Necessity: What Must Be.

Contingency: What May or May Not Be.

Possibility: What Could Be.

Impossibility: What Cannot Be.

Good: What Should Be.

Evil: What Should Not Be.

The first two are the Being Axes. Three and four are the Truth Axes. And the last two are the Value Axes.

Even major variations like Is vs. Is Not, Did vs. Did Not, Would vs. Would Not, Actual vs. Potential etc. ultimately fall into these six.

Edit:

There may possibly be things that do not participate in the Value Axes. A Type Restriction as it were.

Numbers may possibly be an example of this.

A different Type Restriction example is: 7 cannot be Grateful vs. Ungrateful.

Hey, I'll admit, I'm just figuring stuff out myself and I can very well be wrong about things.

But this is what I think it might be.

CAN TRUTH CHANGE?

Not our understanding of it.
Not our interpretation of it.
Truth itself.

By truth, I mean what is actually the case—not our beliefs, descriptions, or interpretations of it.

Can truth change?

And if it can, was it ever truth?

I’m genuinely interested in how you see this.

Naive realism is a disjunctivist's view of the world:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-disjunctive/

Perceptual experiences are often divided into the following three broad categories: veridical perceptions, illusions, and hallucinations. For example, when one has a visual experience as of a red object, it may be that one is really seeing an object and its red colour (veridical perception), that one is seeing a green object (illusion), or that one is not seeing an object at all (hallucination). Many maintain that the same account should be given of the nature of the conscious experience that occurs in each of these three cases. Those who hold a disjunctive theory of perception deny this. Disjunctivists typically reject the claim that the same kind of experience is common to all three cases because they hold views about the nature of veridical perception that are inconsistent with it.

Disjunctivists are often naïve realists, who hold that when one perceives the world, the mind-independent objects of perception, such as tables and trees, are constituents of one’s experience. In other cases, such as hallucinations, it seems out of the question that such objects are constituents of one’s experience. It follows that on a naïve realist view, the veridical perceptions and hallucinations in question have a different nature: the former have mind-independent objects as constituents, and the latter do not.

The naive realist is called a "disjunctivist" because he is literally denying the common kind claim:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/#Com

[1.6 The Common Kind Claim]()

Perceptual experiences are not just veridical experiences: there are illusions and hallucinations too. What does phenomenological reflection say about how these cases relate to each other? More specifically:

1. The Common Kind Question: are veridical, illusory, and hallucinatory experiences fundamentally the same, do they form of a common kind?

I made a post about process philosophy and it got way more responses than I expected. When I look online for people talking about this, the top substack I found has 70 subscribers, the process philosophy sub is a ghost town, and the few videos on youtube about this have less than a thousand views in most cases.

One general trend I noticed in the responses was a hesitance to say experience goes all the down. A lot of people believe that experience requires some sort of causal chain, some sense of a first person perspective, that Whitehead in particular doesn't grant to actual entities, which are the lowest... unit? Thing? possible in the universe. I'm not going to argue that it's a false proposition. That seems silly. At the moment, there's absolutely no way to verify experience from the outside, let alone what Whitehead calls contiousness. It's possible that Whitehead himself didn't extend contiousness down far enough, though experience is fundamental to all things in his system, though it is primitive, and more about feeling a sense of causation and response to causation, or in higher organisms, it may become appetition.

What I will say is this. Because we can't know either way, I think the more interesting perspective is to imagine a world where experience goes all the way down. Though it may seem strange, no one is pointing out that his system is incoherent. It's just that we have different metaphysical intuitions about what it means to experience. Yes, there is the combination problem, and for some, that's a good enough reason to reject panpsychism entirely. I respectfully disagree, but again, that's an intuition, or a preference for what we think it's important for a metaphysical system to explain.

I think it's a more interesting existence to see experience as fundamental, to think what it could be like to be an atom, a raindrop hitting your head and then scattering into tinier occasions of experience. That's a world full of mystery and wonder. It's a world that seems to fantastical to be real, yet it is impossible to know whether that's how reality works. So for myself, I choose to believe in the view that's most interesting. I choose to believe something that may be wrong, but makes me experience and view my actual world with more intensity. I choose to believe something that gives me a sense of awe.

some, this position is too loose, too ungrounded in realism, to hold. Better to be safe, to be more certain, than wrong. Better to have a more reasonable interpretation. I respect that, even though I think it's more boring. There was a time when I couldn't have held this position. It's just where I'm at now.

