Relational Quantum Mechanics and BK Idealism

[AshvinP]

The difference seems to be precisely that -- while Kastrup maintains a relational existence for everything that is grounded by M@L, Rovelli removes M@L itself and only has the relationships left. His metaphysics might be closer to Whitehead, Deleuze, or some variations of Buddhist metaphysics (he himself pulls from Nagarjuna). Kastrup is closer to Schopenhauer or some flavors of Advaita Vedanta or the cosmopsychists like Goff or Mathews.

Is there any internet source available, for a peek into Rovelli's relationalism and especially what he says about Nagarjuna?

I was very disappointed in BK calling master logician Nagarjuna - the Gödel of his time and place - just a "mystic".

Here's the excerpt from Helgoland:

Nāgārjuna lived in the second century ce. There have been countless commentaries on his text, which has been overlaid with interpretations and exegesis. The interest of such ancient texts lies partly in the stratification of readings that gives them to us enriched by levels of meaning. What really interests us about ancient texts is not what the author initially intended to say: it is how the work can speak to us now, and what it can suggest today.

The central thesis of Nāgārjuna’s book is simply that there is nothing that exists in itself independently from something else. The resonance with quantum mechanics is immediate. Obviously, Nāgārjuna knew nothing, and could not have imagined anything, about quanta—that is not the point. The point is that philosophers offer original ways of rethinking the world, and we can employ them if they turn out to be useful. The perspective offered by Nāgārjuna may perhaps make it a little easier to think about the quantum world.

It's unfortunate how a simple error at the beginning of an argument can nullify all of the careful reasoning which comes after, but all too common in the modern age. The bolded assertion shows that Rovelli is operating under the illusion of the Cartesian-Kantian divides. For someone who holds to a unified realm of ideating activity, there is nothing "obvious" about the idea that Nagarjuna could not have known anything about the underlying Reality which the abstract concept "quanta" represents, along with all other abstractions used in QM. In fact, it would be obvious that many people throughout history could and would have known about that Reality, even if its through a different set of experiences and concepts. We are the ones who are a few layers abstracted from that Reality with QM concepts, not people living in the 2nd century.

That is why it is so important to start with phenomenology of experience now and carefully trace backwards to identify where these flawed assumptions entered the streams of philosophical thought. Then Rovelli would never suggest every concept including the sense of "I" doesn't exist or is nothing more than "emptiness" (I understand Buddhism does not necessarily say "emptiness" doesn't "exist", but in the sense Rovelli is using it here), rather he would see the shared meaning behind these concepts, to the extent that someone in the 2nd century could experience the exact same meaning we can experience today, is what assures us of their existence at the deepest level we can imagine and intuit. So by fixing that one error, he eventually would arrive at the diametrically opposite conclusion of the one he actually arrived at.

[SanteriSatama]

Nāgārjuna lived in the second century ce. There have been countless commentaries on his text, which has been overlaid with interpretations and exegesis. The interest of such ancient texts lies partly in the stratification of readings that gives them to us enriched by levels of meaning. What really interests us about ancient texts is not what the author initially intended to say: it is how the work can speak to us now, and what it can suggest today.

The central thesis of Nāgārjuna’s book is simply that there is nothing that exists in itself independently from something else. The resonance with quantum mechanics is immediate. Obviously, Nāgārjuna knew nothing, and could not have imagined anything, about quanta—that is not the point. The point is that philosophers offer original ways of rethinking the world, and we can employ them if they turn out to be useful. The perspective offered by Nāgārjuna may perhaps make it a little easier to think about the quantum world.

It's unfortunate how a simple error at the beginning of an argument can nullify all of the careful reasoning which comes after, but all too common in the modern age. The bolded assertion shows that Rovelli is operating under the illusion of the Cartesian-Kantian divides. For someone who holds to a unified realm of ideating activity, there is nothing "obvious" about the idea that Nagarjuna could not have known anything about the underlying Reality which the abstract concept "quanta" represents, along with all other abstractions used in QM. In fact, it would be obvious that many people throughout history could and would have known about that Reality, even if its through a different set of experiences and concepts. We are the ones who are a few layers abstracted from that Reality with QM concepts, not people living in the 2nd century.

