Something Is.You cannot coherently deny actuality, because the act of denial itself Is.So we must distinguish>U = Underived Is-ness>D = Derived Is-nessIf something Is but is not the ground of its own actuality, then its Is-ness is borrowed. And if every thing were only Derived, then the actuality of the entire order would remain unexplained. An infinite regress of borrowed actuality never becomes Underived merely by getting longer. Every member still refers its Is-ness elsewhere. If you say the regress as a whole simply-Is without derivation, then you have admitted an Underived reality and merely renamed it “the regress.” If the whole is also Derived, the question remains unanswered.So>U -> D>D != UCreation is not part of God, but nothing Derived possesses an independent source of actuality.>Whence cometh "God" the agent?If consciousness genuinely Is, consciousness cannot be absolutely alien to the ultimate ground of Is-ness. The same applies to reason, agency, will, intentionality, relation, creativity, self-awareness, valuation, and every other genuinely positive faculty. If the Underived contained no positive adequacy whatsoever corresponding to consciousness, then some positive actuality appearing in D would possess no ultimate positive ground in U.The Underived therefore cannot be mere blank existence. It must be an Infinite Plenitude of positive faculty:No possible positive actuality can ultimately outrun God.This does not mean God expresses every possible faculty simultaneously.Faculty != expression.Potentiality != actuality.The plenitude of possible positive expression is Underived; the particular order actually expressed is determinate.Thus God is not one being inside a larger metaphysical system of being, logic, possibility, morality, and laws.God is the "Primordial Is" from whom every Derived actuality, every created faculty, and every objective order ultimately receives its Is-ness.
cool, try ascribing some actually meaningful and relatable attributes to your "God" next
>>18658086Consciousness reason, agency, will, intentionality, relation, creativity, self-awareness, valuation.That not all possibility within infinite plenitudinous faculty is actualized indicates discretion, consciousness.
Even nothing is a something. Nothing cannot exist. Simple as.
Everything everywhere every-when exists all at once and nothing matters. Anything that has or will happen has already happened and is already happening. The turtle on top of the turtle supports the turtle beneath it. Everything is just constantly being rearranged from our limited point of view.
>>18658098The concept* of nothing exists. Nothing itself is not an Is.
>>18658084I agree with your reasoning completely, it’s clean. Just don’t forget that all dependent things are empty of both svabhava and separate causehood. Everything you see is an articulation of the single action.
>>18658109Derived things permit emergent causehoods without overwriting God’s ultimate causehood.
>>18658084>If something Is but is not the ground of its own actuality, then its Is-ness is borrowedand how would u prove this? its unknowable. thus a worthless distinction.>An infinite regress of borrowed actuality never becomes Underived merely by getting longer. Every member still refers its Is-ness elsewheretime can be an infinite chain where each thing relies on the past things to do something now but there didnt need to be a beginning.>God is the "Primordial Is" from whom every Derived actuality, every created faculty, and every objective order ultimately receives its Is-ness.if our world already always existed in an infinite chain of finite events, theres no need for god.
>>18658129It depends on if you mean weak emergence or strong emergence. Keep tracing what makes a thing act—its structure, history, environment, inputs, prior causes—and you never arrive at a sealed little emergent generator that says, “from here, causality originates from me.” Only God originates causal arrows, creatures just channel them.
>>18658155> and how would u prove this?If something is fully caused, then it doesn’t exist in itself by itself.
>>18658159did you not get my question? how do you truly KNOW what is "fully" caused / "the ground of its own actuality" / having "its Is-ness borrowed"
>>18658084Go to bed
>>18658155So the regress itself is Underived?>>18658156Agents possess genuine agency. Agents can be emergent orthogonal causes. Inanimate objects work more like you’re saying.
>>18658191>So the regress itself is Underived?"the regress itself" is not a specific thing that exists beyond conceptually in your mind. in reality its a pattern of the infinite chain of finite events.
