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[scrdest]

You can't trust science without trusting empiricism, and you have no defense of empiricism that isn't philosophical.

Science is to philosophy as physics is to math. One is an application of the other.

All the precepts of science are philosophical arguments. All of them.

Agreed, a solipsist has no use for scientific method since to him, the results may vary dependent on what his mind decides will happen. Without epistemology, you have no science, and without metaphysics, you have no epistemology.

It is, however, true, that philosophy may feed on scientific discoveries, but it lays the groundwork that allows scientific knowledge be useable.

[Helgoland]

Philosophagia! The eating of the love of knowledge...

[scrdest]

Philosophagia! The eating of the love of knowledge...

That would be philosophiophagia.

[Helgoland]

Then it would be philosophiophilia too - philosophagia just sounds better

[scrdest]

Then it would be philosophiophilia too - philosophagia just sounds better

Come on, we cannot let something as base as sounding well get in the way of nitpickery.

[MadMalkavian]

I play adventure games. That gives me the power to officially say, nothing has no use.

Sometimes nothing is something, even if that something is nothing important, perhaps nothing of value or nothing to do.

Just popping in to note that philosophy is literally the basis of all human knowledge and understanding. Thought that was science? Too bad; science is only part of that (it's a subset of philosophy). The scientific method was created by a philosopher.

No it isn't. Philosophy builds off of what we empirically (or not so empirically, in the case of nutters) know through science. While the two are related historically, modern philosophy is ultimately subservient to science (or at least the parts of it that aren't crazy are).

If I may, how do you know something through science?

I know how to explain this in a manner that touches both the scientific side and the religious side while proving both and yet disproving them both at the same time, but since this is Bay 12 I'm not touching that with a twenty-foot pole.

[Knight of Fools]

If I may, how do you know something through science?

I know how to explain this in a manner that touches both the scientific side and the religious side while proving both and yet disproving them both at the same time, but since this is Bay 12 I'm not touching that with a twenty-foot pole.

Oh, you tease.

[scrdest]

I play adventure games. That gives me the power to officially say, nothing has no use.

Sometimes nothing is something, even if that something is nothing important, perhaps nothing of value or nothing to do.

Just popping in to note that philosophy is literally the basis of all human knowledge and understanding. Thought that was science? Too bad; science is only part of that (it's a subset of philosophy). The scientific method was created by a philosopher.

No it isn't. Philosophy builds off of what we empirically (or not so empirically, in the case of nutters) know through science. While the two are related historically, modern philosophy is ultimately subservient to science (or at least the parts of it that aren't crazy are).

If I may, how do you know something through science?

I know how to explain this in a manner that touches both the scientific side and the religious side while proving both and yet disproving them both at the same time, but since this is Bay 12 I'm not touching that with a twenty-foot pole.

What I think would be the simplest explaination:

You have to accept that everything that exists, actually exists (i.e. bye bye solipsism and the like) and that the identity of everything does not fluctuate (so, a bottle cannot spontaneously turn into, say, a rock). Those are axioms, because if they aren't satisfied, you cannot prove anything at all. If either of those is false, you cannot be logically convinced to believe anything, because those are prerequisites for logic to work.

From the two, conservation of mass and energy follows naturally. Everything that exists may change form, but continues to exist in that changed form.

But the changes itself also are subject to the above axioms. Thus, the rules governing the processes that matter and energy undergoes are immutable.

Since they are governed by immutable rules, these rules may be described, and while the description itself might be inaccurate, the rule remains unchanged. The most accessible analogy would be map and territory - of course, IRL, territory might be transformed, but for the sake of analogy let's ignore it. You might make a mistake while making a map, but that does not change how the ground is actually shaped.

To described the rules, we can observe the processes they govern. If object A consistently undergoes a process that turns it into object B, we have enough evidence to believe that, in such situation, A will always turn into B.

