go by.
Constructivism notices that anything we know or think to know about the world are our own constructs, which implies that the world changes with our concept of it, and might even turn out to be nothing but a big construct itself!
Materialism assumes that the world consists entirely of matter, and that consciousness is simply an emergent property of matter. The argument for that point of view is usually that matter influences mind on a massive scale, while influences of the „mind over matter” persuasion are, at least according to materialists, much rarer, more doubtful or perhaps entirely delusional. Materialists therefore assume that the world is largely an objective, aka very intersubjective, place.
Spiritual worldviews, to the contrary, observe that anything we do know about the material universe - including the matter mind itself seems to emerge from, the human brain - we know exclusively through the medium of consciousness or mind. As the film „Matrix”, a modern version of Plato’s cave allegory, has aptly demonstrated, that fact could actually indicate that the material world we assume to perceive could be partially or even wholly illusionary itself, massively misunderstood or even not exist at all! Spiritual worldviews assume that the world is a subjective, not very intersubjective place reacting to the whims of its subjects - though these subjects need not be equals, some might be potent gods, or even one god etc.

There is currently no unequivocal method to decide which of these paradigms is the case. The solution we choose for this is based on the principle that if two ideas do not have an observable difference to differentiate between them but at least one of them must be the case, we have to assume that both must be correct at the same time.

The unifying idea of realism and constructivism is called Functionalism. Functionalism acknowledges that while it is indeed the case that anything we know about the world, living beings and the mind are our constructs of perception (we have to learn what a „table” is, a newborn baby or a jungle dwelling tribe will not be able to reliably identify one) or cognition (our models), it is also correct to say that the best models are those which have the highest predictive value for the biggest spectrum of future experiences based on the fewest assumptions possible.

The unifying idea of materialism and spiritual worldviews is termed Holism. Holism implies that while we cannot decide if mind or matter, subjective or objective experience is „more real” - objective experience merely being an average sum total of many subjective experiences - we can actually determine, even measure, the degree of intersubjectivity any given experience has, amusingly this degree of intersubjectivity can be objectively determined.

The paradigm we will use for our psychic research is therefore a Holistic Functionalism. That paradigm will only accept strictly experience-oriented, empirically generated predictive models that include information from all steps of the intersubjectivity scale (from objective to partially intersubjective - aka astral in occult worldviews - to subjective).

Examples for other possible paradigms are:

Materialistic realism aka „naïve realism”. 18th and 19th centuries natural sciences and today’s „sceptics” movement.
Spiritual realism. Buddhism and high middle ages occult hermeticism.
Materialistic constructivism. The kind of philosophy currently taught at most universities.
Spiritual constructivism aka „radical constructivism”. Mainstream esoteric and the science of ethnology.
Holistic constructivism. The occult movement of chaos magick.
Holistic realism. The integral psychology of Ken Wilber et al.
Materialistic functionalism: The de-facto paradigm of all craftsmen.
Interestingly, there seem to be no examples for a spiritual functionalism.

Supercontingency

In the framework of the functionality paradigm different models which exhibit comparative predictive values, even if they are mutually exclusive in their assumptions, can be used in conjunction with each other. This can take place either as parallel use, united as a unified meta-model or in the form of „friendly competition”, as we are not interested in finding the „one true model” (whatever that may mean) but in maximised functionality in relation to its given aims instead.

According to Moravec, any quantitative model can be formulated as a Fourier transformation of the form y=a+bx+cx²+... for any prediction of „if x, then y” or x->y. The fact most interesting for our purposes is that there are usually more than one, entirely equivalent correct solutions for any such equation. This phenomenon of contingency in models - in the case of contradictory models, supercontingency - is a very important and useful feature of a holistic functionalism paradigm.

The creation of Predictive Models

We now know what is needed for the generation of knowledge when we want to create or utilise functional predictive models. Based on the secure foundations of the older and more reliable sciences such as psychology, sociology, the relevant theories about evolution, physics etc. we need:

To separate belief from potential fact and then potential fact from fact validated by experiment.
To find common principles in our facts via induction and by the same process unify these into models which can predict future facts accurately using deduction.
A holistic, functionalistic paradigm as we are describing entangled psychological and physical processes.
To take differing, even self-contradictory models into account, i.e. our approach needs to be supercontingent.
To look for facts.

