Ontic and Epistemic Doubt V: Pseudo-Ontic Doubt (Column 326)
With God’s help
Disclaimer: This post was translated from Hebrew using AI (ChatGPT 5 Thinking), so there may be inaccuracies or nuances lost. If something seems unclear, please refer to the Hebrew original or contact us for clarification.
In the previous columns I discussed the distinction between epistemic doubt and ontic doubt. After a conceptual and scientific introduction, I went on to illustrate this with two halakhic topics (berera and kiddushin that are not subject to bi’ah). I then examined the connection between the two topics and its meaning for quantum collapse in halakha. In the previous column we looked at the issue of doubtful p’sik reisha, where we again encountered an implication of the distinction between epistemic and ontic doubt. In this column I continue the discussion from last time and show that in the case of doubtful p’sik reisha a third category of doubt appears: pseudo-ontic doubt.
A philosophical-physical difficulty: does classical physics contain ontic doubt?
In the previous column we saw the view of R. Akiva Eger, according to which a case of aino mitkaven that is not a p’sik reisha exists only when there is an ontic ambiguity. If the doubt is epistemic, then it is a doubt about prohibition; consequently, in a biblical prohibition it will be forbidden. Thus, for example, when a person drags a bench and a groove may be formed but is not necessary, this is not a p’sik reisha, because here there is ontic doubt (the hardness of the ground allows a groove to form but does not necessitate it). By contrast, if we have a box and doubt whether there are flies inside it, that is an epistemic doubt. Reality itself is determinate; we are merely missing some of the information.
However, this distinction raises a fundamental difficulty, as several readers have already noted in earlier columns. In the first column of the series we saw that from the perspective of current physical knowledge there is no true ontic ambiguity in physical reality apart from quantum-mechanical uncertainty. Admittedly, in the column before the last—where I dealt with legal-halakhic doubts—we saw room to define ontic ambiguity, but that was because the “reality” in question was juridical rather than physical. In the physical world, such a reality does not seem to exist, since the physics of our everyday life is deterministic (barring a few phenomena on the minute quantum scale).
The classic and agreed-upon example of aino mitkaven and p’sik reisha is the bench and groove case described above. In soft ground, where it is clear in advance that a groove will be formed, it is a p’sik reisha; but in hard ground, where there is doubt whether a groove will be formed, it is not a p’sik reisha. Yet this example is first and foremost a matter of physics, not law. The connection between the hardness of the ground and the formation of the groove is a physical connection; and when we deal with the physics of benches and types of ground, we are operating squarely within classical physics (that is, in large everyday scales). In such a case it is clear that there is no place for ontic ambiguity. Any sensible person understands that if there were an expert who knew well the nature of the soil, the weight of the bench, and the relevant laws of nature (strength of materials, mechanical pressures, and so on)—that is, someone in possession of all the relevant data—then it is clear he could predict in advance whether a groove would form or not. And even if no expert could actually carry out this calculation in practice, it is still obvious that this is nothing more than a lack of information. The question of whether a groove will or will not form is determined unambiguously by the structure of the ground, the manner of dragging, and the properties of the bench. In this sense, even if there is computational difficulty, we are dealing with a problem more akin to chaos than to quantum theory (see the first column). At most, there is an issue of computational complexity here, but certainly not ambiguity in reality itself.
In short, given a ground and a bench, the outcome is predetermined deterministically (“before Heaven it is known”); at most, we cannot know what it is. That is epistemic doubt, not ontic. Now consider that I dragged the bench and a groove formed. If a groove did form, that proves that this ground was, from the outset, of the sort in which a groove should form. It is simply the result of the ground and the bench—full stop. There is no ambiguity or gap in the physics itself. The groove is not the result of a miracle or of free choice, but of the relation between the bench and the ground. If so, the formation of a groove proves that there was p’sik reisha from the outset. How, then, can there be a case of aino mitkaven that is not a p’sik reisha? It would seem that on R. Akiva Eger’s approach there is no possibility to speak of a situation that is not a p’sik reisha: if a person acts without intent and a prohibited result occurs, that shows that, given the preexisting circumstances, the outcome was already fixed to occur (at most, we—or the actor himself—did not know it in advance). This is epistemic, not ontic, doubt; hence there is a doubtful p’sik reisha, which is forbidden. One must remember that the Shabbat labors and other Torah prohibitions do not deal with phenomena on the quantum scale; therefore the relevant physics for these cases is classical physics. Consequently, all our doubts in these contexts are epistemic doubts and not ontic ambiguities. In short, how could there even be ontic ambiguity—such that aino mitkaven would not be a p’sik reisha—in halakhic contexts?
