Simulating the World & Remodeling Philosophy (Session 12)

Hello and welcome to the 12th session of Simulating the World and Remodeling Philosophy with Reza Nagarstani. And I'll pass the mic to him now. Thank you very much, Tio. So as I mentioned, well, we have gone through a lot of offline conversation before this class and we are going nevertheless to finish our class 4.30 as usual we are going to add the extra minutes to the free sessions that I promised.

Now, a couple of things I see here. A very good question by Lenka. Is any that Continental's know their philosophies are models rather than religions? It's just they act on the premise that it can get more profound and powerful unbracketed. Lenka, would you be able to talk a little bit about this before we start our class? LENKA KUZKALAVYKARANI- Well, I mean, probably,

this is the lesson that you create a concept. And then you can, once it's made up, you can use it as a tool. Yes, but all concepts are not free rides in the sense that every concept is constrained either by logical dimension or by the perceptual sensory dimension. And in that sense, how can content of philosophers make up concepts such that they can forgo with the constraints of either cognitive logical or the perceptual sensory realms.

This is not what I'm saying that continental philosophers do. But wouldn't the idea of foregoing or doing away with, with the constraints of the cognitive conceptual and the perceptual sensory constraints amount to something that Kant would have called the vagaries of pure speculation. Well, but also don't we see that it works quite well, some speculations, I mean. Could you repeat and elaborate on this? Well, I mean Hegel creates like powerful, great thing which makes a lot of sense without

being strictly analytical. Yes, but of course Hegel, Hegel, builds on this very idea by way of the speculative and dialectical logic. Essentially, speculative and dialectical logic cannot survive without one another. Dialectics, the negative, and speculative, the positive. They have to abide by one another. And within the realm of the logic, the science of logic in a Hegelian sense, with understanding that logic begins where the phenomenology of a spirit ends, is actually a critique of Kantian transcendental constitution.

So we cannot just simply use a little bit of Kantian conclusions as if Hegel were defending them. Now Hegel doesn't defend any of that kind of Kantian stuff. He comes with his own system. Yes. To be honest with you, I'm a Hegelian. Reborn Hegelian, like a reborn Christian. but but the whole point here is that hegel absolutely does not in any sense

ratify kantian ideas of transcendental philosophy It is on a different league completely. So, in what sense can we actually use Hegel as a defense for what appears to be immediately a Kantian system, a Kantian defense of what you might call to be, you know, how models correlate with the state of affairs in the world or in the universe.

Well then the question would probably be who are we talking about exactly when you say that some continental philosophers treat the philosophy as religion? By continental philosophers, sure, yeah, you're right. You're right. This is an umbrella term, and I should not use it at whim. By continental philosophers, I simply mean post-structuralist tradition. Duluth, Barthes, Foucault, Lyotard, land, so on and so forth.

And in that sense, to be honest with you, Lenka, I really don't have a clear-cut answer to these questions. I'm simply trying at this point to use your brain almost like crowdfund. I'm crowdsourcing your brain and others' brain precisely because I think these are are standing problems, standing problems in the content of philosophical tradition, in the sense that you, so like for example, Deleuze tries to come off as a critic of Hegel. Of

Of course, in many occasions, he's actually taking side with Hegel. But nevertheless, I do believe that the Luz, but also Foucault, are beholden to a certain kind of orthodox Kantianism, which came under attack not only by no Kantians, Hermann Cohen, Paul Nator, so on and so forth, Ernest Kazirer, but also later on by people who were coming from this new Kantian tradition, Karna, Reichenbach,

so on and so forth. And all I'm saying is that I'm not really interested in Whether Deleuze wins in a Mortal Kombat or Hegel wins, whether it is a brutal match or a fatality match. No, I really don't care about this. All I care is that how such philosophers who are positive, their problems as the critiques of older philosophers

can be understood but also reinvented within the historical tradition of philosophy. We understand the history of philosophy is not simply the past. It's the idea that philosophy reinvents itself every moment. And that's its history. So in that sense, how can we re-imagine the loose? How can we re-imagine Foucault, so on and so forth, without abiding by their, what you might call to be, mis-stepped critiques of Hegel, or for that matter,

can, so on and so forth. I'm not interested in what you might call the basically saying that these philosophers were wrong. No. Philosophers are not wrong. Yes, in the here and now, they might be wrong. But in the scope of the history of philosophy, even their falsity, their wrongness, plays a specific role. That's what I'm interested in. And by that, I mean a positive role, not a negative role.

Adam, Adam, Adam, Adam, Adam. Have you been paid by the Patchwork Universal End Condition to ask this question? I'm sure that you have been paid. Maybe we can split the money here. Go on, go on. And please, please, please, please, you see,

I know that we have a number of really good, innocent, philosophical students among us who haven't been corrupted. If you want to corrupt them with your universal acceleration and stuff, maybe you should actually elaborate about it. No, look, I was maybe, it's a pretty crude question. But if we're talking about, I mean, there's all sorts of parallels parallels with when we talk about seeing the world through different models and understanding that one model is insufficient and the idea of patchwork.

And what you were just talking about now as having to understand philosophy as the history of philosophy as an ongoing project, not just as a backwards looking project, is also kind of evocative to me of different models and using different models to get different views, perspectives on the problem in a systematic way, which is like a patchwork of models, like stitching together models for an overall approach. interesting that it came up in the context of hegel to me because this is the sort of

incommensure incommensurability of problem that the old adam you're a spokesman of the universal unconditional accelerationism no go on i'm just i'm just trying to i guess i'd say i'm not a card carrying member But, you know, I think this is at the heart of what they're all about, basically. It's about the sort of scale limits of one model. Okay, okay. Let me think about this. You know, you know this.

I'm not any special person. I'm just a philosopher. To be a philosopher means that you are an ordinary person. To be an ordinary person means that you're flawed. You are making all sorts of shit decisions in your life, in your thoughts. But what is the difference then between a philosopher and an ordinary person? I would say that a philosopher, when he goes at night, so to speak, metaphorically, to sleep, he or she reflects on what he or she has done to see what am I speaking of?