That is why it is so important to start with phenomenology of experience now and carefully trace backwards to identify where these flawed assumptions entered the streams of philosophical thought. Then Rovelli would never suggest every concept including the sense of "I" doesn't exist or is nothing more than "emptiness" (I understand Buddhism does not necessarily say "emptiness" doesn't "exist", but in the sense Rovelli is using it here), rather he would see the shared meaning behind these concepts, to the extent that someone in the 2nd century could experience the exact same meaning we can experience today, is what assures us of their existence at the deepest level we can imagine and intuit. So by fixing that one error, he eventually would arrive at the diametrically opposite conclusion of the one he actually arrived at.

In a sense, Rovelli is right. As Nagarjuna did to Aristotelean logic and logicism same what Gödel (in much lesser extent) did much later, we can imagine that it would have been hard for Nagarjuna to imagine how fantastically idiotic Western math and physics could be by stubbornly sticking with Aristotean mess after all the trouble he took to show how messy it is.

And I hope you saw what I just did there. "Quanta" are already nothing but artifacts of quantitative measuring and the formalist theory of math. If Rovelli had understood anything about Nagarjuna - and to his credit he does not claim to have understood anything - he would see the implications to the mathematical foundations he's been working in and limited by his whole life. Nagarjuna discussed the static tetralemma of truth values (cf. Scott's mumorphism) and demonstrated that taking any specific position or combo of the tetralemma leads to what now is called "undecidability".

Rovelli does get the superficial (aka "low resolution") basics of Madhyamika, but does he have the ability to dig deeper and see how they really apply to the most basic presuppositions of his own field of mathematical physics?

[AshvinP]

Nāgārjuna lived in the second century ce. There have been countless commentaries on his text, which has been overlaid with interpretations and exegesis. The interest of such ancient texts lies partly in the stratification of readings that gives them to us enriched by levels of meaning. What really interests us about ancient texts is not what the author initially intended to say: it is how the work can speak to us now, and what it can suggest today.

The central thesis of Nāgārjuna’s book is simply that there is nothing that exists in itself independently from something else. The resonance with quantum mechanics is immediate. Obviously, Nāgārjuna knew nothing, and could not have imagined anything, about quanta—that is not the point. The point is that philosophers offer original ways of rethinking the world, and we can employ them if they turn out to be useful. The perspective offered by Nāgārjuna may perhaps make it a little easier to think about the quantum world.

It's unfortunate how a simple error at the beginning of an argument can nullify all of the careful reasoning which comes after, but all too common in the modern age. The bolded assertion shows that Rovelli is operating under the illusion of the Cartesian-Kantian divides. For someone who holds to a unified realm of ideating activity, there is nothing "obvious" about the idea that Nagarjuna could not have known anything about the underlying Reality which the abstract concept "quanta" represents, along with all other abstractions used in QM. In fact, it would be obvious that many people throughout history could and would have known about that Reality, even if its through a different set of experiences and concepts. We are the ones who are a few layers abstracted from that Reality with QM concepts, not people living in the 2nd century.

That is why it is so important to start with phenomenology of experience now and carefully trace backwards to identify where these flawed assumptions entered the streams of philosophical thought. Then Rovelli would never suggest every concept including the sense of "I" doesn't exist or is nothing more than "emptiness" (I understand Buddhism does not necessarily say "emptiness" doesn't "exist", but in the sense Rovelli is using it here), rather he would see the shared meaning behind these concepts, to the extent that someone in the 2nd century could experience the exact same meaning we can experience today, is what assures us of their existence at the deepest level we can imagine and intuit. So by fixing that one error, he eventually would arrive at the diametrically opposite conclusion of the one he actually arrived at.