Keep in mind, objects as we normally perceive them are not singular entities but billions of lower-level objects (quanta, presuming there won't be another paradigm shift), and the processes in question are actually going on for those things - that's why scientific method depends so much on keeping the parameters consistent - the parameters represent the actual state of the actual objects an item consists of.

If the object A can be assigned of a category of objects, and a number of other objects from that category also undergo processes that turn them into B or object from the category B can be assigned to, we have good evidence to believe that objects from category A turn into objects from category B.

Note that I didn't use 'know' but 'have good evidence to believe'. The matter of whether knowledge = belief + evidence is an entire different philosophical problem, but my point is, evidence might not be correct. Then, of course, we will end up with a conclusion that is wrong (or right for the wrong reasons). But of course, we can observe the process again, find evidence that contradicts the previous conclusion and update our beliefs accordingly.

That would be pretty much it, I think it describes it logically along most of the steps.

[Helgoland]

From the two, conservation of mass and energy follows naturally. Everything that exists may change form, but continues to exist in that changed form.

Well, no. Conservation of energy doesn't hold true on a universal scale, and even if it did, your logic is simply not sound - sorry if I don't go into enough detail, but the things you say are basically just empiricism in a rather simple form.

How about this: We say goodbye to the idea of an observable reality and just try to talk about the way we perceive, like Bishop Berkeley or Hume. Deal?

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Hmmmmm, shall we apply Bay12 logic to Buridan's Bridge? Link for those who do not know what it is.

Given that Plato's promise is binding, how do we let Socrates pass?

[scrdest]

From the two, conservation of mass and energy follows naturally. Everything that exists may change form, but continues to exist in that changed form.

Well, no. Conservation of energy doesn't hold true on a universal scale, and even if it did, your logic is simply not sound - sorry if I don't go into enough detail, but the things you say are basically just empiricism in a rather simple form.

How about this: We say goodbye to the idea of an observable reality and just try to talk about the way we perceive, like Bishop Berkeley or Hume. Deal?

Please do. It's not an argument if you assert I'm wrong, end of discussion. Especially the statement about conservation of energy. AFAIK the energy on the universal scale either gets transferred somewhere else or becomes matter.

If you accept Berkeley's argument, we are unable to argue. I don't mean that I don't want to, but that if it's true, but that if you do, it is straight-up impossible to form an argument. Since you cannot know whether I am an actual being or merely a ghost in the machine, a p-zombie, you cannot convince me to anything I would not accept anyway, merely following the script to present your mind with ideas to perceive.

Also, Berkeley posits the existence of a God, being that is an infinitely amped-up perceiver, whose existence, however, is self-evident, because he is stated to be a source of perception itself - and yet, the existence of other perceivers is, according to him, uncertain. But how does God's existence as such source, or indeed existence follow from his premises?

His explaination is that, since his own experiences aren't dependent on his will, they must depend on someone else's - but why MUST they be dependent on ANYONE's will?

It's glorified solipsism, except run-of-the-mill solipsism prefers constructivist flavor, while Berkeley's is AI-in-a-box flavored.

Hmmmmm, shall we apply Bay12 logic to Buridan's Bridge? Link for those who do not know what it is.

Given that Plato's promise is binding, how do we let Socrates pass?

Wording leaves a small loophole: it mentions 'water' rather than river, so Socrates needs not be thrown into the river itself to make that proposition true. Although that's as much of a dodge as the 'thrown into the river on the other side' option mentioned on Wikipedia.

The option to stay silent is actually not possible, since Socrates can ONLY pass if he speaks the truth - so he needs to say something. If he stayed silent, Plato would neither let him pass nor throw him into the river.

But honestly, the problem is entirely artificial. It's only a paradox because of the assumptions that Plato will follow up on his promises and will know what is true and what is false 100% of the time.

[Helgoland]

Please do.