Under what conditions? I'm saying something like that. That's a philosophy. So in that sense, Adam, I would say that the point of the patchwork, OK, so there are two ways to see the patchwork. book. One which I'm absolutely committed to is the epistemological understanding of different avenues, different methods of epistemological inquiry, so on and so forth, models.

but unfortunately this is not how exactly unconditional accelerationism looks like to me in the sense that unconditional accelerationism for a good deal at least at this moment looks like as if It is an ontological question rather than epistemological methodology. Okay? Question. And in that sense, we have to say, okay, okay, okay,

I am going to go along with your idea. I'm going to basically suspend my methods in the Hegelian sense of Hegel. Not that I'm really relinquishing those methods, it's just that I'm suspending them for the time being. Until and unless new methods can be introduced. so I completely go with this idea but then also here that as if as if the structure of society today and how we can model it

is based on some sort of ontological assumption So in the old days, Platonic days, we could say that these ontological assumptions is about a unity of being. Okay? Then later on it becomes something else, something else, something else. I would say that if universal accelerationists think that the question of how to approach what is at stake here, here and now, is an ontological question.

there are bad Platonists. There are traitors, so to speak. There is only one way to think about this problem coherently. The ontological questions of what is at this stage, the question of is, is predicated on the question of how we should approach what is the case the epistemological question but of course I haven't seen any of such indications such investigations in the universal acceleration

realm. They don't want... Yeah, sure. Yeah, no, I shouldn't say this. Previously, right now there are people who are actually working on this stuff. Previously, they didn't want to deal with this stuff. It was just natural for them. It was an ontological, metaphysical question. You don't need to understand the epistemological difference between epistemological methods in order to understand the difference between me and you in a game theoretical stance or in the big question of what is exactly this dominion?

that platforms universal acceleration. I don't think that any of the ontological questions can go anywhere. They are essentially, to be honest with you, are fundamentally as evil and as bad as any monotheistic religion question. You could say, God, why God gave us this world, in a lightening sense.

we are not going to go to that length so either you are on that side or you are on the side of the epistemological diversity the question of modeling and if you are in the question of modeling then I'm not going to ask you or object to you why you came up you arrive at this kind of ideology. That's not my question. The question that I will ask you is that how you can elaborate this question,

unconditional acceleration, patchwork, so on and so forth, without ever falling back into ontological and metaphysical questions. If they can answer to that, then we are friends. Friends for life. But until then, there are, to be honest with you, I see them as reaction rates, not only politically but also philosophically. Okay.

Okay. So let's begin. Jesus 317. So if you remember last session, we talked about the distinction. we actually first defined autonomous models and embedded toy models. And there was a kind of a sharp distinction between the two, if you remember.

Now, here I can say that although the distinction between autonomous and embedded toy models is sharp, The class of autonomous toy models is quite heterogeneous. This heterogeneity exists because, one, some autonomous models seem to bear no relevant relation to a well-confirmed framework theory, such as Schilling's model.

However, other autonomous toy models are non-trivially associated with the highly confirmed framework theory, but the toy model in question is not a model of that framework theory. So, let us briefly present an example illustrating the latter case. The MIT bag model. Search it on Google.

The MIT bag model. For the MIT bag model, the relevantly associated but not embedding framework theory is quantum chromodynamics, which is extremely hard to solve in the low energy domain. Hence, quantum core dynamics can only be solved using high-powered computer simulations. These computational models and computer simulations function like a black box and are hands, not easy to grasp and understand.

the mit bag model on the other hand identifies one crucial feature of qcd short for quantum called the chronodynamics it identifies quark confinements as qc these key features and models a hadron as a hard sphere in which quarks move freely it is important for our concerns to mention that the MIT bag model is not a model of QCD

the model is rather inspired by QCD it's ultimately justified by a story that connects the model to QCD as Hartman argues in his papers in 1999 and 2001. Now, here, even though I basically a little bit diverged from what we were talking about, Here we can come back to actually what we have been talking about.

Back to our main questions. Do toy models yield understanding? and moreover, is our taxonomy of autonomous and embeddatory models helpful for answering this question? One promising and straightforward way to approach these questions is to ask whether there is any convincing philosophical account of understanding that applies to autonomous and embeddatory models we take for example Dennis Dykes influential account of scientific

understanding as developed in a direct 2019 essay as our starting point. Presenting their accounts will primarily serve as a convenient way to, one, bring out a number of common assumptions and several current accounts of understanding and two to motivate the account of understanding will adopt i.e. the refined simple or simplified view

So, according to the Regecht essay, a phenomenon P can be understood if a theory of P exist that is intelligible and meets the usual logical methodological and empirical requirements although Duriget D-E space R-E-G-T

although Duriget restrict their definition to theories. Their approach is intended to be more primacy since they also refer to models as vehicles of understanding. One of their central examples is the toy model, the MIT-backed toy model. Let's examine Luriget's necessary conditions for understanding more closely, first, the explanation condition,

second the intelligibility condition and third the usual logical methodological and empirical requirements first direct explicitly ties understanding to explanation Understanding a phenomenon is characterized as having an adequate explanation of the phenomenon, and a phenomenon P is understood scientifically if a theory of P exists that is intelligible. And the explanation of P by T meets accepted logical and empirical requirements.

Hence, we take it that having an explanation of P is a necessary condition for understanding P, according to Dureget. We will refer to this condition as the explanation condition. Second, Duriget defines a theory, capital T, as being intelligible for scientists if they can recognize qualitatively characteristic consequences of capital T without performing exact calculation.

exact calculations in boldface duraget for example argue that the physicists consider the kinetic theory of gases to be intelligible if and only if physicists are able to infer the statements from the kinetic theory without performing exact calculation, such as the following statement. If one adds heat to a gas in a container of constant volume,

the average kinetic energy of the moving molecules, and thereby the temperature, will increase. The intuition motivating the intelligibility requirement is that in contrast to an oracle, we want to be able to grasp how the predictions are generated and to develop a feeling for the consequences the theory has in concrete situations. Third, what Duriegett has in mind when referring to the codes, the usual logical, methodological,

empirical requirements what does he mean by it so although he does not make this point explicit we presume that he refers to a familiar virtue of scientific theories which is to say the criteria of theoretical choice. Thomas Cohen's paper is the locus classicus for an assessment of the characteristics of a good scientific theory.