In a sense, Rovelli is right. As Nagarjuna did to Aristotelean logic and logicism same what Gödel (in much lesser extent) did much later, we can imagine that it would have been hard for Nagarjuna to imagine how fantastically idiotic Western math and physics could be by stubbornly sticking with Aristotean mess after all the trouble he took to show how messy it is.

And I hope you saw what I just did there. "Quanta" are already nothing but artifacts of quantitative measuring and the formalist theory of math. If Rovelli had understood anything about Nagarjuna - and to his credit he does not claim to have understood anything - he would see the implications to the mathematical foundations he's been working in and limited by his whole life. Nagarjuna discussed the static tetralemma of truth values (cf. Scott's mumorphism) and demonstrated that taking any specific position or combo of the tetralemma leads to what now is called "undecidability".

Rovelli does get the superficial (aka "low resolution") basics of Madhyamika, but does he have the ability to dig deeper and see how they really apply to the most basic presuppositions of his own field of mathematical physics?

I have no problem with Nagarjuna's position per se, only with Rovelli's characterization. He is taking modern philosophical prejudices of abstract intellect and imposing them retroactively, so as to end up with his preferred conclusions which themselves are a result of those prejudices. It is modern rationalism extended to its logical nihilistic conclusion - a denial of existence to all, including the most readily givens of our experience. Although I will admit that I am not sure in what context Rovelli was writing all of that - does he identify with his own characterization of Nagarjuna's position or is he just doing a fun thought experiment there? I really don't know anything about Rovelli.

[SanteriSatama]

I have no problem with Nagarjuna's position per se, only with Rovelli's characterization. He is taking modern philosophical prejudices of abstract intellect and imposing them retroactively, so as to end up with his preferred conclusions which themselves are a result of those prejudices. It is modern rationalism extended to its logical nihilistic conclusion - a denial of existence to all, including the most readily givens of our experience. Although I will admit that I am not sure in what context Rovelli was writing all of that - does he identify with his own characterization of Nagarjuna's position or is he just doing a fun thought experiment there? I really don't know anything about Rovelli.

Considering Rovelli is coming from physicalism, he's coming a long way from there... which is nice.
Rovelli makes also a rather big deal of the last chapter of Nagarjuna: the emptiness of "empty" - so it's nothing like nihilism.

This is nihilism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Point

No need to make any big deal of visions and ideas of Omega Point and the physicalism that it's based on, IMHO. In benevolent interpretation those just are fading last echoes of the Kali Yuga that is coming to end, as we are transforming into new aion.

[AshvinP]

I have no problem with Nagarjuna's position per se, only with Rovelli's characterization. He is taking modern philosophical prejudices of abstract intellect and imposing them retroactively, so as to end up with his preferred conclusions which themselves are a result of those prejudices. It is modern rationalism extended to its logical nihilistic conclusion - a denial of existence to all, including the most readily givens of our experience. Although I will admit that I am not sure in what context Rovelli was writing all of that - does he identify with his own characterization of Nagarjuna's position or is he just doing a fun thought experiment there? I really don't know anything about Rovelli.

Considering Rovelli is coming from physicalism, he's coming a long way from there... which is nice.
Rovelli makes also a rather big deal of the last chapter of Nagarjuna: the emptiness of "empty" - so it's nothing like nihilism.

This is nihilism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Point

No need to make any big deal of visions and ideas of Omega Point and the physicalism that it's based on, IMHO. In benevolent interpretation those just are fading last echoes of the Kali Yuga that is coming to end, as we are transforming into new aion.

I give no quarter to professional philosophers or scientists who do philosophy... they think about these things for a living! And it's been a solid 400-500 years since Descartes and Kant... how much time do they need?? I just do this as a hobby and you give me a much harder time than I give them Although it has been increasingly time-consuming lately... does anyone have the number for Philosophers Anonymous?

For nihilism I go with the maxim, "I am not sure what it is exactly, but I know it when I see it". Teilhard de Chardin's The Phenomenon of Man does not read at all like nihilistic philosophy, while Rovelli's quote above reads like nothing but. When someone writes an article with an inventory of substantial things which don't exist, that's sort of a dead giveaway for me.

