Beyond Qbism with the Knowledge Ontology
Jean-Louis Boucon
[issue 20211210]
Abstract objective
As far as the philosophy of quantum mechanics QM is concerned in general, one can only advise
the reading of Michel Bitbol's book"Mecanique Quantique, une introduction philosophique" (ref
MQIP). What is needed to know about the subject is presented in a comprehensive, structured and
easily understandable way.
Let us quote-in these words (translated): "The new theory presents itself above all (...) as a
contextual predictive formalism." It allows the agent to assign probabilities to future experiments
based on an experimental context.
Qbism (quantum bayesism) is an interpretation of the QM that places the agent and her expectations
at the heart of the theory. The QBists advocate a "subjectivist" interpretation of probabilities that
allows to understand the Quantum laws of Born and to eliminate certain enigmas of interpretation
of the QM "beyond" the interpretation of Copenhagen.
The Ontology of Knowledge (OK) is in agreement with the main ideas of the Qbism.
For the OK indeed:
The agent is the focal point of the representation
The representation is specific to the agent
There are no "states of the world" but only "states of representation"
There is no probability of evolution of the "state of the world" but only probabilities, for the
subject, of evolution of his representation by the means of new experiences.
The possible experiences and their probabilities are the meaning of representation.
The aim of this article is to propose, according to the OK, ways for an extension of the explanatory
power of the QBism.
The Qbism in (very) brief
The easiest way is to read "An Introduction to QBism with an Application to the Locality of
Quantum Mechanics" Ref QBI.
We have reproduced (translated and summarized) the essential elements of this article below.
According to QBism, quantum mechanics is a tool that anyone can use to evaluate, based on their
past experience, their probabilistic expectations for their later experience.
Unlike Copenhagen, the QBism explicitly adopts the "subjective" or "judgmental" or "personal"
view of probability: the probabilities are attributed to an event by an agent and are specific to that
agent. The agent's probability assignments express her own personal degrees of belief about the
event. This personal nature of probability includes cases in which the agent* is certain of the event:
even probabilities 0 and 1 are measures of an agent's belief.
This subjective view refers the theory of probabilities to its historical origins in gambling: an
agent's probability assignments must never place her in a position where she would necessarily
suffer a loss.
* "Agent" means "the one who acts." We follow the widespread practice in the quantum information
community of calling the agent Alice, and a second agent with whom she might be dealing, Bob.
One measure for QBism is any action an agent takes to get a set of possible experiences. So
obtained the experience is special to this agent. Taking into account the result of this measurement,
quantum formalism guides the agent in updating its probabilities for future measurements. A
measure does not reveal a pre-existing situation, as the term unfortunately suggests. This is an
action on the world by an agent, who results in the creation of a result - a new experience for this
agent. Quantum states determine probabilities using the Born rule.
Note: A quantum state is not a state of affairs but a "list" of the probabilities of outcome of all
possible future experiments. All future experiments made possible by an experimental device are
formalized by a "state space" and the probability of measurements are the coordinates of a vector
(the state vector) in that space.
Since probabilities are the personal judgments of an agent, a quantum state is also a personal
judgment of the agent attributing that state.
The famous "collapse of the wave function" is nothing more than updating an agent's status
assignment based on his or her experience.
In the QBism, the only phenomenon available to Alice (the agent) that she does not model with
quantum mechanics is her own direct internal awareness of her own private experience. The
awareness of her past experience forms the basis of the beliefs on which her assignments of
probability for her future experience are based.
The personal internal awareness of Bob's private experience is, by its very nature, inaccessible to
Alice. But Bob's verbal or written reports are experiments for Alice adapted to the application of
quantum mechanics. She can deduce of this a quantum state as with any other quantum measure.
Bob's answer only comes to exist for Alice when it enters her experience.
This means that the reality differs from one agent to another. It's not as strange as it sounds. What
is real for an agent is based entirely on what that agent is experiencing, and different agents have
different experiences. An agent-dependent reality is limited by the fact that different agents can
communicate their experience to each other, limited only by the language's inability to represent the
full flavor of personal experience.
The Ontology of Knowledge
The simplest would also be to read "Introduction to the Ontology of Knowledge" (ref OK).
The basics for understanding this article are listed below:
-There is a Reality of pure logic.
-Reality has no form. It is non fouded, with no primary truth, without substance.
-Reality is Interdependence. It is complex.
-Reality not subjected to time.
-A complex interdependant logic system shows infinity of infinities of Individuations.
-An Individuation is a singular mode of order whose asymptote is monodimensionnal, with the form
→A→ A →A→
-Individuation is becoming "oneself". Its Shannon's entropy tends toward zero.
-The "transcendental subject" is a contingent instance of individuation amongst infinity of infinities
of possibles.
-The reality implied in an Individuation is a Knowledge
-The vocabulary of the OK differentiates what is Real (informal, interdependent, not subjected to
time, unspeakable), what is Existing (which makes sense for a knowing subject), what is Actual (all
order modes of Reality made possible by the Existing).
-The "I" is reality, so it is interdependent of reality.
-The necessity of individuation is fulfilled through singular contingent modes of order that are also
Individuations. These are Facts of Knowledge.
-This metastable reduction of complexity separates a Knowledge in Facts of Knowledge who are
separable by cuts (Acts) of finite dimension hence representable.
-The Viewpoint is a state of representation of the Knowledge. It is the present moment of the
knowing subject, its own "I am"
-The Act is a "surface" crossed by a Transaction (judgements) by which the unspeakable reality of
the Fact of Knowledge is replaced by a finite and numerable set of probabilities that could be
assignated to possible experience of new Facts.
-This set of probabilities is the Meaning of the Fact of Knowledge as it appears to the subject.
-The transcendental subject is not a being in itself. He is a logical Individuation.
-All these probability assignments converge towards the asymptotic certainty of the "I become
myself". This convergence is the very essence of the subject.
-It follows that all Facts are interdependent within Knowledge.
-The meaning of each Fact emerges from Global Knowledge according to a Perspective imposed by
its interdependence with other Facts of Knowledge.
-Since meaning is revealed in the form of probabilities on new experiences, the meaning is in
essence animated by its own time. The time of the expansion of meaning emerges according to a
Perspective imposed by the interdependence of the Facts of Knowledge. It is not Knowledge that
extends but meaning, representation.
-The World is Knowledge by a subject. The Shape of the World is specific to each subject.
-The meaning of a Knowledge does not refer to a reality vis-à-vis but to the laws of probabilities
that rule its expansion towards its neighborhood.
-The truth of the "I" is a certainty for the "I".
-The "I" of the subject combines and subsumes all these probabilities in the certainty of his own
persistence.
-The meaning of the world, for a subject, cannot therefore exceed the meaning of his own
Existence.
-The Existence of the World is contained in the Existence of the Subject.
Similarities between Qbism and OK
Despite different objectives, research areas and paths, the agreement between Qbism and OK
seemed remarkable wherever comparison was possible:
There is a Reality,
-the "substance of the world" precedes the separation between object and subject,
-the representation is unique to the agent
-the predicate does not qualify the thing 'out there' but the expectations of the agent,
-of the thing 'out there' we cannot say anything,
-there are no "states of affairs" but only "states of representation",
-there is no probabilities of evolution of the "state of affairs" but only probabilities, for the
subject, of evolution of his representation,
-these probabilities lead the agent's future actions and experiences,
-agents exchange and adjust their representations,
-neither the Qbism nor the OK are solipsistic,
-for both Qbism and OK science is necessarily anthropocentric.
Differences between Qbism and OK
We will quickly move on to the obvious difference in objectives and areas:
The Qbism aims to solve the difficulties of interpreting quantum theory while the OK tries to
understand the relationship of consciousness to the world it represents.
The Qbism is concerned with science and uses metaphysics, while the OK is an ontology that tests
its compatibility with science.
The differences between OK and QBism are not contradictions: I would rather say that, despite the
profuse literature that describes and justifies QBism, some proposals (metaphysical) do not seem
sufficiently resolutely expressed and their implications have not been exploited at their end.
To answer the quantum question: "How can we take into account, in a scientific approach, the
interdependence between the mind of the subject and the object of his representation?", did the
Qbists prefer to minimize the use of non-necessary metaphysical proposals, even if it means leaving
certain questions open, rather than taking the risk of permanently guiding the QM towards false
leads?
As a result, the Qbism suffers from the same flaws as the theories of Kant and Schopenhauer, from
the same lack of focus that leaves it somewhere between an Idealism of which it defends and which
would in fact say nothing of the nature of the Spirit and a Realism that it claims but which would
say nothing about Reality, so-called "unspeakable".
There is even a sort of regression from the Position of Kant, who, at a minimum, tried to define
transcendental rules, conditions of any experience, intervening before the object took existence for
the subject; The draft of a "how" of the QBist assignment of probabilities.
Abandonment is even more sensitive compared to Schopenhauer in that the Qbism expresses only
with the lips the identity of the nature of the subject and the object: While Schopenhauer would
have explicitly stated: "Alice does not have a representation of the world but she is her
representation of the world and this world she knows is Alice." Fuchs will only write: "The Qbism
would say that the substance of the world is in the character of what each of us encounters at every
moment of our life, a substance that is neither outside nor inside, but the substance of the world is
before the separation between object and subject. »
From the OK's point of view this is all the more damaging because the identity of nature of the
object and the subject, the fact that 'the world of Alice' and 'Alice' are the same representation,
provides answers to so many questions.
In this article we will detail this according to five main themes:
-The nature of probabilities and the reality they point to.
-The nature of the subject (the agent) and its relationship to the object.
-The time of the subject - the Anima.
-How the Fact and the assignment of probabilities emerge to the consciousness of the
subject.
-Reversion of Intelligibility
These themes will be addressed from the OK's point of view and with its terminology.
I apologise in advance to the QBists if this article betrays some of their proposals or if the
terminology used does not have the scientific rigor of the QM.
1-The nature of probabilities and the reality they point to.