Now, this is what he means by good scientific theory. These five criteria, accuracy, corresponding to empirical adequacy, consistency, scope, simplicity, and fruitfulness, are all standards criteria for evaluating the adequacy of fear. For this reason, we henceforth refer to these requirements as Koenian criteria.

For good scientific theories, direct explicitly affirms this reading. The Kuhnian criteria determine the goodness of a theory T is based. So direct main motivation for demanding that intelligibility per se is not sufficient for scientific understanding is that, for instance, astrology should not count

as a providing scientific understanding. For instance, astrology should not count as providing scientific understanding because despite being intelligible, astrology fails to be a good theory. or in this sense, a model, if judged by Quirinian criteria. So. Sorry.

The rich accounts of understanding is one of many possible starting points in the large literature on understanding. However, what matters here is that their account is in several respects a typical account of scientific understanding to bring out a number of common assumptions in several current accounts of understanding including early approaches by, for example, Friedman and Kitcher teacher, and the contribution in directs and others,

in that sense, we will focus on the explanation condition and the intelligibility condition. We'll put aside the usual logical, methodological and empirical requirements in the Quirinian sense. The common assumptions of these accounts of understanding can be characterized as follows. An individual scientist understands some phenomenon, P, capital P, only if three conditions are satisfied.

One, explanation condition. There is a scientific explanation of P, capital P. Philosophers concerned with understanding often differ with respect to their preferred theory of explanation. They use different theories of scientific explanation, such as the covering law account, the unification account, pragmatic accounts, and various causal accounts of explanation.

2. Veridicality condition. In asserting that the understanding of phenomena, P involves an explanation of P as necessary condition, accounts of understanding inherit a feature of theories of explanation that we call the veridicality condition. It is a common view that explanatory assumptions, that is, the explainance of an explanandum, are required to be true, or at least approximately true.

Consider the following example. Proponents of the recently dominant causal accounts have typically endorsed this requirement. That is, the explainants has truthfully represented the causes of the explanandum phenomenon. For instance, James Woodward, and by the way, you should definitely read in tandem with our course, his classic work, Making Things Happen. So James Woodward holds that the explainance has

to be phenomenal. For instance, Woodward holds that the explainance has to be true or approximately so. So, when he says approximately so, he means it in the Hempellian sense that we have covered in the previous class, in the sense of a nomological expectancy. That is to say, when we say that this is approximately so, we mean that such and such correlation between a statistical cause and a statistical effect

have such and such correlations which can be thought in terms of a probability logic or statistics in terms of expectancy. And those of you who have been in my previous class, you already know what the meaning of a nomological expectancy is. But for those of you who haven't taken that class, let me just give you an example. So a nomological expectancy, which is probabilistically and statistically being

basically elaborated, is something to this extent. So imagine that you are sitting behind the table. On the table, there is an ink holder. So for some reason, and we don't know what that reason is, your knee starts to shake. And this shaking gets accelerated, escalated, and it hits the table. So every time that you hit the table from underneath,

this container of ink basically falls down, and the ink flows. So to explain this phenomenon is exactly the very idea of how we can make a possible invariance such that the movement of our knee, its contact with the table, and the fall of the ink holder all can be perceived or incorporated within a single law,

a nomological law an expectation from a statistical probabilistic point of view so the way that we are going to talk about this is not by way of some sort of psychological idea that you know just like if a witch rides if a woman rides a broom it's a witch you know and she shall be burnt on a stay No, that is pre-probability, that's pre-scientific. How we are going to formulate it is by way of the notion of a nomological expectancy. And the notion of nomological expectancy can be actually couched in terms of contemporary probability logic and statistical analysis.

We say that under such and such conditions, if I do such and such, and if such and such actions create such and such reactions within the previous conditions, then such and such matters substantiate. exactly like how my knee, when I get a panic attack, hits the underneath of a table. The ink holder falls. The ink flows from that, and so on and so forth. So this is a nomological law from a modern perspective.

A law is not something what you might call to be a kind of like a religious, immutable, so to speak, immutable component. A law is all about expectancy. What you expect to happen, based on such and such premises. But to expect something as thus and so forth is going to happen has something to do with how you actually formulate the expectation.

and that's where you can get different kinds, different formulations of a natural law, different formulations of an expectation in the natural realm. So, coming back to what we were talking about, ROZER LEVYERSON- There's a quick question. ROZER LEVYERSON- Yes, please, please, please do. My apologies if I. ROZER LEVYERSON- No, I just want to clarify something. So is this modal in some sense, like nomological expectancy?

ROZER LEVYERSON- Yes, yes, yes. Well, you see, nomological expectancy is also has is rife with all sorts of problems in the sense that you can formulate nomological expectancy in terms of pure empiricism, or you can go on and incorporate some model vocabularies and counterfactual scenarios. Yes, in fact, this is the very point that Sellars makes, so as Brandoom and later Carnap, All such nomological expectancies require at least the introduction of one or perhaps more modal vocabularies, counterfactual scenarios, fictions, hypotheticals.

Yes. Okay. Sorry. Truth. Sorry, I lost my... Can someone tell me what I was actually talking about?

Pneumological expectancy can be couched in terms of contemporary statistical analysis? Yes, yes. So as I mentioned, So there are all these ways of how you can go around and see basically the so-called

forms of understanding. When I say forms of understanding, when I say forms of understanding, simply mean forms of prediction. Essentially, science So the ultimate ambition is to predict what is going to happen. And of course, prediction, here, you remember all the stuff that we talked about, about Hume, about Nelson Goodman, so on and so forth.

So predictions are not straightforward. predictions are essentially tethered to the notion of probability and statistics. So, in that sense, they can also be tethered to different concepts of possibilities. So, for example, when you read two concepts of probability, Carnap's classic essay, you see that there are at least two notions of probability. One, in the sense of frequentism, in the sense that such and such observation,

the frequency of such and such observations, lead you to predict that, for example, this will happen, x will happen at the time t. or a fundamentally different one, a different kind of prediction or probability, a logical probability, in the sense that you are not simply working around observations in a sensorial manner. But such observations are actually formulated in logical statements. And such logical statements, according to logical systems in which they are couched, they can actually lead you to different consequences.