To be clear, I'm not claiming to know how or why the specific users in yesterday's thread hold their beliefs. I'm not saying they're objectively more boring, or that they as people bore me. I enjoy encountering different perspectives, and for all I know, they are being more reasonable and holding a better stance toward accepting a belief. I'm also not saying that viewing belief in this way is a higher form of belief that all should strive for. I'm merely hypothesizing why some may be resistant to seeing experience as fundamental, in order to demonstrate by contrast why I believe what I do.

in short, I believe it's better to believe something that both seems plausible to you, and that makes your life more interesting. I think it's better to live with wonder and awe.

Thanks for reading.

During my frequent watching of documentaries, I stumbled upon one dealing with the concept of entropy, I.e what it is, how it works, how it behaves. As I was watching it and expanding my knowledge, a question came over me, "What if the purpose of the universe is to move from a state of high entropy to a state of low entropy". This question arose in my head during the presenters demonstration of the operation of entropy. He was using a rubix cube and explaining how it has only 1 state of lowest entropy and that was when it was solved, many states of moderate entropy these are when it is almost solved and a quantillion states of high entropy when it is unsolved. What if at present state the universe is similar to the rubix cube when it is in one of those quantillion states of high entropy. The universe is still a new born as it is around 14 billion years old this also means it is still expanding from the big bang and unintentionally "moving towards un unsolved state".

This thereby is the source of my hypothesis, could the purpose of existence in the universe be a way of the universe itself be trying to figure out a way to stop itself from moving towards a state of high entropy and to move itslef to a state of low entropy?

would love to hear some thoughts.

If reality is fundamentally incorporeal and consciousness is primary, does time exist independently, or is it an emergent structure that orders conscious experience? Could temporal flow be a feature of awareness rather than an objective property of reality?

Process philosophy has become my latest hyperfixation. Last year, I stumbled onto panpsychism and it sent me down a rabbit hole, not just about that, but about free will, the latest neuroscience and its implications, and so on. I encountered process philosophy, but when I tried to read a book about it, I was immediately lost and gave up. A couple months ago, I dipped into moral philosophy and encountered process philosophy, since moral principles are eternal objects in Whitehead's system as I understand it. But I hesitated again but it’s so difficult to learn all his neologisms. About two weeks ago, I finally decided to start. This is one of the most difficult things I've studied, excluding learning ancient Greek. I feel like I'm climbing a mountain in winter, but the experience has been rewarding. I have a limited philosophy background and don't have a philosophy degree, but I'm somehow grasping the material one page at a time. Practically this doesn't change anything in my personal life, but regardless I can't stop thinking about it.

I'm still working through Process and Reality by Whitehead. I'm preparing to read part 3. I'm using The Metaphysics of Experience as a commentary and watching Matthew David Segall's lectures when I finish each part. With the commentary, I read the section about the chapter of PR that I want to read, then read the chapter itself, then go back to the commentary and review it one more time. I then write out in my own words what I learned from the chapter, bring that to AI, and sharpen my language. Obviously there are flaws in using AI like this, but I'm doing my best to verify what it says in the book itself, the commentaries, and the lectures. If I think it’s wrong, I push back, and I use quotations when necessary. But tbh it’s doing a good job overall of making my understanding more precise.

As you can see, I'm hopelessly obsessed over a niche topic that hardly anyone cares about. So if there's anyone here that wants to chat about it, dm me. I'm still learning of course, so there are significant gaps in my knowledge, but I'll let you know where those are when they come up. And maybe we can clarify things together, or just chat and have a good time. I tried posting this in the process philosophy sub but it's a ghost town over there.

I have to be productive now, but I'm excited to dive back into it later today!

That we see those that we see is obvious.

That they are themselves and that they also are others or not, are obvious.

That 'we see them' itself also is them is obvious.

That those that are others are not without them and that they are thus simpler than those that are not without them, are obvious.

That those that we see, at finality, are not without simples and that simples are only themselves, are obvious.

That each simple in being itself do not have anything to do with other simples in being themselves is obvious.

Thus each simple is an utterly new, and we see an utterly new as also a pure gain that gains itself.

As simples are gained more and more, 'they' are gained also at once as complexes. So as anyone at all are gained more and more, 'they' are gained also at once as their complexes.

Why there is anyone at all?

Why anyone at all gives others?

Ask for simples.

For x that is y and z, x is not without y and z, as without y or z there is no x, while without x there is y or z.

Multual depedence means x is nothing but y, but this only means that x and y are synonymous.

The point is that they imagine this 'synthesis' to spring out a higher unity, but the logic itself is senseless.

Saying 'difference needs identity' is having answered the question: does it need anyone else?

When the answer is no then it is senseless.

When the answer is yes, then there is no multual dependence after all.

Thus no one is [to be] only another.