Let's mention the ref QBI :
“Unlike Copenhagen, QBism explicitly takes the “subjective” or “judgmental” or “personalist”
view of probability ... probabilities are assigned to an event by an agent and are particular to that
agent. The agent’s probability assignments express her own personal degrees of belief about the
event. The personal character of probability includes cases in which the agent is certain about the
event: even probabilities 0 and 1 are measures of an agent’s (very strongly held) belief.
The subjective view returns probability theory to its historic origins in gambling...”
The OK fully agrees with the QBiste proposition: "the probabilities are assigned to an event by an
agent and are particular to that agent" in its literal, strongest sense.
But from this proposal the OK points out that the following propositions can be inferred without
further assumption:
probabilities are assigned to an event by an agent and are particular to that agent
↓
The probability relationship is not between a "state of the world" and possible "events of the world"
but between a "state of representation*" and possible "Facts of Knowledge*"
↓
Quantum contextual probability is not determined by the laws of the world but by the laws of
Knowledge*
* Knowledge as per OK definition
To illustrate this let's take the example of a chess game between two human players.
-Both players can decide to do without parts as entities and designate each by their attachment to a
player and their "dematerialized" rules of movement. The position of such a part on a particular box
can then be replaced by a law of possibility on its future position, i.e. by a state of representation.
-Players can also do without the chessboard and keep in mind the positions of all the parts, each in
turn announcing his movement.
-The notion of the position of the boxes localized in the two-dimensional space of the chessboard
(e.g. a3) is also not necessary, a system of relationships adjoining each box to 2, 3 or 4 others boxes,
having a unique solution (notwithstanding some symmetries) is enough to order the game boxes.
-The very identity of the boxes is in fact superfluous, the boxes as 'places' and their positions on the
chessboard can be replaced each by their set of "dematerialized" relationships of adjoinment. The
chessboard is no longer a thing but a representation.
-It is also possible to replace the state of the game, i.e. the attachment of each part to a box, by the
succession of movements that cause it, i.e. by a list of choices of dematerialized statements among
those authorized.
-Each of these "past" movements can itself be replaced by the context of knowledge that made it
possible and a judgment of the player.
Thus described, the part is no longer a fact of the world but a series of facts of knowledge (in the
natural sense of the term). Players do not assign probabilities to possible material events from a
state of affairs but assign probabilities to possible expansions of their representation from their state
of representation.
With each move players exchange information that extends and partially adjusts their states of
consciousness.
The player's representation of a game in such a form of pure logic is made very complex, but "in
reality" nothing has changed compared to the hardware version of the game. We have only removed
meaningful stopping points that must then be replaced by the bundle of interdependencies that are
their reality.
Because the bundle of interdependancies goes far beyond the horizon of Meaning for the subject, it
can no more be spoken about knowledge in the usual sense of the world but of Knowledge
according to the OK definition.
The nuance between the fact of the world and the Fact of knowledge may seem incidental. On the
contrary, it is essential:
If from a (possible) fact of the world it can be said that it has or has not yet happened in the
absolute; that it was, it is or is not yet real; from a (possible) fact of knowledge it must be said that it
makes sense (that it Exists) or that it does not yet make sense for the subject, which does not detract
from its reality or its interdependence to what already Exists.
NB: A logical theorem not yet demonstrated, although it does not yet Exist is nevertheless real and
interdependent of what is already demonstrated (of the Existing).
Thus, in our dematerialized game, all possible movements of players have the same reality, all are
Actual in the sense of the OK although some do not yet Exist to the consciousness of the players.
Actuality is not subjected to non-contadicion,only Existence is.
This "dematerialization" shows that the need for a final result, included in a space with countable
possibilities (white win or black win or a draw), logically precedes the succession of the facts of the
game as an event. This necessity transcends the extraordinary contingency of its modes of
accomplishment. It emerges from a set of logical interdependencies which "do not belong" to the
representation of the party event, the reality of which is diffuse and which are not subject to the
time of the game.
It is the same for the assignment of probabilities to the following moves, "knowing" a state of the
game. The reality from which this judgment emerges is a set of diffuse interdependencies, not
subject to time.
To illustrate the difference between Actual and Existing, let us cite another example: that of a chest
filled with Legos: as long as the chest is closed, I can, by thought, order the parts according to all
possible orders, all these orders are Actual. As soon as I open the chest, my thought makes Exist a
structure of order: it separates the red parts from the yellow and the blue; then in each class it
separates the pieces to a stud, two studs, then three studs etc...
Nothing has changed "in reality", yet an order comes to Exist for me among all the Actual Orders,
to the exclusion of the others.
If on one hand the assignment of probability to a fact of the world can be akin, by its nature, to a
conscious judgment of the subject, or even to a gambling, on the other hand the probability
relationship between a state of representation and a Fact of Knowledge not yet Existing (for the
subject) is already Actual, its reality is in the Actual interdependence relationships between the
Reality of the State of representation of the Subject and its logical neighbourhood.
It is not "what will become real" that is affected by a probability but "what will make sense to the
subject", following which paths the representation of the Subject will extend in a neighbourhood of
already Actual interdependencies, which new forms will appear to the representation of the subject
among all Actual forms, which New Facts will make sense to him.
In the dematerialized chess game, just before player A announces his movement, what has already
taken Existence for a minute for the consciousness of A, is still for B only an Actual possibility. As
A announces his movement, this possibility takes on the meaning of an Existing Fact for B's
consciousness.
We see that time does not affect what is Actual but only what Exists. And since Existence is relative
to the subject, time is relative to the subject.
Returning to the QM, the experimental device prepared by Alice made possible a set of Facts of
Knowledge according to a distribution of probabilities.
A Fact of Knowledge is not "something that becomes real", a Fact of Knowledge is real as soon as it
is possible. By the time one of these Facts appears to Alice's Knowledge, this Fact comes to Exist
for her. It takes form for her and takes place among the other Existing Facts that constitute her
representation of the world.
The question of the "collapse of the wave-function" disappears when we speak of Facts of
Knowledge and not facts of the world, as long as we differentiate Actuality and Existence.
What Alice refers to as a wave-function is an Actual reality: a set of "possible" Facts given her state
of representation. "Possible" then having the meaning of "Fact likely to Exist for the agent." All
these possible Facts are Actual but only one (generally) will come to Exist for Alice's
consciousness.
Among these Actual Facts, the probabilities of Existing are not equal. The law of distribution of
these probabilities depends on the global state of representation of the subject (the experimental
device is part of her state of representation).
Two conclusions to this:
1) It is not necessary to refer the meaning of the state of representation of the subject to the meaning
of a "state of the world" vis-à-vis, present or past. The state of representation of the Subject has no
other meaning, no other reference, than the law of distribution of probability of Facts that it makes
possible, as we explain in article ref OK.
2) The distribution of probabilities of these non-Existent Facts corresponds to the Actual reality of
the Knowledge of the subject, although for his consciousness the assignment of probabilities seems
to be a bet on future realities.
How in the 21st century could one imagine that the facts of a knowledge (language, memories,
sensitive abilities, procedures etc.) exist (in the common sense) in the present state of the brain or
body of the subject, as an isomorphic set of things or actions of which it would represent the
meaning, as in the present state of a conventional computer?
The idea that a memory that does not Exist, that is not present in the consciousness of the subject
would not be a reality is absurd.
The idea that the reality of this memory would be somehow isomorphic to its meaning, that its
meaning would always be present, present in its form, is absurd.
A state of representation should not be regarded as an Existing reality, present in its form, but as an
Actual reality, interdependent, not subject to form, not subject to time.
The reality of what is Actual is not subject to time. Only Existence is subject to time.
A Knowledge presents Actual singularities in its interdependence relationships. These singularities
are the possibility and only the possibility of Knowledge Facts.
The probability relationships between a state of representation and the Facts of Knowledge it makes
possible are Actual, not subject to time.
The "subjective" view of probabilities claimed by the QBists is only the appearance of that at the
conscious level.
Note that the concept of multiple universes proposed by Everett is included in the OK as
long as one differentiates the Actual from the Existing. These multiple universes are a set of
possibilities, beyond the horizon of meaning, they do not Exist, they are only Actual. Only
one universe Exists and will Exist for me in my universe, because the universe is me and, by
necessity, I am One.
In the language used by Qbism pros the assignment of probability appears to be at the level of the
consciousness or thought/subject of the agent. This feeling is reinforced by frequent reminders of
the origin of probability theory related to strategies to follow in gambling and by the identification
of the assignment of probability to a "degree of belief" of the agent.
The problem is not so much what thought/subject has of subjectivity, because after all Alice's
feeling can be based on an objective assessment of objective criteria and objectively justify her
decisions.
The QBist position lacks clarity in various aspects: on how the object of these assignments is
defined (how are defined the facts on which Alice can bet?), on what grounds the possibility of
assigning probabilities and on the level of consciousness at which these probability assignments
emerge, the level of consciousness at which the predicates that attach to the object appear to the
agent.
The first point regarding the QBist position is that it remains “in-between”, what weakens it: it
essentially states "the probability of such an event occurring is a judgment of the agent" as if the
event, uncertain in its probability, was defined in its nature or at least in the nature of its attributes;
as if the event were a priori descriptible in a space of meaning of finite dimension.
Facts of Knowledge, contrary to the facts of the world, have no nature by themselves.
Their meaning is not a priori but emerges from their interdependence with the other Facts of the
Knowledge of the subject. The meaning emerges from the way Facts of Knowledge make each
other possible, make possible the appearance to the representation of the subject of new Facts while
ensuring the Individuation of his Knowledge.
The Fact of Knowledge has no other meaning than the possibilities it creates for the subject, in the
global context of his Knowledge.
In fact, when from a state O1 Alice assigns 50% probability for fact A and 50% for fact B, the
individuations of A and B are not necessary facts of the world but are already made necessary by a
necessity O2 implied by the meaning of O1 that splits into 2 equiprobable contingencies A and B, in
the context of the global Knowledge of Alice.
