We'll play AC/DC — Arcane Sandwich
It is interesting that many of the folks are volunteers. I mean, that's positive. It increases the participation of the people in politics (in my opinion). — javi2541997
Certainly no one here drinks Fosters — Banno
what is the AEC sounding out staff on their availability for? Is it something related to elections? — javi2541997
number does appear in the phenomenal world—we encounter great numbers of phenomena. — Janus
Also what does it mean to say that number, laws etc are objects of nous? Does it simply mean that they are ideas? — Janus
If numbers, laws etc., and all other objects are ideas in the "One Mind" then surely, they exist as such. Do you believe they stand out for the "One Mind" ? If so then they must exist for that mind, no? — Janus
I have often said to you that your position needs a universal mind or God in order to explain how we all experience the same world. But you always seem to pass this over and to be reluctant to posit such a mind. — Janus
But what we don't often hear are the ideas Joshs has proposed in more detail. — Tom Storm
Albanese would like to distance himself from the Greens, — Banno
You never answer the question so often posed to you. How could something that does not exist in space and time be real? Real in what sense? — Janus
My heuristic, and it is only that, is that numbers, laws, etc, are real but not existent as phenomena. They do not appear amongst phenomena, but can only be discerned by the intellect (nous). So they are, in the Platonic sense, but not the Kantian, noumenal objects, object of nous. Of course, we rely on them automatically, transparently, and continuously, in the operations of discursive thought, whenever we make inferences or judgements. But the elements of those judgements do not, themselves, exist in the way that tables and chairs and Banno's beloved crockery exists. Without them, though, we could not even converse, let alone pursue philosophy. — Wayfarer
Here I want to consider whether there is a difference between what is real and what exists.
'Exist' is derived from a root meaning to 'be apart', where 'ex' = apart from or outside, and 'ist' = be. Ex-ist then means to be a seperable object, to be 'this thing' as distinct from 'that thing'. This applies to all the existing objects of perception - chairs, tables, stars, planets, and so on - everything which we would normally call 'a thing'. So we could say that 'things exist'. No surprises there, and I don't think anyone would disagree with that proposition.
Now to introduce a metaphysical concern. I was thinking about 'God', in the sense understood by classical metaphysics and theology. Whereas the things of perception are composed of parts and have a beginning and an end in time, 'God' is, according to classical theology, 'simple' - that is, not composed of parts- and 'eternal', that is, not beginning or ending in time.
Therefore, 'God' does not 'exist', being of a diffrent nature to anything we normally perceive. Theologians would say 'God' was superior to or beyond existence (for example, Pseudo-Dionysius; Eckhardt; Tillich.) I don't think this is a controversial statement either, when the terms are defined this way (and leaving aside whether you believe in God or not, although if you don't the discussion might be irrelevant or meaningless.)
But this made me wonder whether 'what exists' and 'what is real' might, in fact, be different. For example, consider number. Obviously we all concur on what a number is, and mathematics is lawful; in other words, we can't just make up our own laws of numbers. But numbers don't 'exist' in the same sense that objects of perception do; there is no object called 'seven'. You might point at the numeral, 7, but that is just a symbol. What we concur on is a number of objects, but the number cannot be said to exist independent of its apprehension, at least, not in the same way objects apparently do. In what realm or sphere do numbers exist? 'Where' are numbers? Surely in the intellectual realm, of which perception is an irreducible part. So numbers are not 'objective' in the same way that 'things' are. Sure, mathematical laws are there to be discovered; but no-one could argue that maths existed before humans discovered it.
However this line of argument might indicate that what is real might be different to what exists.
I started wondering, this is perhaps related to the platonic distinction between 'intelligible objects' and 'objects of perception'. Objects of perception - ordinary things - only exist, in the Platonic view, because they conform to, and are instances of, laws. Particular things are simply ephemeral instances of the eternal forms, but in themselves, they have no actual being. Their actual being is conferred by the fact that they conform to laws (logos?). So 'existence' in this sense, and I think this is the sense it was intended by the Platonic and neo-Platonic schools, is illusory. Earthly objects of perception exist, but only in a transitory and imperfect way. They are 'mortal' - perishable, never perfect, and always transient. Whereas the archetypal forms exist in the One Mind and are apprehended by Nous: while they do not exist they provide the basis for all existing things by creating the pattern, the ratio, whereby things are formed. They are real, above and beyond the existence of wordly things; but they don't actually exist. They don't need to exist; things do the hard work of existence.
