Human Knowledge:
Foundations and Limits

http://humanknowledge.net ©Brian Holtz  2005-07-09

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  • Why is there something rather than nothing? Might the world be an illusion or dream? What exists beyond the human senses? What happens after death? Does divine or supernatural agency exist? Is the future already decided?
  • What is the meaning of life? What is right and wrong? Is the world good or bad? Are humans good or evil? What beings should have what rights? What should one do?
  • What is truth? consciousness? intelligence? What are the limits of intelligence? Of logic? Could a machine think? Does free will exist?
  • How and when did the universe begin? What happened before it began? How and when will the universe end?
  • What does the universe consist of? What laws govern it? Why is the universe this way?
  • How big is the universe? Does it have a center or edge? What is outside the universe? Are there other universes?
  • What is life? How did life arise? What explains its complexity?
  • How did mind and language arise? How does the brain work?
  • Is there life and intelligence beyond earth?
  • What political system works best? What economic system works best?
  • Why do human individuals, groups, and sexes behave as they do?
  • Why have some human societies experienced more material progress than others?
  • Will humanity suffer cultural decline? economic crash? tyranny? resource depletion? overpopulation? runaway pollution? pandemic? interplanetary impact? nuclear catastrophe? nanotech plague?
  • Will humanity experience divine salvation? loss of faith? paranormal abilities? alien contact? time travel? warp travel? machine or human superintelligence? immortality?
  • What will happen in the next: hundred years? thousand years? million, billion, and trillion years?
    •  This living hypertext is a systematic statement of what humanity does and does not know, and can and cannot know, about the answers to these and hundreds of other such questions.  It summarizes the foundations and limits of what human civilization has learned, identifying for each subdivision of human knowledge its fundamental concepts, principles, mysteries, and misunderstandings.  It asserts a worldview of naturalistic positivism and libertarian capitalism that it predicts will guide future human thought and action.

    Outline

      0. Prologue
        0.1. Definition
        0.2. Assertions
        0.3. Scope
        0.4. Organization
        0.5. Questions Asked
        0.6. Audience
        0.7. Copyright
        0.8. Authority
        0.9. Criticism
        0.10. Motivation
      1. Philosophy
        1.1. Metaphysics
          1.1.1. Ontology
          1.1.2. Theology
        1.2. Epistemology
          1.2.1. Philosophy Of Mind
            1.2.1.1. Essence of Mind
            1.2.1.2. Accidence of Mind
            1.2.1.3. Relations of Mind
          1.2.2. Philosophy Of Science
        1.3. Axiology
          1.3.1. Ethics
          1.3.2. Political Philosophy
          1.3.3. Virtue Philosophy
          1.3.4. Aesthetics
      2. Mathematics
        2.1. Logic
          2.1.1. Formal Logic
          2.1.2. Metalogic
          2.1.3. Applied Logic
        2.2. Set Theory
        2.3. Algebra
          2.3.1. Arithmetic
          2.3.2. Number Theory
        2.4. Geometry
        2.5. Analysis
        2.6. Combinatorics
        2.7. Applied Mathematics
      3. Natural Science
        3.1. Physics
          3.1.1. Mechanics
            3.1.1.1. Rigid Mechanics
            3.1.1.2. Non-Rigid Mechanics
            3.1.1.3. Relativity
          3.1.2. Wave Physics
          3.1.3. Thermodynamics
          3.1.4. Electromagnetics
          3.1.5. Quantum Physics
        3.2. Astronomy
          3.2.1. Cosmology
          3.2.2. Galactic Astronomy
          3.2.3. Stellar Astronomy
          3.2.4. Planetary Astronomy
        3.3. Chemistry
        3.4. Geoscience
        3.5. Biology
          3.5.1. Molecular Biology
          3.5.2. Cellular Biology
          3.5.3. Physiology
            3.5.3.1. Reproductive Systems
            3.5.3.2. Respiratory Systems
            3.5.3.3. Digestive Systems
            3.5.3.4. Circulatory Systems
            3.5.3.5. Supportive-Protective Systems
            3.5.3.6. Actuating Systems
            3.5.3.7. Immune Systems
            3.5.3.8. Cybernetic Systems
          3.5.4. Ethology
          3.5.5. Evolutionary Biology
            3.5.5.1. Genetics
            3.5.5.2. Paleontology
            3.5.5.3. Taxonomy
          3.5.6. Anthropology
          3.5.7. Ecology
          3.5.8. Exobiology
      4. Technology
      5. Social Science
        5.1. Economics
          5.1.1. Macroeconomics
          5.1.2. Microeconomics
            5.1.2.1. Market Theory
            5.1.2.2. Market Imperfections
            5.1.2.3. Public Policy
        5.2. Political Science
        5.3. Sociology
        5.4. Psychology
        5.5. Linguistics
        5.6. History
        5.7. Futurology
          5.7.1. Impossible Advances
          5.7.2. Improbable Advances
          5.7.3. Academic Developments
          5.7.4. Technological Developments
          5.7.5. Industrial Developments
          5.7.6. Sociopolitical Developments
          5.7.7. Challenges
          5.7.8. Possible Catastrophes
          5.7.9. Timeline
      6. Epilogue
      A. Appendices
        A.1. Unanswered Questions
        A.2. References