So that's what I wanted to say. the logical and empirical requirements. Let's examine the reguet. Necessary conditions for understanding more closely. First, the explanation condition.

Second, the intelligibility condition. And third, the usual logical, methodological, and empirical requirements. First, do we get explicit ties understanding to explanation? Understanding is simply a phenomenon characterized as having an adequate explanation of the phenomenon. And the phenomenon P is understood scientifically. If a theory P exists, that is intelligible, and the explanation of P by T meets accepted logical

and empirical requirements. Hence, we take it that having an explanation of P is a necessary condition for understanding P, according to the Rigette. We refer to this condition as the explanation condition. Second, Duriget defines the theory T as being intelligible for scientists if they can recognize qualitatively or qualitatively characteristics, consequences of T, without performing exact calculations.

Duriget argues, for example, that physicists consider the kinetic theory of gases to be intelligible if and only if the physicists are able to infer statements from the kinetic theory without performing exact calculations. such as the following statements. If one adds heat to a gas in a container of constant volume, the average kinetic energy of the moving molecules and thereby the temperature will increase.

The intuition motivating the intelligibility requirement is that in constant to an oracle, we want to be able to grasp how the predictions are generated and to develop a feeling for the consequences the theory has in concrete situations. Third, what do Rigette has in mind when he refers to the usual logical, methodological, and empirical requirements. Although it does not make this point explicit,

we presume that Duriget refers to familiar virtues of scientific theories or criteria of theory choice. Thomas Cohen's 1977 paper is a locus classicus for an assessment of the characteristics of a good scientific theory. In his word, these five criteria, accuracy, corresponding to empirical adequacy, consistency, scope, simplicity, and fruitfulness are all standards criteria for evaluating the adequacy of a possible theory.

For this reason, we henceforth refer to these requirements as Quannian criteria for good scientific theories. Duriecht explicitly affirms this reading. The Quannian criteria determine the goodness of a theory, capital T, or a model, capital M, on which the explanation of some target phenomenon, capital T, is based. The main motivation for demanding that intelligibility per se is not sufficient for scientific understanding is that, for instance, astrology should not count as providing scientific understanding.

Because despite being intelligible, astrology fails to be a good theory or a model if judged by Quenian criteria mentioned earlier. So the Rigette accounts of understanding is one of the many possible starting points in the large literature understanding. However, what matters here is that his account is, in several respects, a typical account of scientific understanding. to bring out a number of common assumptions in several current accounts of understanding,

including early approaches in several current accounts of understanding, including, sorry, including every approach by Friedman, Kitcher, and more recently by many others, like for example, Trout and the contribution by Do Regret. So to this extent, we can focus on the explanation condition and intelligibility condition. We will put aside the usual logical, methodological, and empirical requirements, that is to say, the Kuhnian criteria. The common assumption of these accounts of understanding

can be characterized as follows. As individual scientists understand some phenomenon, P only if three conditions are satisfied. One, explanation condition. There is a scientific explanation of P. Philosophers concerned with understanding often differ with respect to the preferred theory of explanation. They use different theories of scientific explanation, such as the covering law account, the unification account, pragmatic accounts, and various causal accounts of explanation.

Two, veridicality condition. In asserting that the understanding of phenomenon P involves an explanation of P as a necessary condition, accounts for understanding inherit a feature of theories of explanation that we call the verticality condition. It is a common view that explanatory assumptions, that is, the explainants of an explanation, are required to be true or at least approximately true. Consider the following example.

proponents of the recently dominant causal account or causal accounts typically endorse the requirement, that is, the explainance, that which explains, has to truthfully represent the causes of the explanando, that which ought to be explained. phenomenon. For instance, James Woodward holds that the explainance has to be true or approximately so. And Strievens endorses the claim that explainance is a veridical cause model consisting

of true causal laws and true statements about initial conditions. Moreover, Gustav Hemphill, covering law accounts, demands that the explainants consist of true law statements and true statements about initial conditions. Sorry, moreover, HEMPAL covering law accounts demands that the explainants consist of true law statements and true statements about initial conditions. So essentially, so to speak, you can think about if you were in the previous course,

But the notion of law from a classical statistical perspective, a probabilistic point of view, is all about the initial conditions of a set of elements, which you might call to be causal, effectual, so on and so forth. And then the behavior of this law over time, or this expectancy. So for example, like what I mentioned earlier,

when I kick, when my knee spontaneously kick the bottom of a table such that the ink hole on the table falls and the ink flows, that is a nomological expectancy. The initial condition of such a system is what you might call to be my knee jerk. So, in addition to the vertical condition, we have a third condition, epistemic accessibility condition.

If an individual scientist understands phenomenon P, then she or he has epistemic access to an explanation of P. Direct concept of intelligibility is one possible strategy of making precise epistemic accessibility. to have epistemic access to a toy model, for him, just is being able to recognize qualitatively characteristic consequences of that model

without performing exact calculations. Now, here, I promised you to talk about toy models. I mentioned a little bit about it last session, but here, I simply wanted to talk a little bit about more details. The toy model essentially deals with three conditions. These three conditions are not peculiar to the toy models. They are in fact, can be found in any kind of model.

What distinguishes the toy model from a canonical model is how it approaches these problems. What are these problems? One, explanation condition. Two, veridication condition. Three, epistemic accessibility condition. The ones that I just talked about. So, next time we are going to, next session, we are going to talk about toy model with regard to these ideas, these conditions. And we are going to give a very different idea of a toy model, in the sense that a toy model is not just a collapsed model.

It's not just some sort of an idealized model in the way that we talked about in the previous session with regard to Shalines and Lotka Volterra's predatory and prey model. We are going to talk about toy models as models which actually somehow distort, or if not distort, but transform the very ideas of the epistemic condition, predictability condition,

and the initial conditions. And that's put us on a whole different level. As I mentioned to you earlier on, this is where the idea of the toy model coincides with a meta-theoretical idea of the model. just exactly like Godel's idea of axiomatics. So imagine that in Universe 1 you can do so much moves, you can prove so much stuff. But all these moves and the proofs of such moves cannot be proved actually within your universe.

to prove them, to actually, so to speak, account for such moves, you have to move from Universe 1, in which you were previously playing, to Universe 2. universe 2, universe 3, universe 3, universe 4. This is exactly Goodell's idea of hierarchy. diagonal methods, Carnap's idea of metallurgic, so on and so forth. And toy model, in its true sense, is not about what models can do, possibly,

but what model is from the view beyond. from a meta model point of perspective. Okay. OK. I see twitchings. Go on.

