[MD] David M and DMB clearly disagree -what do others think?

[David M]

Hi DMB

> dmb says:
> My objection to David M's assetions about "the possible" does not rest on
> SOM. I'm not saying that "the possible" is not real does not rest on the
> fact that it has no material existence. It fits with Radical Empiricism 
> and
> the premise that reality is equated with experience. I'm saying that there
> is no reality outside of experience and that "the possible" is not real.

DM: You are saying that we do not experience possibilities so they are not 
real? What is their status
then? How are you aware of possible patterns that are somehow outside of 
your experience?
Why would we bother to even talk about what is possible if it had no 
reality?
Do you not experience what you imagine? I say you do and it is an example
of the possible and real. You seem to be limiting experience to what exist
in space-time, i.e. objects, and that is a rejection of the possible as real 
based
on SOM assumptions.

> Yes, of course a person can actually imagine what might be

DM: 'be', what makes something 'be' according to DMB's metaphysics?

, what they'd like
> to see in the future and all those thoughts are real. We actually 
> experience
> such speculations and I'm not denying the reality of the human imagination
> or the capacity to plan or predict.

DM: So you agree for imagination (clearly based on possibles) is real?

>
> What I'm objecting to is David's way of talking about "the possible" as if
> it were some kind of invisible realm or force of nature.

DM: Well you can't agree that possible=real without looking at the 
implications
that is having your cake and throwing it up later. A pattern that is not in 
the
common and shared space-time/outer sphere is of course invisible in a very
clear sense. You cannot 'see' the potential the lion has to eat you, you 
certainly
experience it, why else do you start sweating? Is it a force? Certainly not.
You stand at the crossroads, faced with left, forwards or right as the 
choices
you experience, you are not 'forced' to taken any of them. They are very
simply the real choices/possibles you face. What is possible is what makes
the future open and free.

An important question here is what is the impossible? Let's say that
at the inorganic level the social level is impossible. But once the organic
level has become actual then the social level moves from the impossible
to the possible.

 Once he described
> how one possiblity dies as it collapses into the actuality and then how 
> the
> other unactualized possibilities withdraw, as if the possibilites lived 
> and
> died and scurried about, as if "the possible" had an independent existence
> outside of experience.

DM: I am trying to describe experience, try and think only in these terms
and stop projecting your prejudices onto what I am saying and then rejecting
your own projections. Now throw a dice. We see it tumble. We know
it it has six possible end states. We do not know which will become actual
until it stops. All remain possible until the dice stops and one state 
becomes
actual. The dice stops, a six is thrown, it has come to rest and the other
five possibles have not become actual, forthis throw they have been
forever 'withdrawn -this is a metaphor for what is not the given reality,
i.e. the dice is no longer in the rolling process, take the metaphor how
you like or suggest another. But how about this example: you die.
Any sense in which the complex of possibilities known as DMB has
withdrawn? Your family might think so.


And I'm saying that if it is outside of experience
> then it is outside of reality. That's what I mean in saying "the possible"
> is not real.

DM: I can't see how our experience is anything other than bursting with
the presence of the possible.

>
> I don't know if the following deserves to be called a thought experiment,
> but I'll ask you to ponder it. Imagine a certain kind of possibility. Try 
> to
> imagine the possibilties that are unimaginable. And be careful not to
> actually imagine the unimaginable becasue if you do then it is no longer
> unimaginable by virtue of your having imagined it. You see, using dualism
> logic, where one can oppose our imaginations to that which is unimaginable
> whether or not there ever can actually be any such thing.


DM: Obviously there is alot of possibles we can imagine and consider
that cannot be made actual. But we could imagine another world
in which they could be. What we can't imagine, the unimaginable,
certainly lies outside of the reality of our experience.

>
> See, as Radical Empiricism posits, we can't ignore any kind of experience
> nor can we accept the existence of anything outside of experience so that
> reality and experience are identical. Nothing more and nothing less. To
> count anything outside of experience as part of reality, as James puts it,
> is to open a hole through which all metaphysical nonsense enters. I think
> "the possible" is an example of this sort of metaphysical nonsense.

DM: I agree until you posit the possible as outside of experience. I don't
make this posit, why are you? You want to banish it? I can't see any
metaphysical problems with 
real=experience=experienced/actual+experienced/possible

I would add that if I put my tea cup in the cupboard I don't think it
has ceased to exist because it has moved out of my experience, the
objectively existing world remains a good idea as Pirsig says,
same goes for all that stuff that leaves my experience when I turn round.
The way things and ideas come and go is an important aspect of
experience.


>
> And I'd point to the fact that David M is using phenomenology and physics 
> to
> support this view and discusses it in terms of inner and outer realities.

DM: Of course phenomenology is based on bracketing out SOM,
and physics is clearly of no value to the MOQ according to DMB!

> These are just a few of many ways in which he reveals that he's using the
> assumptions of SOM.

DM: I'd suggest, like actual versus possible, inner versus outer is
as valid for MOQ as it is for common sense. I am thinking of a
green cat and you are not is an inner experience, I can see a black cat
and so can you,is an outer one. Can't see any SOM problems there DMB?
Are you trying to win an argument with no care for whether you are right
or wrong? That would be pathetic.


I'll remind you that this debate began as an objection
> to Terry Eagleton's definition of God; the condition of possibility for 
> all
> entities. If we take this condition to be the physical universe then we 
> are
> right back into the metaphysics of substance and SOM. If we take this
> condition to be an underlying intelligence beyond it we are back into the
> same thing with some metaphysical clap-trap thrown in on top. I think its 
> a
> bunch of nonsense either way.

DM: I'd suggest that DQ allows possible SQ to become actual SQ, and the
evolving actuality of SQ allows DQ to actualise new levels of possibility 
that
were previously unactualisable prior to the creation of the earlier levels.

How would you describe evolution without the emergence of new possibilities?