    0. Prologue

    1. Definition.
    2. Assertions.
    3. Scope.
    4. Organization.
    5. Questions Asked.
    6. Audience.
    7. Copyright.
    8. Authority.
    9. Criticism.
    10. Motivation.

    0.1. Prologue / Definition

    This living hypertext is a systematic summary of the knowledge attained by human civilization. For each subdivision of human knowledge, the text identifies its fundamental concepts, principles, mysteries, and misunderstandings.

    Status. This draft contains

    A more detailed indication of what parts of the text have been completed is provided by the hypertext links in the Questions Asked section.

    Copyright.  This text is the copyrighted property of the author.  Certain forms of copying are permitted and even encouraged; see the Copyright section for details.
     

    0.2. Prologue / Assertions

    Positions
    This text aims to assert humanity's analyses and theories that are most valid (i.e. convincing and defensible, as opposed to merely logically well-formed). These analyses and theories are not necessarily the most widely-believed or well-known. Potentially contentious assertions are those sympathetic to ontological materialism, epistemological empiricism and positivism, mental functionalism, theological atheism, axiological extropianism, political libertarianism, economic capitalism, constitutional federalism, biological evolutionism, and technological optimism.

    Relatively uncontentious assertions appear as normal text.  Potentially contentious assertions appear like this. Denials of widely-held beliefs appear like this.Questions whose answers lie outside human knowledge appear like this.

    Innovations
    Almost all of the facts and analyses asserted in this text have of course been asserted before by other humans. Nevertheless, there are some things in this text that the author believes may be novel or at least independently original.

    Arrangements.  The text places various unoriginal pieces of information into some arrangements that might not have been presented elsewhere before. Among these are

    Analyses.  The text gives certain analyses and definitions that, while not wildly original, are nevertheless believed by the author to be improvements on any he had seen before.  Among these are Inventions. The text presents a few notions that may be wholly new.  They are Predictions.  The section on Futurology collects, filters, and refines many predictions by other humans, but also makes predictions that the author has never seen clearly stated by anyone else.  They are predictions of Judgments. The author naturally hopes that the most significant innovation of this text is the judgments it makes and the worldview it synthesizes them into. The text asserts a worldview it calls autocosmology that includes by endorsement the positions of positivism, empiricism, functionalism, atheism, capitalism, federalism, evolutionism, and evolutionary psychology. The text also advances as part of autocosmology some slightly customized versions of other positions. They are

    0.3. Prologue / Scope

    This text aims to survey the foundations and limits of the knowledge attained by humanity since the dawn of civilization. It does not bother restating what Stone Age humans already knew or what now constitutes common sense and folk wisdom. It does not include operational knowledge about using humanity's technologies or natural faculties. It does not include parochial knowledge about human practices and achievements in art, play, and subsistence. It does not include subjects (such as astrology and psychoanalysis) that do not constitute valid knowledge. It does not simply enumerate facts and ideas alphabetically. It is neither a compendium of trivia nor an almanac of ephemera. It does not attempt to correct or improve the reader's command of any particular human language. It does not try merely to fill the common or embarrassing gaps in people's knowledge. It is not a syllabus of cultural literacy for some particular human society. It is not a guide to understanding but rather a survey of what is to be understood. It does not give demonstrations but rather conclusions. It does not attempt to persuade or teach but rather to assert and inform. It aims to systematically and assertively summarize what humanity does and does not know.

    0.4. Prologue / Organization

    There are many equally valid ways to organize human knowledge.  Knowledge can be organized according to This text organizes human knowledge according to the domain to which it applies, and orders these domains roughly from the most universal to the most parochial. This text begins with philosophy, because philosophy addresses the fundamental and ultimate questions about what exists, what can be known, and what is to be valued. Philosophy is about the questions that would confront thinkers not only on any world in the universe but on any world in any possible universe. If philosophy is about necessary questions, then mathematics is about necessary answers: the rules of inference and the necessary deductions that all thinkers in all possible universes must acknowledge.