I guess I'm just hoping for maybe direction to go in terms of literature to look at. No, I just love that. I think Theo is, do you know what Theo is? Theo is exactly what Socrates says is the escape code in the cynical Socratic sense. So the cynical scapegoat in a Socratic sense is that he's always going to give a question before other people have actually understood the question or make an answer to it. And for that matter, he's always in hell. But nevertheless, we love those people who live in hell.

Okay, go on. I'll just ignore that. But I was just wondering if there's more literature on determining the initial condition. Well, to be honest with you, Theo. Or do you know what I'm trying to get at? Yeah, no, no, absolutely. No, no, no, no. Okay, let me tell you this. that essentially all of this stuff that we are talking about are abstract. They become concrete once they become somehow coordinated with physical sciences.

In the sense that at the very least, such and such conditions should be coordinated with, one, the initial condition in the sense of the mathematical physics, and two, the boundary conditions. Now, these two conditions, even the physical sense, are absolutely not clear. Either physically, empirically, or theoretically. And, of course, this is where you basically, you can launch your skeptical warfare.

Yes, this is the whole point. You see, it's not that physics is wrong or theoretical physics is misguided. It's just that as physicists, good physicists know, the so-called initial and boundary conditions of a system, which is so you can think about it as the ground zero of every other thing that might emerge from your investigation. OK? In so far as these things are underdetermined, you can go all sorts of ways, false, wrong, right,

so on and so forth. And yes, this is exactly why people like Einstein, Boltzmann, Poincare refuse to see physics as divested from philosophy. To understand the initial and boundary conditions of a system is not a purely physical task. It is not, in fact, solely a problem that can only be couched in terms of pure physics or mathematical physics. In fact, they would challenge you. That is purely a philosophical question.

Precisely because what is this initial condition? Coming back to Kant. Coming back to Kant. Go on, go on. Can I jump in with Justin's second question, which he posed earlier? I think this is exactly the point, which is that, sure, it's a philosophical, it's not even an appropriation, a philosophical interpretation of these boundary conditions and how you like play with these boundary conditions, et cetera. But I think Justin is asking about the standard by means of which these boundary conditions that you set change the nature of intelligence or whatever. Well, Joven, the whole point is that, you see, so the various standards that you are going to pose

are going precisely because of those very principles by which you have already identified such and such initial and boundary conditions. This is essentially, in a Kantian sense, these are transcendental structures. so if that is the case then how can you even talk about other kinds of systems i'm not i'm not following i don't elaborate your question so i can yeah i'm sorry i didn't understand what you were saying um i guess I was bringing up Justin's second problem again as in that there is philosophical value by means of

which you understand the boundary conditions in such and such a manner. It is not a philosophical value. When we are talking about philosophy here we are not talking about some sort of I don't know discipline of philosophy. We are talking about philosophical history from which science emerged, from which science emerged, OK? So when we are talking about a philosophical question of identifying initial and boundary question, simply we mean that how can you, in fact, within the bounds of even today's science, complexity theory, say that this is the initial uh boundary condition or this is a boundary condition

yeah okay so i i think i know how to get to this point so this is platonic in the sense that it is the question of how being shows itself or at least yes yeah how how can you ever well this is this is is, you see, why do you think that I became this kind of nasty Hegelian in intelligence? Yes. Yeah. So that everyone hates me at this point. No, I'm just joking. No question. That is true. But here is the very problem. It's a problem inherited to us by Plato. OK. So how are you even going to go about

and identify condition of a system or boundary conditions? Even in a physicalistic sense, even in the physicalistic sense. Yeah, I mean, like, so like to give you an alternative as in to respond to your question, one way in which, so L'Oreal and Francois Schmidt, do not take these inertial boundary conditions as with regards to being instead they look at um russian like soviet physicists and stuff like that and they ascribe a different form of they said that there can be other forms of boundary conditions and i don't want to get too much into

it but it's not it doesn't record the relation well well well let me let me tell you i mean i i know for the fact that my knowledge of either L'Oréal or Anne-François is far less than you. So please do correct me if I'm making a kind of, what do you say, a premature comment. Okay, here my objection. Isn't this the very objection that Kant makes in the critique of pure reason. How can we talk about these other kinds of perceptions, other kinds of minds, other kinds of what you might call to be mindedness, so on and so forth? Yeah, right.

Kant is not that kind of person who dogmatically rules out the possibility of such minds, alien species so and so forth it's just that he warns us that how can we in the framework of transcendental deduction namely the objective link between cogitation and cogitatum cogitation and cogitatum that which thinks and that which is thought i'm not talking about knowledge you see here kent is far more radical that people thinking about him when kent

talk about aliens and why we shouldn't think about aliens and why we should actually also think about aliens he doesn't talk about understanding wisdom he doesn't talk about perception which is a sensory edifice he simply talks about them okay in terms of cogito So the double sides of it, cogitation and cogitatum, that which thinks and that which is thought. Okay, here a translation distortion happens.

Many people, so here, let me take, so Kant says that the mathematics is of cogitation or cognition okay arcansas but in translation many people have actually translated this that mathematics is of knowledge okay that is absolutely purely anti-cantium we can think like the way that Measu thinks about by way of the mathematical structures

by way of the abstract products of cognition about some aspects of reality however it is yet to be answered if we can understand them or we can perceive them Because these perceptions and understanding are fundamentally different from cognition, arcaneces. So here, the point is that what Laurel talks about is exactly cognition in the Hermann-Cohenian sense. The question of understanding and perception hasn't been answered yet in philosophy.