Pseudo-ontic doubt
Here we arrive at a third category that emerges from this sugya. My claim is that according to R. Akiva Eger, halakha does not adhere to the true physics but to people’s (baalebatim’s) perception of physics. If you ask people on the street, they will tell you that a case of medium-hard ground constitutes an ambiguous reality (ontic doubt) and not our lack of information (epistemic doubt). In their view it is unclear whether a groove will form in the ground or not (it depends on how the person chooses to drag the bench, how he holds it, etc.)[1]. I contend that according to R. Akiva Eger, halakha views such a situation as ontic ambiguity, because that is how the reasonable (non-expert) person relates to it. Even if, factually, there is no ambiguity here but rather a lack of information, halakha treats such cases as though they were ambiguous on the ontic plane.[2] By contrast, regarding the question of whether there are flies in the box, any reasonable person will tell you that this is an epistemic doubt. He will explain that, while we do not know, one of the two states definitely obtains in reality itself.
We thus learn that there is a third category of doubt, beyond ontic and epistemic doubt: pseudo-ontic doubt. This is doubt that is essentially epistemic, but laypeople perceive it as ontic—and therefore halakha also treats it that way. Below we shall see that such treatment characterizes additional domains, not only halakha. Before moving to other domains, I will illustrate again from halakha—but this time from a different angle.
A possible implication: an interesting ruling of R. Shlomo Zalman regarding worms
In Minchat Shlomo, New Edition (vols. II–III, §63), R. Shlomo Zalman discusses the prohibition of eating worms. He cites decisors who write that when a person eats a fruit and there is a worm inside, he is considered a met’asek or aino mitkaven,[3] and therefore, on this view, there is no prohibition:
“So too what is written in Shivat Tzion §28, and it is also brought in Imrei Bina, Hilchot BeB”Ch, end of §4, in the name of one Gaon; and in Darkei Teshuva §84, note 28, it is cited from the author of Beit Ephraim—that with respect to a worm to which one’s mind is not directed, it is considered only as met’asek; and even though there is no met’asek in chelev because he benefits, here it is different, since the benefit is only from the fruit and not from the worm.”
He explains that eating the fruit with the worm is a doubtful p’sik reisha with regard to the past (since the doubt is whether there is currently a worm in the fruit or not, exactly like the question of flies in a box). Accordingly, it would seem to depend on the dispute between the TaZ and R. Akiva Eger. In R. Shlomo Zalman’s view it appears that one should prohibit, like R. Akiva Eger (apparently he rules like him):
“Even though this is considered a doubtful p’sik reisha regarding the past, which is not deemed aino mitkaven, as explained by R. Akiva Eger, Yoreh De’ah §87:6,”
Nevertheless, he rejects this and writes:
“All the same, it appears that if clarification is possible only with very great effort—so that it is considered bedi’avad—then in our case it is indeed considered as having been effected later, at the time of eating, by way of met’asek and aino mitkaven, and it is permitted; for dragging a bed and the like could also be known in advance by a great expert, and even so it is permitted. And since it is permitted to the restaurant owner, so too it is permitted to others, as is known.”
His claim is that when checking whether there is a worm in the fruit is difficult and entails considerable effort, this is not considered a p’sik reisha regarding the past but a p’sik reisha going forward. His proof is from dragging a bench: even though a great expert could in principle determine whether a groove would be carved (as described above), the case is nevertheless considered a doubtful p’sik reisha (which exists only with respect to the past). If the Gemara views this as a case that is not a p’sik reisha, despite the fact that it is a doubt regarding the past, that proves that when the examination is difficult (requires expertise—as with soil; or disassembling the fruit—as in the case of worms) it is considered a doubt about the future, and therefore not a p’sik reisha.