>>18658213>a patternAnd it obeys rules? So it’s a thing that exists? And you say say it is not grounded by anything outside of itself? Thus it’s Underived?
>>18658095so an incoherent, schizoid and empty demiurgic azathoth with nothing possibly relatable to humanity contained withinkant and schopenhauer have already done this line of thinking in a far superior manner to yourself, this is a pointless line of thought
>>18658217>And it obeys rules? So it’s a thing that exists?i see now that you have brain damage>is not a specific thing that exists beyond conceptually in your mindyour mind is a physical thing with physical neurons having physical connections and physical firings that store and make it possible for your to think. so the pattern of events that you are noticing in your mind is a physical thing in your mind only, which follows the "rules" of existence like the laws of logic and physics
>>18658231Does the pattern of an infinite causal chain actually exist or is it only something that exists in your mind?
>>18658084Just accept the fact that we are the universe observing itself. We’re limited in our ability to observe and process so we’re never really going to understand what the fuck is going on.
>>18658084Therefore jews
>>18658084We don't know. And can't know.All observation, logic and science are a function of the universe. They cannot be used to investigate anything that predates the universe. They are out of scope.It's pointless to even try.
>>18658251>>18658231>your mind is a physical thing with physical neurons
>>18658084According to Buddhism, the nature of reality, objects, and the self is emptiness, which is defined as the lack of any nature at all in those things. I take Buddhism seriously because of this accomplishment in Dzogchen called the rainbow body where people shrink at the time of death (sometimes to the size of a baby with an adult head and sometimes out of existence completely, with the hair and nails always left behind) and it's equated to Buddhahood. I trust that since they can produce this repeatably they must know things about the nature of reality. It's too hard to figure out with logic alone, and frankly they say you can't get the important insights without a LOT of meditation anyway.
>>18658106The concept of nothing is just brain chemistry. Every idea or concept you have is formed in the brain. The universe doesn't actually care about nothing.
>>18658453>The universe doesn't actually care about nothing.I didn't say it did. Nor did I posit "the Universe" is conscious.
>>18658191What is your theory of “orthogonal genetic causation”, and how does it escape God’s unified generative sustaining action?
*agentic not geneticWhat is your theory of “orthogonal agentic causation”, and how does it escape God’s unified generative sustaining action?
>>18658084Everything is one.
>>18658084>>18658222The problem with systems like these are that language is like this infinitely elastic bridge thrown over a chasm between two competing philosophies. When faced with criticism both sides have already prepared common replies. The deeper into the rabbit hole this goes, into one such thread of a pain point where the two systems compete (Say Gödelian diagonalization vs. Whiteheadian process-relational dipolar theism) the conversation spirals forever so that the inference stacking of some core tenet far away into an auxiliary support unwind the semantic coherence concepts initially retained for their intuitive effectiveness until both reach extremities that seem foreign or exotic to either position's intuitive appeal which made them persuasive initially (philosophical excess). Think about how routinely we see widely contrasting theoretical positions defended by very capable people and how criticism hardly ever scratches them. The foundational intuitions driving their debate are just rationally under-determined and high intelligence can exacerbate this by ensuring that under determination is draped in the most intricately tailored, logically resilient, and semantically flexible language possible.The word harmony. Harmony has a nice appeal because we think of music, rhythm, something is just "correct" about harmony being favorable or good. Now you say, "we should live harmoniously". 10 years later, you are making papers on Whiteheadian "ethical harmonics". In order to deal with edge cases and criticism, you accumulate sentential bearings to guard your language until it's meaning changes (changing favorably; not just changed, but "clear"). At this point, for someone who has never heard of harmony used in the context of just using different musical sounds to produce beautiful noises, "harmonics" are going to give the intuitive impression of something so flexible with enough formidable technical intricacy that the debate persists indefinitely.
