From: jimruttshow8596
Forrest Landry’s work, which he terms immanent philosophy, seeks to build an understanding of the universe from fundamental principles [01:57:00]. This endeavor is deemed worthwhile due to the confrontation with important choices in the modern world, such as those related to existential risk and civilization design, which often tie back to ethical concerns and values [02:47:00]. Understanding the nature of choice and how decisions are made is crucial, especially given ongoing debates in the scientific community regarding free will [03:04:00]. The aim is to clarify concepts like goodness and choice and establish a basic methodology for knowing anything at all to improve individual and collective decision-making and design [03:40:00].
Defining Metaphysics: Beyond Theology
Historically, metaphysics addresses two primary questions: “what is” (ontology, the study of existence and being) and “how do we know” (epistemology, the nature of knowledge and the phenomenology of consciousness) [05:28:00]. Other branches like axiology (what’s valuable) and aesthetics (what’s beautiful) extend from this core [06:20:00].
Landry’s approach distinguishes itself from the high philosophical tradition of thinkers like Kant and Aristotle, who often delved into the nature of being and acknowledged theological aspects [04:34:00]. Instead, Landry defines metaphysics more narrowly as an inquiry into the nature of the relation between self and reality [04:59:00], specifically the interaction between the subjective and objective [05:06:00].
He posits that the relationship between the subjective and objective is inherently real; otherwise, no thought or discussion about reality would be possible [07:00:00]. This inquiry focuses on the flow from the objective to the subjective, which is termed “perception” [07:26:00]. This framework can be remodeled in terms of the “perceived” (objective), the “perceiver” (subjective), and “perceiving” (the process itself) [07:33:00]. Ontology and epistemology are then attached to this act of perceiving [07:42:00].
Distinguishing Existence, Reality, and Objectivity
Landry distinguishes between “to exist,” “to be real,” and “to be objective” [09:55:00]. These terms, while often overlapping in philosophical literature, are three distinct claims [10:04:00]. For example, some things can be real but not exist, or exist but not be clearly real, or be objective but not exist [10:11:00]. This careful distinction is crucial for foundational understanding [10:30:00].
The Primacy of Relationship
Landry’s work posits that the relationship between the subjective and objective is its own ontological class [10:57:00]. The process of perception is more fundamental than both the perceiver and the perceived [11:06:00]. We can only know the nature of the objective and subjective through the “mediology of the relationship between them” [11:16:00]. This relationship is neither solely objective nor subjective but a fundamental notion in itself [11:21:00].
This idea extends to other concepts, such as the relationship between content and context, or truth and falsity; the relationship itself is distinct from its constituent parts [11:41:00]. This concept of relatedness is a powerful tool for understanding choice, causation, and change [12:28:00].
Defining the “Self”
The self is defined as “effectively the product of all the choices you have made and all the choices you could make” [13:10:00]. This concept, though abstract, provides utility for downstream philosophical and practical applications [13:23:00]. The self is characterized in terms of choice, encompassing memory (past choices) and capabilities (future choices), viewed as a product space of actuality and potentiality [15:12:12].
Interaction vs. Relation
A crucial distinction in Landry’s work is between interaction and relation [30:51:00]:
- Relation: A-temporal, independent of time. Mathematics, for example, studies structures of relationships without requiring a temporal element [31:00:00]. Mathematical truths are considered eternally true once proven [31:13:00].
- Interaction: Inherently temporal. It implies a “before” and “after” state, such as in an experiment where information flows from objective to subjective [31:50:00]. This concept involves temporality, flow of information, and the possibility of alternative outcomes [32:46:00]. Theories like information theory, communication theory, and measurement theory are constructed from these concepts [33:13:00].
The Role of the Observer in Interaction
An observer is considered an epiphenomenon of interaction [33:30:00]. The concept of an observer is implied within the notion of interaction, meaning that to conceive of something perceivable in a universe, an imaginer is implied [34:25:00]. Landry argues that the process of knowing is more fundamental than the being of the objective or subjective [35:18:00].
To establish the existence of something, an interaction with it is necessary [36:37:00]. For instance, while a naive realist might assert the moon’s existence independent of observation, verifying its existence requires interaction. This means interaction is in some sense more fundamental than existence, and even more fundamental than creation [40:28:00]. Landry suggests that the concept of the “universe” itself can be understood as a pointer to three fundamental concepts: creation, existence, and interaction [40:50:00]. Perfected knowledge of these three would constitute perfected knowledge of the universe [41:28:00].
Metaphysics and Science Interaction
Landry views physics as a modeling process for answering “why” questions, and metaphysics as a descriptive process for answering “what” questions [22:48:00]. Metaphysics serves as a toolkit to create clear concepts usable by sciences like physics and computer science [23:50:00].
He highlights the distinction between:
- Validity (Mathematics): Proof that concepts are derived from other concepts within a formal axiomatic system [45:08:00].
- Soundness (Metaphysics): A practical assessment of whether a mathematical model or a conceptual framework corresponds effectively to another domain, enabling applicability and useful predictions [45:31:00].
Landry is more interested in questions of soundness for metaphysics, aiming to develop concepts that clarify how to formulate testable experiments rather than producing testable experiments themselves [24:52:00]. This “reifying power” — the ability to clarify vague relationships and make them more distinct and useful — is the metric for the quality of metaphysics [52:44:00].
Mind from Brain: A Process-Oriented View
Regarding the relationship between mind and brain, Landry acknowledges the strong evidence for neural correlates of subjective experience [01:09:04]. However, he argues that even perfected knowledge of these correlations would not answer the “hard problem” of consciousness: why a particular moment is this moment, or why there is any experience at all [01:10:09]. Correlations don’t inherently explain causation or distinguish between past, present, and future [01:10:17].
Landry aligns with the view that consciousness is a process, similar to John Searle’s analogy of digestion [01:12:12]. While agreeing that consciousness is a process mediated by biology, the “hard problem” remains because a purely physicalist, third-person model lacks the tools to explain the inherent temporality, locality, and selectivity of subjective experience—the “symmetry breaking” that localizes consciousness to a specific moment, place, and possibility [01:21:43]. Moving from a third-person scientific understanding to a first-person perspective requires a different set of philosophical tools [01:22:54].
Landry’s work on immanent metaphysics is a deep dive into these foundational concepts, aiming to provide clarifying capacities for understanding the fundamental relationships that underpin reality, perception, self, and knowledge.