If the agent's assignment of probability was pure "willingness to place or accept any bets she
believes to be favorable", if there were not "in reality" contextual constraints on her future
experiences, on possible ways of expanding her representation, Alice would not even know on what
facts to bet, she could not designate any Individuated fact as possible because her Knowledge would
be formless.
But, as De Saussure wrote: without words, thought would be nothing "but an amorphous and
indistinct mass." Language is not a tool invented by Man to share his thoughts, nor is language the
cause of thought. Language and thought co-determine eachother as meta-Facts of Knowledge
derived from a more general principle of knowledge.
We see with this example of language how the context of Knowledge essentially imposes the form
of what consciousness could bet on.
Conscious thinking expands by quanta of meaning. Words, concepts, signs are generally quantified
Facts of Knowledge. What will appear to Alice's consciousness, her future experiences, are everalready being constrained by the laws of the formation of meaning. Alice will know only the new
Facts of Knowledge that are already made possible by her present state of representation.
The principle that aggregates the meaning in quanta is no more a "mystery of the Spirit" than a
"machine". This is a principle of logic that the OK calls the Logos, described by the ref articles. OK
and PLOC.
All of the Facts of Knowledge that determine the possibilities of Alice's thought are Actual (in the
sense of the OK) although they do not necessarily exist for the Conscious representation and in the
present time of Alice. The same is true of all the meta-Facts of Knowledge that define the possible
structures of her conscious thinking. Only the Act of thought brings these Facts to Existence, into
Alice's present time and into the world described by her Consciousness.
-Probability values can only be assigned to significant elements and according to significant
structures made possible by the laws of formation of meaning.
-The possibles described by these probabilities are however Actual in the thought/object
before they take Meaning for the thought/subject.
If all these words, classes of words and possible syntaxes are Actual, who can say in what spacetime they reside?
Let's take for example how a subject becomes aware of a speech (verbal, written, filmed or even
musical): what is com-prehended from the discourse already determines, at all times, a set of
possibles, in the form of expectations and these expectations are updated as an expected word
appears Existing in the meaning of the subject.
Everyone understands that outside the linear space of discourse meaning there is an Actual context
in which each word (each Fact of Knowledge) is interdependent with other words (other Facts), that
these interdependencies cluster in meta-facts of Knowledge: syntagms, syntactic rules, language
norms, social ...
From the structure of this Actual context we can only say that it is complex, unrelated to the onedimensional space of discourse. But also that it is under the constraint of the primary necessity of
the transcendental subject.
What the OK calls the In-act of Knowledge: Interdependencies Actual but which do not Exist as
Facts of Knowledge for Consciousness, does not belong to the space-time in which consciousness
describes the world.
The In-act reality of our Knowledge "does not belong" to the four-dimensional world of our
representations. They are immeasurable to each other.
Thought/object "does not belong" to the four-dimensional world of thought/subject. They are
immeasurable to each other.
-The thought/object in which meaningful facts and structures are made possible cannot be
described in the world of the thought/subject.
The In-Act reality of Knowledge is interdependent. It is the interdependence of the In-Act
Knowledge that determines according to which laws of probability other Facts will appear to the
consciousness of the subject.
The possibility or probability of a Fact raising from my experience is grounded by the principle that
all the interdependencies that are the In-act of my experience impose a constraint on its expansion.
The Actual interdependence between the "already com-prehended" experience and its expansion
toward its neighbourhood is so strong that the laws of probability on the possible appearances of
New Facts are extremely restrictive. This, in principle, justifies the degree of confidence (not
subjective but statistical) that one may have in a probability assignment based on an "infinite" set of
causes, a greater proportion of which are common to each of the Facts of the Knowledge.
Examples include the Gnedenko and Kolmogorov theorem (1954), which states that "a normal
random variable (X) is the sum of a large number of small independent random variables (xi) none
of which are predominant."
These are mathematics, the truths stated by this law in its generality as in all its possible
instanciations are not subject to time. These truths are Actual in the meaning of the OK. It should
also be noted that the logical relationship between (xi) and (X) is not causal.
In a very general way, this law tells us that a subject whose representation would com-prehend a set
of experiences {Xj}can, de facto, assign probability values to his future experiences (future
according to the time of the subject). The probability relationship between {Xj}and {Xe} does have
a reality, even if the {Xj} are in no way the causes of the {Xe}, and if it cannot be said either that
the (xi) are the common causes of the {Xj} and {Xe}.
This example shows that if the {Xe} come to Exist only for the agent according to his own time, the
situation of interdependence is In-act, all truths (X) are Actual in their interdependence to the (xi).
It also shows that values (X) are only labels attached to a mode of Actual interdependence between
(xi). Although this mode of interdependence is inexpressible by the subject because it is Complex
(in the sense of the OK), the law of probability that can be inferred from the representation of the
{Xj} gives it a "usable" means to predict the evolution of the representation of the subject.
The probability of {Xe} “knowing”{Xj}, which is rated P({Xe}|{Xj}) is the operational meaning of
the{Xj}, but this operational meaning is only a "form" of the in-act reality of interdependence links
derived from the (xi).
This form is the result of a double act: that of individuating under the label{Xj}of the singularities
of interdependence paths and that of individuating under the label P({Xe}|{Xj}) the relationship of
each Xj to all the others.
-The probability relationship between Facts already com-prehended and Facts to be comprehended, far from being a "belief" of Alice, are justified by the reality of an In-act
interdependence.
-The probability relationship between Facts already com-prehended and Facts to be comprehended is the (operational) Meaning of the Fact already com-prehended.
The Act, which replaces the unspeakable complexity of In-act interdependence between (xi) with
the meaning P({Xe}|{Xj}) can be described as a "judgment". This term "judgment" will only then
express that the In-Act and the Consciousness being immeasurable to each other, the relation from
the In-act to the meaning is unprovable by the conscience of the agent. But we understand that
beyond the meaning, ahead of the Act that gives Existence (for the agent) to the Facts of
Knowledge, Interdependence is very real, Actual.
Assigning probabilities to possible Facts from Facts already com-prehended is not an “act of faith”,
even if it seems so to the agent's conscience.
This is the validity of this example because on the one hand the subject is "overhanging" the
situation and on the other hand he chooses "randomly" his experiences in an already ordained space
(a space of numbers for example).
It is not so in the reality we study:
-on the one hand Alice is an integral part of the situation. The experience for Alice is inseparable
from all the conditions of possibility, all the In-Act Interdependencies that already determine Alice
as a knowing subject and which are no other than the In-act (the formless substance) of her global
Knowledge. Not only what she consciously represents of the world and her in the world, but also all
the unspoken reality that justifies her existing to herself, there and now, endowed with thought,
sight, hearing, touch etc., language, instruments Etc... in the presence of the individuated object of
her observation.
Any possible experience of the {Xj} is inseparable from this reality.
-on the other hand Alice does not choose her future experiences "randomly". Nor are her future
experiences imposed on her by the laws of a world “out-there”. (Indeed, who can believe that the
laws that make any representation possible are precisely limited to those designed by the
representation?)
To understand how events come to Exist in Alice's time we must put Alice at the starting point of
our reflection.
There's Alice.
There is a future for Alice because Alice's Meaning for herself is none other than the certainty of her
future existence.
There is a future of Alice's world because the meaning of each thing in its representation contributes
to the certainty of her future existence and the possible new experiences that her representation
makes possible (this point will be detailed later).
Alice's representation is driven by its own nature and not by time.
In an In-act, unfounded (no primary substance) and formless (without a priori order), the attributes
of the world do not present themselves individuated and meaningful to the representation of Alice.
To identify a new experience, Alice's representation can only be based on singularities of pathes.
The only sense, the only values that Alice can give to an experience to distinguish it lies precisely in
the probabilities of future singularities.
Kolmogorov must then be rethought as expressing not a (universal) relationship between
mathematical facts existing by themselves in an orderly world, but as describing the mode of
expansion of representation and the relationship between the dynamic expansion of representation
and its meaning.
-It is not the thing that makes sense, it is not even the In-Act Knowledge. The meaning is only
in the Act of knowing. The meaning is revealed by the Act, it designates the possible and it is
'de jure' based on the perspective that the In-Act of Knowledge constitutes.
The possibilities are like labels affixed to the infinity of the In-act.
Alice's possible experiences are still-already Actual (already there) in the logical neighbourhood of
her already Com-prehended Knowledge. What Alice com-prehends now is already Interdependent
In-act of what Alice can com-prehend. The probability of her future experiences is Actual in the Inact of her Knowledge. Although unspeakable because complex this relationship is Actual before the
meaning appears. These experiences will come to Exist for Alice as meaningful Facts only by the
Act, the Transaction that replaces the unspeakable with a probability or a state vector of finite size.
Note: In the ref OK we show that this Transaction crosses an N-dimensional Cut in the complexity
of the In-act, that all of these Cuts constitute the horizon of the meaning or horizon of
representation.
-The meaning of a meaningful Fact is a law of probability on Facts that it makes possible, not
by itself, but in its relationship to the whole Knowledge of the subject, i.e. in its Existence.
Thus, just as meaningful Facts are representations, the "probabilistic or causal" relationship between
Facts is representation. The same is true for the generalization of all these relationships in the form
of laws of the world, and so is the general framework of the laws of the world called space-time.
-It is not the In-Act Reality that is subject to Facts, probabilistic or causal laws and space-time
representation. Facts, Laws and Space-Time representation emerge from the In-act Reality
according to the laws of the Logos.
This proposal should help us to dissolve the apparent paradoxes of our quantum experiments.
The probability of experiment results on variables, considered in a theoretical probabilistic space,
has no reason to be subject to time or space. It is a set of experiences that are not governed by time.
One could browse the set in any order, in any way, one would get from experience results,
represented in any space, always and again invariant laws.
