2/7/15

Causal realism

Pursuing an ideal of factual explanation

Putting the case in a preliminary rough way; David Hume is supposed to have shown that factual explanations cannot be objectively based on the nature of facts considered as themselves individually. The most direct part of his case for this is that "there is no object, considered in itself, that can afford us a reason for drawing a conclusion beyond it." And that we "certainly must look beyond the idea of a causing object when attempting to draw a conclusion to its effect." However I claim this is not so obviously true as everyone seems to think.--It only appears obvious if we take as our ideal a logically deductive point of view, coupled with a broadly Aristotelean view of substance and how it can cause things, which point of view is itself attempting to use the 'real being' involved as a sort of premiss in a logically deductive argument .--And that we can try to avoid drawing conclusions beyond objects in order to explain and understand what happens. I suppose this, not in a definitional sense, where an object could not be correctly identified as that sort of object if it didn't have particular properties and behave in a particular range of ways, but in the factual sense in that we try to concentrate on somethings immediate characteristics and can try to avoid going beyond them in our attempts to understand how what happens could do so, by comparing what appears in situations as they develop. This will form an illustration of the empiricle ideal of factual explanation I am pursuing.

Preliminary examples

It seems to me there is a better explanation of why the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand seems miraculous than to say it is unusual, and that this different explanation is intimately concerned with the nature of the experiences of the situation, so that it can still be said to be empiricaly based.

On the one hand it seems easy to see how five loaves and two fishes could be sufficient to give seven people each a reasonable amount of food, because we can trace more or less the same amount of food through this situation until it is consumed, and then the people will be appropriately filled. On the other hand it seems impossible for five loaves and two fishes to be sufficient to feed five thousand people, and further leave twelve baskets of crumbs, as where is the obvious extra required to come from?--Obviously what is meant by 'sufficient' is crucial here; I mean by it that we can avoid drawing conclusions beyond these objects (sufficient), or not avoid going beyond the continued existence of these objects (not sufficient).

So perhaps this is why we don't find the first case puzzling but find the second case miraculous; We find ourselves making comparisons and as a result having to go beyond what was apparent in the situation when it is miraculous, but don't have to do this when it isn't miraculous. "How could that possibly happen?-- If we are trying to avoid going beyond what we find in the start situation, it obviously couldn't, so; It's a miracle!" Similarly pulling a rabbit out of a hat that has previously been shown to be empty is a classic magicians trick that seems to be based on making something happen that couldn't happen, given what was shown to be in the situation, because apparently there wasn't a rabbit in the hat to be pulled out. And it seems plausible to suppose that this example can stay puzzling for the same reason no-matter how many times it is performed, until we get bored with it. And even then it will be puzzling although we no-longer care. This is because an empty hat is insuficient to produce a rabbit, and this remains apparent and true no matter how unsurprising the situation may become by repeating the trick. So this way of judging what is sufficient is seperate from any guarantee or even probability about what will, or has happened. And so if empiricism is suppose essentially linked to raising the probability of an event, which however owing to the problem of induction it can't do, this way of viewing the situation will be un-empiricle to that extent.

Similarly to this, the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand would have been witnesssed by fairly ignorant jewish peasants two thousand years ago.These people would have lived in a world where living things grow (the miracle of life), without them knowing of anything sufficient for this, fires grow, rain falls out of the sky, winds come from who knows where, the sun rises and sets, the seasons come and go for no apparent reason, and much of the world in short seemed miraculous. But still this generally miraculous run of experience does not stop this miracle being miraculous, and might only have made it seem a more natural possibility, demonstrating the presence of God, who also sustained all these other miracles. So, it may have seemed, why shouldn't God produce another one of these miracles, this time to order?

There are other miracles, and other magicians tricks, not all of them share the apparently miraculous aspect I am pointing at, but I am pointing at this particular aspect because it may help to see in what way factual explanations can appear objectively sufficient, or not sufficient. This is my purpose and the ideal I am pursuing.

If it is said, a la Hume, that in these cases the mind cannot run along its objects easily, but because of the obvious difference involved it suffers a check and surprise, and that is why they seem puzzling. Then firstly, this is not a consideration that requires a "general run" of experience to produce the puzzlement, or remove it. But secondly, if the mind can run along its objects in this way it would also seem not to need to go beyond them, but could suppose the continued existence of these objects, without any empirical evidence opposing this supposition. Since it didn't have to go beyond them their continued existence, in this way, appears sufficient to produce the developping situation. Or in the case of the miraculous or magicians trick, the need to go beyond what was found in the original situation makes it appear obviously not sufficient for what follows, and so makes the whole situation appear puzzling.

So this way of looking at the question seems to give a different answer to Humes questions why we suppose the continued (and independent) existence of body; We like to suppose the continued existence of body, because we therby don't have to draw conclusions beyond bodies, consequently they themselves seem sufficient to produce the situations which are capable of being seen in this way. Consequently, THAT EXPALINS IT. It is my contention that there is no essential difference between what we are aiming for with the continued existence of body, and what we are often aiming for in trying to understand causal situations more generally.

Breifly; my strategy will be to replace the billiard ball paradigm of causal interaction with the case of a ball being pushed into a bucket of water with the result that the water level rises. I claim we can describe the first paradigm in terms of the second. I further claim that the second can be seen interms of avoiding drawing conclusions beyond 'factors' in the situation. That this is consistent with the ideal of factual explanation given above for trying to see how the contents of a situation are themselves sufficient for what occurs. That this is different from any analysis of the concept of cause, although such an analysis can result from our attempts at reaching this ideal. It is also different from trying to get any guarantee or probability as to what will happen. That trying to avoid drawing conclusions beyond factors in a situation is not the same as trying to see these factors in terms of a description[, which description is then supposed to 'catch' or 'link' facts and carry the causal efficacy missing from suppose 'objective reality' unsullied by human concepts--if such a thing were possible although it is supposed it isn't.] So that although we can describe the billiard ball paradigm in terms of the ball and bucket paradigm, something other than a mere description has to be involved if we are to avoid drawing conclusions beyond factors to understand either case. Nor is this sort of principle based on 'human reason'. It is based on attempts to see how the contents of a situation could themselves be suffiecient to bring about what occurs. In as far as this seems to be the case it is inconsistent with it appearing to depend on human reason, because in that case the contents themselves couldn't appear sufficient. This ideal and attempts towards it also places a much stronger condition on what we are trying to do than simply trying to describe situations in particular terms. On the contrary, as above, we instead have to try and avoid drawing conclusions beyond objects. This condition may seem so strong as to be obviously impossible in many cases. Nevertheless these cases will appear to fall short of what we can get in some other cases, and so be less than the ideal. This will give an objective reason for saying we don't satisfactorily understand them.

THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON

What never seems to have been properly grasped with this principle is that if we suppose we have a sufficient reason for something supposing any other reason for that thing is superfluous. Its redundant. It is like supposing there is a need for a grand designer although evolution through natural selection is sufficient to account for apparent design, and is true. There's no point; all the work has already been done. (This is one form of simplicity.) So this raises the question; if something appears itself sufficient to bring about an occurrence, what is the point of saying this reasoning is a priori based? Or that it is based on the nature of human reason?