-You have to accept that everything that exists, actually exists

That's tautological - what you appear to mean is: The reality that we perceive is actually real. (That's what I meant before: This axiom is not really needed for the kind of stuff we are talking about.)

-that the identity of everything does not fluctuate

Now, in the course of your post you fluctuate (pardon the pun) between two interpretations: One, stuff can't change at all; two, stuff only changes slowly. I'll refer to these as I1 and I2 from now on.

-Those are axioms, because if they aren't satisfied, you cannot prove anything at all.

Let me be nitpicky: Those are axioms. You use them because and so on and so on. (That's a bit beside the point, I agree; but you seem to continue these inaccuracies in your thoughts in more important places.)

-because those are prerequisites for logic to work

Again, sorry, but: No. Logic is one of the few things that is generally thought (yes, yes, I know, can't "prove" logic) to work *without* external input. Mathematics provides some great examples, I'll link some if you like.

-From the two, conservation of mass and energy follows naturally. Everything that exists may change form, but continues to exist in that changed form.

(Those work for closed systems. It seems that the universe is not a closed system and does not follow those laws as a whole, but you'll have to ask a physicist for details.) Even without the stuff in the brackets, they only follow if you use I1 - with I2, stuff could slowly disappear. Yet you seem to imply I2 in the second sentence... Or you have to take it as a third axiom, which would be... controversial.

-But the changes itself also are subject to the above axioms. Thus, the rules governing the processes that matter and energy undergoes are immutable.

Again, only when using I1. I2 would allow them to slowly change (as some physicists suspect is actually happening, but again, I really know very little about physics). Interestingly, using the same logic, I2 could be applied to logic itself, so that arguments could start out true and slowly become false; that includes this argument, and I'll stop here before I get a headache

-Since they are governed by immutable rules, these rules may be described, and while the description itself might be inaccurate, the rule remains unchanged.

In analogy to Cantor's diagonal argument: What if we define those rules (What rules, exactly, anyway? I'll assume you're referring to the laws of nature and so on, but correct me if I'm wrong) as not being those described by any description? Nowhere in the axioms does it say that rules have to be describeable in the first place...

-To described the rules, we can observe the processes they govern.

Nope: How do you describe the rules governing the social conduct of the inhabitants of Jupiter's third moon from the left while being stuck here on earth? You'd have to assume you can observe the rules' effects in the first place, which is not trivial.

-If object A consistently undergoes a process that turns it into object B, we have enough evidence to believe that, in such situation, A will always turn into B.

This is the kind of thinking that Hume and Popper disproved - in a nutshell: Induction is impossible (outside of mathematics, hehehe). An example: You observe a ton of white swans. You conclude: All swans are white. Now I come around a corner, with a can of black paint and a tranquilizer gun

-the parameters represent the actual state of the actual objects an item consists of

This is a very interesting thought and rather like the point I was trying to make before: You don't need the first axiom.

-If the object A can be assigned of a category of objects, and a number of other objects from that category also undergo processes that turn them into B or object from the category B can be assigned to, we have good evidence to believe that objects from category A turn into objects from category B.

'Good evidence' was discussed above; to make discussion more simple, you could generalize 'objects' to include the above 'categories'.

-Note that I didn't use 'know' but 'have good evidence to believe'.

'Good evidence' as in 'it is likely'? Doesn't work, Popper again. Induction doesn't even allow you to say something about probabilities - it doesn't allow you to say anything but "I have observed". (Interestingly, "I have observed" can even be said when working with Laplace's Demon, the bane of all empiricists; your observations then simply are devoid of any meaning.)

-But of course, we can observe the process again, find evidence that contradicts the previous conclusion and update our beliefs accordingly.

Right, scientific method. But keep in mind: Even that only works - empirically. It cannot make any type of forecast that's guaranteed to work, about nothing. I might wake up in the morning as a three-headed lizard creature that feeds on the motions of butterflies. Like most people, this possibility does not worry me greatly

-That would be pretty much it, I think it describes it logically along most of the steps.