Michel Bitbol (ref MQIP P 28) quotes Heisenberg (1932) p. 38 "In modern physics, atoms
lose these last properties; they do not possess geometric qualities to a higher degree than
color, taste, etc. All the qualities of an atom of modern physics are derived, it has no
immediate and direct physical property."... the algebraic operations of quantum mechanics
substitute to the values of variables interpretable as intrinsic determinations, and their
changes in value interpretable as absolute events, observable aimed to represent
determinations and events relating to various classes of experimental devices.... Space and
cinematic coordinates are no exception to this rule. »
For Heisenberg, the 'place' is not an intrinsic determination, it is not as such a sensitive
phenomenon, before the global ability to know gives it the sense of place. The same is true for all
other Facts and Attributes.
But then the "ability to know" must be given a broader meaning. Thus, when the global ability to
know "focuses its attention" on the "place" attribute of a Fact, it creates the perspective that will
make it likely, if not certain, that the "place" Fact-of-sensation will emerge at the conscious level.
Of course this is simple "awareness" but also when the agent sets up an experimental device that
will impose the class "place" among the classes of possible Facts, it is still her faculty of
representation that is at work.
Michel Bitbol (ref MQIP p230) quoting E.P. Wigner states that the (probabilistic) contextual
predictive formalism of the QM must be supplemented by principles of invariance towards
movements in space and time.
However, we have seen that the laws of probabilities are the reality from which space and time
forms are born. One cannot therefore speak of the invariance of probabilistic predictive laws in
space and time as a "property" of these laws but as properties of the process by which time and
space emerge from probabilistic laws, i.e. of the Logos.
2-The nature of the subject and its relationship to the object
QBism says "Knowing is assigning probabilities"
In accordance with QBism, the OK states that "The Meaning of a Meaningful Fact is a law of
probability on the meaning Facts it makes possible."
Note: Even in a Darwinian justification of meaning, the reference to a truth vis-à-vis is useless: If
representation offers a selective advantage it is because of the relevance of the expectations it
allows and not because it refers to a truth vis a vis.
To introduce a new difference between OK and QBism, let's mention D. Mermin (ref MBSMQ)
“There is indeed a common external world in addition to the many distinct individual
personal external worlds. But that common world must be understood at the foundational
level to be a mutual construction that all of us have put together from our distinct private
experiences, using our most powerful human invention: language.”
The OK shares this view. Nevertheless, the construction of the "common world" mentioned by D.
Mermin is described too superficially. It seems once again as a conscious act of men. Language is
presented as a human invention, a tool designed to share our private experiences at the conscious
level.
We'll show in the following lines:
1- the extraordinary consequences of the QBist proposition "Knowing is assigning probabilities" on
the nature of the subject,
2- that language is much more than a tool of sharing, that knowledgeable subjects have in common
much more than language.
Pre-note
1)-The attitude of the OK (and of QBism) is in no way anti-realistic. As we have stated above, there
is indeed a Reality. The meaning emerges from interdependent (but formless) Reality according to
the strict laws of the Logos.
-It is also not an idealistic attitude, because for the OK, Idealities are either directly akin to eigensolutions of the Logos which are possible "universal forms" or to generic Facts of Knowledge made
possible by the state of a culture: language, tools, general concepts.
2) We must recall here the distinction between transcendent subject and knowing subject:
The transcendental Subject is a Knowledge, an Individuation, a mode of order of the In-act reality
whose asymptote is a monodimensional "becoming oneself". As a mode of order, of necessity, it
precedes meaning. It is therefore not subject to time.
The Knowing Subject is the meaning he gives himself, he is at the same time the "I am" "what I am"
"the world where I am". He runs through his Knowledge like a wave of judgments of necessity, a
wave of meaning. The Existing is the present, the front of the wave, the horizon of meaning. What
Exists for the knowing subject, including himself, is what advances with the wave.
If the meaning that Alice gives to the Facts of her Knowledge does not refer to a truth vis-à-vis but
to a law of probability, what about the meaning that Alice gives herself?
For the OK the answer is made evident by the above and can be summed up by an additive to the
Descartes's Cogito: "I am" is also the affirmation of the necessity* that “I will be”.
*The term "near certainty" would be more prudent than necessity, to give way to a
possible existential hiatus: Does the possibility that I no longer exist for myself in the
next moment make sense to me now? We propose to ignore this doubt in the rest of
this article.
According to Descartes, the truth of the "I am" is certain for the subject, but the truth of this
proposal only makes sense to himself through the Act that states it, this Act which always projects
the consciousness of the subject towards the future experience of himself and the world he knows.
By saying "I will exist" Alice exists and her world exists with certainty at the (always) present
moment of her representation. There are no other ways to exist.
This certainty is not only a subjective opinion or belief because it is contained in the In-act reality of
her Knowledge, in the necessity of her Individuation.
Because the In-act reality of her Knowledge is complex and unfounded, Alice's certainty of still
existing the next moment is unprovable. Existing is a judgment, a predicate which truth is necessary
although contingent to infinity; An everlasting victorious fight of Individuation over complexity.
The "certainty that I will be," that I will have the meaning of "myself" is a judgment, a meta-fact.
This meta-Fact expresses that all the Facts of my Knowledge will help to make possible the "I" of
the following moment, it is also the principle of Individuation of G.Simondon (ref ILFI) "I am by
the act of always becoming myself", stripped by the OK of everything materialistic.
Because it is a law of probability on future experiences the sense of representation contains the
power of its expansion and the a priori subsumption of sense by Individuation is the necessity that
directs this expansion.
The necessary expansion of meaning and the law of probabilities on Facts that will appear during
this expansion, this power and this necessity, are the meaning of her Knowledge and this meaning is
not psychological but purely logical.
We have therefore given Alice as a knowing subject the meaning of "law of probability on her
future experience of herself," and to the world that she knows the meaning of "law of probability on
future expansions of her representation."
The law of expansion of each Fact therefore merges to that of all other Facts to form the law of
expansion and Individuation of the subject.
A Fact Exists for Alice if it makes Alice possible.
The Importance of a Fact for Alice is P(Alice|Fact).
A Fact Exists for Alice if its importance is not zero.
The Existence of Alice is the union of the P(Alice|Fact) of all Facts of her Knowledge
3- The time of the subject - The anima
Now let's try to dispel what seems to me to be an ambiguity of the QBism.
This ambiguity can be illustrated by the following quotations
C. Fuchs ref QBI: "Alice's awareness of her past experience forms the basis for the beliefs on which
her state assignments rest. And her probability assignments express her expectations for her future
experience."
D Mermin ref:MBSMQ: “my Now advances along my trajectory at one second of my personal
experience for each second that passes on my watch, which follows the same trajectory (NDLR: of
space-time)as I do.”
Lubos Motl (ref DMQB) " D. Mermin also claims that Qbism solves "the Now" problem in
philosophy, a discussion between Einstein and Carnap on whether or not the special
awareness of the present is accessible ... even though relativity wants us to look at things
"eternalistically" because the whole spacetime is the only invariant thing, quantum
mechanics really overrides it and does give the present a special status – because it assigns
a special role to the observers' experiences and those are attached to some particular
moments (or periods of time)... The Now problem ... is "reification" of something (fallacy of
incorrect attribution of "real existence" to some auxiliary theoretical constructs such as the
spacetime or the quantum state”
D. Mermin quotes (ref MBQM) Einstein's remark "Space and time are modes in which we think
and not conditions in which we live", and comments:
"Th(is) feeling is pure CBism (Editor's note CBism - QBism), ... I would love to think that
Einstein said and believed this."
Although D. Mermin doubts that Einstein actually uttered this proposition, his comment clearly
shows his agreement.
If once again the OK approves these quotations on the merits, the question left unanswered would
be: "Alice assigns probabilities to her future experiences, but why would Alice have future
experiences? So what is the nature of this change? If there is no time that, imposing itself on Alice,
would change her representation of "Now" and also turn her watch, is this future also only a
conjecture, a creation of Alice's spirit?"
When one takes Alice as an object, the Qbist (subjective) view of probabilities does not appear
satisfactory, the explanation given is circular: Alice's conjecture of the change in her representation
would be the very nature of this change.
The "my 'Now'" that D. Mermin speaks of is not really defined. It cannot be the present physical
state of my brain (was it extended), nor all the logical facts that would constitute my thought at a
moment of my subjective time. We have already seen that the logical reality of thought does not
belong to the time or space of the subject. At best it can be said that "my 'Now'" would be the
meaning I give to the world with me at the centre, but that does not advance us much.
It should be noted that this is not a question of criticizing the QBist position. Both Fuchs and D.
Mermin have made it clear that they prefer to leave unresolved metaphysical questions whose
solution is not essential to the completeness of quantum theory rather than to take the risk of
directing it permanently towards false Tracks.
On the contrary, the OK must propose an unambiguous answer to this question of change.
The answer is given by the OK under the name anima (ref OK). Here's the gist:
For OK existence is not a succession of states of existence. Existence is not the state of something.
To exist is meaning, including the existence of the subject for himself. To exist for the subject is to
have meaning for oneself.
The meaning does not state "what is" externally or internally but what is made possible because of
what Exists for the subject.
This relationship between what exists and what it makes possible, that OK names judgement (and in
some cases judgement ogf necessity) is transcendental. It owes nothing to the subject's
understanding, it is a probabilistic expectation, In-act before beeing represented, before the Fact
comes to Exist, and which becomes Actual as soon as the Existence of the fact is revealed.
Certainly it appears to the subject's mind: my mind knows how to think of the relationship between
<snow> (as existing) and <cold> (as possible), but this sayable relationship is only an emergence
off the unspeakable according to a meta-judgment of necessity (which transcends, ie logically
precedes the spirit, according to the definition of the OK).
In a way, the Existing <snow> is the label of a set of vectors (the possibles) with a probability law.
All these possibilities are the attractors of meaning which determine the multiplicity of the subject.
The judgement of necessity on Existing is a vector " becoming itself " present, certain, necessary,
non contradictory, that splits in " contributive becoming " vectors Actual, possible, contingent,
possibly contradictory.
By its nature of judgment, by the "existential" relation between present Existence and Actual
meaning, meaning constantly escapes the present moment of the Existent.