This principle, prior to Hume, was supposed to be certain, and to depend on reason; which meant human reason or Gods reasoning, which may have been supposed like human reason, although the latter was, for instance, not infinite. This links human reason, or something like it, to the essence of what happens in the universe. But in a universe that is itself sufficient to bring about what occurs, and which through natural selection self sufficiently brings about the existence of humans and human reasoning, there seems no reason why, or how, it could guarantee to humans that what happens is metaphysically guaranteed to do so, nor that how what happens does so could be metaphysically certain for anyone accurately realizing how it does happen. For instance, we will not be dealing with 'these things in themselves' and an information bureau; supposing the contents of a situation are as they appear to be, and necessitate what comes about, there will be no way they can guarantee to us that this correct appearance is correct, even though we realize how its sufficient. So these ideas of certainty seem a hang over from a thiestic view of the universe, where mind and mental grasps of things are metaphysically central. Added to this what could be meant by 'sufficient' tends to get confused with what is certain, although being sufficient and being certain seem to be completely separate things. The absence of certainty once we have an objectively satisfactory form of explanation may seem rather unsurprising, and not a reason to reject the possibility of such explanation. But given that the principle of sufficient reason is not certain it may be felt that if we stick with it nevertheless we are in danger of landing ourselves with a prejudice. But from the fact that something MIGHT be wrong it does not follow that it is wrong. So, if you are suggesting we dissregard it because it might be wrong you are pejudicing yourself against the possibility because you suggest we carrying on as if there wasn't such a possibility.--With this sort of attitude, in your effort to avoid prejudice, you have just landed yourself with another prejudice. However (as above) it may often seem obviously impossible in many cases for us to see how they form a self sufficient system, e.g. by being able to trace-factors through them and see how what occurs must do so if these factors are to continue. This obvious impossibility seems an adequate reason for disregarding the attempt, but it does not avoid the fact that in these cases we fail to reach an ideal we seem able to get in other cases, even though this appearance of the 'satisfactory' cases are not therby proved not to be a prejudice.

This old fashioned principle of sufficient reason states the belief that for everything that happens there must be a reason sufficient for it to happen rather than not happen, or rather than anything else happening. This was interpreted as a sort of logical principle by Liebniz. However from the present point of view it is a principle for an ideal of factual explanation; that the contents of a situation should be themselves sufficient to bring about what happens in that situation as it develops, and the consequences of this. It is not designed as an abstract principle capable of sustaining conclusions independently of our attempts at adequately understanding factual situations. For instance, if things continue, variations in the position of surrounding objects may mean we can discern different times of their existence although they remain identical, having undergone no change whatever in themselves. So we may discern the identical. Conversely many things may be in themselves indecernable one from another, they being decernable by the different situations they inhabit, perhaps simultaneously; why they should be in one situation rather than another being a result of their history, not a difference considered in themselves, or a difference in the way they are created rather than what they are in themselves. These would be matters of how we could objectively understand the situation, not how we must apply a logical principle to it and interpret it in temrs of the logical principle.

A consequence of any practical attempt at seeing how a situation could itself be sufficient for what happens is a principle of induction; If the contents of two situations appear indistinguishable, but what happens depends on the contents of the situations themselves, then both situations should produce the same result, or otherwise there should be something different between them after all (other than their being numerically different)--even if we fail to perceive it. This gives a motivation for re-examining the experiencable contents of any two situations that seem indistinguishable but produce different results, even if we don't feel we understand how either situation produces what occurs. And means that every individual situation can be used as a law. This also gives a reason why objects aught to continue unless there is some difference in their situation which could alter them. On this basis ideas being generally applicable result from what can be found in particular instances, and on whether other particular instances can be distinguished from them by consisting in some difference that we could understand might produce a different result--Any difference, logically, might produce a different result, but we are tryng to see how something might be itself sufficient to produce a different result, or the same result in a different way. So Generality is not the result of some kind of Platonic architype by comparison to which something is or is not the same as something else, it comes about by comparison of one instance to another instance.

As interpreted by the pre-Socratics simplicity can be seen to result from considerations of real explanation, rather than being some mysterious or/and pragmatic principle. Often, if we are trying to explain things, since we have to try and avoid drawing conclusions beyond objects we will need a few things that are capable of combining into many different things. e.g. the ancient atomism. Similarly, if we only have one thing out of which everything else is produced then this would seem to give the maximum possible extent of (this sort of?) real explanation because if there were two things there would be no reason from the contents of the situation why there were two things, but if there is only one thing then there is only one thing we haven't got a real explanation for. Again, in a situation such as pre-Copernican epycycles, or before theories of relativity, we are describing the situation without sticking to its contents, and the advance, which is in this sense simpler, comes by removing such layers of description, sticking more closely to what is observable in the situation. Positivism interpreted these situations as getting rid of factors that had no observable consequences in our descriptions of experience, but on the present view we may keep unobservable consequences as long as they are required for the objective self sufficiency of our explanations, but having any factor that cannot be objectively made sense of in terms of other observable contents of a situation, such as absolute space, or angels directing epicycles, makes our explanations less objectively self sufficient, and so less objectively satisfactory, than those parts where we don't find ourselves, or can avoid, doing this.

Two pradigms for understanding factual relations of a causal type;

1) Two billiard balls collide, with various possible consequent motions in each ball.

2) A ball is pushed into a bucket of water, with the result that the water level rises in line with the added volume of the ball.

Perhaps looking at what is found in the nature of the experience of these examples it may seem there is something in each of them which is not quite so easy to see in the other case. Nevertheless I think that either 'interpretation' can be applied to both cases, and after all, if we really put our mind to it it is possible to describe anything in almost any terms. This is a point I will come back to. But also and alternatively to this, if we are dealing with ideals of empricism and empiricle explanation, we may have the ideal although some instances may not be consistent with that ideal; either seemingly inconsistent in principle, or at least on their surface, without this affecting the ideals ability to orientate the judgement of what is falling short in fact. So there are two strategies that may be employed if we try and apply an ideal to a situation; description in terms of the ideal, or claiming it falls short of the ideal, which still remains the ideal for all that.

The billiard ball example falls most easily in line with one ideal of empiricism, that attempting to rest on experienced instances, but the bucket example can equally be taken to illustrate a different ideal of empiricism, that of apparent self sufficiency in what is experienced. Thus, a ball is constantly found to move (in a variety of ways) if it is 'hit' by another. So, it is supposed, there is a constant conjunction between a ball being hit by another and the resulting motion of the two balls. Similarly, it is constantly found if you push a ball into a bucket of water the water level will rise in line with the added volume (disregarding cases where the ball is a sponge, or compresses. But how could this be found in someones normal experience? On the other hand that it is found to happen like this seems to make sense on its own. So this might be why we expect it to happen even if it is not constantly found or findable in anyones experience prior to this understanding of the situation.) On this view constant conjunctions between the causing state and the type of effect produced, produces our belief in the effect given that particular cause.

