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.)
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.)