On the face of it, his words are very puzzling. What does the effort of examination have to do with whether the doubt concerns the past or the future? Why should a test that entails effort transform the doubt into one about the future? I remind you of what I explained at the beginning of the previous column: the exemption of aino mitkaven is not about lack of culpability but about the absence of a violation. Therefore, the fact that the examination entails effort does not seem relevant. We are not reproaching a person for not having checked; the question is whether there is a need to check or not. It thus seems clear that his intention is to distinguish not between a doubt about the past versus the future, but between an epistemic doubt (which he labels a doubt about the past) and an ontic doubt (what he calls a doubt about the future). If the examination entails effort, then the doubt is not considered the person’s subjective (epistemic) doubt but rather a doubt in reality itself (ontic), precisely as we saw regarding the ground and the bench.
This is exactly the category I defined above as pseudo-ontic doubt. Moreover, R. Shlomo Zalman himself makes the criterion depend on the difference between expert and layperson. If the examination entails great effort—and certainly if it is not possible at all—we view the doubt as one in reality itself and not in a person’s mind. But the point is not the effort per se; it is how people relate to it. When the examination requires expertise or effort, the layperson perceives it as a doubt in reality itself.
Still, there is a difference between the phrasing I proposed and what emerges from his words. In my view, where the examination entails great effort but every layperson nevertheless understands that this is an epistemic doubt, it will be a p’sik reisha. Think, for example, of the question of flies in a box. Let us assume for the sake of discussion that determining whether there are flies in the box is very difficult and entails great effort (e.g., it is very hard to see the flies in the dark). In my opinion, this remains an epistemic doubt, because every layperson will say that the reality is determinate (only unknown). Here there is no distinction between expert and layperson; everyone understands that either there are flies in the box or there are not. Therefore, in my view, this would be a doubtful p’sik reisha and forbidden. By contrast, according to R. Shlomo Zalman, because the examination is onerous, it seems that even in such a case this would be considered an ontic doubt and it would be permitted to close the box.
Additional examples of pseudo-ontic treatment
Treating an epistemic doubt as pseudo-ontic exists in other domains as well, even among experts in various sciences—despite the fact that there it does not really hinge on the layperson/expert divide (except perhaps indirectly, as we shall see). Let us begin with examples from everyday life.
If you ask someone on the street about a dice throw, he will tell you it is a random event, even though there is nothing random about it. Throwing dice or a coin are the canonical examples for people of obtaining a random result; that is how we all run lotteries. But as we saw in the first column of the series, a dice throw is the quintessential case of doubt due to lack of information, not ontic ambiguity. If I possessed all the relevant data (the die’s weight and shape, the manner of the throw, air density, winds, etc.), I could tell you in advance what the result will be. In that first column I brought the die or coin as examples of epistemic doubts with computational difficulty (as in chaos). There we are dealing with a lack of information, not ambiguity in reality itself—yet when we ask people, we get answers that this is a random event, i.e., an ontic doubt (reality is ambiguous and not fixed in itself). This is pseudo-ontic treatment outside the halakhic context.
The same holds for the outcome of a battle or war, and even for a judge’s decision in a case before him. These are cases where the calculation is complex and it is very hard to know the outcome with certainty; hence people treat them as if there were ambiguity in reality itself. But of course, in practice, this is not so. These are decisions or processes grounded in fixed and unambiguous deterministic mechanisms, and reality itself is not ambiguous in any sense.
Dragging a bench is similar to throwing dice or the outcome of a war: what laypeople see as an ambiguous reality, although experts know that in the physics of everyday life there cannot be ambiguity that is truly ontic. All of these are pseudo-ontic treatments, and we can now see that they appear not only in halakha. It is quite plausible that a legal domain meant to regulate our lives and social relations will be based on a lay, common-sense perspective rather than that of an expert, scientist, or philosopher; and I claim the same occurs in halakha. But now we shall see that pseudo-ontic treatment appears among scientists as well.
