Preobjective Ontology October 19, 2009
Posted by Michael in Ontology.add a comment
I’ve been calling my ontological framework “object-oriented ontology” but that’s not quite right. I believe in object-oriented epistemology: that human knowing and thinking mechanisms operate on objects, and we need to objectify our experiences before we can know anything or reason about anything. The ontology necessarily precedes objectification, because you need raw material for the objects. So “preobjective ontology” seems more appropriate.
Preobjective ontology may be explained as follows:
- We perceive what exists. That is, what we perceive to really exist, generally really exists.
- However, we don’t perceive the “what” in “what exists”. We presume the what, and we perceive that it exists.
- This presumption, of the “what” in “what exists”, is contingent and continuously changing.
The first point posits realism. The second point defines object mapping: to think about anything, or talk about anything, we have to objectify it. Perceptions are assigned to objects; perceptions determine properties; therefore, properties belong to objects, and not directly to existence. The third point states that the object mapping can and does change. In practice, it changes from moment to moment as our needs and attention change.
I think of preobjective ontology as a form of physicalism (the view that what’s real is just what’s physically real, the atoms and photons and other such things that physics says are real), but one that is more limited in its assertions than conventional physicalism. Classical logic cannot be directly applied to ontological questions, because it depends on reference and abstraction, which are not possible in a preobjective arena of discussion. But preobjective reasoning is possible, for example using a tool I dubbed material logic.
Existence precedes objectification. It sounds simple and straightforward, but it raises a subtle paradox for a physicalist. Objects are conceptual, by this way of thinking. However, if all existence is physical, then objects, too, must physically exist in some form, even though they are concepts. But how can an object exist preobjectively?
My answer to this is that objects are not as simple as they seem. An object is a feedback mechanism: a linkage between an effect and a cause, the way a thermostat is a linkage between temperature (effect) and a heat source (cause). In this case the effect is the state of the brain when it is thinking about, for example, tables, and the cause is sense data corresponding to tables. The table-brain-state and the table-sense-data must preexist the table object, because the table object is composed of the table-brain-state, the table-sense-data, and the control mechanism that connects them. Strange as it may seem, the table-brain-state must exist first, and only then the table object.
But it’s actually not so strange, when you think about how the table-brain-state might have come about. Surely it evolved from something simpler. My theory is that it evolved from the big-rock-brain-state, when our ancestors first began to figure out that rocks that were flat on top and about waist high were more useful than other big rocks (this cries out for illustration…)
The Cybernetic Explanation October 12, 2009
Posted by Michael in Cybernetics, Observations, Ontology.1 comment so far
One thing materialists have come to grips with is that there may be multiple ways of describing nature that are fundamental and true. Most famously there is wave-particle duality, which gives us two equally true, equally fundamental descriptions of all matter and energy. Then there are the cases where two descriptions are each true and fundamental, but in different ways. Take the case of the temperature of a body: we can view it as the kinetic energy of individual molecules, or we can view it as a property of the body as a whole. The former is ontologically fundamental, being the most precise and complete description possible, but is computationally intractable, therefore unknowable. So we choose the epistemologically fundamental description — temperature of the body as a whole. Yes, such a description brings with it imprecision and incompleteness, but these uncertainties are strictly governed by the mathematics of large numbers, to the degree that it is possible to formulate laws such as Boyle’s law relating pressure and volume in gases that are statistical in nature yet ironclad and true.
And then there is entropy and the arrow of time.
The second law of thermodynamics predicts a steady increase in disorder (entropy) in a closed system over time. Like other laws that operate at large scales, the second law can be derived from the statistical behavior of large numbers of molecules. It has also been abundantly confirmed in empirical observations.
But there is a fundamental truth introduced by the second law which is oddly inexplicable at the micro level: the arrow of time. The second law of thermodynamics says that balloons don’t unpop, rust doesn’t turn to iron, and eggs don’t unscramble. The funny thing is that no other physical laws prohibit these things from happening. Is it possible that something we experience so immanently and intimately — the one-way flow of time — is just a statistical artifact? Many physicists and philosophers are unconvinced.
I won’t weigh in on that particular question. But I will say that there is a loophole in the second law: it only holds for a closed system as a whole, and doesn’t rule out local increases in order. In fact, it happens all the time: it’s called life. Every living creature is an island of reverse entropy, every living cell a little machine that absorbs disordered matter, burns some of it as fuel, and uses the rest to build things — such as new little machines.
Is life a special case? No. Every air conditioned home or car is also an island of reverse entropy. Perhaps you may consider air conditioners to be extensions of life, “things-engineered-by-life”, along with spiders’ webs, termite hives, hermit crab shells, water wheels and semiconductors. Even in the realm of life itself, discernible order occurs at many levels: proteins, organelles, cells, organisms, societies. If life is a necessary cause, it’s one with a multiple personality disorder.
From a reductionist physicalist point of view, it’s hard to get much of an explanation for this order — it seems to be random, a statistical artifact like entropy itself. In essence, from the reductionist point of view, there is nothing to explain: life follows the laws of physics like everything else, and in the closed system of which it is a part, the second law is honored.