It describes it using common sense, which is the common use of 'logically', I guess - but then again, common sense doesn't need axioms.




Also, please note that I'm not a Berkeleyist. (Can you say that?) Really more of a Hume kind of guy, although my avatar might suggest a certain preference for dialectic materialism
And the most simple explanation: You can't know anything, but it works anyway



(Okay, now I'll quit showing off, I promise. No hard feelings?)

[scrdest]

That's tautological - what you appear to mean is: The reality that we perceive is actually real. (That's what I meant before: This axiom is not really needed for the kind of stuff we are talking about.)

Yes it is, it is directly related to the entire reason why I wrote the post - namely, how can we know anything via science. If nothing is actually real, we cannot know anything, nor prove anything.

Now, in the course of your post you fluctuate (pardon the pun) between two interpretations: One, stuff can't change at all; two, stuff only changes slowly. I'll refer to these as I1 and I2 from now on.

I did somewhat fuck the phrasing up. What I meant is that stuff does not spontaneously turn into other stuff randomly or stop existing randomly or change characteristics without changing its form. Or, in other words, that reality is stable enough to support logic.

Let me be nitpicky: Those are axioms. You use them because and so on and so on. (That's a bit beside the point, I agree; but you seem to continue these inaccuracies in your thoughts in more important places.)

As classically conceived, an axiom is a premise so evident as to be accepted as true without controversy.

Again, sorry, but: No. Logic is one of the few things that is generally thought (yes, yes, I know, can't "prove" logic) to work *without* external input. Mathematics provides some great examples, I'll link some if you like.

No, it isn't. No matter what you do, you cannot cause something to simultaneously be X and ~X. Logic cannot work in a world that allows contradictions and paradoxes.

(Those work for closed systems. It seems that the universe is not a closed system and does not follow those laws as a whole, but you'll have to ask a physicist for details.) Even without the stuff in the brackets, they only follow if you use I1 - with I2, stuff could slowly disappear. Yet you seem to imply I2 in the second sentence... Or you have to take it as a third axiom, which would be... controversial.

I never heard anything about this. Like, at all. So I don't even know where to start. Universe not being a closed system implies that mass and/or energy is transferred to or out of the system. In the second sentence I intended to say that while mass can undergo conversion into energy, energy might be transferred between objects, etc., the overall balance is unchanged, and a sum of all energy and mass everywhere is constant. So, more along I1.

Again, only when using I1. I2 would allow them to slowly change (as some physicists suspect is actually happening, but again, I really know very little about physics). Interestingly, using the same logic, I2 could be applied to logic itself, so that arguments could start out true and slowly become false; that includes this argument, and I'll stop here before I get a headache

The reason why you get a headache is precisely why my axioms are what they are: you cannot have an argument based on logic in a world where logic itself is not reliable and immutable.

In analogy to Cantor's diagonal argument: What if we define those rules (What rules, exactly, anyway? I'll assume you're referring to the laws of nature and so on, but correct me if I'm wrong) as not being those described by any description? Nowhere in the axioms does it say that rules have to be describeable in the first place...

Describability is not a function of the rule, but a function of human mind. If you define the rule to be non-describable, it will still be possible to describe - as 'non-describable'. And by rules, I mean the essential nature of natural processes - what Hume would call Necessary Connection. It is what we are approximating more and more accurately via theories.

Nope: How do you describe the rules governing the social conduct of the inhabitants of Jupiter's third moon from the left while being stuck here on earth? You'd have to assume you can observe the rules' effects in the first place, which is not trivial.

CAN, not MUST. We don't HAVE to learn how the world works, we have enough instincts to allow us to survive, at least for the short term, we don't have to learn pulmonary structures and chemical composition of air to breathe. You cannot describe the Jupiter's moon society without empirical evidence of it.