Can we understand these alien possible realms? Can we perceive them? We don't know. I don't think that Kant gives us any source of what you might call the resources to answer this question. Well, yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to go like too much into this. but I think Lara Rolf Schmidt are a lot trickier. I've been trickiest in the art of a lot of tricks. And in all of these tricks, the question

is not about cognition. For them, I don't think the question of, they're not interested in the question of knowledge and so forth, they don't think that you need. So cognition is not knowledge, Joven. Sure. Cognition is not knowledge. I guess I'm speaking of cognition in the sense that there is a relationship between the subject of cognitivizing and what is cognitivized. And... Well, when... No, no, no, no, no. You are... Here you are... You see, this is exactly my problem with Loruel rather than Francois. I actually think that Enfant Seurat is on the right side of the good problems,

whereas Laruel, essentially, I wouldn't call him a charlatan, but I would say that he's just yet another French philosopher, aligning the distinctions to infinity. So when you are saying cognitivizing and cognitivized, you are already trying to say that certain resources of cognition can be elided with certain resources of perception and so much with certain resources of sensory perception. Now, the thing is that Laruel is exactly like Badir, even though that there are, you know, the kind of arch enemies.

But I think that there are essentially the bipolar, basically, scenarios of today's French philosophy, both of which we have to get rid of in order to get to the true philosophy. I think Anne-Francois Chermit has a different kind of, basically, a scheme here, a philosophical scheme. yeah I really don't think that not well I I would love you to defend love well and and say something about him more but knowing him even mill minimally reading

him minimally I actually think that he's it's just a bipolar opposite about you yeah ontology versus the ontology of the or the metaphysis in the car to Carnapian sense the metaphysics of the first science none of these are and that are should be on our philosophical menu at this point we should relinquish them We should deny them as basically vagaries in a Kantian sense. That's not what he's doing, though. Like, I think that there's no point in me in defending Laraul and so forth.

Like, the reason why I would defend him is that that's not what he's doing. And I think a lot of people really, like, severely misunderstand a lot of his work. Sure, sure, sure. No, no, no. I absolutely understand. This is not... Okay, let me tell you. Go ahead. This is not exactly what he's trying to do. to say that this is not exactly what he's trying to do doesn't mean that he's not doing this in the interim you see so yeah I'm with a project right whether like that is his project and he ends up doing it in the interim I don't know I i don't i don't think i don't think that's he gave well you have to argue here yeah yeah he

i have to send you some stuff but yeah he he gave a few lectures um in paris and then in london on questions of modeling he's not like he he's not like a purely continental like doofus that people like like you think no no no i absolutely i absolutely completely understand this i i absolutely let me tell you this if you want to hear my idea I think that Laruel is something far beyond the accepted norm of a continental philosophy nevertheless I still want to hear from you

in what sense we can actually in a philosophical sense escape from those dogmas that post-structuralist philosophy was plagued with yeah I mean those are I mean I do I do have an answer I think at least an attempt but I'll have yeah I'll send it to you superb superb yes please please do please do please do because because to be honest with you I'm not at this point in my life I have no let me say that I

I am a traitor par excellence. I have no qualms, I have no basically fidelity to any of these camps. I just want them to burn down for the sake of philosophy par excellence. Whoever is going to survive shall be survived. Literally for me philosophy is the most important thing. The methods are also important, but the approaches can be very well misguided.

And the whole point is that from today's perspective of philosophy, knowing that a lot of us coming from the continental philosophy background, I think that the approach of the continental philosophy, even though its ambitions on the right place, its methods are consequential, It is fundamentally a pigeonholed discipline, just like analytic. and when I hear people talking about anti-rationalism, anti-analytic philosophy as if they have figured out the formula of the great being

I actually think that, oh Jesus Christ we are basically dealing with the worst kinds of content of philosophers at this point yeah it all of analytic metaphysicians nowadays I do yes of course analytics are also pigeonhole Yes, and that's why the whole point of philosophy, that philosophy should strive to abolish every single manifestation of this divide. Because they are all pathological.

They are essentially, what they are going to do with you is that they are going to pigeonhole you from the great ambitions of philosophy. But, I mean, literally, analytic philosophy and continental philosophy at this point, I'm saying at this point, in the 21st century, perhaps not in the earlier 20th century, precisely because at that point they were in fact coming from the same germ cell, philosophy, Park Slant. At this point, they are fundamentally pathological. And there is no way to go on philosophy without abolishing such a distinction.

We challenge each one of them, continental and the analytic breed. any other way is just I would say a betrayal to the history of philosophy. More questions, please. Heckling. Andrea you have been so silent these days yeah I had to study more for my uni because I didn't study in the previous weeks because I had

to prepare for the conference Berlin so I haven't been able to follow the the classes here so I try now to to recuperate more but what what but um i know i know where you are coming from maybe you should give us a little bit of your ideas about this analytic continental philosophy divide well no i mean i mean i mean uh i definitely come from a way too much continental background that i i had in italy studying philosophy in fact uh the only the only i mean this is just an example this is just an anecdote but it maybe clarifies the environment right now in italy um in fact the

only class that uh that was was about philosophy of science was an optional module of six european credits which is like basically nothing and um so so for me uh finding all these new um i don't know like more narrow rigorous approaches to certain certain topics such as representation or modeling. It's something, I mean, that right now is like developing new, new, new, I don't know, epistemic horizons for certain, I don't know, researches. So I definitely-

May I ask you a question? May I ask you a question? So, the thing is that looking at the contemporary paradigm, the dominant in boldface, the dominant paradigm of continental philosophy today, we see that content of philosophers actually don't care about epistemological, meteorological questions. They actually care about ontological, metaphysical questions. Look at object-oriented philosophy, so on and so forth. So, why you were convinced

to move from such ontological, big ontological questions in the vein of Triple O to epistemological questions where finally the boundary between analytic and continental can be overcome well I would say that I mean for me and probably this is just a temporary answer because I hope that obviously I will I mean continue studying and find new answers but for me right now the real shift has been yeah from from like understanding certain processes from cultural to

scientific, like all processes where is like, where is this sort of interplay of human knowledge or intelligence. Understanding them from, I mean, shifting the understanding of them from ontological to more pragmatist terms has been a huge shift. Even though, I mean, trying to read sellers, I'm still trying to figure out how to understand this ontological functionist account. But for me, I'm trying to reject my heritage, my philosophical background.