But this is willful blindness. There is clearly something to be explained, and if science cannot explain it then magical and supernatural explanations will fill the void.
Not to fear, though. Indeed there is a logical explanation. It goes like this:
- Systematic local reversal of entropy is caused by systematic feedback.
- Systematic feedback is caused by directed behavior.
- Directed behavior is caused by a Turing machine or the equivalent.
- There exist Turing machines.
- Therefore there may exist systematic local reversals of entropy.
Shorter version: life is a computation.
But the explanation is actually broader than life. It begins with a fundamental relationship between feedback and entropy. And this makes sense, because feedback can be seen as a way to reverse the arrow of time in a limited but real sense.
To understand this, consider the iconic case of the rudder of a boat and the steersman who controls it. Moving the rudder causes the boat to turn. The arrow of time leads from cause to effect, from changing rudder position to changing boat direction. But in the mind of the steersman, changing the direction of the boat comes first, changing the position of the rudder second. Boat direction is the independent variable; rudder position the dependent variable. This is easy to see by considering the possibilities: the steersman could just as easily decide to turn right as turn left, but once the boat direction is decided the rudder position is determined and cannot be otherwise.
So, in this sense, in a cybernetic system (a system based on feedback) an effect may lead to a cause. This, I would argue, is the root principle underlying the reversal of entropy. It’s the first and most important proposition in the five-point explanation above.
The second point states that the whole arrangement of rudder and steersman is not random; the rudder exists in the first place explicitly to enable the cause, in order to enable the achievement of the effect. So not only does effect precede the cause, desire for the effect precedes the possibility of the cause. The feedback system exists to fulfill a purpose.
The third point states that for the purposeful behavior to work, it must entail knowledge, in this case of the motion of boats and the effect of rudders. This could be conscious knowledge achieved through observation and reason. Or it could be genetic knowledge acheived through evolution. Either way, it is the result of computation, and computation requires a Turing machine.
The fourth point posits the existence of one or more Turing machines. So where do Turing machines come from in the first place? This is, of course, the perfect spot to throw in a supernatural explanation, an outside intelligence to act as the first cause. But a naturalistic account is surely more plausible: given that local systems of reverse entropy (life) have arisen naturally in the material universe, Turing machines must be endemic to nature.
As a materialist, I find the natural explanation better than the supernatural one, even if it requires going further than the conventional physicalist argument generally runs. In essence, the cybernetic view requires accepting a new duality: the duality of information and matter. Duality is not dualism; it is dual identity, two equally valid ways of seeing the same thing. The materialists says (correctly in my view) that there can be no information without matter. The cybernetic materialist says that, in addition, there can be no matter without information.
This is not as mystical as it might sound. It takes nothing away from physicalism, and offers nothing to the dualist. On the contrary, it seeks to expand the physicalist explanation to concepts, abstractions and logic, in other words, the building blocks of thought: they are fundamental attributes of matter, like charge and mass, that are inseparable from matter yet may be described on their own terms. Do charge and mass exist the same way matter exists? I don’t know the answer, but whatever it is I believe it also holds for logic and arithmetic. Perhaps they don’t extend quite all the way to fundamental particles; perhaps, like entropy, they emerge at larger scales. Either way, they inhere in physical existence.
Finally, we get to point five, the conclusion: if you are a cybernetic materialist, naturally there is life, and life reflecting on life. That’s the cybernetic explanation.
Material Logic October 9, 2009
Posted by Michael in Logic, Ontology.1 comment so far
Here’s an interesting exercise: what happens when you disquote one step too far?
So if instead of stopping at
'P' → P
you go on to
P → ?
what do you end up with?
My intuition about disquotation is that disquoting is a step towards reality. Maybe disquoting again would bring you the rest of the way. So if you disqoute a reference to a thing you get that thing.
Unless of course that thing doesn’t exist. Disquoting is not magic. Disquoting a reference to a thing that doesn’t exist gets you nothing.
So let’s try it with a proposition: “There exists an elephant”
'There exists an elephant' → There exists an elephant
There exists an elephant → [an actual elephant]
One thing that jumps out here is that you can’t play this game without an elephant. But, there’s no rule that says the elephant must actually be in your possession. The elephant must exist somewhere. If we both believe that to be a fact, that’s good enough for us to take it as a valid proposition.
So what happens when something doesn’t exist?
'There exists a unicorn' → There exists a unicorn
There exists a unicorn →
What happens is that you can’t make a statement, because you can’t find a unicorn.
Unless you’re Marco Polo, in which case:
'There exists a unicorn' → There exists a unicorn
There exists a unicorn → [a rhinoceros]
Note that even if you can make a statement, there’s no guarantee that what exists is what you say exists — only that it exists.
What I find highly intriguing about this is that in the final disquoting step you move from a bivalent logic to a monovalent logic — instead of being true or false, a statement merely, but literally, exists. There is no opposite, because in this unusual logic if something doesn’t exist it can’t be a statement.
Yes, logic. I think of this final step as a kind of logic, a funny kind of logic but still a formalizable, verifiable, arguable logic. I call it material logic.