The last principle of knowledge generation which therefore needs to be taken into account is therefore the practical format in which we are going to describe the empirical facts which all our principles and models are going to be built on.

The most basic criterion for any fact is to have two events, A and B, which symbolises that A and B are statistically correlated. Two further criteria have to be measured to extend our understanding of the correlation: The probability C with which - if expressed in percent, aka how often out of 100 observations - A and B are encountered together, and the intersubjectivity D of the correlation (for how many observers out of 100 the correlation is the case, with an average probability of C).

If C is close to 100%, the correlation is linear; if not it is probabilistic. If D is close to 100% we are observing an objective or completely intersubjective correlation, if it is close to 0%, a subjective or non-intersubjective correlation; if it is somewhere in-between, an astral or partially-intersubjective correlation.

At this point we can express the correlation of A and B, whose occurrence has an average probability of C for as many observers as the the observer’s sample size and the intersubjectivity of D indicate, with the expanded formula of:
...C
A - B
...D
To finish our template for the formulation of any fact we are researching we have to find the exact nature of the observed correlation between A and B.

There are four possibilities. The correlation could be:

Causal: If A happened before B and B won’t happen without A.
Coincidental or time-looped: If A sometimes happens before B, and sometimes B before A, and creating one event - irrelevant which - seems to trigger the other (with the probability C).
Retrocausal: If A always happens before B, but A happens with the probability C if B will happen (in the future), and not the other way around!
The fourth possibility is an erroneously assumed correlation which is in fact linked to a third variable which triggers both A and B though they are not actually directly causally or coincidentally correlated with one another. In case of such an error, the correlation will almost certainly originally look like a coincidence, until a more thorough search reveals that the probability (C) of A triggering B (or vice versa) is actually 0%.

Based on the above, any fact can be formulated using one of the following formulae:
.............C
Causal: A -> B
.............D
............................................C
Coincidental or „time-looped”: A <-> B
............................................D
....................C
Retrocausal: A <- B
....................D
...........................................0
Erroneous (not actually a fact): A - B
...........................................D

(I have to insert the damn dots to correctly position my C's and D's and 0 in the qualitative formulae. The forum doesn't allow otherwise. Please imagine that the dots are not there.)

Small portions may be quoted for the purpose of debating the topic of Ontology if attributed to abovementioned author; bigger portions if responding on the present thread of publication only.

Simon Iff

@Patthana Gati said

"Simon - I have a question. Might abduction the same thing as (or a form of) philosophical analysis? Or conceptual analysis? (Both non-empirical forms of science.)

...

I just thought I'd ask as I go, as I've never heard this term 'abduction' before."

Concerning abduction, and what that is, is explained much better than I could here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abduction_%28logic%29

Note how the rejection of it in my ontology text corresponds to the "curse on why and because" in a certain book.

@Patthana Gati said

"And isn't it a bit unfair to say "As anything deserving the name of science can thus be shown to be a form of experience-oriented, empirical process" when non-empirical forms of research are also deserving of the name of science and serve her very well - as you've mentioned with theory or model building which is a non-empirical branch of science. And what about Literature review? Where would we be if we had to work out how to build the wheel again every time we took the corn of science to the grindstone (which needs a wheel too...)?"

That is a misunderstanding I can clear up. Of course model-building, literature review etc. are also absolutely integral parts of science! But only if on a sound foundation of controlled experiences, i.e., experiments!

Note that also, for example, following the instructions of Liber O is a controlled experiment. The prediction is that certain results will follow, at least in the psychosomatic experience of the practitioner, perhaps also as an effect on other people. That is a model and can be tested, reviewed etc. Then to check if and for how many people the predictions come true, partially true or not.

Now, from many experiences, we can (via induction) form models or principles of what will happen. All the stuff abovementioned by you comes into play now!

Mistakes of mystics: To think that it is enough to "believe" in the exercise (or controlled experiment) and/or its presumed source. Had Crowley thought like that, Liber O wouldn't exist in the first place!

Mistakes of sceptics: To think that the controlled experiment isn't nescessary, because "we" (meaning materialist POV rationalists) already know that it can have no objective effect and if there is a not completely intersubjective effect, it's "nothing". That is bullshit too of course, and ties in with what I answered Frater Potater about the peer review processes not so utopian as he seems to happen to believe.