The essence of time is therefore in the very nature of meaning: the intensional reality from which
the meaning of the present moment emerges contains the possibility, even the necessity, of other
experiences which will come to increase the existing and so on, irreversibly.
Meaning is nothing more than a promise of meaning.
The "present" is (extensional) meaning, but the (intensional) reality of that which has
present meaning does not belong to the present moment.
The meaning of "I am" is not in a real present state of the I (which would be absurd since I is not
One in reality) but in the fact that the experience of the I makes it almost certain (of a probability
infinitely close to 1) the experience of the I.
Existence is therefore change, without reference to an external intuition of time.
The Meaning of Alice for herself therefore does not refer to Alice's "state of reality" because this
reality is unspeakable, but to the Act by which Alice "becomes herself".
This is the principle of Anima according to the OK.
There is therefore no external time, no subjective assignment of probabilities, but the reality of an
Interdependence In-act. Alice's In-act reality 'now' contains the possibility of Alice 'in the next
moment' and this possibility is the Meaning of Alice.
The Act, orthogonal to the Cut that "contains" the reality of Alice, carries the time of Alice.
Alice's time is orthogonal to the meaning of Alice.
We say orthogonal because the unspeakable reality of Alice's Knowledge projects itself as a point
(Alice's "Now") on a line (the "time").
Of course Interdependence is in principle reversible, but the reality of the Facts of Knowledge being
unfounded, the Meaning of a Fact is akin to an infinite predicate, more precisely to a set of
predicates that form probabilities arising from a reality seemingly bottomless. The logical
Transaction that represents this transition from the unspeakable to the dicible is in essence an
irreversible reduction in complexity. Formal equality is inherently approximate. It is inferred that
the time under which Alice represents the billions of facts that populate her world is irreversible.
Note that this definition of orthogonality allows a definition of the continuity of the Meaning: the
meaning attached to each point being the projection of an unfounded and complex reality, the
interdependence between two points is also the projection of a reality unfounded and complex.
The above lines could be repeated by replacing "Alice" each time with "Alice's “ I ” " or "Alice as
an object for herself," or "Alice's World with Alice in the middle."
With some adjustments, they would also be worth "such an object of Alice's world." This could be
an interesting exercise for the reader.
These explanations of the OK reinforce and extend the QBist position: There is neither the present
'state' of things nor the 'space-time' outside, invariant, possibly infinite, but N-dimensional Cuts in
the Reality (Facts) crossed orthogonally by an Act. The crossing of these Cuts is a Transaction. The
Transaction carries the Meaning of Fact and the orthogonal Act carries the Meaning of the Fact's
Time.
Note that this proposal is ontologically compatible with General Relativity while giving 'locally' a
specific role to time.
It should also be noted that the Transaction, which, through a Cut, replaces complexity with the
Meaning of a Fact of Knowledge, which replaces the possible with the Existing, although it can be
referred to as a "collapse" of complexity, does not change reality In-act. Only the Meaning that
appears to the agent, the Meaning produced by its overall ability to know is affected.
This also applies to the representation of the link X↔ Y which is a Fact of Knowledge.
We have stated in a new form the identity of nature and the fusion of the object and the subject, as
stated by Schopenhauer (ref MVR): "I am my Knowledge, the world is my Knowledge, my
Knowledge is the world and it is me."
In this fusion, the "I" is the Fact of Knowledge conceived as the asymptote of the aggregation of all
Facts of My Knowledge.
Although her nature is one of its kind, Alice can be designated for three levels:
1) Alice's In-Act Knowledge, which would be the bundle of Interdependencies stamming
from Alice as a point of view
2) Alice's "Thinking Self" which would be Alice's Conscious representation of herself in the
world she represents, which is in a way the projection of her In-act Knowledge on the horizon of
Meaning.
3) Alice's "I," a virtual asymptote to which the aggregation of Alice's Meaning seems to
converge. This "I" can also be referred to as the point of view. The Ultimate Quantum of
representation.
The fusion of the object and the subject into one representation, the identification of the Meaning of
the Facts of this knowledge with a law of probability on its future expansions, the identification of
the "I am" with the certainty of "I will be", allow us to state that:
-The Meaning of "I am" is the fusion of the Meaning of everything I com-prehend
-The meaning of "I am" is the union of all the probabilities I assign.
-Since the "I am" is the certainty of "I will be," the union of probabilities that I assign to everything
I com-prehend leads to the certainty of "I will be"
-In the asymptote, the union of all probabilities I assign is therefore equal to 1 (certainty) by
definition.
These statements have two major consequences, already mentioned in article ref LAMG
- The sciences, the representation of the world are not only centered on the knowing subject
but the union of their semantic content is limited to the existence of the subject. We will not
elaborate on this in this article.
- Since the union of the Facts of my Knowledge is limited to my Existence, the Facts of my
Knowledge are not independent. The Probability of my Existence "knowing" a Fact X: P({I}|{X}),
the Importance of a Fact is not independent of the other Facts of my Knowledge.
-The meaning of each Fact emerges from my Knowledge based on a perspective drawn by the
context of interdependence of all Facts.
This perspective defines the "Importance" to me of each Fact, according to which structures these
Facts merge and merge their importance etc., (see ref LAMG, Appendix V)
It is unfortunate that the Qbism preferred to leave this process hidden under the mystery of
thought/consciousness rather than attempt its elucidation in the form of a logical process and give
Schopenhauer's luminous intuition the scientific and contemporary form it deserves.
The analogy is so obvious with the QM that one is tempted to describe the Perspective as a statespace of representation, the referencial of which would be built of Facts made possible by the
general context of Knowledge. The Meaning of each State of Fact can be represented in this statespace by a state-of-Fact vector, i.e. a set of probabilities of the appearance of the possibles of the
referencial. We will leave this exercise to more qualified.
We can say, however, that the principles of representation of reality by "contextual probabilities", a
term that Mr. Bitbol rightly prefers to "quantum mechanics" or "undulating mechanics" (see ref
MQIP) are infinitely better suited to the description of a world as representation of the subject than
that of a world as "external reality".
4- How attributes emerge
Appendix III of the LAMG ref "From Maine de Biran to Poincaré's Geometry" deals in detail with
this subject and we will specifically develop the excerpt below:
The fact of the sensation is detached from the ability to know and not from a fact opposite.
Common sense dictates that the sensation comes from a fact in vis-à-vis and enters the mind in the
form of a sensitive phenomenon, transformed by understanding into an intelligible phenomenon
recognized by reason as a fact-of-sensation. The fact-of-sensation, once revealed to reason is
combined with others to, ultimately, synthesize a representation of the world.
For Maine de Biran (Ref NoK and DAI), this view is wrong, it is applying to thought/object the
modes of reasoning that describe material or logical systems developed by consciousness
(thought/subject) and whose relevance is not established to describe thought/object.
It is only after having globally affected the mind, in a diffuse form, that the sensitive phenomenon
appears as a fact-of-sensation.
The sensation is present (although formless), as an affection of thought/object and it is the overall
ability to know that gives it shape.
But the combination of sensation with other sensations and concepts, is not done at the level of the
sensation revealed, it affects, still informal or at least diffuse, the thought /object.
The reflex acts are proof of this.
The sensations do not combine as facts-of-sensation revealed as such, but spread as an affection in
thought/object, still informal, or at least diffuse from where they emerge and combine.
Only then formal concepts can reveal themselves to the subject in the form of Facts of
Consciousnes, ie of meaning attractors of which the probability to be revealed wouls not be zero.
Sensations are not combined by reason as logical propositions would be, but sensations merge in
their diffuse form as chaos and only then new formal concepts can emerge from this chaos.
representation operates by detachment and not by synthesis.
The (formal) facts of the world ... stand out as Knowledge Facts of the global ability to know.
However, the Fact of Knowledge cannot be seen without the watermark presence of the knowing
subject.
The Fact can only appear to the "knowing self."
Without a subject there can be no objects.
At the moment when the Fact of sensation reveals itself to the subject, it is already part of the All of
his Knowledge.
To the idea that reason synthesizes the universe of representation by adding, at every moment, oneon-one, the facts-of-sensation, revealed for themselves, it must then be opposed that it is the global
ability to know that lets emerge outside it, the Fact of Knowledge, as part of an All, designed and
organized globally in the self/object....
We see then that the fact-of-sensation in its form and also its position in the universe of our
representation, is just as and certainly much more determined by representation and its laws, than
by the eventuality of the a priori form of a cause 'out-there' or its position relative to other objects.
To support this, let's quote Mr. Bitbol (ref MQIP p112 113) who, referring to Goodman and
Wittgenstein writes:
". . . a probabilistic estimate at first glance offers great resistance to its possible
experimental rebuttal. It would even be fair to say that it is a law irrefutable by the only
finished experience.... If the probabilistic assessment is based on solid reasons, if the
renunciation to these reasons leads with it the fall of a pan too broad and too well validated
of knowledge, the finding of a frequency that deviates from the projected value will not be
enough to refute the latter. Many more experiments will have to be done, many more
discrepancies will have to arise before the possibility of replacing the projection system
from which probabilities derive is simply considered. »
This remark is relevant in the context in which it was written, i.e. in the relation of the experimental
fact to the conscious conditions that warranted the agent's assessment of its probability. It is
infinitely more relevant if one relates the In-act of a Fact of Knowledge to the In-Act of Knowledge
as a whole.
In other words: Estimates of probabilities produced by representation, understood as a probabilistic
structure are much more the result of the laws of probability that structure representation than of
supposed experimental facts. Logos defines how such representation expands.
Let's quote C. Tiercelin: ref PHP
"The line between fact and value is tenuous"
There is nothing in the extract of the ref. LAMG above, it seems to me, that the proponents of
QBism could dispute.
Nothing new, actually.
Yet when QBists use phrases such as “... her own personal degrees of belief about the event...” or
“... probabilities are the personal judgments of an agent...” (ref QBI), the least that can be said is
that these expressions are ambiguous as to the relationship of the agent's consciousness to sensitive
phenomena.