Material logic makes claims of existence. That’s all it does. There are no explicit properties in material logic, other than the property (if you consider it that) of existence. But this is precisely where propositional logic leaves off (I have classical logic in mind, but I think it applies to intuitionistic and other logics as well).
In classical logic you can propose that an elephant exists, and you might even be able to prove the proposition, given the existence of certain evidence, and perhaps even prove things about the evidence, based on other evidence — a causal chain, you might say — but at some point you have the original physical evidence. What makes it “physical” is that it physically exists. But this claim of existence must simply be accepted and can’t be proven. This is an unaviodable consequence of the representation problem: ultimately, we can only logically analyze our mental representations of things, but the connection between the mental representation and the physical thing lies outside of logic. Naming a thing doesn’t prove the thing exists.
The value of material logic is that it deals exclusively with the last step, the one which classical logic takes as a given — claims of physical existence. And, as the exercise above shows, it’s possible to trace a path from propositional logic to material logic, thereby extending the reach of logical analysis into the existential realm. This is not by itself a solution to the representation problem, or a way to prove physical existence, but it is, I believe, a tool for achieving progress towards these goals, by providing a better way to talk about physical existence and its relationship to mental states. Better in two ways actually: closer to what’s actually going on, and easier for us to reason about.
Material logic is, essentially a formalization of object mapping — the mechanism by which mental representations are established, according to the object-oriented ontology I have proposed. To make it useful, we need to take it a little farther than what I’ve described up to this point (but not much). First, however, let’s review what we have so far.
- A statement in material logic is a statement that something exists. There are no names, categories or properties in material logic, so the statement doesn’t say what exists, just that something exists.
- A statement in material logic consists of something that exists.
- There is no way in material logic to state that something doesn’t exist. So material logic is monovalent (there is no negation).
- Since every statement says that something exists, and every statement consists of something that exists, every statement in material logic is correct — you simply can’t utter an incorrect statement.
Material logic’s infallibility and monovalence mean that you can’t use material logic to claim truth or falsity. But certain truth claims are also existence claims, and they can provide a bridge between propositional logic and material logic.
However, if we want to think about material logic we first face a bit of a problem: material logic is unparseable. Take the case of operators. Operators in material logic must necessarily look different than those in propositional logic — in fact they won’t look like anything at all, because an operator is an abstraction and material logic cannot express abstractions. All we can do materially is express the result of applying an operator, if there is one. And since there may be many ways a particular result came to be, you can’t see what the statement was just by looking at the result.
Luckily, we aren’t required to talk about material logic in material logic. Clever creatures that we are, we can come up with readable, analyzable notation that represents material logic without being itself material.
Continuing with the convention I used above, let’s represent the mapping of object x onto the real world like this:
[x]
We can say that [x] is the materialization of x, or, conversely, that x is the representation of [x].
We can describe the basic relationship between propositional logic and material logic as follows:
∃x → [x]
[x] → ∃x
or simply
∃x ↔ [x]
Now we’re in a position to define operations. I’ll define three: intersection, composition and subtraction.
The intersection of two materializations consists of the substance they share. So, for example, the intersection of my head and my skeleton would be my skull. We can express intersection with familiar notation:
[x] ∩ [y]
Intersection implies some degree of identity: if two objects intersect, then they are in part or in whole the same in substance.
The composition of two materializations consists of the substance belonging to either or both. The union operator seems appropriate:
[x] ∪ [y]
The third operation, subtraction, consists of the substance that belongs to one materialization but not another, and is represented like this:
[x] - [y]
One shortcoming with the above notation is that not every instance of it corresponds to a statement in material logic. In particular, because two of the operations, intersection and subtraction, are not closed, it is possible to describe an operation that does not yield a materialization and is therefore not a materiological statement.
In this regard it’s useful to remember that an expression like [x] – [y] is merely a stand-in for the material result of the operation, providing the result exists; otherwise the expression is nonsense. Some expressions, such as [x] – [x], are inherently nonsense. Here classical logic can come to the rescue. Precisely because [x] – [x] is not a statement in material logic, we can state categorically, in classical logic, that ∃([x] – [x]) is false.
There is one more very important step we need to take with material logic for it to be of most use: we must incorporate motion and change. This will also bring us face-to-face with limits to our knowledge, gaps that cannot be eradicated. It’s a big question, and I’ve only begun to put together an answer, but here are some of the main points:
- Motion and change correspond to transformations in material logic. We can catalog and study such transformations.
- We experience persistence by detecting continuity in sense data, and we experience motion and change by detecting changes in sense data. The computation behind these mental processes corresponds to finding the transformation that best fits a series of materializations.
- However, what we experience in this way is neither persistence of substance nor persistence of objects, it’s the persistence of the mapping between them.
Substance may change in form but lasts forever, as far as we know. Abstract objects are themselves timeless and changeless. An object exists physically if and only if, and only as long as, it’s mapped to substance. My hope is that material logic will enable new insights into this mapping, and thereby into what it really means to say that a thing exists.