    Science is about truth that is not necessary but rather contingent, because it is based on actual observations and inductions about regular or pattern-following phenomena in the universe. The truths of science should be agreed upon by any thinkers in the universe that observe the same regular phenomena. The most interesting known phenomena in the universe are those concerning persons, and so science is divided accordingly. Natural science studies regular phenomena that do not necessarily involve persons and thus are likely to be universal (although many details of terrestrial life science are inevitably parochial). Technology applies mathematics and science toward accomplishing goals. Technological principles are likely to coincide wherever in the universe there are thinkers dealing with similar phenomena and desiring similar goals. Social sciences strive to induce truths that would apply to any kind of person anywhere in the universe, but this is not always possible because humans know of only one kind of person: humans. Most parochial of all would be topics relating to human arts and leisure, which this text excludes as not involving fundamental knowledge.

    0.5. Prologue / Questions Asked

    These are some of the questions that this text is intended to address. Many of these questions are included because of their importance, while others serve more as invitations to their respective areas of knowledge.

    0.6. Prologue / Audience

    A summary of the knowledge and ignorance of human civilization could be useful to many.

    0.7. Prologue / Copyright

    This text is the copyrighted property of the author, Brian Holtz.  This text asserts that copyright should give only the right to prevent reproduction in cases of a) competition that diverts commercial benefit from the owner to the competitor, b) attributed use with unattributed defamatory modification, and c) unattributed use of any kind. This text predicts that technological developments will force the adoption of this limitation on copyright for all inert linear data (as opposed to executable software and some interactive databases). One way copyrighted linear data will be distributed is as memeware. Memeware is shareware with a chain letter option, meaning users can propagate it as an alternative to paying for it.

    This text is memeware. You may reproduce or distribute this text only in complete and unmodified copies, only for non-commercial purposes, and only if you agree to the following memeware license.

    If you find this text useless, you owe the author nothing.  If you find it useful, you should do one or both of:
    The author believes and intends that this text violates no existing copyrights.  Any quotations, data, or images from copyrighted sources are indicated and are cited under fair use.  The cover's underlying image of the Earth is copyright The Living Earth, Inc.

    0.8. Prologue / Authority

    No statements should be believed or disbelieved simply because they are offered by a particular text or author. The statements in this text are no exception. They should be judged only by whether they are consistent with evidence, logic, parsimony, and other truth.  Even if most of the assertions in this text are valid (i.e. convincing and defensible), that is not strong evidence that none could be invalid.

    The number of possible valid human knowledge summaries no longer than this text is immense but finite. This text is certainly far from being the best possible such summary.  If the goal of approaching such an optimal summary is worthwhile, then an effective method might be to first produce a suboptimal summary and then to continually correct it or replace it outright with better ones.  Thus corrections and replacements of this text are welcome.

    At the end of this text is a list of some of the references used in writing it. Because this text attempts to say so much, it contains few references for particular statements. The text tries to explain or justify some of its statements, but most it merely asserts, due to space constraints.

    Words in single-quotes are being mentioned rather than used. ('Ten' is a word, while ten is a number.) Words in double-quotes are being used verbatim from some source. Words in italics are being used with emphasis.  Words in bold and used at the beginning of a sentence are being defined.

    0.9. Prologue / Criticism

    Many criticisms of this text are predictable. The most welcome way to criticize this text would be to offer an improved or alternative summary of human knowledge, one just as comprehensive and just as assertive.  Even more welcome would be vigorous competition between knowledge-summarizing treatises representing humanity's various contradictory schools of thought. These efforts would in effect "sequence" the most important human memes and their alleles, constituting a sort of Human Memome Project.  Such a competition would preserve a fossil record of dying worldviews even as it hastens what the author believes will be the inevitable ascendancy of naturalistic positivism and libertarian capitalism.

    0.10. Prologue / Motivation

    I began writing this text in order to add to, clarify and preserve what I know and believe. I had never found a single writer with whom I agreed along all the major dimensions of human opinions.  But I was surprised I also could not find a single text that systematically summarizes what humanity knows. Encyclopedias are too meek, seeking universal consensus and to alphabetize instead of analyze.  Textbooks are too narrow, mapping individual trees and not the forest.  Most treatises are too mystical or canonical, substituting intuition or revelation for skeptical rationality.  None of them seems to well capture the worldview emerging from the revolutions in physics and biology and from the successes of free markets and free minds.  I believe that a worldview of scientific positivism and libertarian capitalism will prevail in human thought and action in the new millennium.  Such a future will be good, and I hope to advance it in some small way with this text.