Empiricism and rationalism are two different "schools" of natural science, and at the moment rationalism has the upper hand number-wise (which has to do with the way scientists' career paths work atm, and which people pay for everything etc. Not utopian at all.) Rationalism can easily lead to ignoring experiments one does not like in principle or result, and instead of changing one's models if something doesn't fit to experiment some people are wont to change the experiment instead of the theory.

So, this is where I am coming from, all the stuff you listed of course constitutes valid instruments of science, but only if in reference to empirical research. And no recourse to authority (which ever) can alter anything about that, it simply is factual - for all involved in the process of gathering understanding.

Bereshith

@Simon Iff said

"We are exclusively interested in „what-for” predictive models that were derived by synthetic a-posteriori methods - i.e. via the aforementioned induction-deduction loop. We are not interested in „explanatory” „why” causal models that were derived by analytical a-priori reasoning, i.e. abduction. The reason for this is that we are, in principle, not interested in „why” our models were „true” after an observation but exclusively in their predictive value for the phenomena that we are interested in."

This represents the difference in what I consider actually provable and worthy of presentation as fact, and my own personal hypotheses as to why something is true (explanation), which I confess cannot be proven to be more than meaning projected onto facts by myself. The scientist in me continually tries to isolate the difference between the two, and I call this process "learning."

I do reject, however, any argument that attempts to use science to prevent me from being personally convinced regarding anything *at all *regarding my own why-hypothesis. As long as I do not demand universal acceptance of my why-hypothesis (or explanation of causal relationships), I'm only speaking of my own meaning-making as opinion and not trying to pass it off as fact. Therefore, science, which by your definition should deal with facts alone, has no claim on what I have already conceded is merely personal conviction (complicated by the false distinctions assumed by words themselves) as to why. I believe that the attempt to create a fact-informed why-hypothesis is the whole motive behind science, though it must carefully limit itself to what it claims are the objective facts that inform the process of individual why-making.

"There is currently no unequivocal method to decide which of these paradigms is the case. "

I whole-heartedly agree, despite how I am interpreted.

"The paradigm we will use for our psychic research is therefore a Holistic Functionalism. That paradigm will only accept strictly experience-oriented, empirically generated predictive models that include information from all steps of the intersubjectivity scale (from objective to partially intersubjective - aka astral in occult worldviews - to subjective).
"

"Holistic Functionalism" - that's a new term to me, and one that I will work to remember. I would say, yes, this concept already is at work in me to discern fact from belief, despite how I am interpreted.

See, if someone is going to argue outside of empirically demonstrated * facts *that someone else's projected why-hypothesis is stupid (i.e. more subjective than their own subjectively projected why), then I'll work to point out the subjectivity that they have hidden from themselves.

I do not presume to do so from a position of superiority of my own subjectively projected why-hypotheis, but from what I consider to be equal footing. I work to get people to see precisely that "There is currently no unequivocal method to decide which of these paradigms is the case."

So...

Bad facts - I try to point that out.
Bad logic - I try to point that out.
Falsely superior why-hypothesis - I try to point that out.

I completley accept that we are all playing a game of making subjective meaning of facts and that each person has the inherent right to do so.

If I find myself to be breaking this rule, I do try to fix it, but not at the expense of forfeiting what actually can be argued from facts or logic.

An individual is allowed personal delusions if they like them.

An individual is not allowed to proclaim their personal delusions as undeniable fact without being challenged.

I mean, ultimately, they are allowed, but if we are going to attempt to value discussion and debate of these things with one another, asking questions and presenting ideas to one another, these are the rules I try to play by.

Simon Iff

@Bereshith said

"This represents the difference in what I consider actually provable and worthy of presentation as fact, and my own personal hypotheses as to why something is true (explanation), which I confess cannot be proven to be more than meaning projected onto facts by myself. The scientist in me continually tries to isolate the difference between the two, and I call this process "learning." "

Agreed.

One is the attempt to make models of your surroundings, the other (what you call "meaning projected onto facts by myself") is the attempt to make a model of your-self.

@Bereshith said

"I do reject, however, any argument that attempts of science to prevent me from being personally convinced regarding anything *at all *regarding my own why-hypothesis. As long as I do not demand universal acceptance of my why-hypothesis (or explanation of causal relationships), I'm only speaking of my own meaning-making as opinion and not trying to pass it off as fact. Therefore, science, which by your definition should deal with facts alone, has no claim on what I have already conceded is merely personal conviction (complicated by the false distinctions assumed by words themselves) as to why."

