Book of Gnon: SPQR
not Senatus PopulusQue Romanus
There is no universal system for comparing viewpoints - discussions are often about differences between two viewpoints, systematic examination is harder in cases of subtle differences between multiple viewpoints
What is 'the world'? Is it the naive realist 'out there'? Pop philosophy asks this a lot. Is the multiverse real? What about the world of our imagination?
A quick tour of history of philosophy will give us plenty of answers. Plato's the material world vs the world of forms, Kantian phenomenon and noumenon.
And there have been proposed many more metaphysical systems - monistic theories of the presocratics (‘all is water / fire / the One’), Christian ‘body and soul’, and Cartesian dualism ( ‘res cogitans and res extensa’), monad theory, Eastern Qi and Li opposition, logical positivism which alluded to scientific materialism ( monism), or even 20th century Integral Theory.
They all attempt to describe the same reality, yet arrive at vastly different conclusions. How to deal with this fact? I had been trying to make sense of this and this is what I came up with.
Imagine a map of a kingdom. At one point in time, a new king named the 7 regions of it, but the later history of conquests shifted the ownership many times. Under one king nothing but a small part was inhabited, in another period there were just 2 competing political entities, later a dissolution occurred and 20 rulers had each a small part. Times change, but the names of regions stay, just out of custom; when people need to travel it is a reliable and widespread way of referencing places and directions.
I searched in other places, and I found even more stuff.
People like Karl Popper and Leon Chwistek turn out to have some interesting takes on this.
Popper made 3 worlds, Chwistek 4.
We can say that in a way they all describe the same reality. But some combinations of them are contradictory. Using the mapped kingdom metaphor, we can say that these systems are political maps of a kingdom from different points in time, with the underlying fairly constant physical map of the region.
The aim here is to find a useful physical map - terminology to describe how the political map level changed.
Through exploration it became clear that those are not fully fit for purpose, so I iterated on it and here is the result, with 4 worlds. It is easy to learn and as a mental tool has a lot of power.
This post will cover
those ideas that inspired me
then explain the 4 worlds of SPQR
provide examples of interactions between the 4 - all 12 of them
then I will sketch out how to use it yourself - how to translate arbitrary theories into the vocabulary of the model.
There are some more bits and comments, yet there are dispersed and are rather leaves off this main idea than branches. I will publish them as a collection of idea-snippets in an addendum.
inspirations
First let's examine Leon Chwistek’s metaphysics
The four types of realities:
popular reality (common-sense realism)
physical reality (constructed by physics)
phenomenal reality (sensory impressions)
visionary/intuitive reality (dreams, hallucinations, subconscious states).
But we get this comment:
Chwistek never intended his views to constitute a new metaphysical theory. He was a defender of "common sense" against metaphysics and irrational feeling. His theory of plural reality was merely an attempt to specify the various ways in which the term, “real,” is used.
The source looks questionable; no word on his metaphysics on Polish wikipedia; on English one no links.
Without doubt, that is not the only possible interpretation.
Let's keep that in mind, and compare against Karl Popper’s ‘three worlds':
World 1: the world of physical objects and events, including biological entities
World 2: the world of mental processes
World 3: objective knowledge
One could say: «Popper»s worlds are not to be experienced directly; i.e. according to those accounts of vision where «what we see is what brain images based on sensory data» and that about world 1 we can just reason
Popper's does not mention mysticism in any way, unlike Chwistek's. I guess it necessarily would be a purely world-2-pattern.
Still the mystics purport for their rituals to be world-2-world-3-bridges.
I found them lacking for a resason. Popperian is uncertain about where is the observer actually.
it’s more general than Kant’s 3 dimensions - can be applied to any observer
Reading about phenomenalism led me to consider a separate world/layer to account for ideas like that.
In the late 19th century, an even more extreme form of phenomenalism was formulated by Ernst Mach, later developed and refined by Russell, Ayer and the logical positivists. Mach rejected the existence of God and also denied that phenomena were data experienced by the mind or consciousness of subjects. Instead, Mach held sensory phenomena to be "pure data" whose existence was to be considered anterior to any arbitrary distinction between mental and physical categories of phenomena. In this way, it was Mach who formulated the key thesis of phenomenalism, which separates it from bundle theories of objects: objects are logical constructions out of sense-data or ideas; whereas according to bundle theories, objects are made up of sets, or bundles, of actual ideas or perceptions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenalism
Finally the name is the face of an idea. SPQR doesn't have the best SEO but as an acronym it's memorable.
4 worlds of SPQR
Graphically, we may imagine this framework as 4 concentric circles. The center is the observer, and then the closest one is the area of our mental constructs (S). Its perimeter is the border with the ‘outside world’, the border which is our experience (Q). The next ring is the Predicted (P), surrounded by often mysterious Ultimate Reality (R).
This way of representation is built on the idea of individual and internal world and external world - this is from habit and also is probably the most understandable classification - but still the model does it without positing any specific degree reality to the 'sense of self' of the individual.
4 cocentric circles is just the initial picture.
Let's delve deeper now.