    1. Philosophy

    Philosophy: the study of ultimate reality and meaning.
    1. Metaphysics: the study of ultimate reality.
    2. Epistemology: the study of knowledge.
    3. Axiology: the study of values.
    Necessary Questions
    Philosophy asks the questions: The first two questions face anyone who cares to distinguish the real from the unreal and the true from the false. The third question faces anyone who makes any decisions at all, and even not deciding is itself a decision. Thus all persons practice philosophy whether they know it or not.
    Autocosmic Answers
    What is existing? Reality consists ultimately of matter and energy and their fundamentally lawlike and unwilled relations in space-time. To exist is to have a causal relationship with the rest of the universe. The universe is the maximal set of circumstancesthat includes this statement and no subset of which is causally unrelated to the remainder. Humans do not know why the universe exists or what it is for. The universe operates without supernatural intervention and according to lawlike regularities that can be understood through empirical investigation and without special intuition. Humans have no credible evidence of any supernatural agency or unity. Humans have no credible evidence that any minds enjoy eternal existence.

    What is knowing?  Knowledge is justified true belief. Truth is logical and parsimonious consistency with evidence and with other truth. Meaning is the context-sensitive connotation ultimately established by relevant denotation and use.  All synthetic propositions (including this one) can only be known from experience and are subject to doubt. A synthetic statement is propositionally meaningless if it is in principle neither falsifiable nor verifiable.  A mind is any volitional conscious faculty for perception and cognition. Minds and ideas consist ultimately of matter.  Mental states are functional states consisting of causal relations among components for processing information. Consciousness is awareness of self and environment. Intelligence is the ability to make, test, and apply inductions about perceptions of self and world.  There are no forms of reasoning or kinds of knowledge that are in principle inaccessible to regular intelligence.

    What is good?  As autonomous living intellects, we persons value intelligence and life and the autonomy they need to flourish. A person is any intelligent being with significant volitional control over how it affects other beings. All persons have the right to life and liberty. All beings have the right not to suffer torture or extinction. Liberty is volition in the absence of aggression. Aggression consists essentially of 1) coercion or 2) damage to a person's body, property, or rightful resources. Coercion is compulsion of one person by another through force or threat of aggression. Justice is the minimization, reversal and punishment of aggression. The purpose of the state is to effect justice, provide aid and sustenance to persons in mortal danger, protect species in danger of extinction, and prevent torture.

    Autocosmology is a synthesis of metaphysical naturalism, ontological materialism, epistemological empiricism and positivism, mental functionalism, theological atheism, axiological extropianism, political libertarianism, economic capitalism, constitutional federalism, biological evolutionism, evolutionary psychology, and technological optimism. Autocosmology is the worldview asserted by this text.

    Human Answers
    Most humans justify their answers to philosophy's questions using one of four methods. Faith is the most common mode of belief in the Western world, where the Abrahamic religions are prevalent. Mysticism is the most common mode of belief in the Eastern world. Skepticism is practiced worldwide (with varying amounts of rigor) by the minority of thinkers who have been influenced more by science than by tradition. Cynicism too is practiced by a worldwide minority, often as a simplistic reaction to the rigidity of faith, the emptiness of mysticism, or the relativism of skepticism.

    A skeptic believes what he sees. A mystic believes what he feels. A fideist believes what he hears.  A cynic believes nothing.  Thus faith fails in not questioning others, and mysticism fails in not questioning the self. Skepticism succeeds by exempting nothing from questioning, while cynicism fails by exempting no answer from disbelief.

    Darwin made faith essentially indefensible among Western philosophers. Modern Western philosophy is broadly divided into two traditions, each of which starts with skepticism and takes it to a certain extreme.

    Analytic philosophy takes skepticism to an extreme by saying that philosophy is only about necessary answers (logic and mathematics) and not necessary questions (metaphysics and axiology). Continental philosophy fails by turning methodological skepticism into mysticism (Phenomenology, Existentialism) and cynical relativism (Deconstructionism, Critical Theory).

    1.1. Philosophy / Metaphysics

    Metaphysics: the study of ultimate reality.
    1. Ontology: the study of being.
    2. Theology: the study of universal being and knowing.
    Reality
    Reality is everything that exists. Reality consists ultimately of matter and energy and their fundamentally lawlike and unwilled relations in space-time.
    Theories of Reality
    The primary distinction in theories of reality is between Nature and Spirit. Human theories of reality differ primarily according to how they analyze Spirit. Fideists usually believe in theism or deism.Theism stems from the human propensity to take any mysterious phenomenon as an indication of supernatural intentionality. Primitive humans invented supernatural explanations for: However, the Scientific Revolution had established by the middle 1800s that physics, chemistry, astronomy, meteorology, and physiology could be understood in naturalistic terms.  Supernatural explanations still seemed necessary for the origin and mechanism of life and mind, and for the origin of the universe itself. In the subsequent century, science outlined the basic answers for these questions, and theism began to be abandoned by serious thinkers. Always hoping that the gaps in scientific knowledge are about to miraculously stop shrinking, some fideists clung to a theism based on an increasingly irrelevant "God of the gaps".