If what you're saying is that the objective parts of science are concerned with outside facts - and you with your personal meaning-making - partially based on these facts - then I agree.

@Bereshith said

"I believe that the attempt to create a fact-informed why is the whole motive behind science, though it must carefully limit itself to what it claims are the objective facts that inform the process of individual why-making."

I do not agree. The purpose of objective science is the production of models that make good predictions.

As you argued above (and I concur), the meaning-making is more subjective - and if that should happen as a science, there would have to be subjective science, too. Which I argued to be possible in principle in the ontology text above, but is not done in today's natural sciences.

@Bereshith said

"
@Simon Iff said
"There is currently no unequivocal method to decide which of these paradigms is the case. "

I whole-heartedly agree, despite how I am interpreted."

Cool!

@Bereshith said

"
@Simon Iff said
"The paradigm we will use for our psychic research is therefore a Holistic Functionalism. That paradigm will only accept strictly experience-oriented, empirically generated predictive models that include information from all steps of the intersubjectivity scale (from objective to partially intersubjective - aka astral in occult worldviews - to subjective).
"

"Holistic Functionalism" - that's a new term to me, and one that I will work to remember. I would say, yes, this concept already is at work in me to discern fact from belief, despite how I am interpreted."

Happy the new term turns out to be useful for you!

@Bereshith said

"See, if someone is going to argue outside of empirically demonstrated * facts *that someone else's projected why-hypothesis is stupid (i.e. more subjective than their own subjectively projected why), then I'll work to point out the subjectivity that they have hidden from themselves.

I do not presume to do so from a position of superiority of my own subjectively projected why-hypotheis, but from what I consider to be equal footing. I work to get people to see precisely that "There is currently no unequivocal method to decide which of these paradigms is the case.""

You can also test subjective or partially-subjective partially-objective claims, are you aware of that? That was part of the point of my whole text. The distinction between objective and subjective is perhaps not as sharp as you would think it to be ...

You can for example test the hypothesis that Liber O works for "all people with attributes XYZ" and/or you can test the hypothesis "Liber O works for me"! Consider that also others could test if "Liber O works for Bereshith" is the case! (That does not devalue your argument, but blurs the lines a bit)

@Bereshith said

"So...

Bad facts - I try to point that out.
Bad logic - I try to point that out.
Falsely superior why-hypothesis - I try to point that out."

Makes perfect sense to me.

@Bereshith said

"I completley accept that we are all playing a game of making subjective meaning of facts and that each person has the inherent right to do so.

If I find myself to be breaking this rule, I do try to fix it, but not at the expense of forfeiting what actually can be argued from facts or logic."

Agreed.

@Bereshith said

"An individual is allowed personal delusions if they like them.

An individual is not allowed to proclaim their personal delusions as undeniable fact without being challenged.

I mean, ultimately, they are allowed, but if we are going to attempt to value discussion and debate of these things with one another, these are the rules I try to play by."

The question I would ask at that point would be if it isn't a quite destructive pasttime to keep one's personal delusions, but that is another topic.

One last comment. I have the massive suspicion that the phenomenon termed the HGA here and differently in other places / cultures / contexts is an inner, subjective model that realises itself subconsciously through certain (usually contemplative) exercises and lifestyle. A model of self that becomes so good in its predictions that it supersedes the original self.

And that further modifies the distinction between objective facts and subjective meaning - which you uphold - a bit , this would be my only but perhaps fundamental criticism. It implies that there are also subjective facts and objective meaning(s) and stuff inbetween.

Long text, whoever finds grammar mistakes due to length may keep them.

Simon Iff

@Patthana Gati said

"I like what you said about "subjective facts and objective meaning(s) and stuff inbetween"."

The "stuff inbetween" subjective and objective (or clearer not-intersubjective and totally intersubjective) - that which is partially intersubjective, something that does not even have an established mainstream word in modern western thinking - is functionally exactly stuff like "the astral", "aura", "chi", etc. Not just in your head - but not objectively there the same for everyone else like most tables, either.

Note that means that you can empirically - via induction-deduction loop - design predictive models about the astral. How's that?

Bereshith

@Simon Iff said

"I do not agree. The purpose of objective science is the production of models that make good predictions."

I concede the distinction between my own motives for implementing scientific methodology and the strictly-defined purpose of scientific methodology as that of producing models that make good predictions.