But an alternative explanation of what's happening in these situations is the following; factors in the ball and bucket situation seem to continue; the volume of the ball and of the water, the solidity of the ball and fluidity of the water; and because they do so this results in the water level rising. Otherwise one of these factors couldn't continue. Similarly, the two billiard balls seem to continue, their properties seem to continue, the motion seems to continue, but becomes differently distributed throughout the situation. How this different distribution is understood depends on what factors are supposed to continue in the situation, and what is consistent with this. [For example; if the 'hit' ball is on the cushion, and is hit at right angles to the cushion, the hitting ball will rebound without the hit ball apparently moving because the motion is transfered to the cusion, which trasferes it back to the hit ball, which trasferes it to the hitting ball-- the cusion being found to have elastic properties, which continue. What I am supposing wouldn't happen if the cusion sags and absorbs the motion so that it is distributed in this 'sag'. If the hit ball continues in a free state, on the other hand, then the hitting ball will transfer some of the continuing motion to the hit ball and lose a corresponding amount itself. But this outcome will be affected by various spins that the hitting ball continues to have through the situation, etc. But the hitting ball, 'hits' the hit ball because they are found to exclude each other sharply coincident with thier shapes, because each ball has an amount of ease by which its motion can be resisted or changed which can be compared or measured on different occasions to see if that continues or changes, and whether what would happen if it continued with both balls is similar to what does happen i the situation. To illustrate this a bit more; If we have a large beach ball that is easy to move and floats around then the amount of motion in that would not be felt to be as much as that of a crushing cannon ball that you can hardly lift but is much smaller. Obviously I think physics can sharpen these intuitions and make them much more rigorous, (e.g. by comparing them with a spring or lever balance, or by comparing the amount of motion they can cause in similar objects, or how much they resist motion, including the felt resistance to increasing or stopping their motion. ). But what we seem to be doing in this VARIETY of cases is comparing the different factors in the different cases as these cases develop and by this comparison seeing how these factors continue through the situation, and how that is sufficient for the development in the situations we see.

We have with these examples an unlimited variety of cases. So it is hard to see what A's are supposed to be constantly found with B's in all this variety. And although it might be supposed there are some other A's found with B's that are less obviously what we are aware of, but are deeper and still influence our opinion as to what should happen, since such combinations are less obvious, they are correspondingly less as a matter of fact found in our experience but must be instead hypothetically supposed so their influence can explain our attitude to what can explain what. But this is inconsistent with the conclusion that there isn't any objective way of explaining matters of fact, it is just found, as a matter of fact, that after it being constantly found that A's are followed by B's, it is constantly found given an A we expect a B. But on my model we don't need this hypothetical general or constant point of view as the foundation of our explanations but anyone can more or less understand these situations without the need for a university education (as Hemple seems to describe his understanding of soap bubles emerging from under a hot plate) or any explicit knowledge of laws stated in physics.]

Under the first interpretation we aledgedly have one thing followed by another and many cases that behave in the same way, and it is further aledged that when this is the case it is constantly found when given the first thing we expect the second thing will follow. In this case we need to be able to recognise many instances as the same, or similar, and recognise a new instance as similar to those many. In this way, we can answer the question 'how IS our understanding based' in a purely empirical way as allegedly nothing needs to be involved in our understanding beyond what can be found as a matter of fact in our experience. However it is rather doubtful that such a story is actually borne out by what IS experienced. And Hume himself feels forced to introduce considerations of simplicity and coherence to explain our belief in the continued and independent existence of objects (constituting the world), because the simplicity and coherence of the world is greater and much more extensive than the simplicity and coherence that can be found in our experience, prior to supposing this. Another example of how our understanding and expectations go beyond what can be found in experience can be supplied by the collision of billiard balls. Because, even taking it that there is only one simple case involved in the collision of billiard balls, they sometimes 'kick'; that is they don't behave exactly as experts ( or the audience) think they should do. In such a case everyone always supposes there must be some cause at work. But, at the time of writing no-one is sure what the cause is, or whether there are different causes on different occasions, and the fact that there is such anomalous behavior shows that, even taking the case as overtly uniform, still A isn't always exactly followed by B, and the difference is sufficient for it to be apparent people have lost snooker matches as a result.

Under the second interpretation we examine the aspects we can find in a situation and compare what happens in the situation, as it develops with these aspects. If what happens appears to require nothing but the continuation of those original characteristics through the situation, then their continuation will in this way appear sufficient to bring about what is seen to occur in the situation, because we don't have to go beyond them. [ it is also possible to suppose that an object or property like a previously known object or property is in a situation where a similar occurence results, and to then investigate the situation to see if this was true, or on the basis this is true; this sort of expanation occurs for example with geological structures on other planets. It isn't necessary for a ridgid constant conjunction to appear before we can transfere how water explains certqain features on earth to supposing it might have done the same on Mars. This can be the start of futher investigation. and the objective will be again to see how the situation is objectively itself sufficient. But I am concentrating on a simpler case to illustrate that objective.] We look on the situation as forming a self sufficient system, and feel we understand it when we can see how the contents appear sufficient to bring about what occurs. This in the present case at least seems apparent if we can avoid drawing conclusions beyond factors in the situation as it develops and see its development as a result of their continuing. This is inspite of the fact that often we don't think we can understand the situation, in which case, if we can be bothered we may turn to religion or some superstition to suppose there is some way of making sense of it after all.

With this model we don't need to recognise many instances as acting the same, but recognise what happens in one instance, have a rout that that behaviour or object could travel to reach the situation to be explained, and recognise in the situation to be explained the occurence of the same behaviour (which may be combined with all sorts of other behaviours to give a particular result). This case involves such an assumption as that 'the contents of a situation themselves bring about what occurs in it'. This is an assumption that may not be borne out by experience. But on the other had it is not an assumption of the sort made at the beginning of geometry, which has to be granted in order for us to study the subject and can't itself be based on anything more fundamental. This is because the present assumption represents an aim not a starting truth needed to construct the rest of the subject. The aim is to see how the contents of a situation do entirely themselves bring about what happens. But to start with, we may have no clear idea how that could be, if it's possible at all. However this objective might be reachable, or only approachable, based on what we experience, unless there is some absurdity involved in it, which is what Hume thinks he has shown there is, and I am arguing against.

To suppose we are attempting a valid logical deduction from the idea of an object and so necessary not going beyond the idea of that object, but nevertheless necessary going beyond it in order to deduce what will happen to another object, may be fairly supposed to involve an absurdity. But to notice a type of behavior, trace it through a situation and notice how what happens should occur and is required if that type of behavior continues through the situation, is not an absurdity. It may be wondered if we are supposing that literally the same state exists through the situation, and that this can't be the case if we suppose a rubber ball, because the rubbery action of the ball is a different state on each occasion, similarly the liquid movement of water is different on each occasion, so these cases do not literally involve the same state on each occasion. Nevertheless, we may trace such behaviors through situations, which is made easier if they are found combined with something visible, or tangible, and this association also continues. How we understand the occurrence of such a property, will be supposed to be found by tracing factors through the constituent situation of that property, since that is a main way we try to see how situations are self sufficient, and by supposing that the way these constituents produce the property continues, along with those constituents.