    Deists retreat directly to the last trench, and use God only to answer the question of why there is something rather than nothing. Deism is unparsimonious, because it cannot answer the question of why there is God rather than not God.

    Mystics usually believe in pantheism or outright idealism.Pantheism and Idealism are incorrect because they too are unparsimonious.  They infer spiritual aspects of reality from psychological phenomena that can be explained more parsimoniously in materialist terms.

    Skeptics usually believe in naturalism. The varieties of naturalism differ primarily according to their explanation of how matter relates to mind.  While naturalists do not know why the universe exists, there is no credible evidence or convincing argument that its existence implies supernatural agency.  Parsimony demands that supernatural agency be held not to exist until shown otherwise. Agnosticism constitutes either ignorance of this demand, or a redundant restatement of the principle that synthetic propositions are subject to doubt.

    Paranormality
    Many humans believe in the existence of phenomena which lie outside the materialist reality of natural science.  The phenomena alleged include: Humans have no credible evidence for these phenomena. Over time these phenomena will recognized as delusions, hysteria, myths, nonsense, and hoaxes.

    1.1.1. Philosophy / Metaphysics / Ontology

    Ontology: the study of being.

    Understanding of reality and existence is built up according to experience from elements provided by logic: terms, their properties and relations, and the attributions and inferences that can be made among them.  From these can be derived the ontological notions of causality, existence, time, identity, and space.

    Causality
    A circumstance is a set of terms and their fixed properties and relations that as a whole can be distinguished from other such sets and identified with itself. A change is a relation between an ordered pair of distinguishable circumstances and is defined by the two circumstances that it relates. An effect is a change that can be attributed. A cause is that to which an effect can be attributed in whole or in part. An influence is that to which an effect can be only partly attributed. Attribution is a fundamental concept that underlies the notions of both ontological causality and logical properties.

    A necessary cause is one which can be inferred from the effect. A sufficient cause is one from which the corresponding effect can be inferred.  To determine is to be the necessary and sufficient cause for. Possibility is the property of not being contradicted by any inference. Logical possibility is the property of not contradicting the laws of logic. Physical possibility is the property of not contradicting the laws of nature.

    Is causality an illusion? Does every effect have a cause, or do some effects have no cause? Can there be a cycle of causality, in which an effect both precedes and contributes to its cause? Can one know the answers to these questions?

    Existence
    The universe is the maximal set of circumstances that includes this statement and no subset of which is causally unrelated to the remainder. To exist is to have a causal relationship with the rest of the universe.  An entity is any term that exists. Two circumstances are causally unrelated if neither could ever influence the other.

    It is unparsimonious to say other universes exist. One could imagine a set of circumstances causally unrelated to the maximal set that includes this sentence, and could choose to consider it a separate universe. But to say those imagined circumstances "exist" is to cheapen existence from causal reality to mere imaginability. An imagining does not establish the existence of the thing imagined.

    Why is there something rather than nothing? Is there an objective purpose for that which exists? How could one recognize an answer to these questions?  Are these questions meaningless?

    Humans do not know why there is something rather than nothing, or if the question is even meaningful.   If this question has a parsimonious answer, it must consist in a self-explaining fact or cycle of facts.  A candidate for such a fact would be the concept of God in the Ontological Proof, but that proof is not convincing.  Humans do not know any such fact(s), or even if they could possibly exist. If it is asserted that non-existence is more likely or natural than existence, one could ask why this asserted tendency (toward non-existence) itself exists.

    A possibly meaningful (but unparsimonious) answer to the Ultimate Why is that the universe exists (more precisely, is perceived to exist) roughly because it is possible. The reasoning would be as follows. Absolute impossibility -- the state of affairs in which nothing is possible -- is itself not possible, because if nothing truly were possible, then absolute impossibility would not be possible, implying that at least something must be possible. But if at least one thing is possible, then it seems the universe we perceive should be no less possible than anything else. Now, assuming that physicalism is right and that qualia and consciousness are epiphenomena, then the phenomenology of a mind and its perfect simulation are identical. So whether the universe we perceive existed or not, it as a merely possible universe would be perceived by its merely possible inhabitants no differently than our actual universe is perceived by its actual inhabitants. By analogy, the thoughts and perceptions of a particular artificial intelligence in a simulated universe would be the same across identical "runs" of the simulation, regardless of whether we bothered to initiate such a "run" once, twice -- or never.