The 4 worlds in SPQR framework are different language games with different rules:
Sophia - the mental constructs, e.g. 'res cogitans', mathematics, language, products of imagination, ethics, language games; used to describe the rest. Vide Gadamer's view that language is basic structure to reality, Meinong's jungle, our wording and discussion on further facts, memes. One cannot voluntarily exclude any concept from the S space once it appears there - even if disproven in all others, it remains in S until forgotten
Here note that ideas are objects, that is they have structural cohesion and connot be changed 'for free'.
The dementia music presents the object-ness of ideas well, for instance the forgetting.
'map is not the territory' but with S being the map, you can only focus on a limited number of things at a time (keep in RAM).
Related discipline - logic.
The Predictioned - everything that we feel that is external to us and influences us - e.g. ‘res extensa’, measurable physical world, what our predictions of qualia come true or false, any behaviours and patterns 'present within us', which at one moment we notice we unconsciously followed, 'collective unconscious', animist interpretations of the natural world, ‘further facts’, hyperreality, hyperstitions. It is named after one of the most popular conceptions of science - the Popperian one - that theories are measured by success of their predictions.
Related discipline - philosophy of science, science.Qualia - Qualia per se, e.g. sensory experience, emotions, thoughts, habits, sense of coherence, sense of causality, sense of self
Related disciplines - psychology of perception, introspection.(Ultimate) Reality - answer to the questions: whether we live in a computer simulation, whether solipsism is true, which religion’s Hell exists, question of monism / dualism, animism, a priori analytical statements. Vide Plato's Allegory of the Cave, Zhuangzi's "Zhuangzi dreamed he was a butterfly", René Descartes' scepticism and evil demon, Kant's reflections on the Phenomenon versus the Ding an sich, Robert Nozick's "experience machine", the concept of a simulated reality and the brain in a vat thought experiment.
Related discipline - mysticism.That should be pretty straightforward. We've got four things but they interact differently invarious theories. We need to examine the 6 bidirectional relations in this set of 4 as 12 unidirectional relations. Casting many philosophical problems in this vein is highly interesting.
12 interactions between the 4
The SPQR framework is made to compare different viewpoints.
Most human viewpoints agree on the vast majority of stuff.
Who would exclude 'chairs' from the set of ideas S?
Because of that analysis must focus on the controversial cases, loci of disagreement.
The names of stances/viewpoints mean the least controversial, most common variants in a given group, unless indicated otherwise. For convenience, stances are treated grammatically as people.
Differences between viewpoints might be in 2 ways:
different placement of things
different set of allowed interactions - focus on what one denies and other takes as important point?
Below you'll see an outline of various viewpoints using this framework.
Please take a note of the format used:
'x <-- y' means 'how y influences x'
Apart from that simple definition, one can best approximate what these interactions are by examples. All these relations have been examined in the history of ideas. We cannot help but think about them in terms of specific thinkers who focused on them. Therefore, description of a given relation is never 'neutral', the example is always a specific idea, but a careful reader should have no difficulty in seeing from which 'resemblance family' the concept comes and substituting the given one for another. To emphasise multiplicity of views on each relation
Table of the 12 interactions
originating
receiving
name
positive specific example
conflict negative - non exhaustive example
related problems and ideas
Direct
Q
S
S<-Q
empiricism; senses to ideas
homo oeconomicus (contrasted with behavioral economy) [doesn't make sense]
induction, evil demon [doesn't make sense]
P
Q
Q<-P
Nature to senses
solipsism (P equivalent to S)
case of full correspondence of S with P, no need to update = that is the solipsist case, where individual perspective is always correct and epistemic relativism is equal ontological relativism
Mary's room
Müller-Lyer illusion isn't as strong of an argument
it is the environmental P wiring of
organisms can have different Umwelten even if the same environment
R
P
P<-R
Matrix deja vu, miracles
gnostic spiritual-good deity - not influencing physical world
simulation hypothesis
S
Q
S->Q
interpretationalism: black 5 of hearts
ideas shape perceptions
Kantian schemas are S - Q links
also not all observations are fully determined by theory, there is a P limit of how much S can influence Q - Jerry Fodor's argument bringing up Muller-Lyer illusion as evidence of impenetrability of perception.
also Kuhnian 'observations are theory laden'
also phenomenological models only rely on S and Q, treating P instrumentally as a black box
analysis of the notion of phenomenological model helps us elucidate the differences between mundi
such a model is an S of Q sensations, without P pretenses
also Ernst Mach's phenomenalism, objects as bundles of perceptions
Q
P
Q->P
observer interpretation of QM
many universe interpretation of QM
interpretations of QM
Q - P coupling was closer in the ancestral environment
something being Q frightening and P dangerous applies to predators in a forest at night
generalized version - P Q are closer in highly optimized aggregates. Then in a way the P-capacity-for-S.