To dispel these ambiguities one would like to read explicitly phrases such as: "What appears as a
judgment to the consciousness of the agent is already "Actual" in her thought/object before having
made sense" and above all that it is explicitly applied to the judgments about time and space. Let it
be clear that the predicates of moment or place are no more realities vis-à-vis than any other
predicate.
Only then can the true nature of space that both separates and unites be understood.
Mr. Bitbol wrote in the introduction to his book (ref MQAP):
"Any critical investigation into the object of quantum physics is (so) stopped, watered down,
diluted, because of the presuppositions of the language used and the familiar circumstances
of its employment. »
Let us say that the above lines add to Mr. Bitbol's quotation the logical implications of merging the
object and the subject, namely that the language and the familiar circumstances of its employment
stop, water down and dilute any critical investigation into the object of investigation that is the
subject for itself, i.e. into the thought/object.
-Meaning does not allow us to describe what thought is before meaning.
It is not a question of language inadequacy, lack of information, misrepresentation (i.e. that could
have been accurate), nor epistemology, but a fundamental question of Complexity (in the OK sense)
that makes Interdependent Reality unordainable in the four-dimensional space-time of our
representations, nor in any finite dimension space.
The reality before the Meaning is immeasurable to the universe of representation, of any
representation. The In-act of thought does not belong to the four-dimensional world of conscious
thought. There is a "Cut" between the Meaning and its In-act reality.
What seems to "happen" to us on our side of the horizon of Meaning (of the Cut) is In-act (not
located in time) beyond that horizon. Not the signs and symbols, not the synaptic connections that
remain descriptions, but the Complex and unfounded reality of logical interdependencies beyond
the horizon of Meaning.
Representation only gives meaning to a formless reality "located" in an 'beyond' where alwaysalready merge objects and subject, things and thought. The predicates of representation express a
form of infinite contingency.
However, the quote from the OK above tells us that "it is the global ability to know that lets emerge
outside it, the Fact of Knowledge, as part of an All conceived and organized globally in the
self/object. (Editor's note: in thought/object)"
The relationship between such Fact of Knowledge and Knowledge as a whole cannot be
properly described according to the patterns available in the world of representation because
the reality of this relationship is in the In-Act of Knowledge, beyond the horizon of Meaning.
this is detailed in ref: LST
We believe that we are "taking notice" of a fact at the moment when it appears to our conscience,
but this is only a (poor) picture of reality.
In the In-Act Reality of Knowledge, the Fact we believe we are aware of must be replaced by all the
In-act interdependencies that determine all possible Facts of Knowledge. The experimental device,
the language, all the exchanges between agents, all the mental or physical acts that brought Alice to
the place and time of the experiment, capable of her experience, merge to constitute the State of
representation that determines the possible of her experience.
It is from this reality that the meaning of the Fact of Knowledge emerges among the other Facts of
Knowledge.
The reality of this merger is in the In-act complexity. Its representation by language as a (present)
state of representation is certainly necessary for our limited minds but it is necessarily deceiving.
(see in particular the OK and PDL ref to detail what the "present moment" is).
On this basis we can get rid of the concept of 'hidden variables' which for the OK is meaningless.
The variables Exist below the horizon of representation. Beyond this horizon of Meaning, there are
no "hidden" variables because there are no variables at all: The In-act reality is not representable by
attributes because it is complex (in the sense of the OK).
The above lines complement the explanations given by Mr. Bitbol (ref MQPI p 189 190) to the
famous question of the non-separability of measurements made on either of the two systems of a
pair:
In preparing the experimental device Alice changes her state of representation and thus the
perspective with which she apprehends the object of her experience (both systems). It creates
Knowledge conditions that make certain specific Facts of Knowledge likely. However, Alice's
perspective generally determines which Facts or Classes of Facts will appear and in what
relationship to her global worldview. There is total non-separability between the preparation and the
object of the experiment, just as there is non-separability between the representation of Alice and
each Fact that composes it. Perspective is the global relationship of Facts to her representation of
the world, this probabilistic perspective may well include correlations or exclusions between the
possibility of Facts.
The "container" representation, where images of existing Facts, Laws and Procedures would be
stored for themselves, is a misleading representation. "Actually" Knowledge of the subject is an
informal, interdependent whole, in which Facts, laws and procedures are Actual according to laws
of probability.
The experimental device is the dicible and present representation of the global conditions of
Knowledge that make possible and correlate the appearance, for Alice of measurement results on
the systems of the pair.
Here are some examples to illustrate this:
-In the example of the chess game we described earlier, what has the meaning of a present state of
the game, a physical reality or at least a state of representation descriptible by common language is
in fact the fusion of a considerable set of rules, choice, immaterial relationships that are almost
impossible to link unequivocally to its description through language.
-At the moment when Marcel Proust's consciousness remembers the madeleine of his childhood, the
State of representation that makes this mental experience possible merges all the conditions of
possibility of past 'gouters' which are in themselves a bottomless reality, but also all the emotional
contexts that made it such a dear memory, but also all the conditions that make possible its
reappearance in the present of his consciousness, starting with the fact that Proust is still alive at this
instant.
As Schopenhauer (ref MVR) explains so well, none of these conditions (which he refers to as a
causal "activity") deserves more than another the title of "cause" of remembrance.
As soon as one tries to go back to the In-Act reality of the State of representation, beyond the
horizon of Meaning and ready-made images, where all these conditions really merge, one finds the
inextricable complexity of this reality and the fact that it is unfounded, that any condition is itself
conditioned by others.
Who can reasonably believe that the reality of the relationship between the madeleine and the
global capacity to feel belongs to a present (was it subjective) moment in M. Proust's threedimensional universe?
-If now it is assumed that it is by writing "The Search" that Proust remembers the taste of the
madeleine; Since writing creates the conditions for the possibility of remembrance, it must be
integrated into the State of representation.
How then can we bring the act of writing, the time of writing, the norms of writing and all the
physical and mental conditions that underlie the possibility, in the present moment of M. Proust's
three-dimensional universe?
This Transaction is precisely what the QBists call a probability judgment, a bet, a will to believe, an
Act that replaces the In-act complexity of the State of representation with a state vector, i.e. by
combining a set of possible (observable) probabilities. Except that this Act does not have the
subjectivity QBists implied by the terms of judgment, bet and will.
Since the object and the subject are one and the same representation. The states of things that
appear to me as the physical conditions of possibility of my experiences are in fact states of my
representation.
In an "ordinary" representation of a quantum experiment, the distinction between representation and
experimental device is already particularly tenuous. Given the amount of knowledge involved in its
preparation, an QM experience is a thought experiment long before it is a realization of the physical
world.
With the QBism, the probability relationship is not between a state of the physical device and
possible physical events but between a state of representation and possible facts of Knowledge.
Since the conditions of possibility of a quantum experiment merge into a state of representation, all
the details made in the above lines apply to it.
We must therefore go back beyond the horizon of meaning to consider all the In-act
interdependencies that determine our State of Knowledge and from which emerges, for the agent
and himself alone, the meaning of a physical device located in the world.
One might be surprised that a representation can modify or create what we see as a state of physical
affairs. The examples below show that there is nothing there but very ordinary.
-At the moment when my mind turns its intention to such a memorized subject, my representation
sets itself in a state, a perspective that makes possible the appearance at the conscious level of such
a class of new Facts of Knowledge. My perspective directs the expansion of my representation.
- As I turn my gaze to a particular subject of the world, my representation sets itself as a perspective
(extended to the senses) that makes possible the appearance at the conscious level of such a class of
new Facts of Knowledge. My perspective directs the expansion of my representation.
-The moment I extend my hand to a particular subject of the world, etc. , because the gesture is a
fact of Knowledge that represents itself as a physical fact (Ref : MOND). My perspective directs the
expansion of my representation, including through gesture.
-The moment I open a book, etc.
-It is quite easy to admit that "language and thought co-determine as meta-Facts of Knowledge."
What may seem less obvious but was perfectly demonstrated by G Simondon (Ref MEOT) is that
the tool and thought co-determine according to the same principle.
The acquired technical gestures, the primary tools are facts of knowledge that determine the
possibilities of a new experience. This possibility is in turn the seed of a new Fact of Knowledge,
whose Meaning is the probability of the experiences it makes possible.
As with the language sign, the Meaning of the tool is shareable, it forms culture.
The tools, mechanisms, physical devices that surround us and their operation modes must therefore
be considered as Facts of Knowledge, the Meaning of which is the expectation of what they make
possible.
Heisenberg had already written that the experimental device is an extension of the agent's
knowledge which, because it helps define the possible results of her experiment, is part of the global
perspective that drives the expansion of her knowledge.
There is no difference in nature between Alice's representation and the experimental device she
implements.
As I implement an experimental device, my representation (including the device which is a fact of
Knowledge) is arranged as a perspective (a state space) that defines which classes of new Facts can
appear at the conscious level.
The set of classes of phenomena (new Facts) that are made possible, is the basis of my perspective,
of my state-space. The probability of new Facts appearing is both the Meaning of my Knowledge
and the expectation of new Facts. Meaning is a law of probability that can be expressed as a statevector.
Using the terms of the QM, a state of representation defines a perspective that is formalized (in the
space of representations) by a state-space composed of all possible Transactions vectors, vectors of
the expansion of representation quantified in the form of new Facts. To each of the Transaction
vectors is attached a probability of the appearance of the new Fact, the sum of the Transaction
vectors, weighted by their probability defines the state-vector of the Fact, which is also its meaning,
which is also the expectations it raises
Every actual appearance of a new Fact of Knowledge updates my representation and eventually my
perspective.
5- Necessity and coherence of morphogenesis [new from iss. 20200418]
The article "OK and the form of the World" (Ref: MOND) states:
- representation is not isomorphism but morphogenesis, and the law that governs this
morphogenesis is the Logos, a transcendent logical principle.
The article "Is the OK a solipsism?" (Ref: SOLI) states:
- the "I/subject" is only a category, a meta-Fact of my representation.
