I don’t see where dualism comes in. Specifically what kind of dualism are you talking about?
Being a monist means believing that if things don’t make sense, it is due to limited knowledge and a limited brain. But the problem of existence is such that no amount of knowledge will solve it: there’s nothing we could ever learn (or even believe) within X that would solve this problem. … So to the extent that I am correct that this problem is not in theory solvable in X means that X is incomplete.
A problem being unsolvable within some system does not imply that there is some outer system where it can be solved. Take the Halting Problem, for example: there are programs such that we cannot prove whether or not they will never halt, and this itself is provable. Yet there is a right answer in any given instance — a program will halt or it won’t — but we can never know in some cases.
That you say “I cannot understand what the answer to the problem could possibly be” suggests that it is a wrong question. Ask “Why do I think the universe exists?” instead of “Why does the universe exist?”. I have my tentatively preferred answer to that, but maybe you will come up with something interesting.
A problem being unsolvable within some system does not imply that there is some outer system where it can be solved.
Agreed, I was imprecise before. It is not generally ‘a problem’ if something is unknown. In the case of the halting problem, it’s OK if the algorithm doesn’t know when it is going to halt. (This doesn’t make it incomplete.) However, it is a problem if X doesn’t know how X was created (this makes X incomplete.)
The difference is that an algorithm can be implemeted—and fully aware of how it is implemented, and know every line of its own code—without knowing where it is going to halt. Where it’s going to halt isn’t squirreled away in some other domain to be read at the right moment, the rules for halting are known by the algorithm, it just doesn’t know when those rules will be satisfied.
In contrast, X could not have created itself without any source code to do so. The analogous situation would be an algorithm that has halted but doesn’t know why it halted. If it cannot know through self-inspection why it halted, then it is incomplete: it must deduce that something outside itself caused it to halt.
I agree that when a question doesn’t have any possibility of an answer, it’s probably a wrong question. But in this case, I don’t see how it could be a wrong question. It seems like a perfectly reasonable question that we’ve gotten habituated to not having an answer to. It’s evidence—if we were looking for evidence—that X is incomplete and we are in a simulation.
We take a lot of store in the convenient fact that our reality is causal. So why can’t we ask what caused reality?
I have my tentatively preferred answer to that, but maybe you will come up with something interesting.
No, I don’t come up with anything. I feel like anything that a person could possibly come up with would be philosophy (a non-scientific answer outside X). But please do share your answer (even if it is philosophy, as I expect).
(By dualism, I mean that there are aspects of reality we interact with beyond science, so that physical materialism or scientism, etc., would be incomplete epistemologies.)
No, I don’t come up with anything. I feel like anything that a person could possibly come up with would be philosophy (a non-scientific answer outside X). But please do share your answer (even if it is philosophy, as I expect).
Here’s where I stated it most recently, and I wrote an earlier post getting at the same sort of thing (where I see you posted a few comments), but at this point I’ve decided to abstain from actually advocating it until I have a better handle on some of the currently-unanswered questions raised by it. At the same time, I do feel like this line of reasoning (the conclusion I like to sum up as “Existence is what mathematical possibility feels like from the inside”) is a step in the right direction. I do realize now that it is not as complete a solution as I originally thought — it makes me feel less confused about existence, but newly confused about other things — but I do still have the sense that the ultimately correct explanation of existence will not specially privilege this reality over others, and that our mental algorithms regarding “existence” are leading us astray. That seems to be the only state of affairs that does not compel us to believe in an infinite regress of causality, which doesn’t really seem to explain anything, if it even makes logical sense. In any case, although I definitely have to concede that this problem is not solved, I am not convinced that it is not solvable. Metaphysical cosmology has been one of the most difficult areas of philosophy to turn into science or math, but it may yet fall.
(By dualism, I mean that there are aspects of reality we interact with beyond science, so that physical materialism or scientism, etc., would be incomplete epistemologies.)
Alright, that’s what threw me off. I think “dualism” is usually used to refer specifically to theories that postulate ontologically-basic mental substances or properties separate from normal physical interactions; not that “there are aspects of reality we interact with beyond science”, but that our consciousness or minds are made of something beyond science. Your reasoning does not imply the latter, correct?
