What are your thoughts on agential beings like angels, demons, and spirits in classical traditions? Do they relate to our previous discussion? It's interesting that when these traditions conceive of the world of heavenly patterns, they often do so in terms of personal, agential beings. Why not just static Platonic forms or 'dead' patterns? However, I recently talked with JP Marceau of The Symbolic World and he suggested that one could think of 'the angel of E=mc²,' or of any mathematical construct in a similar way. We view an equation like E=mc² as a very set and well-defined law. However, we don't understand all of its implications. So, could a law like E=mc² also be an agent? This is analogous to how, at our level of existence, something strange and seemingly counterproductive, like certain aspects of morality, might be conceptualized as being governed by higher-level agents.
Well, I don't have any superstitious beliefs, but I am skeptical of no-evidence propositions in both directions. As far as I'm aware, there's no evidence for the existence of physical laws per se, but only evidence for empirical patterns that are so reliable that we call them laws. But I'm skeptical of laws because in economics, biology, and psychology, there's been a history of attributing phenomena to written instructions, only to later discover that there are no such instructions. (See principle 1: https://interestingessays.substack.com/p/ten-principles-of-the-thelen-barrett) So I suspect that humans just like to attribute things to written instructions, and the truth is something else.
My guess would be to attribute lawlike behavior to the agency of the physical particles or whatever (I don't know anything about physics): they pursue their goals, and can do so with a very high degree of consistency because obstacles to their goals are very low.
War as being harmful to group co-ordination is an interesting position to take, given its historical use as a rallying cause at the national and international level.
Yeah—the common view of morality I'm trying to address includes the assumption that morality is about everyone getting along in a nice way, which isn't what's happening when people are fighting each other.
What are your thoughts on agential beings like angels, demons, and spirits in classical traditions? Do they relate to our previous discussion? It's interesting that when these traditions conceive of the world of heavenly patterns, they often do so in terms of personal, agential beings. Why not just static Platonic forms or 'dead' patterns? However, I recently talked with JP Marceau of The Symbolic World and he suggested that one could think of 'the angel of E=mc²,' or of any mathematical construct in a similar way. We view an equation like E=mc² as a very set and well-defined law. However, we don't understand all of its implications. So, could a law like E=mc² also be an agent? This is analogous to how, at our level of existence, something strange and seemingly counterproductive, like certain aspects of morality, might be conceptualized as being governed by higher-level agents.
Well, I don't have any superstitious beliefs, but I am skeptical of no-evidence propositions in both directions. As far as I'm aware, there's no evidence for the existence of physical laws per se, but only evidence for empirical patterns that are so reliable that we call them laws. But I'm skeptical of laws because in economics, biology, and psychology, there's been a history of attributing phenomena to written instructions, only to later discover that there are no such instructions. (See principle 1: https://interestingessays.substack.com/p/ten-principles-of-the-thelen-barrett) So I suspect that humans just like to attribute things to written instructions, and the truth is something else.
My guess would be to attribute lawlike behavior to the agency of the physical particles or whatever (I don't know anything about physics): they pursue their goals, and can do so with a very high degree of consistency because obstacles to their goals are very low.
War as being harmful to group co-ordination is an interesting position to take, given its historical use as a rallying cause at the national and international level.
Yeah—the common view of morality I'm trying to address includes the assumption that morality is about everyone getting along in a nice way, which isn't what's happening when people are fighting each other.
Then that particular common view of morality is somewhat naive (though this does not mean your response cannot be sophisticated).