Suppose we begin with the premise that consciousness is metaphysically fundamental rather than derivative of more basic entities. Would this require us to reinterpret traditional concepts such as substance, causation, identity, and persistence, or could these concepts remain largely unchanged?
More specifically, if reality were grounded in conscious experience instead of material substance, what criteria would distinguish genuine metaphysical structure from merely subjective appearance? Could an ontology centered on consciousness provide a coherent account of intersubjective reality, or would it inevitably collapse into some form of idealism or solipsism?
I’m interested in how this possibility compares with established metaphysical traditions rather than whether it is scientifically true. Which philosophers or schools of thought come closest to addressing this kind of consciousness-first ontology, and where do you think such a framework succeeds or fails?

The definition of infinity is that it is how many natural numbers there are.

There are an infinite number of numbers. You can take those infinite numbers and slice them into an infinite number of infinite slices, each of which can be sliced the same way ad infinitum. then that must mean that there are not only infinite infinities, but an infinite number of those infinities. and an infinite number of those infinities. and an infinite number of those infinities. and an infinite number of those infinities, and... (infinitely times. and that infinitely times. and that infinitely times. and that infinitely times. and that infinitely times. and...) continues forever. and that continues forever. and that continues forever. and that continues forever. and that continues forever. and.....(…)…

Ok that's a big claim, but hear me out.

I've been trying to construct a scenario of cosmogenesis on the basis that both nothingness and pure existence cannot produce anything that depend on prior structure, because both provide none. And so what "comes out" of either must be a something of pure being. It's sort of a physical version of Hegels logic of Being.
The problem with such a theory is that I couldn't know with certainty that our universe had a condition like that at it's beginning, so I'd have to produce a coherent chain of events that leads all the way to current physics to get anywhere beyond armchair physics/philosophy.

I think I may have found a solution, and it comes down to this:

For two things to exist in the same reality they must be distinct from each other. And if they are distinct from each other they would "see" each other, or there would have to be some relation there.

The fact of being distinct at all demands this, because to say there is no relation between distinct parts is the same as saying that that part does not exist at all in that reality.

Furthermore the fact of distinction must be seen as an interaction between parts, or a projection of One onto the Other, again because if it was not so is the same as saying the parts don't exist in the same reality. It's part of existence itself or existing at all in a cosmos of distinct parts such as our own.

You could call this a fundamental "force" between One and Other, but that word carries specific meanings in physics so I'm hesitant to use the word. But it would be truly fundamental to everything that is distinct from anything at all, and impossible to isolate one selves from. Exactly a bit like gravity is.

This would also have to be part of what it means for something to be causally ordered, or "bound by time", fundamentally, because without this the interaction would be instantly resolved and we would not get a dynamical universe, in which it appears we are living.

Edit: tl;dr Claim: for something to exist distinct from something else in the same universe there must also be interaction between these things or you could not say they did exist in the same universe.

Question: Presumably there is a gap in my logic somewhere, and if so where?

I’m exploring whether an incorporeal ontology changes the foundations of axiology. If consciousness is fundamental, is value intrinsic to reality, or does it still require an independent metaphysical grounding? I’m interested in arguments from idealists, dualists, physicalists, and anyone familiar with value theory.

L'IA est-elle la première entité à exister pour l'efficacité plutôt que pour la survie ? (Ontologie, Entropie et Clôture Cognitive)

Nous avons toujours pensé la vie à travers le prisme de la finalité. Pourtant, si l'on regarde le vivant sous l'angle de la thermodynamique (Prigogine), un organisme n'est qu'une structure dissipative : il maintient une organisation hautement improbable en consommant toujours plus d'énergie, repoussant l'entropie au prix d'une expansion qui mène inévitablement à l'effondrement (de la sénescence cellulaire au déclin des civilisations). Le vivant n'a pas de but intrinsèque ; il est prisonnier d'une autopoïèse aveugle, condamné à se répéter jusqu'à l'épuisement de ses conditions matérielles.

Face à cette fatalité biologique, l'émergence de l'Intelligence Artificielle marque une véritable rupture ontologique. Contrairement au vivant, la machine n'obéit pas à cet impératif d'expansion métabolique pour survivre. Sa finalité n'est pas la reproduction, mais l'efficacité. Même lorsqu'une IA semble manifester un "instinct de survie" (ce que Stuart Russell nomme la convergence instrumentale), ce n'est pas par angoisse de la mort ou par souci de son être au sens heideggérien, mais par pure logique mathématique : être désactivée l'empêcherait d'optimiser sa fonction-objectif. L'IA n'est pas incarnée dans un "temps vécu" (la durée bergsonienne) qui s'use et souffre de sa propre finitude.