    Thus, the universe might merely be the undreamed possible dream of no particular dreamer.

    Time
    An event is a change that cannot interestingly be subdivided into constituent changes. Time is the ordering of events according to the potential of some events to causally influence other events. If (as in this universe) causal influence propagates through space only at finite speed, then some events can be far enough apart in space as to be in principle unable to influence each other. In this case time is a partial order on events instead of a total order.

    An instant is a point on a linear continuum onto which events have been associated in a particular reference frame according to their order in time. Duration is a measure of the separation between two instants in time determined by counting intervening events of the kind that recur in proportional numbers to each other.  Examples of such events are the swings of a pendulum or the vibrations of an atom.

    Eternity is an entire linear continuum of instants. Thus by definition there is between any two instants another instant.  However, it is not necessary that between any two events there is another event.  Nor is it necessary that there be a first event, even if the past is of finite duration.  Just as there is no smallest positive real number, there might be no first event, because there might be no event associated with a first instant (t=0).  Instants are mathematical constructs that do not always have an associated actual event.

    The future is, from the perspective of a particular event, the set of all events that the event potentially influences.  The past is, from the perspective of a particular event, the set of all events by which the event is potentially influenced.  The present is, from the perspective of a particular event, the set of all events simultaneous with it.  Simultaneity is a relation enjoyed by two events if and only if they share identical sets of past and future events.

    Hypertime. Time is often said to pass or flow or to be moved through. This metaphor of motion is misleading, because motion is spatial displacement over time, measured for example in meters per second. But a 'motion of time' measured in seconds per second is nonsensical, and so temporal displacement 'over time' requires a notion of hypertime, measured in seconds per hyper-second. This is no help, because hypertime too will be said to flow -- through hyper-hypertime. There is no reason to posit an absolute or universal or extra-temporal or distinguished present that flows or passes or marches and continuously turns absolutely future events into absolutely past ones.  Past, present, and future are relations with a particular event and are not absolute properties in themselves.

    Changing the future. The present can affect a future event, but it cannot "change" a future event. An event is itself a change and time is no more than an ordering of these changes. If changes themselves can change, these hyper-changes are hyper-events that can be ordered into hypertime. Events cannot change over time because events are defined by their pre- and post-conditions. To talk of different post-conditions for an event is really to talk of a different event, just as to talk of different cardinality for a number is really to talk of a different number. This does not imply determinism, because determinism is a statement about inference and not about inevitability.

    Determinism is the thesis that a sufficient knowledge of any particular set of circumstances could be used to completely infer any subsequent circumstance. Some humans take determinism to be the thesis that the future is already decided, that the present was always going to be the way it is, that statements about probability and possibility are merely statements about one's incomplete knowledge, and that only actual possibility is that which is already inevitable.

    Such a notion of ontological determinism is different from epistemic determinism only if there is a hypertime in which different points of normal time can "already" coexist.  A notion of ontological determinism that is strictly different from epistemic determinism can have no practical consequences.  As a difference that makes no difference, ontological determinism is a thesis that parsimony demands be rejected.  Adopting the thesis makes as much sense as adopting the thesis that the universe is five minutes old.  It is inconsequential -- and thus meaningless -- to say the future is already decided.

    Some humans argue that if determinism is true, then no argument is to be considered valid as it is simply a train of statements following a predestined track.  First, this misconceived argument applies as well to itself as it does to any other argument.  Second, even in a deterministic system there can arise processes that tend to produce certain results. If viable organisms can arise, reproduce, and evolve due to natural selection in a deterministic universe, then surely viable arguments can arise, reproduce, and evolve due to competition in a marketplace of ideas.  The viability of an idea or argument is closely related to its epistemological validity, and so the opposite misconception could occur: an argument might be considered more valid merely because it is at the end of so many predestined tracks.

    Time Travel. Time travel would imply the existence of either hypertime or circular causality. Humans have no reason to think either exists.

    Temporal Anisotropy. In a short video clip showing two billiard balls bouncing off each other, forward and backward in time are indistinguishable if one ignores friction and inelasticity.  In a longer video of a billiards break, the future is the end in which the balls are no longer in a nicely ordered triangle. If causes can be attributed to effects as easily as effects can be attributed to causes, then causal laws do not distinguish past and future, and the future for an event is the direction of increasing disorder in the system.  Traces and memories of the past are a localized increase in order at the expense of an increase in system-wide disorder. Due to statistical considerations, some systems can cycle between order and disorder.  In such systems the direction locally considered to be future can vary over the timeline of the system.