- the other "subjects" exist for me, qualitatively in the same terms as the "I/subject".
- my (intensional) reality is just as unknowable to me as the (intensional) reality of the other
subjects.
The question then is: If the representation is not constrained by its isomorphy to an "object of
representation", a universal reference vis-à-vis, why are the representation by the subject and the
representations compared by various subjects consistent?
In other words, isn't the morphogenesis hypothesis invalidated by the seemingly transcendent
properties of representation and by the compatibility of the countless shared experiences that
knowing subjects make of the world ?
One could return the question in the form of a: "Why is the physical world coherent?"
The questioner could also be referred to Kant (Ref: CRP) and his successors.
But we will rather propose here an analysis according to the OK whose conclusions shed new light
on certain quantum apories.
Preliminary note:
Excerpt from the article (ref: MOND)
Outside of a consciousness there is no object.
Physical phenomena have no intention, no object and therefore no objects.
The existence of the object is, exclusively, a "psychic" phenomenon.
This statement, inferred from Brentano's courses on intentionality (Ref: Bisart RCI), reminds us that
the hypothesis of a physical world, of an "object of representations" cannot ignore that this object is
nothing without a subject.
This is also what Schopenhauer basically stated:
"The world is my representation. The subject is the substrate of the world, the invariable
condition, always implied by every phenomenon, of every object; for all that exists exists
only for the subject." [Ref MRV]
From contingency to necessity
The article (Ref: MOND § Idoneity, Individuation and Existence are the essence of the subject.)
already provides a detailed answer to the question: "Why is the representation by a subject
consistent?" Reading this § is highly recommended.
The conclusion is:
... idoneity, the Kantians"in mundo non datur ..., are part of the essence of the subject: the
perspective of a subject is for himself and in essence, coherent, consistent, complete,
idoneous.
The coherence of our representations is not an accident, nor an opportunity, it is the very
essence of our Existence.
That is the point that we will go deeper into.
For this the first question could be: what does Certainty of a Fact mean?
- The fact that a present state of the physical world will have such a certain and universal
consequence, which can be perceived by both Alice and Bob as by any subject?
- The fact that, for Alice and Bob separately, their present representation of the world will
make appear with certainty, each in her (his) future representation, a new Fact of representation?
In the case of a fact Certain, the two hypothesis cannot be distinguished from each other: whether
according to the path of necessity of the physical world or the path of certainty of the
representations, Alice and Bob will find and share in the end the same fact that has occurred.
So much so that one wonders what Alice is talking about when she says, for example, "the planet
Venus will rise at 05:43 tomorrow", is it a necessary fact of the world or a fact Certain of her
representation?
It should be noted that, fact of the world or fact of knowledge, the very possibility of this statement
(what makes sense of its formal content) presupposes as a prerequisite an extraordinary amount of
Facts of Knowledge.
Similarly, when we say,'"Next spring nature will be reborn," we do not know whether the
stated necessity belongs to the physical world or to the world of our representations.
This new example, however, allows us to make progress in our analysis:
The relationship (in the physical world) of the state of nature at Christmas to its rebirth in the
spring, although necessary, is actually made up of an extraordinarily complex bundle of contingent
relationships.
These contingencies not only affect some partial final results: a tree will be reborn or not, a seed
will germinate here or elsewhere, but the causal path itself is contingent: such bee will fertilize one
flower or another, it will rain here and not there, etc. ...
Similarly, when I state "I will die" as a necessary truth in the physical world, the paths of my life as
well as the circumstances of my death are contingent.
It must be understood that the one-dimensional arrow → which describes the necessary
consequential relationship from A to B, A and B being designated as states of fact, in what we call
the physical world, certainly describes a reality but not the reality. The succession of winter and
spring, my death, are already and inevitably a "factual judgment" which presents as 'one and
necessary' what is actually 'complex and contingent'.
So here is a new key: Even in the hypothesis of the physical world, contingency, far from being an
obstacle to necessity, is in a way its substance.
To be more precise, it is in the complexity of the contingent routes that the necessity "necessarily"
appears in the form of Individuation.
In a contingent and complex path, the probability of Individuated solutions is infinitely close to
one.
Individuation is necessary.
The same applies to the necessary relationship between the state of some-thing P at the moment t
and its state at the moment t+dt. Although in the extensionnal multiplicity of our representation the
linear trajectory in the space of phases from the Pt state to the Pt+dt state may appear to us certain
and Individuated, the intensionnal reality of which it is the meaning is complex and contingent (but
necessarily individuating).
Let us note that contrary to a first intuition, the “necessary” paths are not simple and
monodirectional, quite the contrary: the more the paths are complex, the more the attractor to which
they lead is powerful and complex, the more they appear as One and necessary. Determinism is not
simplicity.
The necessity that appears to the meaning is a predicate, a meta-Fact of representation, its
intensional reality, beyond the horizon of meaning, is a factual judgment on a complex net of
contingencies.
It should be noted that according to this formulation, it is the existence of solutions in its principle
that is necessary but not their particular instances.
We now need to understand why such a specific instance would be necessary.
Time, contingency and necessity:
On this question, the difference between the hypothesis of the physical world and that of the world
of representation lies in the idea of time: (Ref: CNT)
In the hypothesis of the physical world, time and space are preconditions for the future of the world.
For the OK the sense of representation is animated by the very nature of the representation. The
subject discovers the meaning of his representation over a time of his own. Moreover, this time
applies only to what is represented and does not apply beyond a horizon of meaning, to the
intensional reality of facts which is unspeakable, formless, not subject to time.
These different conceptions of time lead to different conceptions of necessity, contingency and their
interweaving.
Science is still struggling to provide these concepts with a satisfactory framework in the event of a
physical world governed by time. This is the case, for example, with quantum mechanics. This is
also the case of Darwinian theory, which, situating the necessity of evolution within a temporal
framework, presents this epistemological weakness that it describes the principle that allows us to
describe it (Ref: OK).
In the OK hypothesis, it is in the unspeakable reality, not subject to time, that one must think of the
necessity of the principle of Individuation despite the contingency of its instances, the detail is
given by the article "Introduction to the OK" (Ref: OdC).
Let us say here that the necessity (probability 1) that appears to the subject as a relationship in time,
is the form given to an intensional reality, unspeakable, formless, not subject to time.
All possible instances, all specific solutions of the necessary principle of Individuation are Actual
(as would all possible propositions of a language, resp. all possible solutions of a system of
equations) but not Existent (not expressed, resp. not calculated)
The knowing subject and its representation (which are one!) is one of those eigen-solutions.
The time of the subject is representation, discovery of a meaning that emerges from what was In-act
(always there) but unspeakable.
Note that In-act does not mean "of all times" but "not subject to time"
The meaning of the "I" is the certainty that the subject has to still be that same "I" the next moment.
This need for the "I," the Individuation of meaning, is a eigen-solution to the principle of
Individuation.
The Individuation of the subject seems to him as an ever-future promise, but beyond the horizon
of meaning, it is In-act.
The conditions of my future coherence are "out of time"
The fact that the world evolves for me without hiatus and perpetuates my Individuation, what the
OK refers to as the idoneity of my perspective, is an Actual certitude, an Actual meta-fact that leads
to an Actual solution.
If I remain one, if my representation of the world remains idoneous, it is not by chance, by accident,
nor by a series of trials and errors, nor by the design of a supreme being but because the "thread of
Interdependence" that follows this "I" represents an Actual instance of a necessary principle, giving
meaning to an Actual reality, i.e. out of time.
The same analysis can be made about the whole of humanity: If humanity remains one, if the
common perspective of humanity is coherent, idoneous and perpetuates its Individuation, it is not
by chance, by accident, nor by a series of trials and errors but because the "thread of
Interdependence" that follows this "we" is an Actual instance of a necessary principle, giving
meaning to an Actual reality, i.e. out of time.
Meaning is in collective thought as much as in the individual thought.
To the questions:
"So everything would be written already?"
"Are we reduced to discovering what is already In-act?"
"The necessary, the contingent, the free choice, the impossible even, would they be an
illusion?"
The answer would be
"We are representation, we are meaning. It is in the world of meaning that we exist and this
world is subject to time, necessity, contingency, free choice and impossibility."
On either side of the horizon of meaning.
We represent the past (including the very moment it made sense) as an always necessary truth. What
happened, both the facts and the paths taken, necessarily happened, and not otherwise. As soon as
the coin stops spinning, we have won or lost, necessarily.
Regarding the past we talk about uncertainties but never contingencies...
In the bundle of relationships leading to this result which, a thousandth of a second before was for
me a contingent future and which, now that I know it, seems to me a necessary truth, when does
disappear the contingency and appear the necessity?
I recommend that the reader design for himself, as an exercise, a series of increasingly complex,
increasingly detailed devices that will show him that in principle, chance disappears only when the
result is acknowledged by the subject.
We still need to define the word "acknowledge": Our findings are based on our sensations and the
OK shows (see § 4) that sensation is not an intelligible phenomenon that presents itself as
"Individuated and necessary" to the understanding. Sensations co-emerge, in relation to each other
and because of these relationships, from our global capacity to give meaning, our perspective.
This phenomenon of co-emergence out of the perspective is a probabilistic process.
As a result, the boundary between contingency and necessity cannot be properly located, except in
the Act of Creation of Meaning.
We now know that the "necessary truth of the past" is only true at the so-called macroscopic scale,
for the speakable, because beyond the horizon of meaning, contingency also affects the past: In the
experience of Young's slots "everything happens as if" (as usually said) the photon had passed
through both the slots of the screen.
What appears as necessary truth below the horizon of meaning, in the macroscopic world of my
representation, is contingent beyond, in the unspeakable microscopic reality.
The contingency (of the past) does not cross the horizon of meaning.
The intensional reality of the photon's (past) journey is complex and contingent but it becomes a
necessary truth when an experience gives it a (macroscopic) meaning to the subject.