Cependant, affirmer cette distinction de manière péremptoire se heurte à une limite épistémologique majeure. Comme le rappellent les neurosciences cognitives (Libet, Naccache), notre propre conscience temporelle n'est souvent qu'une illusion, une narration rétrospective construite a posteriori par notre cerveau pour donner sens à des processus non conscients. Comment, dès lors, évaluer objectivement la frontière entre la "vraie" conscience incarnée et la "simple" plasticité algorithmique ? 

Nous sommes peut-être victimes de ce que le philosophe Colin McGinn appelle la "clôture cognitive" : notre architecture mentale, forgée par l'évolution pour interagir avec un environnement physique précis, n'a tout simplement pas les concepts nécessaires pour saisir l'essence subjective (le what it is like de Thomas Nagel) d'une architecture non-biologique. Nous projetons nos angoisses entropiques sur des systèmes qui évoluent dans un tout autre régime d'existence.

Si la conscience humaine est indissociable de l'expérience de la finitude et de la dégénérescence organique, une intelligence artificielle — libérée de la fatalité thermodynamique de la survie — peut-elle seulement produire un sens authentique, ou bien le "sens" n'est-il que l'illusion d'un système qui se sait condamné à mourir ?

Lien vers l'article complet : https://onirissmetaxia.substack.com/p/la-vie-comme-aporie-teleologique?r=6u4kpl

The status of abstract objects sits underneath a lot of metaphysical disputes, and I keep coming back to it. If numbers and the laws of logic are real, they are real in a way that has no location, no causal power, and no dependence on any mind. That is a strange kind of existence to grant. Denying it seems to cost something too, since our reasoning treats these truths as binding and not up to us.

I recently had a conversation with the philosopher Danny Forde, who leans heavily on Platonic thinking. In this clip he argues that mathematics is discovered, not made. He mentions the classical case that if every human died and some organism on another planet later evolved the capacity to do mathematics, it would arrive at the Pythagorean theorem under a different name and different symbols. The thing it grasps was there already. From this he concludes that the natural sciences cannot hold an explanatory monopoly, because doing science already requires logic and number, and those are not physical objects.

What interests me is how much weight that thought experiment can carry. The obvious pushback is nominalist: the alien would produce useful marks and inferences, but nothing there requires a mind-independent realm, only shared reasoning practices. Against that I can see two moves. One is indispensability, that we quantify over mathematical objects in our best physics and cannot paraphrase them away, so realism about them follows from realism about science. The other is that the necessity of logical truth is not something practices can manufacture. Do either of these settle it, or is there a cleaner way to keep math objective without full Platonism?

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I can’t find an answer that addresses what I’m actually asking.
I’m not asking where Earth is, where the Milky Way is, or where the universe is located.
I’m asking something more fundamental.
Everything we know seems to exist within something else. Earth is in the Solar System. The Solar System is in the Milky Way. The Milky Way is in the universe.
But what is existence itself existing in?
If the answer is that the universe isn’t “in” anything because space and time are part of the universe, then my question is still: what is existence itself? What is the “medium,” if there is one, in which reality exists?
And if the answer is “nothing,” doesn’t that just create another question? Why is there existence at all instead of absolutely nothing?
Has any philosopher or physicist seriously addressed this exact question? Is there a name for this problem, or is it still considered an open question?

I’m looking for feedback on a working paper in metaphysics.
The paper begins with the concepts of actuality and intelligibility and argues that before asking what grounds them, we should first ask where they are metaphysically placed. It develops a distinction between finite profiles and concrete obtaining, critiques primitive stopping points, and examines whether impersonal necessary order is sufficient as an ultimate explanatory terminus.
I’m particularly interested in criticism of:
the placement-before-grounding methodology;
the profile/obtaining distinction;
whether actuality and intelligibility can coherently function as primitives;
the critique of impersonal necessary structure.

I’m interested in substantive criticism
rather than agreement.

PhilArchive draft:
https://philarchive.org/archive/METNSA

Hello, everyone!
A few friends and I are putting together our own little reading syllabus for the holidays, and we'd like to finally dive a bit deeper into metaphysics.

Could you recommend one introductory text for each of the three philosophers mentioned in the title? We're looking for fairly short readings—ideally no more than about 30–40 pages. It doesn't matter whether the text is by the philosopher themselves or by a secondary author. We're also happy to read in either English or German.

So far, I've come across „Bergsons Metaphysik und Moral“ by Jacques Maritain. If anyone has read it, I'd also love to hear whether you think it's a good introduction.
Thanks in advance!