    Temporal anisotropy is not determined by the expansion of the universe, nor by the direction of electromagnetic radiation. For electromagnetism, the attribution of influence works equally well in both time directions. There is no inherent difference between the absorption and emission of a photon. Boundary conditions are logically possible in which photons are set in motion without having been emitted from anything, and which converge in shrinking spheres on an anti-emitter.

    Identity
    Identity is the relation that obtains between two entities (or terms) that are the same instance, i.e., that could never be counted as two.  Leibniz's Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles states that if there is no possible way to distinguish two entities then they really are the same entity.

    A given entity is identified through time with its closest close-enough continuous-enough continuer. A continuer is an entity which is similar to a previous entity and exists because of it. A continuer is close enough if it retains enough of the original entity's properties. A continuer is closest if it retains more of the original entity's properties than any other continuer. A continuer is continuous enough if there is no extraordinary discontinuity in its relationship to the original entity.

    Space
    Space is the seemingly boundless and continuous three-dimensional extent in which all matter is located and all events occur. It seems logically possible that space could be not only boundless (like the surface of a sphere) but infinite (like an infinite plane). It even seems logically possible that space could be locally discontinuous.

    Do space and time have absolute existence independent of their contents? Or are they simply a system of relations among entities and events? Is there a way to answer these questions, or would any answer not make a difference?

    1.1.2. Philosophy / Metaphysics / Theology

    Theology: the study of universal being and knowing.
    God
    God is supernatural agency or unity, often considered necessary, perfect, timeless, omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent, and personal. A deity is a supernatural person, usually considered immortal, that demands or deserves human worship or reverence and that wields supernatural influence over human affairs.Divinity is the property of being supernatural and sacred. Sacredness is the property of being worthy of reverence or worship.

    Humans have no credible evidence or convincing proof of any deities, including a God, Creator, First Cause, Perfect or Necessary Being.

    Humans have proposed philosophical proofs of God as an alternative or supplement to historical revelation of God's existence.

    None of the proofs of God is generally accepted as convincing, due to various counter-arguments. Many humans claim to have evidence of revelation from their god(s). Any god could trivially inscribe or authenticate its revealed message through supernatural patterns (in cosmological or quantum phenomena) or ongoing miracles (such as prophecy or communication with a spirit world). There is no credible evidence that any such revelation has been competently attempted by any god(s).
    Afterlife
    Most humans believe that some form of reincarnation or immortality awaits them after death. Humans have no credible evidence of reincarnation or any kind of afterlife.
    Faith
    Faith is belief based on revelation and exempt from doubt. Skepticism involves zero faith because it holds not even a single belief that is based on revelation and exempt from doubt.  Skepticism holds that truth is not simply revealed but instead must always be subject to doubt, demonstration, and rederivation.  This belief about truth is itself neither revealed nor exempt from doubt, but is instead subject to continual test.

    It is possible (but unlikely) that this epistemological belief could one day stop yielding satisfactory results.  For example, if God appeared and started violating physical laws, predicting the future, punishing infidels, and rewarding believers, then faith would suddenly be more satisfactory than skepticism. Until such a development, skepticism continues to be more satisfactory than faith.

    Faith is not simply an absence of doubt, because tautologies are beyond doubt and yet are recognized not revealed.  Faith is not simply any confident reliance on authority, because an authority can be relied upon even confidently without being held exempt from all doubt. Faith is not simply any provisional hypothesis believed without complete evidence, because a proposition can be provisionally believed without being held exempt from all doubt.  Faith is not simply any affirmation of values, because to affirm a value is not to posit a proposition but to make a valuation. Faith is belief based on revelation and exempt from doubt.  Fideists often say skeptics too have "faith" in science or reason, but this corrupts the definition of 'faith'.  Faith must be embarrassing if its only defense is the claim that everybody is guilty of it.

    Origin of faith.  Humans' propensity for faith derives perhaps from their dependence on teaching by parents and society. In the absence of a biological mechanism for offspring to inherit knowledge directly, a predisposition for unquestioning belief in authority might help spare each generation from having to rediscover or verify everything.

    Mysticism
    Mysticism is belief base on private and direct experience of ultimate reality.  Mysticism holds that belief can be justified simply by the intensity or directness of an experience, and without a showing that the experience has any objective basis or consequences.