[DandelionSoul]

Although it has been increasingly time-consuming lately... does anyone have the number for Philosophers Anonymous?

For nihilism I go with the maxim, "I am not sure what it is exactly, but I know it when I see it". Teilhard de Chardin's The Phenomenon of Man does not read at all like nihilistic philosophy, while Rovelli's quote above reads like nothing but. When someone writes an article with an inventory of substantial things which don't exist, that's sort of a dead giveaway for me.

Hah, I imagine I had something to do with how time consuming it's been.

Re: nihilism, I don't read Rovelli like that. I do read his language as somewhat careless -- his use of "existence" is something like what the naive realists mean by it. He clearly thinks things exist, including particles and the like, but for him, they exist only in relation rather than in themselves. Here's the key:

If nothing exists in itself, everything exists only through dependence on something else, in relation to something else. The technical term used by Nāgārjuna to describe the absence of independent existence is “emptiness” (śūnyatā): things are “empty” in the sense of having no autonomous existence. They exist thanks to, as a function of, with respect to, in the perspective of, something else.

He affirms the existence of things -- with the "emptiness" qualifier -- twice. So in doubting his own existence, I suspect it's the same: he doesn't actually doubt his existence but the independence of his existence: he sees himself as constituted by the relationships in which he's enmeshed, just as everything else. He doubts his existence for a particular meaning of "existence".

I'm not gonna mount a defense for that kind of radically relational and fundamentally ungrounded understanding of existence here or anything, since that seems to be the project I'm undertaking in the other thread, but just pointing out that, at the very least, it is an affirmation that things exist.

[SanteriSatama]

I give no quarter to professional philosophers or scientists who do philosophy... they think about these things for a living! And it's been a solid 400-500 years since Descartes and Kant... how much time do they need?? I just do this as a hobby and you give me a much harder time than I give them Although it has been increasingly time-consuming lately... does anyone have the number for Philosophers Anonymous?

For nihilism I go with the maxim, "I am not sure what it is exactly, but I know it when I see it". Teilhard de Chardin's The Phenomenon of Man does not read at all like nihilistic philosophy, while Rovelli's quote above reads like nothing but. When someone writes an article with an inventory of substantial things which don't exist, that's sort of a dead giveaway for me.

You don't think you deserve quarter?

The Omega Point does not exist within the timeline of the universe, it occurs at the exact edge of the end of time. From that point, all sequences of existence is sucked into its being.
The Omega Point can be understood as a volume shaped as a cone in which each section taken from the base to its summit decreases until it diminishes into a final point.
The volume described in the Third Property must be understood as an entity with finite boundaries

I don't see how more clearly the nihilism of point reductionism could be stated?

Or, can you tell what the concept of "point" means, such that can have inherent and independent existence and such "substance", such gravity like pull that sucks in everything and ends all? Was Euclid really that wrong when he stated as first definition of Elementa: "A point has no part."? Can you offer a better definition of 'point' than Euclid? Or do you go with Hilbert or what the heck? And you see nothing wrong with such absolute determinism of Omega point nihilism? No spiritual freedom to refuse to be sucked into oblivion, no freedom for Spirit to continue to live and explore love in all it's relations and forms?

Please try to think care-fully.


In the video Rovelli showed that he has decent comprehension of Nagarjuna. If you read Nagarjuna as nihilism, you are reading wrong, (but still deserve quarter), IMO. Relationism is process philosophy, very similar to Whiteheads process theology of dynamic Indra's Net.

Even if you would rather take the philosophical position of substance metaphysics of point-reductionism, could you at least try to see the issue from relational perspective (if only for a steelman argument), before you pass your final judgement of point reductionism and end of all relations, giving no quarter to any relation? Please?

[AshvinP]

Although it has been increasingly time-consuming lately... does anyone have the number for Philosophers Anonymous?