This is the kind of thinking that Hume and Popper disproved - in a nutshell: Induction is impossible (outside of mathematics, hehehe). An example: You observe a ton of white swans. You conclude: All swans are white. Now I come around a corner, with a can of black paint and a tranquilizer gun

-the parameters represent the actual state of the actual objects an item consists of

This is a very interesting thought and rather like the point I was trying to make before: You don't need the first axiom.

No. First axiom relates to the objects itself. Parameters are a shortcut that approximate the state of a large number of objects. For example, temperature represents a generalized velocity of atoms a given macro scale item consists of.

[/quote]

'Good evidence' was discussed above; to make discussion more simple, you could generalize 'objects' to include the above 'categories'.

'Good evidence' as in 'it is likely'? Doesn't work, Popper again. Induction doesn't even allow you to say something about probabilities - it doesn't allow you to say anything but "I have observed". (Interestingly, "I have observed" can even be said when working with Laplace's Demon, the bane of all empiricists; your observations then simply are devoid of any meaning.)

Seeing a white swan is evidence for statement 'all swans are white'. Seeing a non-white swan is evidence against that statement. If for all of your life, all the swans you've seen were white, you would have good evidence to believe 'all swans are white'.

Given how you are fond of using mathematics for analogies, I assume you are familiar with Bayes' Theorem? P(W|S)=((P(S|W)*P(S))/P(W) or, probability of a swan being white equals probability of it being a white bird that's a swan times probability of it being a swan, divided by probability that of it being a white bird.

The result is the measure of either how much we do NOT know about the color of the next swan (P(1)-P(W|S)), or that of how many swans we've seen are white, depending on the interpretation. Of course, it might turn out that the swan is the single black swan in the bunch, and in that case, your belief is wrong. You have just gained knowledge that the statement 'all swans are white' is false.

It would mean that such absolute claims can never be certifiably true. On the other hand, for it assumes that the veracity of a statement is timeless - if you assume otherwise, 'all swans are white' can and will be true as long as all the swans you have seen were white, and this is how such statements are used casually. And I think I will have to elaborate, but it's half past 2 AM here.

Right, scientific method. But keep in mind: Even that only works - empirically. It cannot make any type of forecast that's guaranteed to work, about nothing. I might wake up in the morning as a three-headed lizard creature that feeds on the motions of butterflies. Like most people, this possibility does not worry me greatly

As the body evidence collected grows, certainty approaches 100%, although it cannot reach it. Assuming there is no non-white swans, after all the swans on Earth are thought to have been examined, you will still never know if one single black one does not appear. But you do know that such an event is incredibly, incredibly rare, and people won't suddenly start turning into lizards by dozens (unless it is caused by special circumstances - but what those circumstances are can be discovered too).

Besides, why must knowledge be perfect?

I'm tired, so I'm leaving the formatting sloppy. I might fix it tomorrow.

[Helgoland]

Woo! This thread got WAY more love than expected!

Naah, an ardent empiricist just met an ardent scepticist...

Okay, I'm a bit short on time right now, so I won't be able to do an in-depth reply. Just a couple of questions though:

-What would be a non-tautological formulation of your first axiom? (I'm afraid it's a bit... useless right now )

-I1 and I2 are mutually exclusive; which one do you pick? Or what other flavor? What implications does that have for your argumentation?

-How do you avoid my headache while still using something like I2?

-Is "the human mind" a subset of "stuff that exists"? How does "describability" differ from attributes like "red", "delicious" or "immutable"?

-In what cases is it not sufficient to identify objects (or "classes of objects", which I'd like to refer to as objects themselves, if we can agree on that terminology) with their observed parameters? If there are none, why do you need (the refined version of) the first axiom?

-About that Bayes bit: How do you determine P(W), P(S) and P(S|W)? In other words: How do you define probabilities? Laplace won't work in this context, I'm afraid...