Since, in order for situations to appear self sufficient we need objects and properties, that continue, and routes in the situation along which they can continue, bringing about what occurs, they can't be supposed to only exist when we perceive them. This does not mean we must imagine such objects and properties when we are not imagining them, or perceiving them. It just means we realize that for the situation to be self sufficient such objects and properties must continue from their starting point to the end of the situation, and this wouldn't be the case if they hadn't existed when we weren't thinking of or perceiving them. This appearance of and opinion of the self sufficient nature of our environment is, of course, just what Berkeley doesn't want, and which his arguments are aimed at showing is content-less, and absurd. But he says he is content to rest the whole question on this issue of how we can suppose the existence of anything existing independently of our having to supposing it, and I think I have just shown how that is possible.

An ideal of logical deduction as an influence on what is seen.

It seems to me that a main difference between what philosophers do and our normal attitudes is that when confronted with our knowledge attempts and the question 'how do we understand things?' philosophers ask 'how does the mind do it?' But that is not what we normally ask. Rather we ask 'how does the world do it?' and this produces our knowledge and answers how we understand things. The philosophers pre-occupation with Logical deduction is an example of this difference, and it is this sort of pre-occupation with 'how the mind could do it' that itself places a barrier to noticing how we can pursue the objective of seeing how the contants of a situation could themselves produce what occurs (apart from Hume's proof that this is impossible).

There is a fairly simple idea of what can justify a logically deductive valid argument as valid. It is that a valid argument is valid if what is stated in its conclusion is already granted in the premises given for that conclusion. If on the other hand what is stated in a conclusion goes beyond what is stated, or given or granted by the premises for that conclusion, then it cannot be valid deduced from those premises.

This notion requires that we know what is stated in or by the premises, or by them in combination, and what is stated by the conclusion, and can compare them. On the view that meanings depend on usage and or the general intensions of a linguistic community, it would seem that in order to know what is meant by any words we would have to have, in effect, a very complicated theory about linguistic usage, which is itself not a simple thing. Even 'a=a', in the absence of such a theory or natural understanding might mean anything at all. And even if it is a fact that we get the meanings right in the vast majority of cases how we can do so is not transparent, so it may be wondered why and how we could have much confidence in such circumstances that what we think is analytic is so. On this view it might seem, rather than being justified in our confidence with regard to logically valid conclusions because they are purely linguistically based, that instead it should be a puzzle how such conclusions could be secure at all, or have the right to be thought basic. On the other hand if the meanings of the premises and conclusions were Platonic objects that could be present privately before the mind of a reasoner for inspection and comparison, then such a reasoner could be certain of the meanings of the premises as being something immediately within her own grasp, and not dependent on anything else in the world, could compare them with what is meant by the conclusion that would likewise be before her own mind, and might hope to pronounce with certainty on whether the meaning of the conclusion is or is not already granted by the meaning of the premise as they are found combined. With this happy state of affairs the premises could be seen as sufficient to establish the conclusion, because it doesn’t contain anything they don’t already grant, and they could be known to do so because we would be dealing with meanings privately before the mind of a reasoner, which in consequence, couldn’t be surprised or disrupted by anything outside her minds immediate control.

Consequently it may seem that if an argument appears sufficient, in sopme way, to establish a conclusion, we can be certain of the conclusion given the argument, and conversely, if we feel justified in being certain about a conclusion this can be justified in the above way by pointing out we have premises that already contain it. The certainty re-inforces the independent-of-the-world self sufficiency, while the independent-of-the-world self sufficiency re-inforces our apparent right to the certainty. –Certainty on its own does not appear sufficient to justify a conclusion, because we can be certain about something although we are wrong-- This gives another possibility for the foundation of logic, cases where we could not possibly be wrong, but this invites the question 'how do you know we could not possibly be wrong?' And this may tend to take us back to an analytic view in order to justify our opinion. However, meanings are not Platonic objects privately before our own minds, and if they were we would still want them to apply beyond particular mental grasps, which re-introduces the possibility of mistakes between grasps. If the Platonic objects are instead supposed to be in the mind of god, or truths of the universe this raises the question how you can know this is the case when they don’t explicitly tell you it is the case? So, compared to the previous analytical ideal, they will only be doubtfully sufficient to establish this point. Added to this, this Platonic theory seems a theory thought up to give us just what we require without it being based on any experienced evidence, and without it actually explaining how we get what we require; We understand ideas by contemplating their 'ideas' which encapsulate their meaning and understanding(?!).

Leaving logical deduction; if we try to transfer the above sort of ideal of reasoning to our understanding of matters of fact using that general logically deductive plan, we will be looking to the idea of any matter of fact to be a sort of premis and will be trying to avoid going beyond it; we will be looking for certainty of the relationship between any matter of fact and any one that supposedly depends on it, and we will be struck by the obvious fact that what happens as a matter of fact is often independent of what we would like, and may be surprising and so appears fairly obviously not under our control. Since facts are generally something’s we have to work with, cannot dictate to except in so far as we work with them, and so are not under our merely intellectual control it is hard to see how any supposed certainty could be justified, as we think with logical deduction, by their being under our (or my) control. What’s more since the idea of each matter of fact may be distinguished as external to every other one it can’t be used as a premise that supposedly contains the idea of any other, thus, externally distinguished fact. So it seems that both parts of the ideal which is logically valid deductive reasoning fall flat when we try and apply it to matters of fact, as they are considered in themselves; there is no certainty between matters of fact, and there is no self sufficient way of getting from the idea of one fact to the idea of any other distinguished as external to the first as long as we avoid drawing conclusions beyond the first.

Whether or not the above is conclusive, if we take as our paradigm of factual reasoning the collision of two billiard balls this will tend to emphasise these points; We have two fairly obviously separate existences in the two billiard balls, what happens is not under our purely intellectual control, and there are (at least) two different motions, one before and one after the collision. From the idea of each billiard ball, without going beyond it, it is impossible to find the idea of the other, and from the idea of the motion of each billiard ball it is impossible to find the motion of the other ball, without going beyond whichever motion we take as a premis.

However, just because matters of fact may be distinguished as external to each other, and from the idea of such an externally distinguished fact it is impossible to deduce the idea of any other such fact, this does not prove that the existence under consideration must be at all separated or new; Because ‘two things’ may be logically distinguishable, which proves that from the idea of one we can’t validly derive the idea of ‘the other’, so that ‘they’ must be LOGICALLY DISTINCT this does not prove they must be IN FACT distinct. To suppose it does prove this would be to establish a truth of fact or real existence from what is required for mere logical distinguishing. To have some empirical evidence we are dealing with a new existence we would seem to need some apparent discontinuity in the situation so that something new appears introduced with this discontinuity, which provides evidence what was in the situation can’t simply have continued and still be present. But in that case we can take as our ideal of factual explanation cases where there is apparently no such discontinuity, such as the continued (and independent) existence of objects. Or where an apparent discontinuity and change can be seen as resulting from the continuation of factors in the situation, as for example in the case of a ball being pushed into a bucket of water with the result that the water level rises. This form of reasoning does not contain an obvious self contradiction and absurdity like attempting to use the idea of a matter of fact as a premiss in a logically deductive argument to reach something about another matter for fact which is distinguished as external to the former. It also need not depend on language if we can distinguish certain objects and behaviours pre-linguistically. It may therefore seem to represent a simpler and more straightforward way, or form, for drawing conclusions (although not guaranteed or certain) than any logical deduction has a right to be supposed to represent.

