Faits bruts (brute facts)
philosophie métaphysique note-fouillis
Objection : Reality doesn’t need an explanation. It exists as a brute fact.
Answer :
- …”Explanation” is identical to “structure”. In order to fully specify the structure of a system, one must explain why its aspects and components are related in certain ways (as opposed to other possible ways). If one cannot explain this, then one is unable to determine the truth values of certain higher-order relations without which structure cannot be fully specified. On the other hand, if one claims that some of these higher-order structural components are “absolutely inexplicable”, then one is saying that they do not exist, and thus that the systemic structure is absolutely incomplete. Since this would destroy the system’s identity, its stability, and its ability to function, it is belied by the system’s very existence.
Source: 1- One might at first be tempted to object that there is no reason to believe that the universe does not simply “exist”, and thus that self-selection is unnecessary. However, this is not a valid position. First, it involves a more or less subtle appeal to something external to the universe, namely a prior/external informational medium or “syntax” of existence; if such a syntax were sufficiently relevant to this reality, i.e. sufficiently real, to support its existence, then it would be analytically included in reality (as defined up to perceptual relevance). Second, active self-selection is indeed necessary, for existence is not merely a state but a process; the universe must internally distinguish that which it is from that which it is not, and passivity is ruled out because it would again imply the involvement of a complementary active principle of external origin.
- Reality comprises a “closed descriptive manifold” from which no essential predicate is omitted, and which thus contains no critical gap that leaves any essential aspect of structure unexplained. Any such gap would imply non-closure…MAP requires a closed-form explanation on the grounds that distinguishability is impossible without it. Again this comes down to the issue of syntactic stability*. To state it in as simple a way as possible, reality must ultimately possess a stable 2-valued object-level distinction between that which it is and that which it is not, maintaining the necessary informational boundaries between objects, attributes and events. The existence of closed informational boundaries within a system is ultimately possible only by virtue of systemic closure under dualistic (explanans-explanandum) composition, which is just how it is effected in sentential logic.
- A syndiffeonic regress ultimately leads to a stable closed syntax in which all terms are mutually defined; mutual definition is what stabilizes and lends internal determinacy (internal identifiability of events) to the system through syntactic symmetry
Common CTMU objections and replies : “Reality doesn’t need an explanation. It exists as a brute fact.”
https://ctmucommunity.org/wiki/Common\_CTMU\_objections\_and\_replies#Reality\_doesn.27t\_need\_an\_explanation.\_It\_exists\_as\_a\_brute\_fact
- …”Explanation” is identical to “structure”. In order to fully specify the structure of a system, one must explain why its aspects and components are related in certain ways (as opposed to other possible ways). If one cannot explain this, then one is unable to determine the truth values of certain higher-order relations without which structure cannot be fully specified. On the other hand, if one claims that some of these higher-order structural components are “absolutely inexplicable”, then one is saying that they do not exist, and thus that the systemic structure is absolutely incomplete. Since this would destroy the system’s identity, its stability, and its ability to function, it is belied by the system’s very existence.
Source: http://www.ctmu.org/CTMU/Discussions/CTMUForum.html
- One might at first be tempted to object that there is no reason to believe that the universe does not simply “exist”, and thus that self-selection is unnecessary. However, this is not a valid position. First, it involves a more or less subtle appeal to something external to the universe, namely a prior/external informational medium or “syntax” of existence; if such a syntax were sufficiently relevant to this reality, i.e. sufficiently real, to support its existence, then it would be analytically included in reality (as defined up to perceptual relevance). Second, active self-selection is indeed necessary, for existence is not merely a state but a process; the universe must internally distinguish that which it is from that which it is not, and passivity is ruled out because it would again imply the involvement of a complementary active principle of external origin.
- Reality comprises a “closed descriptive manifold” from which no essential predicate is omitted, and which thus contains no critical gap that leaves any essential aspect of structure unexplained. Any such gap would imply non-closure…MAP requires a closed-form explanation on the grounds that distinguishability is impossible without it. Again this comes down to the issue of syntactic stability*. To state it in as simple a way as possible, reality must ultimately possess a stable 2-valued object-level distinction between that which it is and that which it is not, maintaining the necessary informational boundaries between objects, attributes and events. The existence of closed informational boundaries within a system is ultimately possible only by virtue of systemic closure under dualistic (explanans-explanandum) composition, which is just how it is effected in sentential logic.
- A syndiffeonic regress ultimately leads to a stable closed syntax in which all terms are mutually defined; mutual definition is what stabilizes and lends internal determinacy (internal identifiability of events) to the system through syntactic symmetry
NOTE
**Comment: “**As I understand it, the existence of the universe can’t be a brute fact because this violates the principle of sufficient reason.”
Response: Reality exists by coupling with its own consciousness: it is that which manifests consciousness while serving as the object of consciousness. Existence and consciousness are “brute facts” because they are conditions of experience for every telor, and experience is the basis from which reality theory is developed.
Question: “Is consciousness a brute fact in the CTMU?”
Answer: Consciousness is a quantum property which characterizes id-operators, the points of the CTMU conspansive manifold. It is inescapable.
Question: “Does this violate the principle of sufficient reason?”
Answer: Reality is self-contained. Hence, the universe is its own sufficient reason. Ontic closure is a CTMU meta-axiom.
**Question: “**If consciousness is a brute fact, why can’t the universe also stand as one?”
Answer: It can, and does. (I don’t know what gave you the idea that it couldn’t.) The syntactic metaverse, not just the physical universe, is the primary quantum of the CTMU.
Comment: “This question in not meant to be a criticism of the CTMU.”
That’s good, son. That’s real good. Now go do some homework.
Comment: “If this helps provide context, I had thought that you had juxtaposed the idea that the universe simply exists as a brute fact with the idea that it required an explanation in ANKORT, but I just checked the document and the term “brute” is not in there. Some sort of Mandela effect, perhaps from some similar phrasing somewhere else.”
Response: The answer to the question depends on how one defines “brute fact”. Reality is a “brute fact” in the sense that it is given by consciousness of one’s existence - there’s no getting out of “cogito ergo sum”, as those steeped in absurd modern academic philosophy sometimes try to do.
On the other hand, reality has internal degrees of freedom which disarm the “brute” aspect of its existence. It did not have to be what it presently is; another possible configuration, one other than the one we now see, could have been actualized instead.
As for interpreting “brute” to mean “given from without” - as when it describes something forced on us from some external domain - that’s a violation of ontic closure.
Comment: “Mind, subjective, and conscious are often-used words, but questioning what normal people identify (“to identify” being a related term) as referents of these terms could help them a lot in discovering the CTMU, I conjecture.”
Response: Right. Mind = id-operator (usually a telor); subjective = “inside an id-operator” (characterizing its internal state); conscious = “functioning as an id-operator” (by conspansive / telic-recursive iteration), as described in the papers.
— Langan, CTMU FB Group (2023, July 9)