In other words, I find myself motivated to use the tool that produces good predictive models for my own purpose of refining my personal why-hypothesis by limiting that hypothesis to non-contradiction of demonstrable facts. (Forgive my possibly over-simplistic terms.)

"As you argued above (and I concur), the meaning-making is more subjective - and if that should happen as a science, there would have to be subjective science, too. Which I argued to be possible in principle in the ontology text above, but is not done in today's natural sciences.

. . .

You can also test subjective or partially-subjective partially-objective claims, are you aware of that? That was part of the point of my whole text. The distinction between objective and subjective is perhaps not as sharp as you would think it to be ..."

I would need further instruction in the construct and methods, which I'm open to hearing.

"The question I would ask at that point would be if it isn't a quite destructive pasttime to keep one's personal delusions, but that is another topic."

I agree, but I do not deny a indivdual's ultimate right to do so - until they become a hazard to others. I don't care if they are a hazard to themselves, personally. I consider it their right.

"One last comment. I have the massive suspicion that the phenomenon termed the HGA here and differently in other places / cultures / contexts is an inner, subjective model that realises itself subconsciously through certain (usually contemplative) exercises and lifestyle. A model of self that becomes so good in its predictions that it supersedes the original self."

Interesting way to present that. I'd like to ponder it a bit...

"And that further modifies the distinction between objective facts and subjective meaning - which you uphold - a bit, this would be my only but perhaps fundamental criticism. It implies that there are also subjective facts and objective meaning(s) and stuff inbetween."

Hmm... I think I'd have to hear this fleshed out with some possible examples to understand what you intend.

Thanks for the conversation.

Bereshith

So... How do you justify rejecting an ontological approach based on a specific theoretical model?

Wouldn't you then necessarily have to adopt the ontology of the theoretical model?

What is the ontological approach of the Orch OR theoretical model?

Bereshith

lol... Careful, or you could be accused of following a Penrose and Zizzi "believer script" without understanding.

Bereshith

Noted.

Yet, the question of whether you can demonstrate understanding of your own ontology remains.

Simon Iff

Hi guys, just writing to say I haven't forgotten this thread.

Patthana, you actually raise some quite important points with your questions & criticisism - when my life beyond the keyboard yields more time again, I will have something to say in response!

Simon Iff

Hi P,

So sorry for delay.

@Patthana Gati said

"I don't agree with the a priori basis of this."

Let me cite wikipedia:

"A priori knowledge or justification is independent of experience (for example "All bachelors are unmarried"). Galen Strawson wrote that an a priori argument is one in which "you can see that it is true just lying on your couch. You don't have to get up off your couch and go outside and examine the way things are in the physical world. You don't have to do any science."; a posteriori knowledge or justification is dependent on experience or empirical evidence (for example "Some bachelors are very happy"). A posteriori justification makes reference to experience; but the issue concerns how one knows the proposition or claim in question—what justifies or grounds one's belief in it."

In other words, a priori is only possible in already defined relations between already modelled principles. Any other knowledge "independent of experience" does not even make sense as a concept, what would you base your knowledge (which, after all, must deliver predictions for future experiences) on?

In light of this, you probably have to clarify what you mean with this sentence to me.

@Patthana Gati said

"The Orch OR model says that consciousness intersects with any object that can be perceived before the moment of perception and then learning can begin. So I have to say that as a fan of Orch OR - it is my view that while perception must be processed to make it useful and functional, we can know things about the world before they are processed and even before they are perceived by the senses."

There are diverse logical errors in this sentence.

First - as Bereshit has already pointed out, I think - you base models on ontology and not the other way around for obvious reasons. You can only criticise an ontology from experience, never from a model about experience, it's putting the cart before the horse.

Secondly, you cannot say "perception must be processed to make it useful and functional" on the one hand and then "we can know things about the world before they are processed and even before they are perceived by the senses" on the other hand. It is reality (?) -> perception -> language game (Wittgenstein) of models ... and knowledge is part of the modelling or language game. You can't jump over the perception step.

Third, funnily enough I found out that I have already known the Orch OR model, for more than a decade. I just didn't know that some people call it like that. I knew people who knew the people who developed it. The model does indeed say "consciousness intersects with any object that can be perceived before the moment of perception" - as does every model and also paradigm except extreme spiritualism and constructivism - but it does not claim "... and then learning can begin". As far as I can see, that is a claim you added, nowhere even implied in the Orch OR model, perhaps you can elaborate how you came to that conclusion?