The above logical ideals of inference are again re-enforced if we are concerned whether our knowledge is a-priori or empirically based. Because then we will tend to concentrate on whether there is any certainty or necessity in our knowledge and will take a lack of certainty or necessity as a reason to distrust anything that looks like a general prescription about how to go about getting knowledge. In such a case we may look for a way that any such prescription could be certain, even though it is not logically certain. Or feel that there is no point in taking the prescription seriously since it might be wrong, and all that can matter is the extent whatever we do is found to match experience.

Aristotle was the first codifier of types of deductive inference. His view of substance seems like a transfering of the form of his logical deduction to our attempts at understanding what objects in experience do. So, on his view properties were the expression of the essence of an objects substance, much as we might like to find in the premises of a valid argument any conclusion that could validly be supposed to follow from it. In this rough sort of way, properties were viewed as belonging to the essence of an object, could be deduced from it, and were responsible for bringing about a change of the appropriate kind in some other object. So properties were looked on as things that essentially involve change, consequently they couldn't, without contradiction be supposed to continue unaltered. The most that might be supposed is that the essence of an objects substance continued, which produced the properties, which consist in appropriate sorts of change in other objects. Which once again raises the problem how deduction from an objects essence can tell you anything about another object, or can tell the object about another object, or could tell another object about the objects essence, and how in fact it could cause anything? But I am not looking on properties as things that reach out from an objects essence to produce a change in some other object. I am not concerned with the essence of an objects substance or thing-hood. I am concerned with the continuation of motion, or weight or solidity etc., and how if these things are to continue together through a situation some alteration to other continuing things must occur. What produces the weight, solidity and explains the amount of motion will have to be explained by examining the constituents of situations where these appear, in something of the same sorts of way, if we are to progress with our ideal. Since this is how we try and understand matters of fact on my view. If we trace rubberyness, like the fluid property of water, exactly the same state is not involved in different manifestations of the rubberyness, or the slopping of water. But the constinuents of the rubber ball, or water may be supposed to continue, and if they explain this characteristic by the way thier properties continue, this could explain the continued manifestation of these macro properties. However, if an object has such properties, its continuation, along with them can be used to explain occurences which are consistent with their continuation, and are what would hapen if they continued into the situation being explained, independently of our being able to understand how this properties continue, otherwise than that they seem to.

There is, at least to start with, a point to pursuing this type of prescription for how to understand matters of fact, other than the extent experience is found to conform to it; the point is that this is a way constituents of situations can appear objectively themselves sufficient to bring about what occurs in those situations, so we potentially could get a completely objective solution to the problem of how what happens could do so.

But because we are not making a logical deduction, and consequently there is no certainty or necessaty as to what will happen this seems to contradict causal necessity. How, if causes are supposed to necessitate their effects, but on our different view there is no necessity, can we be doing justice to our idea of cause and effect? I think it is not very difficult to answer this question. It seems obvious that if a ball continues with its excluding properties as it is pushed into some water the water must go somewhere else. There may be all sorts of ways of getting out of this, but not if we try to stick to the contents of situations as they appear. How can the ball continue in this situation without the water having to go somewhere else? The difficulty of answering this question while not going beyond how the situation is found, corresponds to the necessity the result may be felt to have. This gives a subjective necessaty, but objectively if something is sufficient to account for some state, but there is nothing to stop it, what it is sufficient for must happen. For example, if a ball is travelling from right to left, the continuance of its motion is sufficinet for its arriving on the left, but if there is nothing sufficient to stop its motion, its motion will continue, so it will have to arrive on the left. But also, if we understand factual situations by tracing factors through them how can we understand a change in the balls properties, without some other appropriate property being traced into the situation? Even though we often can't understand situations, confrontation with a situation we woudn't understand, when we can understand similar situations may make us feel that that couldn't happen. Not because it is felt that instances of which we have no experience should resemble instances of which we have experience, but because we feel we can understand a particular instance as self sufficiently explained from its contents, so if there are apparently the same contents on another occasion since those contents produce what happens the same thing should happen. So what happens does appear necessary, but not logically necessary. But in these senses, because there is no logical, nor transcendental, guarantee as to what will happen we always might be wrong. But this absence of any guarantee seems consistent with a self sufficient world that is not concerned with whether any conscious beings exist, nor with what they might think of it. And such a world seems inconsistent with there being any guarantee beyond what seems to happen being what does happen.

The theory of evolution through natural selection tries to make sense of the fossil record and the currently observable state of life forms and their relationships in terms of the continuation of processes currently observable. This was in opposition to the ideas of catastrophism or appearance of life forms and their changes being supposed brought about by miracles and individual acts of creation, or through any design. It thus seems to show how the continuation of these currently observable processes in the world, or environment, are themselves sufficient to produce the currently observable state of life forms and their inter-relationships. Consequently it seems to show how the need for a God, or grand designer is redundant to achieve this result. And appears towards contributing to show how the world forms a self sufficient system to bring about what can be experienced of it. But there is a large difference between being able to trace a certain sort of behavior through a situation and being able to trace the continual development of life forms through natural selection. However, natural selection seems a good illustration of how it is required that what is supposed cannot depend on our language, mental grasps, or anything about us, because it is supposed that evolution through natural selection produces all these things and does not depend on them. If the world of natural selection were shown to be merely a convenient way of handling the subject creationists could be quite happy, could regard it as not being what objectively happened, and all that is involved, they could therefore regard it as false.

Hume is not alone amongst philosophers in supposing human understanding must depend on human nature. While humans must exist for them to understand anything, and the nature of their experiences may have objective limitations, if human understanding aims at trying to see how the contents of situations could themselves be sufficient to bring about what is experienced to occur such a result need have nothing to do with human nature, as if it did have the contents could not themselves appear sufficient to produce what happens.

In the same spirit as part of that ideal of logical deduction, a philosophical ideal for handling matters of fact would revolve around the certainty or at least degree of probability with which the occurrence of some matter of fact, or factual relationship, could be established. But that ideal of logical deduction seems to suggest there is an impossibility in trying to suppose how anything (we can know of) could itself be sufficient to produce anything else. This raises a challenge as to whether it could be possible to imagine any way at all that facts themselves could be supposed to produce what happens; and this question is not necessarily connected at all with any certainty or even probability as to what may happen. It might be possible to imagine how some states of affairs could themselves bring about some other state of affairs although, from a logical perspective, this is just one possibility without any more logically justifiable probability than any of the others. But in this way instead of the ideal revolving around certainty or probability, we might take the ideal as what could be sufficient, in itself, to produce something else? And this is still related to the self sufficient part of the ideal of logical deduction.

But again; If we judge if some factor could itself contribute to a causal outcome by tracing it through a situation and seeing if we need to go beyond it as the situation develops, this is a consideration that does not mention or consider certainty or probability, and is therefore separate from such considerations. This seems true even though, once we have successfully made such a judgement we are inclined to think that is probably, or certainly, what happened and must be how the result was objectively brought about.