And in this sense, I'm trying to reject every metaphysical trace. but but but but no I'm not trying to do that in a sort of naive way but more more trying to see this this is a this metaphysical approach to certain processes as a one of what I like I don't know like an a like one or do the multiple approaches that one can elaborate But yeah, I mean, right now I'm just trying to see how can we account all these multiple approaches and how to account them under a sort of functionalist framework, because for

me it's like the most interesting right now. And obviously because it's like there is not like one nuances, but there are different nuances of functionalism. Yes, I can see that. In that sense, a problem arises, I would say, in the sense that, okay, so... We can accept that a lot of us, me included, have come from a continental background. Not essentially a continental background from the time of early Hosserl,

because early Hosserl really didn't have any kind of distinction from so-called analytic tradition. We have come from a post-structural distribution. in which it appears as if basically we have ontological and metaphysical questions on one side and the priority of the philosophical. And then on the secondary priority we have, so to speak, a bunch of what you might call to be methodological and epistemological questions.

And here a problem arises in the sense that, okay, this is all great and good, but then how can you in fact think about a certain ontological question? question. You see, this is, I think, the greatest invention of Parmenides, but also more so Plato, that every question of being requires its own logoy, methods of investigation, methods of investigation.

And in that sense, Okay, how can we as continental philosophers actually talk about our own, you know, so to speak, great ideals of being, great ideals of, you know, continental philosophy, without actually paying attention the constraints of the very methodologies which we should implement in order to understand frame and answer these questions coherently about the being and

I don't think the continental philosophers at this point have any chance whatsoever yeah no these questions yeah no I mean I agree I agree and I mean I'm also trying to do like sort of contextualize this sort of fail of continental philosophy if it's if it I mean what other kind of reason there might be under this sort of like epistemic failure why is it like why is it so clear and explicit today and yeah I mean I mean I mean it would be also yeah I mean

nice research yeah trying to to understand why this failure is is so explicit nowadays it wasn't I don't know 20 years ago yeah yeah yeah yes right well that no I absolutely I'm on you I'm with you on this point the thing is that when I'm talking about these ideas, you shouldn't think of them as if I'm simply dissing continental philosophy. I'm not dissing continental philosophy. I'm actually coming from this background. I have been in this genre of thinking for a very, very long time.

But then we should be, if we are true with ourselves, not to philosophy, simply true to ourselves, we should think at some point that is this really a right way of approaching the problems? You know, look at the state of content of philosophy at this time. And please don't tell me the content of philosopher is far more diverse than what I think about. No, think about Hegel's idea. Philosophy is time apprehended in its own thoughts.

Consent of philosophy at this point is just a thought apprehended in its own time, in this contemporary moment. And this contemporary moment, of course, is a very messy moment. We have all sorts of problems with race, gender, so on and so forth, you name it. It's just that we haven't had any final solution to that. But what I'm trying to say is that you absolutely have a task as a philosopher to rise beyond such problems. to solve the problems of here and now

to solve the problems which are what you might call to be rudimentary requires you to do the hard work of elevating to a new level to see the old problems from the perspective of the new but new doesn't ever come for free. The new world can only be constructed from the old worlds. In that sense, we are always beholden to our epistemological problems. To say that content of philosophy in the vein of Mea Su, L'Oreal, so on and so forth,

give us this and that. You have two tasks in front of you. One, challenge the theoretical problems as a philosopher. To look into details of the discussions and the arguments. Make sure you find holes. When you find holes, make sure you attack them. But there is a greater task. The greater task is that every thought that is put forward has practical consequences, no matter what it is.

And in that sense, you really have to live with the practical consequences of your thoughts or the practical consequences of thoughts which you have already committed to. What is the practical consequences of living with the Larwellian universe? What are the practical thoughts of living in a Brazzarian universe, even though Ray has fundamentally changed, in Nihila and bound?

Think about this. do take them seriously as if you were actually living in such universes with all the ethical constraints they pose because what else are you doing here philosophy is not a free ride if you think that philosophy is just some sort of art education you are so sadly fucking mistaken philosophy is the way of life and the way of life has great consequences either you are committed to it or please don't get committed to it

do something else Yeah, I can just say now that obviously I agree on most of that. Also in a sort of strategic, political, whatsoever communist commitment that the one can build within this kind of shift to a more practical, pragmatist philosophy. because for me uh i mean yeah yeah it's sort of also in line with a certain kind of marxism because

obviously i mean coming from italy gives you also a huge marxist background in philosophy so i mean obviously i mean everyone knows that the the the heritage of operism post-operism or work at ism i don't know english work let me tell you andrea that even even even the futurists had communist commitments oh yeah you know that futurists are considered to be fascists but even futurists has communist commitments yes i completely understand that so no yeah i mean i

I mean, yeah, also for me, like, on a sort of maybe more individual level, yeah, I mean, trying to pursue the commitment of philosopher involves also this sort of playing with this huge political baggage that, yeah, I mean, as a person that studied philosophy in Italy, I should have so whatever I want it or not because obviously it goes much more into like this kind of Marxism in Italy obviously goes more in the fields such as arts

but also in science so it's so complicated and so complex that and there are a lot of examples that i can also mention that i mean i had that i that i that i that that i encountered also while studying um but and and and so yeah i mean for for me this sort of shift that i'm trying to to pursue um is also yeah i mean it was also committed to to this sort of like political beliefs, political, yeah, and therefore some like ethical... I absolutely understand this. And this brings back what I was trying to say, in the sense that any person who thinks that the political agenda

is of a pure dominion, in the sense that you can be pure and not make compromises, you are so sadly mistaken. Only philosophy is pure. Only the idea is pure. Politics is always impure. And this is the real dominion where we have to work with the understanding that not only from a psychological perspective, not only from the political perspective, but also from the social backgrounds, we are not pure people.