Evolutionarily, bottleneck on Q itself in terms of P success creates S-capacity in P
Wittgenstein Philosophy of Psychology = mundia are language games; or clusters of language games
34. There is a similarity here to the way in which ‘physical object’ and ‘sense impressions’ stand to each other. We have here two language- games, and their mutual relations are of a complicated kind. —– If one tries to reduce their relations to a simple formula, one goes wrong. |181|
action-perception condensates. - 1k Plateaus, on Refrain, page 315
‘Tools-in-use become phenomenologically transparent. Moreover, Heidegger claims, not only are the hammer, nails, and work-bench in this way not part of the engaged carpenter's phenomenal world, neither, in a sense, is the carpenter. The carpenter becomes absorbed in his activity in such a way that he has no awareness of himself as a subject over and against a world of objects. Crucially, it does not follow from this analysis that Dasein's behaviour in such contexts is automatic, in the sense of there being no awareness present at all, but rather that the awareness that is present (what Heidegger calls circumspection) is non-subject-object in form. Phenomenologically speaking, then, there are no subjects and no objects; there is only the experience of the ongoing task (e.g., hammering).’
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heidegger/#BeiTim
P
R
P->R
ritual sacrifice, any supplication to deity, magic
regarding R as ineffable - strong agnosticism
Indirect
S
P
S->P
writing
view that ideas cannot be externalized into paper or sound
Chinese room
self fulfilling prophecy - meme magic
P
S
S<-P
marketing scents
relations of OBE
Phineas P. Gage
S
R
S->R
a priori synthetic statements, theology?
ordinary language philosophy - what?
Kantian ethics
R
S
S<-R
divinely inspired art
materialist monism - R deletion
Ion by Plato
Q
R
Q->R
superstitions - seeing sth sign of bad luck
scientism
confirmation bias
R
Q
Q<-R
revelations, mysticism
deism
religious plurality - what?
This fourfold distinction makes less confusion about debate concerning if something is ‘real’. Let's talk more on how to use this.
What about the concept of truth?
The 'criterion of truthfulness' is a language game that builds on top of the language game of SPQR. SPQR is a lower level protocol in that sense.
Language game based on a recording of two people talking: Alice says X and Bob after says that what she said is true.
Then we need to ask what does Bob mean about this.
If he's a Berkeleyan idealist, the only criterion is that it's in the R-(Eternal Mind of God). A Bayesian might say that it fits his S-prior. If a vibes-thinker will say that his Q-feelings tell him that.
A Popperian will access his S-cache of science and feel a Q-thought that this fits the best existing S-theory which took into account P-observational evidence.
Having described the framework, we can proceed to represent the process of its application in many contexts.
use instructions
This is easy to grasp - imagine you explain this to a child about 5-6 years old.
They already have a developed ego and a self-concept, therefore the observer centrality will be helpful for them to understand this, unlike some other systems.
Counting in head, planning how to play - S
Joy, sadness, anger - Q
Playing with others; degree of control over hand, toy, other person - P
The question where all this comes from (the world) - R
The more complex case is translating a belief system into SPQR.
analyzing a belief system
The framework is used to analyse viewpoints in the following way:
Listing concepts relevant to a given worldview
Concepts (such as 'chair', 'essence', 'self', 'God', 'redness', 'prime numbers', 'evolution') are categorized into those 4 'boxes'.
The types of inter SPQR interactions allowed by a particular web are specified.
Even individual claims may be positioned within this sphere, not only whole metanarratives.
For example Hume’s argument against the self in the S-(Treatise on Human Nature) may be represented as deleting the entity ‘self’ from R, while it remains in Q and S and is constituted by Q ('bundles of sensations').
Yeah and SPQR is itself an S model.
Graphical representation of difference
Both types of distinctions may be represented in the graphical form.
The first type is pictured just by writing the thing into the appropriate world, like a Venn diagram.
The second type is represented by borders between worlds. For some of them S-Q distinction is sharp (a thick line). For other the line between ‘the outside world’ and ‘reality as it is’ is a more blurred one ( dots or dashed), for others some phenomena may oscillate ('ocean wave' line). This is just an example, but in principle all borders can be modified.
Image 6 - Solipsist
r-s birdirectional, from S to P
Seeing solipsism as a subset of idealism, which thinks Q for making the rest - genesis from thought, the epistemological first, in contrast to naturalist seeing the material first (two modes of seeing the world, as discussed by Quine, among others).
Unless the solipsist experiences (Q) themselves being the source of everything they experience, they seem to need to assign some parts of themselves into the P.
Image 7 - Christian mysticism
from R God - inspired thoughts and writings
from P God manifested in world's beauty
from R to P creatio continuo
from R to Q mystic vision
Image 8: Material monism (physicalism)
P merged with R all speaking to S through Q
Image 9: Cartesian dualism
res cogitans in S and R
P as res extensa
cogito ergo sum arrow on S - synthetic a priori
pineal gland between Q and P
from S proof of R - God
Metaphorical truths
explicit treatment of metaphorical truths - S patterns of P behaviour that yield desired Q effects through a simplified S-P web of justification with S knowledge of another S web with a more versatile and generalized explanation of that P process
conclusion
You will find it useful when you use text in your life, which is the universal interface after all.
This system provides clarity. How would you represent your worldview in those terms?