If there is no certainty about any explanative relationships we might try then it may seem that only pragmatic considerations, such as which works best, or simplicity, can determine our choice. But this is not true because all sorts of personal prejudices might determine our choice. So it seems that either pragmatic consideration or prejudice must determine choice. But this is not true because apparent objective self sufficiency might determine it, and this might not be a personal prejudice because apparent self sufficiency might co-inside with how the situation is in fact its-self sufficient and does bring about what occurs.

Both regarding matters of fact and also logical deduction if there is no immediately self sufficient way of establishing a conclusion from whatever premises we might put forward this tends to shift the emphasis from individual consideration of the particular case to holism; the belief that the general approach to a subject is what determines or backs up and underwrites our understanding of particular cases. If a general approach is thought to enable our particular explanations and deductions this may seem on the one hand more empirical, because it depends on our general experience of the subject, but also less empirical because the effective part of particular experiences has disappeared into the general and is not separately conceivable or confront able in the particular experience. Conversely if our understanding or deductions can be based on the particular and can result in the general point of view this will be a more empirical procedure in the sense that it appears more directly confront able and dependent on particular experiences, even if there is no guarantee or probability in the logical deductive sense that it will apply generally true in experience. But it may be felt that the reason it should apply generally is because we have seen how particular things work, so if we have other particular things that appear to be the same, they should also work in the same way. If this is shown to be false it will give us more reason for investigating these particular examples to see how this can be possible. So this again will be an empirical aspect to our approach, whereas if it is supposed our general approach enables and determines our particular understandings, what we will want is a new general approach that re-invents the particular case, and this is only empirical afterwards, if it can be thought to successfully achieving this.

With the view that theories cannot be derived from the nature of facts, considered as themselves, this theoretical part seems like it must be something extra added to the 'facts'. These facts are things that can't be distinguished from the theory which is part of 'their' meaning and they must come with. But on the present view we are not trying to add something to 'the facts' in order to produce a theory, but trying to avoid it. This explains how the facts don't essentially alter, but the same old boring facts can just be better distinguished in a more advanced theory, which doesn't need to try and re-invent them. Thus a cart stopping, or the sun rising and setting, are just the same if you are an Aristotelean or Galilean physicist, or a Copernican or pre-Copernican astronomer.

Since we can describe either of my examples in terms appropriate for the other which view we take seems underdetermined by the examples. But if we are trying to see how the contents of the situations could themselves be sufficient to bring about what happens in the situation what we attempt to do must avoid importing into the situation anything that does not appear there. In attempting this, we must try to avoid relying on any description we place on the situation. Instead we concentrate on factors we can point out in the situation, compare them at various times as the situation develops, and in this way see if we can avoid going beyond them. We do not try to avoid going beyond them by arbitrarily introducing some way of describing whatever factor we are considering, we have to take each whatever we notice, as it seems, and if there seems any change involved, see if this isn't brought about by the continuation of some factors after all, or else conclude that we can't understand the situation. where 'understand' means we can't see how the contents of the situation are themselves sufficient to bring about what happens.

For example; I see something in a situation, which gradually seems to grow or become smaller. This change seems co-ordinated with a similar change in surrounding objects. I conclude that I am in an environment of such objects, that by and large all continue, but there appearance becomes larger or smaller as the thing that DOES change, my position within the environment, changes. I could view this as the simpler option, but being simpler will introduce something foriegn into the explanation, which is trying to be based on the nature of the contents of the situation only. The apparent self sufficiency of the resulting situation may be a simple option, but it is persued for reasons of apparent self sufficiency, not the simplicity that results. There may be other ways of mathematically describing the situation, perhaps some of them are even simpler than what I am supposing, but by that criteria they may easily miss my objective which is self sufficiency of the situation.

But, again, take one object, it seems to grow smaller or larger. If I viewed it from a different mathematical perspective it might seem to remain apparently unaltered. Why shouldn't I do this then? The answer is, because it doesn't seem apparently unaltered. You have imported your mathematical description into the situation. The case is completely different from one where it is pointed out that a normal way of deciding what is the same or alterd relys on tacking one uniform space as an absolute reference frame within which these various objects all exist, and there is no such thing observable, and no apparent way of constructing it from the contents of the situation. Pointing this sort of thing out does not apparently import a layer of causally efficatious description into the situation, but on the contrary tries to get rid of a layer.

In this way there seems some hope that objective scientific investigations and attempts to understand can themselves be the best way to decide what is actually experienced, without philosophers needing to indulge in phenomenological introspection in order to try and decide the issue.

But, it may still be thought 'how do you know there is a 'way things seem in the situation?' Suppose there is another mathematical way of defining 'the same' in some situation, why couldn't other beings be so constituted as to find that way of finding the situation 'natural'? And in that case what is to decide which one of the options is correct?

It is pointed out that experiences come interpreted and are invested with characters that go beyond what migh hypothetically be supposed the neat presentation. However true this is, with the present objective we are not concerned with the character of an object as that sort of object, but with ways of comparing it independently of the character and expectations we may invest in our experience of it. The question is not whether some sort of expectation of the object matches up to what the object does or the sort of situational outcomes it is found with, because that would not show that what is before us seems itself sufficient for what occurs. It would at the most show that the continuation of 'our idea' of what is before us seems sufficient.

One way of comparing objects or the extent of factors at different times is to count or quantify them. A primative way of counting is to use tally marks. This method assumes that the tally marks wont spontaniously alter or merge etc. But it doesn't overtly attribute to the things being checked and compared some external property. For each sheep you have you make a mark in a bone, later, for each mark on the bone you take a different sheep. If you exhaust the sheep with the last tally mark this is a way of checking your group of sheep haven't changed. It is rough. There are still ways the sheep may have changed. But its purpose is to compare the sheep, or weights or motions, on different occasions, its not to claim there is some other property the sheep have; the property of corresponding to the tally marks. It is true that we can DESCRIBE the situation as introducing such a property, but describing the situation in some terms does not show properties appropriate to those terms exist in the situation. All we have are tally marks and sheep, and they seem to match on different occasions. While its easy to see how sheep can change, tally marks are made where it is not easy to see how something in the situation could have changed them. We subsequently replace the tally marks with an ordered set of words. This makes such comparisons much easier, and can be used for other purposes such as addresses. But it still hasn't overtly introduced any property into the objects that can be thus compared.

If we return to the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand; it may easily appear how five loaves and two fishes would be sufficient to give seven people each a piece of food, but that they are not at all sufficient to explain how they could be used to give each of five thousand people a reasonable amount of food and have twelve baskets of crumbs left over. Obviously the Christian religion over the ages has not thought this example was contradictory or represents some sort of self contradiction. So, in a similar way to this, although perhaps less extreme, cases might occur where taking five objects and handing them out resulted in something different from what would seem sufficiently explained by their continuing. Or placing two objects with three objects might not match the combination of tally marks for each group when they were taken separately. Consequently our ordered series of names, which replaces tally marks, might land at 'two' objects' and 'three objects' when marking off the items in each group before they were combined, but might arrive at 'ten objects', or 'four' when marking off the objects in the combined group. In such cases tally marks, or the ordered series of words replacing them, would seem to emphasize how the situation is not itself sufficient in terms of the continuation of the original objects for the resulting situation.