And how can you actually contribute to the domain of politics at this point in time without being a reactionary, without being a naive revolutionary, so on and so forth. I really don't know it. I really don't know it. But these are the questions that only philosophers can pose. Politicians are not interested in such problems. Politicians simply take these questions under the carpet. Socrates was right. I shall not join the forces of politics. I shall not die for the cause of politics, but I shall die for the cause of philosophy.

for philosophy is the only discipline that can objectively criticize politics here and now and in future. And this is the greatest slogan of all times, something that we have forgotten. we we we we basically um um at this point um treat philosophers as inferiors we give a currency to the politicians but who are these

god damn politicians what have done for us so far they haven't done anything for us okay so there is a time for a change and this is why philosophy is important not the kind of philosophy that is advanced in academic discipline, but philosophy par excellence. Philosophy as a discipline of a skepticus, infinite investigation. We are infinite detectives. Maybe someone can say before we turn off.

Sean, Mikey, Lenka, Joven, Justin, Ian, Barrett, Artemis, Adam, well let's talk about it, Or Theo, the man with all the questions. Essentially,

Surely, we are not reducing our modeling course to politics, to philosophy, or for that matter, to social concerns. But nevertheless, we should understand that everything that we say in the realm of science and philosophy might have consequences for the realm of sociality and politics. So, without compromising the very idea of science, the very idea of engineering, the

very idea of philosophy, how can we reinvent a new society, a new politics, model the world anew? Is there a possibility? Or do you think that there is no possibility? I actually do think that many of you think there is no possibility. at this point. I think that you're realistic, even though you are not

going to come forward and tell me this. But I do think that is unrealistic at this point. But behind the vestige of reality, there lies a vestige of possibilities. Possibilities always precedes reality. We can always do so much more. But to do so much more requires a labor, a labor as great as that of an objective realization. What are you going to talk about?

Come on. This is just absurd. You come after me after I say something about speculative realism or object-oriented realism and then you're becoming silent once and for all after I say something about the destiny of the our human race what is this I think it's a really great proposition to take philosophy seriously again and that it requires labor but it would be also maybe important to keep in mind that what you

said previously that we don't necessarily always know the every outcome of our models and our philosophy right so there is no point in saying there is no possibility because if there is no possibility then why bother at all right and again if there is no possibility then there is all the more reason to bother because there is just so little that that you can make it worse if it's all right yes yes and let's go ahead and bother because then the determinism and no possibility that really turns me off a lot because it's a little bit arrogant in terms of absolutely absolutely how the hell do you know things are impossible right it's the other side of the techno

Marie this is exactly how cynics were thinking so let me give you a historic lesson ancient cynics were coming from the Socratic tradition they were not platonic they didn't believe in the Platonist idea of truth. They were thinking about practical consequences. So the idea is that, yes, exactly what you said, the whole point can only come to the fourth.

if we actually make some sort of practical decision do something and to do something has practical consequences right but then it would be really important to think through uh contingencies and consequences of things we do not know that our thinking will create and this would be a really interesting avenue for me to explore with you yes and that's that's that's that's where that's why in the incomputable that's why cynicism is not enough no because that was like do nothing but

what's the point of doing nothing if everything is yes but but the whole point is that from a a broad historical philosophical perspective you can say that if cynicism was on the practical side of things and pelotonism was on the theoretical practical side of things it is time for us to renew not only to reconnect, but also to renew the relation between these two issues. Otherwise, we really have no excuse to live. Any person who thinks that to live, to be alive is okay, to be honest with you, is just fooling itself.

It is not okay to live. Could you please tell me what it means to live in this world? And it can be said okay? Cynicists, if they were alive today, they would have said that, shut down, kill yourself. So are the Stoics. Why are we doing this? But there is no point to killing yourself if there is no point to anything else.

No, there is a point. There is a point. Precisely because, you see, the thing is that we are kind of multidimensional beings, life form, so to speak. In the sense that we are thinking about these kinds of agendas and also we are thinking about our psychological agendas. Pain, pleasure, life, laughter, so on and so forth. And in that sense, do we actually get laughter these days? Do we get a moment of true bliss? Or all it is for some of us, not all of us, or some of us, is pure torture.

Why do we need to go on with this life? why do we need to go on with this life? You see, this is an existential question. And the whole point with regard to Lenka's question, the questions of philosophy only come in two different veins, existential questions and scientific questions. There is no other kinds of questions with regard to philosophy. Analytic Consciential Philosophy of Divide is just simply derivation of such questions, of such division, existential questions, the questions that concern with our happiness,

with our eudaimonial, with our welfare, with our life concerning the self. then the scientific question the questions that are about how we can untap the intelligibility of ourselves in the world of course anything other than that is just should be derided as a pseudo question where does the labor where does the philosophical labor come in that separates the cynics and Platonists? Like, where does it come from? I don't think that the philosophical labor...

Sure, okay. Let me tell you this, that at the beginning of time, when Plato was alive, so as Diogenes, Lothrius, and so on and so forth, the heroes of the cynicism. It was not, in fact, a division. The kind of division that we hold between analytic and philosophy, between existential and scientific. It was simply that as if they were working on the same problems with different methods, with different accents. Okay? This is actually quite evident in fragments of Diogenes when he talks about nature.

His idea of nature is exactly the very idea that Plato talks about. so neither for Stoics nor for Cynics or Platonists nature is something as a given nature is only a construct and the whole idea that distinguishes Platonism with Cynicism, ancient Cynicism is that, so ancient cynicism is a practical ethical injunction in the sense that, okay, if the nature is not given,

how can we expand our odds, reasons, so much so that we can actually expand the possible scope of a broader nature in which we finally regain our eudaimonia, our welfare, our happiness. Whereas for Plato, it's exactly also the same question. It's just that it's not formulated like this. It's just that the idea that for Plato is that the question of Fusis' nature is always the questions of a law, a law which is objective.

So, to have happiness, to have a good life, to have a better life, to have happiness, is to understand how we can expand the dominion, the territory of the Fusis and its laws. so really even at this rudimentary historical point there is not that much difference between Plato and Cynicists much of this controversy between Plato and the early Cynics or Stoics

is just a later historical controversy is after the fact commentary So labor exists from coming to be able to apprehend objects in the platonic sense? Yes, objects in a platonic sense, yes, absolutely. Okay. I think I have to go. I'm sure that you also have a life and you have to go. So

So let's get back together next week. And thank you so much for all of your inputs, feedbacks, objections, so on and so forth. Love you all. Bye, Rosa. Take care.