So the ordinary worldly person is caught up in 'his or her particular things', and thus is ensnared in illusory and ephemeral concerns. Whereas the Philosopher, by realising the transitory nature of ordinary objects of perception, learns to contemplate within him or herself, the eternal Law whereby things become manifest according to their ratio, and by being Disinterested, in the original sense of that word.
Do you think this is a valid interpretation of neo-platonism? Do you think it makes the case that what is real, and what exists, might be different? And if this is so, is this a restatement of the main theme of classical metaphysics? Or is it a novel idea?
some Platonic realm — Tom Storm
Any organism capable of sensation and movement, even an amoeba, constructs and interprets its world relative to norms of sensorimotor engagement with it. With Barad, Deleuze, Haraway and Rouse we are able to include the inanimate world as itself organized agentially (configurative assemblages) relative to itself, such that one part of the world interprets another by intra-affectiing with it. Expanding your conception of agency would allow you to avoid the charge of anthropocentrism. — Joshs
If Wigner’s point is that the laws of nature are written in the language of mathematics, then that’s precisely what I’m trying to invalidate. It’s the human-constructed norms of nature that are written in the language of mathematics, not anything to do with nature ‘in itself’. — Joshs
does that mean I can't trust anything science says? — Darkneos
But the evidence showing how theories can alter our perception... — Darkneos
I'm not sure what anti-realism is but I find it hard to fight against it.
From the wiki page it means:
In analytic philosophy, anti-realism is the position that the truth of a statement rests on its demonstrability through internal logic mechanisms, such as the context principle or intuitionistic logic, in direct opposition to the realist notion that the truth of a statement rests on its correspondence to an external, independent reality. In anti-realism, this external reality is hypothetical and is not assumed — Darkneos
Mathematics arose from observing phenomena in the physical world — jgill
Forgetting the role such presuppositions play leads to such confusions as Wigner’s famous paper on the ‘unreasonable effectiveness’ of mathematics in the natural sciences. — Joshs
I bolded Kant's phrase, above, because it focuses on what we'd like to understand better -- just what the heck does it mean for consciousness to "accompany" something? Would we know it when it happened? As a thesis, can it be falsified by experience? — J
You mean the one from the University of Canterbury?
— Wayfarer
Yep. — apokrisis
Physics isn’t in conflict with the existence of life and mind. It was the entropic move needed to make possible the informational counter-move. — apokrisis
This is the fractal distribution of matter and energy that best characterises Nature. We see it in the Cosmic Web. It is the new "better" explanation for dark energy — apokrisis
The design develops from within due to the way Being has to grow into a realm that can lawfully persist. — apokrisis
So organisms arose when they stumbled across the further trick of encoding information using genes, neurons, words and numbers. — apokrisis
n principle, life and mind just are expressions of the generalised cosmic desire to optimise dissipation. — apokrisis
there are thinking things that do not have a sense of self — Philosophim
I know nothing of those other guys, so, there is that… — Mww
It's almost like a phase shift, a new way of conceiving something that had always seemed obvious. Both Kimhi and Rödl are asking us to rethink what we thought we knew. — J
Participatory Knowledge
Participatory knowledge is the knowledge of what it’s like to play a certain role in your environment or in relationships.
Vervaeke considers this to be the most profound of the four types of knowledge. It involves being in a deep, transformative relationship with the world, participating fully in something that is wider than you.
It is not just knowing about, but knowing through active engagement and transformation within specific contexts or environments. It shapes and is shaped by the interaction between the person and the world, influencing one’s identity and sense of belonging.
This kind of knowledge is experiential and co-creative, often seen in the dynamics of relationships, culture, and community participation.
Philosophy in Australia is not that simple. — Banno
Some people are aware of it, some are not. — J
The “I think” accompanies all our thoughts, says Kant. — J
...whatever judgements are made about the world, the mind provides the framework within which such judgements are meaningful. So though we know that prior to the evolution of life there must have been a Universe with no intelligent beings in it, or that there are empty rooms with no inhabitants, or objects unseen by any eye — the existence of all such supposedly unseen realities still relies on an implicit perspective. — Wayfarer
Give me a specific example of such behavior on my part. With quotes. — Arcane Sandwich
Then don't debate with me. No one's forcing you. — Arcane Sandwich
And I'm saying that you get it backwards or upside down, in pursuit of so-called anti-scientific certainty. — Arcane Sandwich
you won't find the feeling of "I'm hungry" anywhere, on your anatomy table. — Arcane Sandwich
Why are you against the very concept ofcognitive neuroscience to begin with? That's the part that I can't seem to wrap my head around. Like, it's not that crazy as you make it sound, man. Bunge himself said that one of the cutting edge sciences of today is cognitive neuroscience. — Arcane Sandwich
I'm not Bunge. — Arcane Sandwich
my solution is better than yours, because my solution is technically Bunge's solution to the problem. If this is reduced to community terms, I prefer to agree with Bunge than with you on that point. — Arcane Sandwich
Hang on, you will say. What about those amazing devices which allow science to reconstruct images from neural data? Subject thinks 'yacht', and lo, a yacht appears on the monitor.