Oh, that was you. I think the Ultimate Ensemble idea is really appealing as an explanation of what existence is. (The way possibility feels from the inside, as you wrote.)
Ask “Why do I think the universe exists?” instead of “Why does the universe exist?”
My answer to those questions should be the same. The process of answering either question should bring the two into line even if they were previously cached somewhat differently.
I don’t see where dualism comes in. Specifically what kind of dualism are you talking about?
A problem being unsolvable within some system does not imply that there is some outer system where it can be solved. Take the Halting Problem, for example: there are programs such that we cannot prove whether or not they will never halt, and this itself is provable. Yet there is a right answer in any given instance — a program will halt or it won’t — but we can never know in some cases.
That you say “I cannot understand what the answer to the problem could possibly be” suggests that it is a wrong question. Ask “Why do I think the universe exists?” instead of “Why does the universe exist?”. I have my tentatively preferred answer to that, but maybe you will come up with something interesting.
What is it?
Agreed, I was imprecise before. It is not generally ‘a problem’ if something is unknown. In the case of the halting problem, it’s OK if the algorithm doesn’t know when it is going to halt. (This doesn’t make it incomplete.) However, it is a problem if X doesn’t know how X was created (this makes X incomplete.)
The difference is that an algorithm can be implemeted—and fully aware of how it is implemented, and know every line of its own code—without knowing where it is going to halt. Where it’s going to halt isn’t squirreled away in some other domain to be read at the right moment, the rules for halting are known by the algorithm, it just doesn’t know when those rules will be satisfied.
In contrast, X could not have created itself without any source code to do so. The analogous situation would be an algorithm that has halted but doesn’t know why it halted. If it cannot know through self-inspection why it halted, then it is incomplete: it must deduce that something outside itself caused it to halt.
I agree that when a question doesn’t have any possibility of an answer, it’s probably a wrong question. But in this case, I don’t see how it could be a wrong question. It seems like a perfectly reasonable question that we’ve gotten habituated to not having an answer to. It’s evidence—if we were looking for evidence—that X is incomplete and we are in a simulation.
We take a lot of store in the convenient fact that our reality is causal. So why can’t we ask what caused reality?
No, I don’t come up with anything. I feel like anything that a person could possibly come up with would be philosophy (a non-scientific answer outside X). But please do share your answer (even if it is philosophy, as I expect).
(By dualism, I mean that there are aspects of reality we interact with beyond science, so that physical materialism or scientism, etc., would be incomplete epistemologies.)
Here’s where I stated it most recently, and I wrote an earlier post getting at the same sort of thing (where I see you posted a few comments), but at this point I’ve decided to abstain from actually advocating it until I have a better handle on some of the currently-unanswered questions raised by it. At the same time, I do feel like this line of reasoning (the conclusion I like to sum up as “Existence is what mathematical possibility feels like from the inside”) is a step in the right direction. I do realize now that it is not as complete a solution as I originally thought — it makes me feel less confused about existence, but newly confused about other things — but I do still have the sense that the ultimately correct explanation of existence will not specially privilege this reality over others, and that our mental algorithms regarding “existence” are leading us astray. That seems to be the only state of affairs that does not compel us to believe in an infinite regress of causality, which doesn’t really seem to explain anything, if it even makes logical sense. In any case, although I definitely have to concede that this problem is not solved, I am not convinced that it is not solvable. Metaphysical cosmology has been one of the most difficult areas of philosophy to turn into science or math, but it may yet fall.
Alright, that’s what threw me off. I think “dualism” is usually used to refer specifically to theories that postulate ontologically-basic mental substances or properties separate from normal physical interactions; not that “there are aspects of reality we interact with beyond science”, but that our consciousness or minds are made of something beyond science. Your reasoning does not imply the latter, correct?
Oh, that was you. I think the Ultimate Ensemble idea is really appealing as an explanation of what existence is. (The way possibility feels from the inside, as you wrote.)
My answer to those questions should be the same. The process of answering either question should bring the two into line even if they were previously cached somewhat differently.