Pseudo-ontic doubt in scientific contexts
We have already encountered chaos. I gave the example of a piece of paper dropped from a second floor to the ground. We tend to see its final position as the result of a random process, even though it is wholly deterministic. Many physicists will also tell you, casually, that this is a random process. Sometimes they are not aware of this (as with Doyne Farmer, cited in the first column), and even when they are aware, they sometimes prefer to view it that way for the sake of mathematical convenience. In the context of chaos it is useful and correct to view the situation as if it were random, and to speak the language of probability and statistics (distributions and likelihoods). These are the right tools to handle this domain. Farmer’s error was not scientific: as a methodological assumption, saying that there is randomness within the physics is acceptable. His error occurred when he transplanted this assumption from its status as a methodological premise and turned it into a claim about the world. The randomness of this situation is caused chiefly by the wind that deflects the paper—and wind is a physical (climatic) phenomenon. So too with climatic phenomena in general: because of their complexity we tend to speak of them as though they were random, even though they are classical mechanics with nothing inherently random. In such cases even experts tend to treat these situations as if they involved ontic ambiguity and randomness, though they are entirely deterministic.
Consider another example from evolution. Evolutionary biologists explain the development of life and living creatures as follows: in the genetic structure (protein chain) of a given organism, various changes occur that generate slightly different versions of its genetic makeup. Each version is a different organism; all of them struggle with each other and with external constraints, and ultimately the fittest version survives and passes its traits to its offspring in the next generation. Biologists and evolutionary researchers assume that the evolutionary process includes random components (without which evolution would not be seen as an alternative to the creation hypothesis—see below). These lie mainly in the occurrence of mutations and in the external constraints that drive natural selection. Changes in a protein chain’s structure are not predictable in advance, since they depend on numerous variables thought of as random (temperature, forces, chemistry, and more). But through physical lenses this is not quite accurate: we are dealing with scales likely irrelevant to quantum theory (organisms—and even protein chains—are much larger than the scale at which quantum ambiguity should appear). It is therefore more plausible that there are complex deterministic mechanisms (as in chaos) rather than true randomness. And yet the accepted view among scientists is to treat it as random. This stance makes the mathematical and scientific treatment easier, which is why these phenomena are commonly handled as random processes. Again: this is a correct and fruitful methodological assumption, and that is how the evolutionary process ought to be treated. When we have no effective way to compute the outcome, probability is the right tool. But of course that does not mean the process is genuinely random. Again, it is a methodological assumption, not a claim about the world.
The ontological fallacy: scientific and everyday examples
What is the theological debate around evolution about?[4] It is rooted in what Kant called the “physico-theological proof.” Many believers ground faith in God on the argument that our world is complex/teleological and such a thing cannot come about by chance (without a guiding hand). The guiding hand is God’s. Atheists counter that evolution presents a random mechanism—one that operates without a guiding hand—that succeeds in producing complex beings. This argument ostensibly obviates the need for a guiding hand to explain the complexity of life.
This argument assumes that the evolutionary process is fundamentally random (does not require a guiding hand). But as we explained above,[5] that is probably not the case. The scales are too large for quantum theory; hence true randomness is unlikely. The evolutionary process is entirely deterministic. Why, then, do we employ probabilistic and statistical tools in studying evolution? Why are the explanations given within it always statistical in nature? Because it is a complex process (as with a dice throw or dropping a piece of paper from a height). I already noted that probabilistic tools are meant for cases of missing information. Ontic ambiguity employs many-valued logic, not necessarily probability.
The use of probabilistic tools proceeds as if there were ontic ambiguity (randomness), even though that is not the true situation. This is an example of the power, utility, and usability of the pseudo-ontic assumption. On the other hand, here too we must be careful not to forget that this is, in fact, epistemology. The fact that a lion happened upon a place and devoured a monkey—thereby wiping out an entire population and producing natural selection—contains nothing genuinely random. The lion arrived for some reason that caused it, and so too its devouring of the unfortunate monkey. The emergence of that monkey and of other species is likewise a deterministic process. Our deployment of probabilistic tools stems from the incompleteness of our information about reality. It is very useful for us to handle it with probabilistic tools.