On a slightly different matter: Who wants to talk aesthetics? That field seems to get even less love than this thread before scrdest arrived

[scrdest]

Woo! This thread got WAY more love than expected!

Naah, an ardent empiricist just met an ardent scepticist...

Okay, I'm a bit short on time right now, so I won't be able to do an in-depth reply. Just a couple of questions though:

-What would be a non-tautological formulation of your first axiom? (I'm afraid it's a bit... useless right now )

-I1 and I2 are mutually exclusive; which one do you pick? Or what other flavor? What implications does that have for your argumentation?

-How do you avoid my headache while still using something like I2?

-Is "the human mind" a subset of "stuff that exists"? How does "describability" differ from attributes like "red", "delicious" or "immutable"?

-In what cases is it not sufficient to identify objects (or "classes of objects", which I'd like to refer to as objects themselves, if we can agree on that terminology) with their observed parameters? If there are none, why do you need (the refined version of) the first axiom?

-About that Bayes bit: How do you determine P(W), P(S) and P(S|W)? In other words: How do you define probabilities? Laplace won't work in this context, I'm afraid...

- It is not tautological, although it may sound a bit tautological due to wording. But you know, written at 2AM and all. But allow me to rephrase: that which we perceive to exist, exists. Not to be confused with Berkeley's 'what exists is what we perceive exists'. Reality is not an illusion nor only a product of one's mind. Reality is separate from perception. See below.

- Both. In a rather weird way. It is I1, but I1 that appears to be I2, depending on what level you're looking at. We're in a perfect closed container. Let's take... hmm... a two-by-four. It's a piece of wood. Nothing special about it. Now let's set it on fire (with a tinderbox we also have). We now have a pile of ashes, some heat, and some gasses or particles suspended in the air. OMIGOSH, WOOD DISAPPERD, HALP!

It appears that one object transformed into another. But all the atoms and energies that constituted the items inside our containers are still there, just changing location. If you treat matter as a special form of energy, as it appears to be, even if we used a nuclear reactor instead of a piece of wood and a tinderbox, the result would be the same. The shapes change, but the objects that create the shape are unchanged.

But, humans don't live on the sub-atomic level, so we normally concern ourselves with macro-scale, and for the sake of computing, you might approximate (use a simplified model of) macro-scale items as objects themselves (as you might have noticed, I use 'item' for any 'thing' as understood in everyday language, e.g. a desk, a computer, but also an atom, and 'object' for the lowest-level possible item, something like what atoms where thought to be before sub-atomic structures were discovered. I guess that it might be a little misleading, 'atomos' could be a possible term to describe it, but for now it's 'object' vs. 'item'.).

So for the purposes of macro-scale computation, items are modelled as objects, and a good chunk, if not all, of attributes are macro-scale approximations objects' states within the structures of an item. Using the examples you've given, 'red' is an approximation of the range of wavelengths of lightwaves, and wavelengths of lightwaves themselves are an approximation of OH GOD QUANTUM PHYSICS IS WEEEEIRD.

'Delicious' is an approximation of the chemical reactions starting at chemicals in food binding with specific receptors, biochemical reactions happening during neurotransmission and processing, etc., which are in themselves a little more accurate models of energy and matter transfers that happen at sub- and interatomic levels, etc.

'Human mind' is both 'stuff that exists' and an approximation. On the purely material level, it's an incredibly complex web of synapses, neural and glial cells, structures, etc., and on the 'cognition' level it is an approximation of the processes going on between the things on the purely material level, and that in turn is a model of et caetera, et caetera.

'Describability' and 'Immutable' are both more difficult, because they are remarkably more abstract. The former is an approximation of the processing capabilities of minds that allow them to create and use a labelling system of sorts, that being a simplified model of certain biological 'circuitry', being a model of you know the drill.