>>18658570>>18658573God does not supply one temporally ongoing “sustaining action” which material reality merely channels. God atemporally wills the actuality of the temporal order. Its dependence on God is ontological; its temporal causes are genuinely its own.The Universe is an ongoing system of first-order Forms; physical law, causal structure, etc., which permits emergent Forms. Agentic Forms arise within that order, whether by special fiat or through other Derived causes such as human generation.Agency genuinely Is in D, so the positive adequacy corresponding to agency cannot be wholly absent from U. Creaturely agency is Derived; plenitudinous agency in God is Underived.An agent is therefore not an Underived cause, but it can be a genuine proximate cause. Hunger, instinct, culture, history and environment may weight available actions without thereby exhaustively necessitating one. The agent itself can resolve among a plurality of expressions.Thus a person can forgive rather than retaliate, act capriciously, or originate genuinely novel artwork, techniques and Forms within temporal reality. That novelty is creature-authored within D even though the positive faculty by which novelty is possible is ultimately grounded in Infinite Plenitude.God grounds the actuality of the agent and its faculty. It does not follow that God performs the agent’s particular expression of that faculty.
>>18658612uh... posting again as "Solitaire"testing the name... wtf?
The only actual good post >>18658104
>>18658615> The agent itself can resolve among a plurality of expressions.Lol. The agent’s choice is real at the level it exists AND is conditioned by the field. It doesn’t require a magical inner author inside pulling left or right lever to originate from. This is neurology 101: no magical inner operator.
>>18658694You're saying that an agent does not resolve among a plurality of expressions?
>>18658700As a conditioned process, not as a magical unconditioned chooser.
>>18658715>As a conditioned processTo what degree is the agent conditioned to resolve among a plurality of expressions?I give you that there exists conditioning, which affects the resolution of the plurality, but again, to what degree?
>>18658724To the extent that there is no special causal contribution injected by a magical particle. The choice arises from a robust causal web, it doesn’t pivot on a magical inner operator.
>>18658739>The choice arises from a robust causal webBy this are you referring to the plurality of expressions ("a web") from which an agent makes "the choice" to express only one?Or by "robust causal web" are you referring to the prior causal conditioning of said choice to resolve the plurality? Like I said, I give you that. That does not eliminate the reality of the agent resolving an expression from a plurality of possible expressions.
>>18658752The latter. And yes, the choice is real. Just not sovereign.
>>18658761>yes, the choice is realI see.>Just not sovereign.If the agent makes a real choice, even a conditioned one, what does "sovereignty" in this case do?
>>18658767Sovereignty means causal self-origination. It would be a little king outside the causal field, capable of originating motion from itself.Sovereignty adds nothing needed for choice. It adds private sourcehood, in other words causal arrow origination from a separate me-particle. Which doesn’t exist.
>>18658781>Sovereignty means causal self-origination. It would be a little king outside the causal field, capable of originating motion from itself.Agent causation does not require creating physical energy or inserting an extra physical impulse. It requires the agent to determine the organization/direction of already-available physical activity (i.e. come to a stop, reorient, go a different direction; the choice was not motion, but the expression of choice facilitated a change in motion).>It adds private sourcehood, in other words causal arrow origination from a separate me-particle. Which doesn’t exist.If you grant that the choice is real and that “sovereignty” is unnecessary for choice, then what exactly are you denying? That the agent itself contributes to determining which expression occurs?
>>18658790I’m not denying that the agent “contributes” to determining what occurs. I’m denying that “the agent contributes” entails an orthogonal causal source. There are no magical isolated causal pockets. The agent’s determining activity is dependently generated through a complex web of the agent’s structure, reasons, history, present state, environment, etc. Calling that whole nexus ‘the agent’ is fine. Turning that useful boundary into a place where a new causal arrow originates is the magical thinking. Hence no separate causehood.