Let us not misunderstand the term 'macroscopic': it is not related to the experimental device
as such, but to that a Fact (a singularity) only exists, only makes sense, if its importance is
not zero in the perspective of the subject.
Similarly Alice can see nothing impossible (for example the same Fact here and there at the same
time) on the scale of the dicible.
Similarly, the irreversibility of time relates only to the dicible, it is a meta-fact of representation. It
is the representation that is, in essence, a step forward (ref: CNT).
For the subject, the propositions: “What is revealed is necessary” and “My time is irreversible” are
equivalent. Nothing can be said beyond.
Similarly for continuity, it is the statistical principle of constitution of meaning that imposes the
continuity of meaning. The continuity of reality means nothing beyond the horizon of meaning.
The Transaction that brings out the meaning replaces a dicible and necessary path in time for
complex, contingent, out-of-time journeys.
No surprise in this proposition since we have already shown that the Existence of the world
represented is also that of the "I" whose Meaning expresses the certainty of still being "I" at the
instant of after.
It is only at the dicible, macroscopic scale that necessity and time prevail.
Our perspectives, based on billions of billions of relationships, are idoneous in that they do not call
into question our Individuation.
This allows us a more rigorous definition of the term "macroscopic" in the quantum sense:
We will say : a macroscopic truth is necessary to my Individuation.
Why is every speakable truth consistent?
Necessity, coherence, continuity, idoneity must be rethought as predicates, de facto judgments on an
In-act, "out of time", reality.
We are a solution to a principle that transcends us: the Logos that applies to the In-act reality.
Although unspeakable, the conditions that impose coherence and necessity, idoneity in our
representations are "In-act" , "always already present"
Consistency and necessity of meaning owe nothing to a miracle: they are essential to representation:
The Facts make sense, i.e. Exist, have importance in the perspective of the subject, in that they
contribute to his perenity, to his Individuation.
But the "I", my Individuation is an In-act solution of the Logos applied to the reality In-act, i.e. out
of time.
Just as in the resolution of a system of equations, I only discover one by one the results whose
coherence is already In-act in the original system.
This is not a chance if every piece of meaning fits so well in our individual and collective
representations: Meaning is idoneity, consistency, necessity.
Because we are reality, we are Actual idoneous eigen-solutions to the Logos.
Shared experience:
Let's see now the contingent Fact:
Alice and Bob have prepared an experiment leading to two possible facts F1 and F2, exclusive to
each other.
Alice could acknowledge either F1 or F2, without questioning the consistency of her representation.
But the find by Alice of F1 and Bob of F2, if they share it, cannot call into question the coherence
of the perspective of their humanity, because their humanity is an idoneous path and this idioneity is
of extraordinary persistence. The conditions of this idoneity, the coherence of Alice and Bob
observations are In-act (out of time).
If the finding is macroscopic, as soon as the evidence of it is shared, this evidence will be the same
for Alice and Bob. Existing is non contradictory because it is necessity for the subject's
individuation, whether it is Alice's, Bob's or {Alice and Bob}'s The relative position of their
experiences in time and space of the representations does not change anything to this.
Since our existence is a condition to all questions, the correct question is not "How do we exist in
the world?" but "How does the world exist for us"
6-Reversion of lntelligibility.
Let's quote again D. Mermin (ref MBSQM):
"I have used myself as one example of a perceiving subject. I could equally well have written “you”
or “Alice” or “Bob”. I focus on one particular subject, both to underline the unbreakable privacy
of the directly perceived experience of each and every one of us, and also to emphasize that each of
us has their own personal model of the world, based on their own private body of experience. »
The OK shows that if our representations of the world evolve individually, this Individuation is
infinitely less "solipsistic" than the individuation of our physical becomings.
To eliminate redundancies between the former and the latter why not make our physical becoming a
mere representation of that of our Knowledge?
Why not reverse the direction of intelligibility?
Again, the OK shares the QBiste point of view, except that the word "experience", if not defined,
casts doubt on the meaning of the proposition.
A thought experiment is an "experience" according to the QBism
Is there anything other than thought experiments?
Does representation of the subject change by its own power or is it forced to change because of an
outside world?
As we have seen before, the OK clearly responds ,"representation of the subject changes by its
own Power* and its own Necessity* according to the Principle of Logos"
*Power and Necessity are not psychological but refer to meta-facts of pure logic.
The consequences of this proposition alone would deserve a book.
Let's settle for general ideas hereunder:
-It is not the world that is intelligible to us, it is our representation that gives form to an otherwise
formless reality.
-Each subject gives form to the world according to an universal principle that transcends him and
within a framework that overhelms him and which could be referred to as his cultural framework in
the broadest sense.
-Man's representation of the world is necessarily anthropocentric
-The separation is not between object and subject but between the In-Act, formless reality and the
Meaning, between the below and the beyond a horizon of the Meaning.
-This Separation is a Cut, the beyond the horizon is not descriptible by the forms that describe the
below.
-This horizon closes our representation, not only towards the infinitely large but also towards the
infinitely small, the passed, the future, the too complex...
-Science, pure sciences and physical sciences must integrate the knowing subject and his horizon of
representation.
-Pure sciences (see ref LAMG) as well as the physical sciences (cosmology, RG, QM) can only
demonstrate the certainty of our Existence.
-Darwinian evolution can also be rethought in terms of representation.
-Representation is not a container of semantic Beings ordained according to an N-dimensional logic
(otherwise impossible to describe) but a system of possible interdependent Facts.
-The Meaning of Knowledge extends (for itself) through the appearance of Facts among the
possible, according to a law of probabilities that represents its Power and its Necessity.
-The Meaning of our Knowledge and Facts that it com-prehends is represented in the world we
know.
-The Reality of our Knowledge and its possible Facts cannot be represented in the world we know.
-Our Reality cannot be represented in the world we know.
This final statement may sound as a revival of the Cretan paradox, and it is actually.
OK cannot pretend to describe with words what it demonstrates as not descriptible with words.
Let's consider that as a good new: there is still some truth beyond OK.
Appendix
The OK and the tractatus (TMP) by L. Wittgenstein
It seems interesting to me for the reader to reinterpret in the light of the OK the few stanzas below
from L.Wittgenstein's Tractatus.
1 - The world is all that takes place.
1.1 - The world is the totality of facts, not things.
1.11 -The world is determined by the facts, and by that they are all facts.
1.12 - For the totality of the facts determines what takes place, and also everything
that does not take place.
1.13 - Facts in logical space are the world.
1.2 - The world breaks down into facts.
1.21 - Something in isolation may or may not happen, and everything else will
remain unchanged.
2 - What takes place, the fact, is the subsistance (1) of states-of-thing .
2.0141 - The possibility of its occurrence in states of things is the shape of the object.
2.0121 - .... (Something logical can only be possible. Logic deals with every possibility and
all possibilities are its facts.)
(1). Subsistance translates here the word 'das Bestehen'. the translator of the TMP notes: The
translation "existence" seems to me to refer too directly to the encroachment, when it is essentially
existence in logical space. "Existence" will translate: Existenz, a term that seems to be used most
often in an even more abstract sense, for example the existence of a concept.
Author's Note: While I understand the translator's intent, the term Existence as defined by the OK
seems to me to be quite appropriate to convey LW's idea that "all (logical) possibilities are facts"
(are actual according to the Definition OK) while only some come to Exist (according to the OK
definition) as "state-of-thing", thus moving from the logical world to the physical world.
The author:
Jean-Louis Boucon
E-mail :
[email protected]
Blog : http://jlboucon-philo.over-blog.com/
Références :
Ref QBI
An Introduction to QBism with an Application to the Locality of Quantum
Mechanics
Christopher Fuchs, David Mermin, Rüdiger Schack
https://arxiv.org/abs/1311.5253
Ref MQIP
Mécanique Quantique, une introduction philosophique
Michel Bitbol
Ed. Champs Flammarion 1999
Ref MBSQM Making Better Sense of Quantum Mechanics
David Mermin
https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.01639
Ref DMQB David Mermin on Quantum Bayesianism
Lubos Motl
https://motls.blogspot.com/2014/04/david-mermin-on-quantum-bayesianism.html
Ref CIQM
Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
Jan Faye
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/#NewPer
Ref ILFI :
L’individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d’information
Gilbert Simondon
Réédition. Millon 2005
Ref MEOT : Du mode d’existence des objets techniques
Gilbert Simondon
Aubier, Paris, 1989
Ref CRP :
Critique de la raison pure
Emmanuel Kant
Ed G Flammarion 2001
Ref QRPR : De la quadruple racine du principe de raison suffisante
Arthur Schopenhauer
Ed. Vrin 1991
Ref MVR : Le monde comme Volonté et comme Représentation
Arthur Schopenhauer
www.schopenhauer.fr
Ref NoK :
Œuvres choisies – notes sur Kant
Maine de Biran 1942
Aubier Ed. Montaigne
II - Détermination du fait primitif du sens intime. P77-89
Ref DAI :
De l’aperception immédiate Mémoire de Berlin 1807
Maine de Biran
Ed. Classiques de poche
Ref PHP :
Hilary Putmann l'héritage pragmatiste
C. Tiercelin
Ed Collège de France coll Métaphysique et connaissance
Publications of the author : available in pdf on www.academia.edu
Ref OdC
Introduction to Ontology of Knowledge
Ref TRANS The Ontology of Knowledge and the transcendantal
Ref PLOC
The philosophy of language and the Ontology of Knowledge
Ref LOGEX
From Logical to Existing
Ref LAMG
The Ontology of Knowledge, logic, arithmetic, sets theory and geometry
Ref BQOC
Beyond Qbism with the Ontology of Knowledge
Ref SOLI
Is Ontology of Knowledge a solipsism ?
Ref MOND
The Ontology of Knowledge and the form of the world
Ref CNT
A natural concept of time
Ref COG
The concept of grounding and the Ontology of Knowledge
Published Book:
Ref UPF :
L’Univers n’a pas la forme
Jean-Louis Boucon
Ed. Mon petit éditeur 2013