But the alleged refutation from evolution of the physico-theological proof presumes genuine randomness and ignores the fact that it is merely a useful assumption of pseudo-ambiguity. This is exactly what we saw in Doyne Farmer’s claim that chaos can explain our free will. They too reflect a view that randomness is not merely a fruitful methodological assumption but a claim about the world. These are two examples of what might be called the ontological fallacy. When we ask whether there is genuine randomness (ontic ambiguity), we must not carelessly use methodological assumptions from various sciences. We must not forget that this is not truly ontology but epistemology in disguise—that is, pseudo-ontology. Treating pseudo-ontic situations as genuinely ontic ones is a fallacy. In scientific contexts it is merely a methodological assumption; those who carry it beyond methodology fall into the ontological fallacy.
In everyday life as well, people often say that so-and-so’s winning a lottery (the national lottery, or a coin toss, or dice) shows he has “luck,” or that someone’s victory in war is the result of luck. These statements are imprecise (again, the ontological fallacy). There is nothing random in these situations, and therefore it is not a matter of luck. The physical situation caused that outcome to occur. The probabilistic-random perspective is merely a useful way of saying the situation is complex; it is not an accurate description of reality as such.
[1] All this is of course quite true physically as well. Given the manner in which the person drags and holds the bench, the formation of the groove is predetermined—but people are unaware of this.
[2] It is entirely possible that sages in earlier generations (and even today) themselves thought that reality is not fixed. That is, we should not conclude from this that halakha is determined by the layman’s view; rather, the sages simply erred. I have written more than once that the sages conceived of gaps in the natural order—i.e., that divine involvement is possible without a miracle. The understanding that there is no such thing is modern. It follows that one might even abolish the exemption of aino mitkaven (or the rule of p’sik reisha) altogether. I will not enter that possibility here.
[3] There is some confusion in his words between met’asek and aino mitkaven. This is common, as we also saw in the previous column. The two categories are very similar, so it is no wonder the terms are used loosely. But from his resort to p’sik reisha it is clear he means aino mitkaven, not met’asek.
[4] See on this in my book, God Plays Dice.
[5] See there, p. 114.
The genetic structure is not a protein chain. It is made of a nitrogenous base, a phosphate group, and a sugar.
You are not clear either. The genetic structure is a chain of nucleic acids (the chain is DNA or RNA). A nucleic acid is made up of what you said. This chain is translated (outside the cell nucleus. In ribosomes) into a chain of amino acids. A chain of amino acids with over 50 acids is a protein. And that is what the Rabbi means by a protein chain.
And the best combination:
Take unti and epistemic safflower, slice and season with oil, salt and hot pepper, mix and bake in the oven until soft and brown. Finger-licking, without a doubt 🙂
Best regards, Leona Negro
On the 15th of Av, 5772, one of the reasons mentioned in the Gamma for the celebration of the fifteenth of Av is that on this day the decree on the generation of the desert that they would die was abrogated. In fact, the decree was already abrogated on the 9th of Av of that year, but they feared that they had made a mistake in the beginning of the month, and on the 15th of Av, when the moon was at its full moon, it was made clear to them that the decree was abrogated. The 15th of Av, therefore, is the day on which the “epistemic doubt” was removed and the “ontic good” that had occurred six days earlier was revealed to Israel.
This element of the conscious clarification of the reality of goodness is also expressed in the permission of the tribes to come together, when the fear of ‘foreigners’ interference in the tribe was removed, and the people of Israel came to recognize that openness to connection between the tribes is the true good, and the prohibition to marry turns out to be a ’temporary order’ that came only because of the initial reluctance.
On Tu B'Av, the sons and daughters of Israel also clarify for themselves the goodness of the marital connection and find the soul that complements them, and in this, the constant reality from the six days of Genesis of ‘male and female in the womb’ comes to conscious clarification. The ontic goodness becomes epistemic, and great is the joy in allowing sufficiency.
With the blessing ‘and joy in all goodness’, ShÝt
See Nathaniel Allinson's article, "The Grapes of Wreath Festival in the Shiloh Vineyards" (on the "Mosaf Shabbat" Makor Rishon website), that the joy of the women of Israel in the vineyards on Tu B'Av is connected to the fact that this time is the beginning of the harvest season.
In the joy in the vineyards over the goodness of the land, the sin of the spies, which is mourned on Tisha B'Av, is corrected. In contrast to the retreat from the Land of Israel that occurred on Tu B'Av, on Tu B'Av, they declare: "The land is very, very good."