An analysis of this situation claims that such arithmetical truths are, or should be classified as, synthetic; They are not logically necessary, but in some non-logical way they are necessary. However, if a situation appears self sufficient, or not self sufficient, this sufficiently explains the situation, or how their appears something lacking, it thus trumps 'synthetic' as an explanation, or classification of the facts.

It may be the case that arithmetic can be shown to be strictly equivalent to certain logical operations using only a small range of primitive types of inference. But from the point of view of realism the extent to which arithmetic can be used to help judge the continuing existence of factors or continuation of processes in a situation, and so its apparent self sufficiency, will be what is of interest.

It is often said that 'one plus one is necessarily two', but this is not usually true if you take one number and another number and add them together, or if you take objects that are not comparable, such as custard and try to add it to love. Custard and love may be two different things, but to say 'custard plus love= two' would just be confusing or nonsense.

The philosophy of memory, personal identity and identity

It is assumed that such things as memory, or an analysis of the nature of experience underly our view of the world. So a difference in the way we understand memory, or experience may produce a difference in the significance we can give to some particular ways of understanding the world. But the question; how things explain what happens? is a question that concerns the things and what happens. However memory may make it possible for us to make the judgments concerned it tackling this issue it isn't judgments about the nature of memory that are concerned, that can be taken for granted, and may be answered by answering how things can explain what happens rather than by a subjective analysis of memory. But no doubt an answer to the question how memory is possible, or what it consists in must adequately leave us with how memory seems.

Although it is notoriously possible to describe anything in any terms, (so it should be possible to describe any causal situation in terms of the continuation of factors in it, rather than as involving a conjunction of essentially distinct states,) if we are trying to see how the contents of a situation are themselves sufficient to produce what happens as the situation develops, we must not allow it if this appears to result from some way of describing we have introduced into the situation. This is because then it would appear to depend on our description, not on the nature of the contents of the situation themselves. Consequently we will not be interested in conceptually defined similarities, but in perceptual similarities and diss-similarities. This seems to rule out such things as ‘grue’, not because there is a way of providing a conceptual definition of what is meant by ‘blue’ that rules out or shows us we can’t mean blue up to a particular time, and green afterwards, but because as long as there is a perceptual difference, without which it is impossible to understand or make sense of this ‘possibility’, we can’t claim on this sort of ‘possibility’ that apparently the original state continues, so we don’t have to go beyond it, to account for the ‘latter’ states. (Naturally this is in the most simplified versions, as even changes in perspective involve perceptual difference in the object and so we need other reasons to decide that there is no difference actually in the objects.) It also seems that with this objective we can tell that we mean plus, not quuss by addition, because the objective is a standard that is objectively independent; it is not up to us to decide if things seem similar or not, in following this objective, but we must make ourselves the slave of whether they seem similar or not; So if plus becomes quuss and is used in our understanding of the world it would subvert our normal attempts at judging if we had to go beyond what was already in a situation, and would not (and that apparently) be a help in making this sort of a judgement. As for knowing which way arrows are meant to point; once we have a background of the basis for independently understanding factual situations this may be used as a sort of reset button to check our meanings are shared with other people, although it may not be foolproof.

There are different reasons for calling something ‘a description’. One of them is to contrast one way of dealing with a subject with other ways. In this sense any way of dealing with a subject is ‘a description’. But it doesn’t follow from this that we can’t avoid introducing our perspective into understanding situations, or that what we are doing in understanding a subject must involve introducing essentially linguistic elements into our handling of it, and that our understanding cannot be based on the apparent nature of the contents of situations, considered in themselves; which does not have to have anything wrong with it, and so may be the transcendentally independent point of view--how things are in themselves.

It seems obvious that we can suppose if a certain sort of behavior were put into a situation it would have an effect equivalent to that behavior, so that behavior will explain that occurrence. If a trigger happy man with a gun that has left exactly the right rifling marks on its bullet, were in the room of the murder, this could explain the murder. So, further, what explains that behavior would explain its occurrence in that situation. This is a reason for supposing what explains the behavior is in the situation of its, the behaviors, occurrence.--if the mind is found to expect B after repeated occasions where B has followed A, if it is found to expect B' on the appearance of A' this would be explained if it has repeatedly found B' on the appearance of A'. But this isn't the same as it actually being the case it IS found there have been repeated occasions where A' was followed by B'. "It is constantly found that upon the constant conjunction of of B upon A, we expect B upon A" is a statement of matters of fact, but to use this to explain our belief in B upon A it seems necessary to introduce into the situation the element of self sufficiency recognized by expecting B upon A being a possible factor existing in the situation. People have complained about Hume's two definitions of 'cause' not meaning the same, not being logically equivalent, the one not supporting counterfactuals while the other does support them. These results seem to be because the facts are merely (supposed) found in the one case, while in the second case they are viewed, and used, as a possible explanation. But this is not allowed by Hume's general results; there is, supposedly, no way of explaining things using the nature of the facts, yet here the nature of some facts are used as an explanation. Admittedly they don't (logically) guarantee the explanation is right, but the nature of the facts are what supply a POSSIBLE explanation. So it's not impossible for the nature of facts to explain things.

...."introduce the element of self sufficiency", this may seem to be an element added to the facts, so they don't, can't, really explain anything themselves. But, on the contrary, they can't be seen as self sufficient if they or we introduce any element that is beyond themselves. It is not that we must introduce such an element to them, but that it is possible to view the situation as self sufficient, or more self sufficient in terms of themselves, and this is what we try and do, but they don't come with any necessity for us to do this, or any logical necessity showing that this gives the true state of things.--Although it may also seem that, as with the case of the murder, that MUST be what happened, because there is no other available explanation, and the one available is sufficient, and it has sufficient marks of being present, and we can place all these things there. This does not mean all of these things must be present, but the more are present the more it will seem this explanation 'must' be true.

The Humean motive for supposing a particular behavior in a situation, in the absence of necessity, is supplied by habit, or generality (glorified habit). Since generality is not something found in particular matters of fact it must seem essentially 'linguistic'. But on my account this can be replaced by the desire for objective, self sufficient, explanation, which doesn't require generality, but can result in it.