— Wayfarer
I've never heard of such a thing. I don't think that's possible, — Arcane Sandwich
materialism is the attempt to explain what is immediately given us by what is given us indirectly. All that is objective, extended, active—that is to say, all that is material—is regarded by materialism as affording so solid a basis for its explanation, that a reduction of everything to this can leave nothing to be desired (especially if in ultimate analysis this reduction should resolve itself into action and reaction). But ...all this is given indirectly and in the highest degree determined, and is therefore merely a relatively present object, for it has passed through the machinery and manufactory of the brain, and has thus come under the forms of space, time and causality, by means of which it is first presented to us as extended in space and active in time. From such an indirectly given object, materialism seeks to explain what is immediately given, the Idea (in which alone the object that materialism starts with exists), and finally even the will from which all those fundamental forces, that manifest themselves, under the guidance of causes, and therefore according to law, are in truth to be explained. — WWI
It is biology, apparently. As in, it is the biology of the brain of a member of the human species. — Arcane Sandwich
If π is a brain process in your brain, and also a brain process in my brain, then it is two different things.
But if that were so, when I talk about π I am talking about a quite different thing to you, when you talk about π.
When we each talk about π, we are talking about the same thing.
Therefore π is not a brain process in your brain — Banno
It is largely the very peculiar kind of being that belongs to universals which has led many people to suppose that they are really mental. We can think of a universal, and our thinking then exists in a perfectly ordinary sense, like any other mental act. Suppose, for example, that we are thinking of whiteness. Then in one sense it may be said that whiteness is 'in our mind'. In the strict sense, it is not whiteness that is in our mind, but the act of thinking of whiteness. The connected ambiguity in the word 'idea' also causes confusion here. In one sense of this word, namely the sense in which it denotes the object of an act of thought, whiteness is an 'idea'. Hence, if the ambiguity is not guarded against, we may come to think that whiteness is an 'idea' in the other sense, i.e. an act of thought; and thus we come to think that whiteness is mental. But in so thinking, we rob it of its essential quality of universality. One man's act of thought is necessarily a different thing from another man's; one man's act of thought at one time is necessarily a different thing from the same man's act of thought at another time. Hence, if whiteness were the thought as opposed to its object, no two different men could think of it, and no one man could think of it twice. That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them. Thus universals are not thoughts, though when known they are the objects of thoughts. — Bertrand Russell, Problems of Philosophy - The World of Universals
Consider such a proposition as 'Edinburgh is north of London'. Here we have a relation between two places, and it seems plain that the relation subsists independently of our knowledge of it. When we come to know that Edinburgh is north of London, we come to know something which has to do only with Edinburgh and London: we do not cause the truth of the proposition by coming to know it, on the contrary we merely apprehend a fact which was there before we knew it. The part of the earth's surface where Edinburgh stands would be north of the part where London stands, even if there were no human being to know about north and south, and even if there were no minds at all in the universe. We may therefore now assume it to be true that nothing mental is presupposed in the fact that Edinburgh is north of London. But this fact involves the relation 'north of', which is a universal; and it would be impossible for the whole fact to involve nothing mental if the relation 'north of', which is a constituent part of the fact, did involve anything mental. Hence we must admit that the relation, like the terms it relates, is not dependent upon thought, but belongs to the independent world which thought apprehends but does not create.
This conclusion, however, is met by the difficulty that the relation 'north of' does not seem to exist in the same sense in which Edinburgh and London exist. If we ask 'Where and when does this relation exist?' the answer must be 'Nowhere and nowhen'. There is no place or time where we can find the relation 'north of'. It does not exist in Edinburgh any more than in London, for it relates the two and is neutral as between them. Nor can we say that it exists at any particular time. Now everything that can be apprehended by the senses or by introspection exists at some particular time. Hence the relation 'north of' is radically different from such things. It is neither in space nor in time, neither material nor mental; yet it is something.