For nihilism I go with the maxim, "I am not sure what it is exactly, but I know it when I see it". Teilhard de Chardin's The Phenomenon of Man does not read at all like nihilistic philosophy, while Rovelli's quote above reads like nothing but. When someone writes an article with an inventory of substantial things which don't exist, that's sort of a dead giveaway for me.

Hah, I imagine I had something to do with how time consuming it's been.

Re: nihilism, I don't read Rovelli like that. I do read his language as somewhat careless -- his use of "existence" is something like what the naive realists mean by it. He clearly thinks things exist, including particles and the like, but for him, they exist only in relation rather than in themselves. Here's the key:

If nothing exists in itself, everything exists only through dependence on something else, in relation to something else. The technical term used by Nāgārjuna to describe the absence of independent existence is “emptiness” (śūnyatā): things are “empty” in the sense of having no autonomous existence. They exist thanks to, as a function of, with respect to, in the perspective of, something else.

He affirms the existence of things -- with the "emptiness" qualifier -- twice. So in doubting his own existence, I suspect it's the same: he doesn't actually doubt his existence but the independence of his existence: he sees himself as constituted by the relationships in which he's enmeshed, just as everything else. He doubts his existence for a particular meaning of "existence".

I'm not gonna mount a defense for that kind of radically relational and fundamentally ungrounded understanding of existence here or anything, since that seems to be the project I'm undertaking in the other thread, but just pointing out that, at the very least, it is an affirmation that things exist.

No not at all, the discussion with you has been the most easily flowing one for me in a long time The typical misunderstandings and gamesmanship of these things has been kept at very minimal level, if not absent completely, and that saves a lot of time-effort! I was mostly referencing my essays here, which I enjoy writing so much that I start to neglect my work... but I am managing to find a better flow and balance of such things as I go. My name is Ashvin, and I am a philosopher

I think I see what you are saying, and I know Rovelli does not actually look at himself in the mirror every morning and say, "I don't exist". Just like I don't think Daniel Dennett stops to think, "my consciousness is an illusion right now". Yet that does not stop people from philosophizing in that direction and convincing themselves by way of their abstract intellect that they are making great arguments. I think we all agree on the fundamentally relational aspect of our existence, and I will give him credit for emphasizing that, but when he says:

There is no ultimate or mysterious essence to understand—that is the true essence of our being. “I” is nothing other than the vast and interconnected set of phenomena that constitute it, each one dependent on something else. Centuries of Western speculation on the subject, and on the nature of consciousness, vanish like morning mist.

I know exactly where that formulation of the philosophical conclusion is coming from and it is not really from Nagarjuna. It is very similar to argument used by Schopenhauer that we are looking at on the formal philosophy thread. Schopenhauer made it a little past Kant's epistemic nihilism but not far. I guess we are basically debating this on the other thread as well, because it does all center around completely ignoring the participatory role of Thinking in bringing meaning into all of these otherwise "morning mist" like perceptions. Without that essential Thinking, yes we are living in a house of mirrors devoid of any substantial content, but fortunately we do not exist in that world.

I just realized there is another thread on Rovelli in the formal philosophical section, where Brian Watcher reached a similar conclusion as I am reaching, so maybe they should be merged?

[Brian Wachter]

...it does all center around completely ignoring the participatory role of Thinking

Not ignoring. Reducing. Rovelli writes extensively about thinking in "Helgoland." He just reduces it to interactions which are "the subtle interplay of images in mirrors reflected in other mirrors, without the metaphysical foundation of a material substance."

[AshvinP]

...it does all center around completely ignoring the participatory role of Thinking

Not ignoring. Reducing. Rovelli writes extensively about thinking in "Helgoland." He just reduces it to interactions which are "the subtle interplay of images in mirrors reflected in other mirrors, without the metaphysical foundation of a material substance."

Yes, exactly. I would say reducing is effectively "ignoring". It's rather impossible for a philosopher to go without referencing thinking-thoughts at some point, so they stick it awkwardly into the house of mirrors.