In order to avoid drawing conclusions beyond objects or factors we must compare the factors at different times to see if we think they've changed or not. A primitive way of trying to keep track of objects are tally marks. Most tools can be used for various purposes, some yet to be discovered. As long as we can make a mark, that is not liable to change, for each object we wish to track, and can subsequently take each object in turn and mark of one of our previous marks, this will serve as a way to check if our group of objects is the same or different from what it used to be. For many occasions an easier way of doing the same thing is got by replacing tally marks by an ordered series of words. We may name the collection of this series of words 'numbers'. We may then study the relations between these numbers, independently of our original use for them, but these investigations may also prove useful both for keeping track of and comparing groups of objects or quantitative relationships with one another. We may also invent other uses for them, such as marks for addresses, such as telephone numbers, or house numbers. These other uses need not be found in any original definition of 'number' we might have tried to make, and we are not bound to use them in these added ways. If we are interested in judging whether contents of situations appear themselves sufficient to produce what is experienced to occur in them the original use of tally marks, and developments of it will remain significant for our purpose, no-matter what someone may decide the 'real definition' of numbers, or 'one'' may be. The significance for experience of the relationships that may be found by considering the number series independently of its original use can be close, if the things in experience numbers are applied to tend to continue and be themselves sufficient, as in that original use. But for this use a strictly universal definition of number, if such a thing is possible, is irrelevant, because we are interested in this use not the definition or its possibility.

In all this we have not had to abstract numbers somehow from the contemplation of objects. Trying to see if some group of sheep remains the same or not, is not the same as abstracting the numberhood from the objecthood of sheep. And the fact that we can use the same sort of marks and procedure to check if a bath of water continues with the same number of cupfuls of water, does not mean that this discovers a property the two have in common, beyond the property of being able to use this sort of procedure in both cases. Anymore than digging a garden or murdering someone, or cooking a pizza on, a shovel shows that the objects of these uses have something in common. A tool is not defined by what you can do with it. And since we might have some other configuration that could be used as a tool for a particular same thing, it is not defined by its appearance either, necessarily. But we can do either if we choose, however this does not stop us breaking the definition in either sense. We could, for example, use pebbles instead of tally marks, or fishes, or loaves of bread, or an ordered series of words. With this use we are interested in the use whether or not this use is the meaning of the tally marks/numbers. We are not interested in questions of meaning, but in how doing this sort of thing makes a viable way for keeping comparisons.

[There are different ways of defining 'the same' regarding facts so whichever way we choose will be underdetermined by the so called 'facts'. But, first of all, this is only true if the facts are 'described' as the same or not. If we are not trying to describe them, but trying to avoid drawing conclusions beyond them, then we are trying to leave it up to the nature of the facts as to whether they are the same or not. Introducing something into their interpretation is decidedly not what we are trying to do. But, it is not always clear what the nature of the facts are, in order for us to try and leave it up to them. However we can use facts themselves to try and understand a situation, and so we can develop our understanding of the situation and 'the same' as we develop our grasp of the facts along with our attempts to stick to them in seeing how what happened could do so. In this way 'the same' can result from our grasp of the facts. This grasp can be less or more accurate and can be forced to be more accurate as our attempts to use them to explain the situation and examination of what is involved in situations develops. For instance; Motion, evidently involves some change, Aristotle thought the natural state of objects is rest, Gallileo thought that unaffected objects continue in a straight line, Einstien has objects naturally following geodesics in space/time. But this does not have to be merely one way of defining the same being replaced by another , and telling us when a motion is or is not undergoing a change, because it can develop as a result of our developed awareness of what is in the situation. So; motion apparently involves a change, however, a sudden stop in motion would seem intuitively puzzling, because we would want to know why the continual change occured and why it stopped--on the veiw that motion does involve a change. Casually, objects when left to themselves seem to come to rest, this falls in with the view that change needs explaining, and no change doesn't. So we can use the fact that objects seem to naturally come to rest to account for cases where they do come to rest, but not how they continue in motion. However, if we look at the situation, we will see that objects come to rest more quickly or more slowly, and this evidently depends on factors such as wind or slope or friction, or other objects getting in the way that are evident in the situation of an object coming to rest. This suggests if we make a road smoother, grease an axle more, have cases where other objects don't get in the way an object will move to rest more and more slowly. Since we can use things in the situation to understand what happens and how an object is brought to rest more quickly we should be able to understand what should happen in the situation as we gradually remove these factors and then suppose there are none, which suggests the object wont stop at all. This is not a-priori necessary, but is consistent with our more careful empirical examination of the situation and attempts to understand it in terms of what we find in the situation. If on the other hand we suppose objects have a property of tending to rest then removing these evident causes of slowing motion should leave a residual coming to rest property in the objects and they should come to rest more quickly than we can account for by these external causes. In this sort of way we can use what is apparent in the situation to try and understand what happens in the situation and both can develop together. If we have now decided, through this sort of consideration, that the natural state of objects is not rest, which only superficially seemed to be the case, but unaltered motion in a straight line, this can be seen as an outcome of out trying to peice together what happens from what is observable in the situation, which consists in things that happen. But in order for us to make sense of things continuing unaltered in a straight line we need to be able to make sense of absolute motion, otherwise we are only making sense of somethings continuing in a strait linerelative to some particular points or states, that continue. In order to get rid of this absolute motion, which isn't something observable in situations and can't be made sense of except arbitrarily. Thus our progress at each stage is brought about not by adding a superior description to the situation, but by sticking more closely to what can be observed in the situation, and so our old way of handling things can be seen as depending on less than objective descritive ways of handling the situation, which we have gradually got rid of.

It may be wondered how we can suppose it is the same situation under these circumstances, but it is a normal situation for us to gradually get familia with a situ

Since we are trying to see how the contents of a situation could themselves bring about what occurs this objective aims at something independent of us and our choices and our 'form of life'. For instance; the same way of going on may be attempted to be conceptually defined, but whether some states are themselve sufficient to bring about some state of affairs is not something that can be defined conceptually and applied to the states, because then it would not depend on the states. THEY would not be shown as sufficient. So 'the same' with this objective, cannot depend on our choice, it has to depend on the nature of the states. Similarly with the term 'itself sufficient'; if something is to be itself sufficient this can't depend on the general concept of it being "itself sufficient" but must depend on looking at the situation, what can be found there, and what happens, and by concentrating on only those things showing how nothing else is needed for the result.

If we take as an example Witts exmple of four or five arrows all pointing parallel to the right; Witt says that we could interpret the diagram as the top arrow pointing to the bottom arrow. But we can't do this if we want to see how the contents of a situation could themselves be sufficient to produce a situation because if we interpreted the top object as accounting for the bottom end object we'd have to go beyond the top object, and use an interpretation to get the result. But we are trying to avoid drawing conclusions beyond objects, and so trying to avoid placing interpretations on them.(The example of the arrows is a linguistic example, but the moral is drawn from the linguistic under-determination to general rule following, whereas I maintain this sort of under-determination cannot be paralleled in the case of attempts at real explanation--it can if the attempts are faulty and unsatisfactory.)

It is said that in trying to understand a subject we must place some interpretation on it, and can never get outside some interpretation. But this is not necessary if we can see how the contents of a situation could themselves produce what occurs, and the way our understanding works is to follow the ideal of trying to see how the contents of situations could themselves produce what occurs. In this case 'our understanding' wont be something that must introduce a subjective slant.

reasons for an external world; personal experiences may be faulty, so they may not make sense or be useful in explaining what happens. It is always an option if things don't make sense to blame this on the subjective. Laws may be universal but personal experience of them may be quirky. Having a world beyond personal experience enables the laws to be universal, and enables truths to be settled once and for all. Personal experience is gapy, but an environment can be self sufficient, so can explain what is gapyly experienced.