@Patthana Gati said

"For this reason I would also be disinclined to favour Holism, or Holistic Functionalism as a paradigm for psychic research."

Later, you wrote "... there is a prime philosophical objection to using a model for predictive purposes that has a faulty ... assumption to them ..." Well, my counter-argument is basically what I wrote above.

@Patthana Gati said

"While you may not be interested in "finding the one true model""

It's not a question of interest, it's a question of possibility. If you have understood how realism is not the last word ontologically, you should have understood that it is simply not only not possible to achieve something like this, it is not even possible to find out how close to "the true model of reality" you are. So, this would be a blind alley anyways.

@Patthana Gati said

"Even if a chain of reasoning, or model building manages to correctly make predictions of an event, because the chain was based on a false a priori assumption then it will obscure the reason for the successful prediction and leads to a sort of blind sight at the core of the research, because the fundamental a priori assumption itself is going untested."

A priori again. A priori would be something that, without having to make an experiment - ever - is obvious to everyone just by thinking about it. That is the meaning of a priori. Meaning, that it is useless to use the term in a reflection about ontology.

Also, "if a chain of reasoning, or model building manages to correctly make predictions of an event" is the only objective consensus we can ever have about the quality of models. The sentence "Even if a ... model ... correctly ... predictions ... an event, because the chain was based on a false a priori assumption then it will obscure the reason for the successful prediction and leads to a sort of blind sight at the core of the research, because the fundamental a priori assumption itself is going untested" is entirely useless due to that.

An a priori assumption cannot be tested, ever - it is an assumption not based on experience or experiment - OK?

If I take your above argument at face value, you can rest literally 100% assured that any and every model we have now - even in the hardest natural sciences - has that blind sight at the core that you suggest. It doesn't matter. Wrong assumptions will be found by partially wrong predictions in specific data regions and eventually the error will be fixed - such is the ongoing process of science.

So, conclusion, I take issue with four layers of your arguments:

Look up again what a priori means. In the context here it is a useless term ... and the way it is usually used, it is useless in generating knowledge anyways.
You can't argue against an ontology coming from a model. You have to counter the ontology on its own terms, or you are building the roof before the foundation.
The only thing relevant to the quality of a model is its quality of successful predictions, nothing else. Go anywhere else with this, and you will land yourself in a believer script.
The Orch OR model uses the paradigm of Materialistic Constructivism, most quantum mechanical models do. The really interesting question is - which interpretation of quantum mechanics is going to turn out to be the correct one? There are other "the brain is wholly or partially a quantum computer" models out there and all of them agree on certain aspects. Many-worlds? Many-minds? Collapse or no collapse? And so on. You based some assumptions on your understanding of Orch OR, which is not complete in this regard.

Hope that is an answer you can answer to, if you will

Simon

Uni_Verse

Been meaning to go through this thread for a while now,
Doing so slowly so if my query is answered later on, my apologies:

@Simon Iff said

"It is essential for the ability to differentiate between beliefs and facts, between unprovable ideas and knowledge, to understand that any fact will offer testable predictions about the future, while a belief will not."

Would a belief from which testable predictions are derived become a fact?
Or in that case it was never a belief to begin with, merely mislabeled as such?
I feel the distinction is a fact can be used to objectively predict (with a certain threshold of accuracy),
Where a belief is an untested or contested and can through mutation become a fact

Simon Iff

Hi Uni_Verse!

@Uni_Verse said

"
@Simon Iff said
"It is essential for the ability to differentiate between beliefs and facts, between unprovable ideas and knowledge, to understand that any fact will offer testable predictions about the future, while a belief will not."

Would a belief from which testable predictions are derived become a fact?
Or in that case it was never a belief to begin with, merely mislabeled as such?"

Please note that the term "Belief" is used with a specific meaning here, and the sentence above is only correct when this term is used in that context. For example, I found out that both Mr. Eshelman and Los use the term "Belief" differently than what is meant here and different from each other also, so for both "Belief: Index Eshelman" and "Belief: Index Los" the sentence is not the case, simply said: wrong.

That cleared up, in the sense and context that the word "Belief: Index On Ontology text" is used here, "a belief from which testable predictions are derived", actually, can be derived at all, would cease to be a "mere belief" and become a potential fact (potential as we would not yet know if its predictions will be verified or not).