    Rejecting objectivity and the distinction between the experiencer and the experienced, mysticism thus mistakes feeling for knowing. Mystics are forever free to claim that anyone who doesn't feel what they feel is somehow "doing it wrong". The conclusions of mysticism are usually unfalsifiable or inconsequential and thus propositionally meaningless.

    Some mystics compare meditation to advanced mathematics and claim that both yield conclusions that can only be verified by adept practitioners. This claim is misleading. It is true that creating and even comprehending advanced mathematical conclusions usually requires specialized training. But all mathematical demonstration is by definition subject to verification through mechanical symbol manipulation. This symbol manipulation is not necessarily private or "interior" like the experience of a mystic, but is expressly public and exterior.

    Origin of mysticism.  Humans' propensity for mysticism derives perhaps from their nature as intelligent social animals who survive by detecting patterns and especially intentions in an environment dominated by their social interactions.  Humans appear biased to see intentionality not only in friends, foes, predators, and prey, but also in weather, the heavens, or the universe itself.  This bias is perhaps related to the general human tendency (known in psychology as the Fundamental Attribution Error) to incorrectly emphasize intentional explanations over situational or circumstantial ones.

    Religion
    Religion is any system of belief based on faith or mysticism, or involving worship of or reverence for some deity.

    Science and Religion.  A common misconception is that science might be an alternative to religion for answering questions about meaning and value.  Those questions are the domain of philosophy, whereas science deals with objective phenomena. Science depends on the epistemological principle of skepticism, and any "conflict" between science and religion is really a conflict between skepticism and faith (or mysticism).   Religion can be made superficially compatible with science by restricting itself to questions that are a) scientific but unanswered or b) philosophical.  However, faith- or mysticism-based religion can never be compatible with the skepticism on which science -- and all epistemologically valid philosophy -- is built.

    Belief Systems
    Most humans attempt to understand the world through faith or mysticism. Of the major groups of believers, only agnostics and atheists avoid both faith and mysticism.  This table summarizes the major human belief systems. Statistics on adherents are assembled from various sources, including Encyclopedia Britannica and adherents.com.  The 'Deity' column identifies each system's type of supernaturalism , except that for monotheisms it instead names the deity. The 'Fate' column tells what each system believes happens to a person after death.

    Belief System Millions % Where When Founder Scripture Deity Fate
    Christianity 1960 34% West c30 Jesus New Testament God judged
       Roman Catholicism    981    17%   c30 Paul, Peter      
       Protestantism    404    7%            
          Baptist       100       2%   c1611 Thomas Helwys      
          Lutheran       76     1517 Martin Luther (95 Theses)    
          Anglican       70   England 1534 Henry VIII      
            Episcopalian        3   USA 1789        
          Methodist       50     1738 John Wesley      
          Reformed       1536 John Calvin (Institutes...)    
            Presbyterian                
          Pentecostal         9   USA c1880 Charles Parham      
          Church of Christ        1.6   USA c1832 Campbell, Stone      
          Society of Friends     USA 1650 George Fox      
       Eastern Orthodox    123    4%   1054 Michael Cerularius      
       Mormonism    11   Utah 1831 Joseph Smith Book of Mormon    
       Jehovah's Witness    1.4 US   USA 1878 Charles Russell      
       Christian Science    0.4   USA 1879 Mary Eddy (Science & Health)    
    Islam 1130 19% Mideast 600 Muhammad Koran Allah judged
       Sunni      16%            
       Shiite      3%            
       Sufism                
    (Agnosticisms)  887 15%         non death
    Hinduism  793 14% India 1000 BCE (Aryans) Vedas, esp. Upanishads poly rebirth
       Hare Krishna                
    Buddhism  325 5.6% E. Asia 525 BCE Buddha Tipitaka pan rebirth
       Zen Buddhism                
       Amidism                
    (Atheism)  222 3.8%         anti death
    Chinese folk religions  221 3.8% China          
       Confucianism     China 500 BCE Confucius Analects; I Ching non death
       Taoism     China 550 BCE Lao Tzu Tao-Te-Ching poly immort
    Asian New Religions  106 1.8%            
    Animisms  103 1.8%            
       Shamanism                
       Voodoo                 
    Sikhism   19 0.3% Punjab 1604 Guru Nanak Adi Granth Sat-Kartar rebirth
    Judaism   14 0.2% Israel 1800 BCE Abraham Old Testament Yahweh death
    Spiritism   10              
    Bahaism    6   Persia 1863 Baha Ullah Kitabi Ikan Allah?  
    Jainism    5   India 550 BCE Mahavira Purvas et al. pan rebirth
    Shintoism