>>18658805>I’m denying that “the agent contributes” entails an orthogonal causal source. There are no magical isolated causal pockets.No, there aren't. Neither does an orthogonal causal source have to be "isolated.">The agent’s determining activity is dependently generated through a complex web of the agent’s structure, reasons, history, present state, environment, etc.>reasonssneaking that one in there, are you?>Turning that useful boundary into a place where a new causal arrow originates is the magical thinking. Hence no separate causehood.The orthogonal causehood which agents MAY demonstrate is not equally orthogonally differentiated for every choice they make. Or,Agents need not exercise irreducible self-determination to the same degree in every act.Most people, when they're hungry, choose to eat. But some people do not; some people who normally do, do not. Some people choose to fast. Some people choose to fast such that they die fasting. How do you know the decisive factor in their choice was another antecedent determinant rather than the agent’s very resolution itself among competing considerations?
>>18658829You still think “the agent’s resolution itself” names an explanatory causal terminus. It doesn’t. That is exactly the disputed move.Your question effectively says: “What if, after accounting for the conditions, the agent itself supplies the remainder?”My answer is: show me the remainder. What constitutes it? Attention, competing considerations, dispositions, cognition, memory, present conditions, neural activity, etc.? The resolution is the dependently generated event; it does not need an extra sealed resolver behind the event.If you can’t, “the agent itself” is being silently promoted from useful relational locus into an irreducible source.
>>18658874Attention, memories, reasons, neural activity, dispositions, and bodily states constitute and condition the agent. They are not therefore competitors with the proposition that the constituted agent acts.The remainder is the choice itself. It is staring right at you. The “remainder” is not another constituent. It is the fact that the constituted agent actually resolves among the alternatives.>The resolution is the dependently generated event; it does not need an extra sealed resolver behind the event.I have repeated many times that agency does not exist in a vacuum.Are you an illusionist about agency? You are presently considering reasons, rejecting distinctions, and persisting in an argument. Can you show me, after deducting all reason or agency from your being, what remainder is conditioning your causal nexus to persist in this pattern?
>>18658881I agree completely that the constituted agent acts. I deny that this implies the constituted agent possesses irreducible sourcehood.“The choice itself” is not a remainder. It is the event needing causal analysis. Saying “the agent actually resolves among alternatives” describes the choice; it does not establish that the choice originates irreducibly from the agent.Agency is not in dispute; irreducible sourcehood is.> Are you an illusionist about agency? You are presently considering reasons, rejecting distinctions, and persisting in an argument. Can you show me, after deducting all reason or agency from your being, what remainder is conditioning your causal nexus to persist in this pattern?You keep confusing dependent agency with absence of agency.I say: “agency has no independent sourcehood.”You hear: “agency isn’t real.”That is the whole mistake. A flame is dependently generated and still burns. A person is dependently generated and still chooses.You think you must choose between real agency and dependent agency. My entire point is that this is a false partition.
Einstein’s idea of free will was “You can’t choose to not be gay, but you can choose what dick to suck”.
>>18658893>I deny that this implies the constituted agent possesses irreducible sourcehood.Is a reducible source still a source? >I say: “agency has no independent sourcehood.”For Derived agents, it does not, no. It still functions as a source of choice.A Derived agent can depend upon antecedent causes for its existence and faculties while still functioning as a genuine proximate source of choice.>A flame is dependently generated and still burns. A person is dependently generated and still chooses.The analogy is rather thin in that a person can resolve from a plurality of possible expressions. A flame does not appear to evaluate alternatives and settle one; an agent does.
You’re all overthinking it
>>18659515“Genuine proximate source” can be right. The key question is what “source” means. If it means, “the person is the real locus at which deliberation and choice occur,” then yes. If it means, “the choice introduces causal determination not itself dependently generated,” then it has restored a fake additional source.
bump
>>18658261The neat part is it doesn't have to exist for the embedded observers to experience it as reality, and to traverse the graph between states without the requirement of some part of the universe "calculating" anything. Just possibility is perfectly adequate.