I'm going to skip 'Immutable' unless you really press me for it, because I think both me and you are tired by re-iterating the same pattern of thought for each example. To sum up, I accidentally into Plato, or maybe moderate realism, in a way, although without separating the realms of the real and of the ideal - every concept we use in day to day life is a simplified model of the objects it is composed of at the most basic possible level.

As I've been writing the above, I've been tempted to use an IT metaphor. In an IT-world, an object is an 'on' bit (1). The 'off' bit is a state of not-on (you can flip the base object to 0 and 1 to not-0 freely, but a positive base is more appealing aesthetically).

Like objects in our world 'form' atoms (nothing about the objects themselves change, merely their configuration - where they are, and where they are not), bits 'form' various bytes, depending on where the objects are and where they aren't - where there are 0's and where 1's.

But now, let's zoom out a LOT. You've got a program - let's say forum code. It lets you post funny images, debate philosophy and download games about psychotic drunkard midgets. And now... Enchance. ENCHANCE. ENCHAAAAAAANCE. What do you see? You see a string of bits. It's still the exact same forum code it was before, and whether you perceive it as a string of bits, lines of readable code or an actual forum you can use, it remains one and the same item, composed of objects that remain the same ones and zeros they were before.

Similarly, our world's objects form structures that, despite being nothing more that sets of objects arranged into patterns, exhibit emergent behavior. Atoms bond. Humans formulate abstractions. Programs give you functionality you wouldn't otherwise have.

Holy shit, that's an Epic class rant I made here. It. Gets. Worse.

- There's a simple trick to deal with a universe in which the rules change. Go meta and find out the pattern in which the rules change. In other words, find the rules beneath the rules. That's pretty much how we stumbled upon Quantum Mechanics or Relativity - it appeared that the rules we know change in some circumstances, so we pulled an Inception on reality, went a level deeper and found a fuckton of weirdness that is nonetheless possible to use to find how the world works.

- In that case, I should refine the first axiom even further. 'Objects exist.' Not any specific objects, simply 'objects'. This is probably as deep as I can axiomatically get, since that premise is recognized be every single philosophy, even solipsists recognize that premise, though in their case the object is a mind. But, if we only used that, the system doesn't support logic yet. So, axiom two, split into pieces and rehauled for the we need to go deeper axiom one:

2) 'perceivable reality is composed of objects',
3) 'perceivable reality is independent from any possible perceiver',
4) 'objects have an immutable identity'.

1) is undeniable, because to deny that something exists, you need to exist yourself. Can be called Axiom of Existence due to that. (also because theatrics and hamminess for fun and profit).
2) should not be very controversial, it clarifies that the only 'things in reality' are objects, or that there are no non-object constructs - if there were, the lowest-possible-level parts they are made of would be objects themselves. Since it disallows non-objects, I'll call it the Axiom of Exclusion.
3) is probably the most possibly controversial, but it needs to be accepted so that we could support logic. You cannot use logic in a system where you can have a situation where A && ~A = 1, depending on who is looking at A. And if we cannot use logic, none of the posts made here are meaningful. Axiom of Objectivity.
4), again, it is a simple clarification on the nature of objects. We don't know how many levels of reality are there, but whatever is at the lowest possible level (even if it would regress into infinity!) remains unchanged in its nature. 1's and 0's don't become A's and B's, or 'red' and 'blue'.

P(W) is, in fact, P(W|B) - probability of white given bird, and P(S) is actually P(S|B). And P(B) is P(B|A) (bird given animal). Yes, I do realize that so far it's turtles all the way down, but so far I spent two hours writing this post, and my brain is about to go on strike over inhumane work conditions and unpaid overtime, so I don't want to delve into philosophy of probability just yet - I don't know about you, but what I write here is not rehearsed. Which means I have to think my way through, and I might end in strange, unfamilliar places that, however, are still by the road to my destination.

Jesus fuck. This post, without the word after the last horizontal rule (i.e. what I'm writing right now), numbers 1406 words, although counting formatting markup. I wonder if I broke the post length record yet.