With blessings, Shabbat
On the 15th of Av, 5772
The distinction between the closing of a box containing flies and the dragging of a bench across the ground seems clear to the Rabbi. In closing the box, there is already an answer to the question of whether there are flies or not, only the person does not know it.
In contrast, in dragging a bench across the ground, we are dealing with an ongoing scenario, which may change according to any slight and unintentional movement of the dragger or any prevailing wind that may or may not occur. Even an experienced sufferer will not be able to say clearly whether the process will develop into the creation of a crack or not, and therefore it is clear that this is an “unplanned thing” that is exempt from the Rabbi.
Similarly, in throwing a die, Even an experienced cube-setter will not be able to determine with certainty which side the cube will fall on, so it is actually an ’ontic ambiguity’ (perhaps for someone who is equipped with a ’elf’ close to the –elf’ 🙂 – There is room for a debate that will be considered a pass, and a ”e ”e 🙂
Best regards, Szczen Leflesinger
And it is interesting in this context how you would analyze the question of opening a refrigerator on Shabbat when it is not known whether a light might turn on in it or not. Isn't there necessarily an ontic ambiguity here?
It is clearly epistemic.
Throughout several examples (bench, dice, war) you refer to the doubt arising from human activity as pseudo-ontic.
Assuming that there is free choice, then there should be a situation in which future human activity creates an ontic doubt,
certainly according to your method in which human choice creates a doubt that is not clear even to Heaven.
While in banal actions it is possible to discuss whether free choice is expressed, it is precisely in extreme situations such as war that it seems at first glance that there are quite a few events of free choice. Why then is the question of who will win in a war only a pseudo-ontic doubt?
Doubt is what will happen in the future. What will happen in the future is one of two, and there is nothing vague about it. Therefore, in essence, it is epistemic doubt. Indeed, here it seems that the criterion of Shmaya Galia is not met, and it is still epistemic doubt.
The claim that when there is free choice there is no ontic ambiguity, but only epistemic ambiguity, does not fit with your words in Part 1 of the series, in which you defined the concepts:
“To understand Farmer's error, we must remember that a libertarian view that advocates the existence of free will
(as opposed to determinism) believes that reality itself is not univalent. Even given a certain set of circumstances
and complete information about it, a person can still freely choose whether to do X or Y. If so, this is not a matter of
our lack of information (inability to predict), but of reality itself being univalent. In the above Talmudic terminology,
even God does not really know what a person will do, and certainly a supercomputer with infinite computing power will not help us with this. In such a situation, the point is not that we do not have the right answer, but that there is not one answer at all.
Such a situation will be called ontic doubt (ontology is the theory of being, part of metaphysics), that is, something that is not
unique in reality itself, in contrast to epistemic doubt that deals with our knowledge of reality and not in it
itself. To further clarify the difference, I will not refer to such a situation as doubt but as ambiguity. From now on, doubt
describes for us a state of lack of information in the person, while ambiguity is a description of the indeterminacy of
reality itself in such situations.
Therefore, I do not understand why in your answers to me and the person responding after me you refer to freedom of choice (which by definition does not have a deterministic outcome in reality) as a state of epistemic ambiguity – in which only the information is missing but reality is given.
And in connection with the last question – If we completely rule out ontic ambiguity in the context of free choice – what is the explanation for the situations of prayer - “And the hands of Moses make war” or “Illul my covenant day and night, the laws of heaven and earth I have not set” and also for the perception that man can, through his actions, expropriate his fate from subjection to the laws of nature (Kuzari, Teacher of the Confused, as I think, and so on..).
Of course, it can always be said that this is also known in advance. And yet… (The question is not in the context of halakhic ruling)
I don't see any question here. Please explain.
Hello, the question in short is this: Is it possible to say that there may be physical ontic ambiguity as a result of free choice?
I will try to explain. If there are two religious assumptions:
1. A person's choices (his consciousness, his knowledge, the observance of commandments, etc.) may affect the laws of nature or his conduct.
2. In certain things, even God, as it were, does not know what a person will choose until he chooses.
– This is why an “ontic gap” may be created in physics.