So, you are entirely correct, I cite you, "in that case it was never a belief to begin with, merely mislabeled as such"!

@Uni_Verse said

"I feel the distinction is a fact can be used to objectively predict (with a certain threshold of accuracy)"

A fact can even be used to predict subjective or partially intersubjective connections, or stuff that is not always the case but "sometimes" (which you can quantify as a probability) and even phenomena that do not follow normal causality.

So what you say is the special case of something that could be treated in physics, yet facts are not so narrow to be only appliable to the hard sciences - a point I (unsuccessfully) tried to get over to Los.

@Uni_Verse said

"... a belief is an untested or contested and can through mutation become a fact"

No, a belief in the way the term is meant here is differentiated from even a potential fact that it cannot, even in principle, be tested. It literally has no prediction, or a prediction that is a word game and as such not even a statement.

The moment it can in principle be tested, it is a potential fact (again, in the sense of the word how it is used here). Which still doesn't mean it's the case (a fact) - for that we have to experiment, in other words, experience systematically

Did I clear that up? Ask or debate away at will!

Regards,

Simon

Uni_Verse

Hullo!

@Simon Iff said

"
Please note that the term "Belief" is used with a specific meaning here, and the sentence above is only correct when this term is used in that context. "

Yes, it has been noted.
My questions were engineered to better my understanding of your definition.

While I feel you may actually be speaking of something else, it is a moot point as far as this thread is concerned...
( Recent happenings , though, have put the notion of creating a lexicon in my head for use on the forum)

@Simon Iff said

"Did I clear that up? Ask or debate away at will!"

You did, thank you.

I read through the post and some of the responses and insofar can not say I disagree.

Am I understanding the following correctly:

About Could we say this ? :
At 100%, it is an objective phenomenon, not requiring an observer (or experimenter)
Around 50%, the phenomenon can only occur when an observer exists, though it need not be observed directly or observed to occur
At 0% it is entirely reliant upon the perceptions of the observer

@Simon Iff said

"* Retrocausal: If A always happens before B, but A happens with the probability C if B will happen (in the future), and not the other way around!"

C would be the probability that A will occur if and only if B shall occur at some point?

Simon Iff

Hiho!

@Uni_Verse said

"Am I understanding the following correctly:

About Could we say this ? :
At 100%, it is an objective phenomenon, not requiring an observer (or experimenter)
Around 50%, the phenomenon can only occur when an observer exists, though it need not be observed directly or observed to occur
At 0% it is entirely reliant upon the perceptions of the observer"

You are mixing two different questions here: How intersubjective a phenomenon is - this is what the stand-in "D" is for - and if and how far a phenomenon is observer-dependent or independent of what anyone thinks about it.

At 100% you have an objective phenomenon, at reliable for one observer only (so not exactly 0%) a subjective phenomenon. With a margin. Even hardcore physical phenomena might sometimes be, say, 95% intersubjective and would still be considered as objective, and even very personal experiences might be, for example, 10% intersubjective and still be considered basically subjective.

The wide margin inbetween about 5% and 95% usually manifests itself in experience as the kind of "energetic", prana, chi, astral (in the sense of both yetziratic and briatic, as the terms are used here) phenomena which western thinking has such trouble to even formulate due to a culturally deep-ingrained "inner-outer" dualism.

But the question if something is observer-dependent or not is another question. Some phenomenon can be as good as 100% intersubjective, but be very dependent on how and even if it is observed. This is, for example, the case with most quantum mechanics experiments. Or something can be very personally subjective, but still not budge if one changes their way of thinking about it. We all know such stuff. We decide to for example not to feel bad when we really have to come down on someone who earned that, but even though our feeling is a very subjective one, we can't simply change the subjective experience by thinking differently about it.

You are correct on the objectivity/partially intersubjectivity/subjectivity front, but not as far as observer-influences are concerned. This is a different question and can be this way and that way in specific cases, irrelevant how the "intersubjectivity status" of the phenomenon in question is.

@Uni_Verse said

"
@Simon Iff said
"* Retrocausal: If A always happens before B, but A happens with the probability C if B will happen (in the future), and not the other way around!"

C would be the probability that A will occur if and only if B shall occur at some point?"

Yes, exactly.

Regards, Simon