[staticassertion]

I mean, again, these are just claims and, once again, another brute fact.

> Reality was always going to be something that includes structure, that is somehow inevitable, the only possibility, not something selected or manufactured by something else.

This is a brute fact. I mean, literally it just is.

[Nevermark]

It isn't a brute fact, because there is no alternative.

That is the definition of fully determined. X can uniquely be Y. And it can't be anything else than Y.

The extreme opposition to a brute fact.

Can we accept that any proposed model of reality potentially must, at a minimum, be self-determining without resort to any "other"?

The unique constraint of strict self-containment and determination is a tautological challenge, but therefore also a valid axiom.

[staticassertion]

No, that means it's not a brute contingent fact. It is still a brute fact. And it is a metaphysical claim that there is no alternative.

> And that it can't be the full reality if it is not self-determining, draws from anything else, any other domain, depends on any non-internal choice, any wisp of external determination?

No, brute contingent facts do not require external determination, so I reject this obviously. Or, I accept it and it's irrelevant because, again, brute contingent facts do not require external determination.

[Nevermark]

They are not determined internally.

So determined non-internally if you prefer. Non-internal to reality.

My point is that is a tautological impossibility. Reality by definition is all. That is what we want to explain (or at least, zoom in on a potential form of explanation).

Reality can't depend on anything making a choice that is not a part of itself.

[staticassertion]

I think you just aren't understanding what it means to be "brute". It does not mean "caused externally", it means "the end of the explanatory chain has been reached". If you want to say that the explanatory chain has no end, great, go for it, you now have a regress problem.

There is no "choice", there is determination, there is no explanation. If you're still framing things there, then you're just denying brute facts, but you're not about to prove that brute facts aren't possible in a HN thread and you're getting the concepts of necessity, brute, and contingent mixed up along the way.

[Nevermark]

Maybe we are missing something in each other's views. Or I am.

Here I distinguish between "explanation" and "determination". Hoping that helps.

My understanding of brute facts, is they are free values in theory, but measured values in practice. And somehow we just accept experimental measurements of some things as the end of explanation.

I am arguing against the validity of less than full determination, and pointing out that does not imply endless chains of determination.

But our explanations may forever be more limited than reality, for any. number of reasons, but not because reality doesn't fully determine everything. I can see a practical acceptance of values without full explanation, if we have reason to believe we cannot probe further.

Maybe that is a level of agreement?

--

As for complete determination, without any need for infinite regress:

Unique self-consistencies are co-constraints that can fully determine things without infinite regress. There is a unique determination loop, not an endless spiral. Uniqueness avoids the inadequacies of non-unique circular reasoning. And reality itself must have this property. The only possible explanation (from our point of view) or determiner (as it actually exists), of its own properties, is itself. As a unique self-consistent form it can do that. Constrained by self-consistency and self-containment.

I am very much trying to understand the line we disagree on, interpret differently, or not.

[staticassertion]

> My understanding of brute facts, is they are free values in theory, but measured values in practice. And somehow we just accept experimental measurements of some things as the end of explanation.

What you accept as a brute fact is conditional on your world view. For most people it's going to be very little, like "the initial state of the universe" or "the constant values of the universe" etc, although the latter is not necessarily the case either.

You seem to be trying to argue that the infinite regress can be avoided, and it's where things seem to be falling apart. You're trying to leap from a simple tautology to specific metaphysical claims that do not necessarily follow, and you're just ending up with brute facts.

You're saying that all things must be explained by reality, but that's fine and consistent with the existence of brute facts. I suspect that this is at least one of the core things we are not on the same page about. Brute facts do not appeal to things outside of reality. So any argument that starts with a tautology "reality exclusively contains reality" is just not going to get you to "brute facts don't exist" because brute facts are perfectly consistent with that tautology.

Your appeal to uniqueness isn't justified either. Why must reality have that property? This is a heavy metaphysical claim that you are asserting here, it's your "brute fact" that you're trying to say isn't a brute fact.

Perhaps a simple question will help. Under your model, what determines the speed of light? I assume your only position here would be to say that it is logically necessary?

> Maybe that is a level of agreement?

We can agree that there are limits to knowledge but we definitely don't agree that all things are determined by some other thing. I don't really commit either way, personally.