This may be somewhat reminiscent of the matter of the detector – until it is not placed, there will be no collapse of the superposition. If we consider the detector as an example, or as a parable – the world is in superposition in many respects – Many “realities”, many possible realities. The choices of man, his consciousness or his awareness produce the ”collapse” here or there respectively.
And maybe I didn't understand..
(The question is not in the realm of considerations of halakhic jurisprudence, such as, the Risha ruling, etc.)
I answered the questioner above you. In my opinion, this is not an ontic interval. The question of what you will choose in the future has one clear answer of two, but now it is unknown. The criterion of Shmaya Galia does not hold here (at least in my opinion that God does not know in advance what will be chosen), but this is not a state of ambiguity. A state of ambiguity is a state in which the world is currently in a combination of two states. In the choice, I do not know what will happen, but in the world itself there is no ambiguity.
Incidentally, with regard to choice, the Ramban in Gittin claims that in human action there is no choice, and he probably means because there is freedom there. But this is still not an ontic ambiguity in my opinion.
In your opinion, is the detector's action epistemic or ontological?
I didn't understand the question.
Does the presence of the detector (in the electron experiment) cause a physical change in reality or only in our perception of reality?
(Or that reality and our perception of reality cannot be separated)
I wrote in the first column that the detector probably changes reality itself (this is the accepted interpretation).
This perhaps feels like proof that human perception changes reality. Or at least it is an integral part of reality.
Thank you for your patience.
It is common to link the opinion that prohibits doubting a false statement with the explanation that the prohibition of a false statement is because of the relation of the act to the person and not because it is considered to be intended, [because if it depends on his intention, what difference does it make if he is not certain], according to the words of the Rabbis, there is no difference between the past and the future, and according to the words of Rashzar, even in something done in the past it is appropriate to say that it is not a false statement, it is possible that in something that is known to the people, which may be a false statement, it is considered that they intend the act.
See at the beginning of the column (and also in its continuation) that I referred to these possibilities. This is not necessary, because when the result is necessary, it is possible that halakhically it is considered that he intended it (it is followed by the result he intended).
I will try to join the last question again – To my understanding, from the last answers it may appear that the concept of “ontic ambiguity” is reduced to the definition of specific situations that are indeed ontic, but legal and technical, such as the temple marrying one non-specific woman out of several women. Hence, perhaps a definition is missing that would contain ontic (physical) ambiguity as a result of free choice. As described.
There is no ontic ambiguity in a state of choice. After all, before I chose, a well-defined state prevails in me and in the world. But the assumption that we have free will means that in the next moment I can do X or Y. So in this moment everything is well-defined. And when I choose, that too will be well-defined. There is no moment in which a state of reality prevails that is not univalent. What is not univalent is what will be in the next moment, in the sense that it is not derived univalently from the present moment (but rather that it is not derived from it at all).
Sorry for flooding an old post.
I thought a lot about this answer. And my question is, does it imply from your words that the supposed contradiction between free will and determinism stems from our human perception of the dimension of time? Theoretically, if we could separate a moment from a moment or any smallest unit of time from the one before and the one after it – there is no contradiction – or do the concepts become irrelevant, or actually merge with each other?
Is that what you mean?
I hope the question is clear.
Have you written about this somewhere and can you refer?
Not understood. But see the columns on knowledge and choice, from column 299 onwards.
Following column 689, I have studied the entire series of these columns. And they are most wonderful. (Although in the matter of choice, one should extend it and delve into what you wrote)
Just to comment. From the commentary on the Halacha in the commentary, verse 17 is explained according to your understanding and not according to the understanding of the Gershal, verse 7, in the distinction between a person who drags someone, etc., and between a doubting a rishikesh. Ayash, at the end of his remarks, proves that verse 7 of the Rambam, who removed the zirreh, did not consider the zirreh, saying, "Perhaps he did not reach the zirreh, and even though he was very warm, etc." Ayyash and according to Rashad, what did I say from there? It is clear that an 'expert' needs to determine whether it will reach a conjunction or not, etc. Do they admit this? And it is explained in his words that the former, although it is difficult to determine, is perceived as an epistemic doubt by people, similar to dragging a person, etc., where people believe it is an ontic doubt. And simple.