This idea of "degrees of reality" is probably best formulated by the Neo-Platonists. Plotinus describes an "emanation", and Proclus a "procession" — Metaphysician Undercover

:ok:

if you can get beyond the appearance of mysticism... — Metaphysician Undercover

:groan:

its subject is the validation of intelligible objects (such as mathematical principles), (as Forms), in relation to the eternal. In modern, western society, we tend to simply assume that if it's mathematical then it's valid and therefore an eternal truth. — Metaphysician Undercover

Because modern science insists that only what is sensible (sense-able) is real, whereas for the ancients, mathematical intuition was a means to discern the supra-sensible.

There may be degrees of reality, yes. I'm inclined to think so. But each of those degrees will exist in some manner or another. That's my point. A real but non-existent thing is a contradiction in terms, for a real thing is that which actually exists, as opposed to what is only imagined or potential. — Thorongil

To cite a text from pre-medieval theology. It’s from the SEP entry on John Scotus Eirugena. This is from the section of the article on a chapter from his main philosophical work, The Four Divisions of Nature.

Eriugena proceeds to list ‘five ways of interpreting’ the manner in which things may be said to exist or not to exist.

According to the first mode, things accessible to the senses and the intellect are said to exist, whereas anything which, ‘through the excellence of its nature’ transcends our faculties is said not to exist. According to this classification, God, because of his transcendence, is said not to to exist. He is ‘nothingness through excellence’ (nihil per excellentiam. For a contemporary statement of this subtle understanding, see God does not Exist, Pierre Whalon.)

The second mode of existence and non-existence is seen in the ‘orders and differences of created natures’ whereby, if one level of nature is said to exist, those orders above or below it are said not to exist:

For an affirmation concerning the lower (order) is a negation concerning the higher, and so too a negation concerning the lower (order) is an affirmation concerning the higher. According to this mode, the affirmation of man is the negation of angel and vice versa (affirmatio enim hominis negatio est angeli, negatio vero hominis affirmatio est angeli).

This mode illustrates Eriugena's original way of dissolving the traditional Neoplatonic hierarchy of being into a dialectic of affirmation and negation: to assert one level is to deny the others. In other words, a particular level may be affirmed to be real by those on a lower or on the same level, but the one above it is thought not to be real in the same way. If humans are thought to exist in a certain way, then angels do not exist in that way.

This understanding of there being different levels of being was what, I think, became collapsed by the later Duns Scotus with the assertion of the ‘univocity of being’. (While it’s obviously an arcane argument, something in Eirugena’s insight rings true as far as I’m concerned. It’s also very much related to what I’m trying to understand. )

The classic way to resolve it, I gather, is the notion of the Two Truths, whereby the ultimate truth that the Buddha has access to and represents may contradict the truth of ordinary perceptual reality, but I'm wary of this idea — Thorongil

I do understand your hesitation. The European version of ‘two truths’ was different to the Buddhist - I believe it was actually adapted from Avicenna, who used it to differentiate the religious beliefs of the common people from the insight of the philosopher/sage - the former was a kind of ‘necessary illusion’.

I’m still trying to reconcile the apparent conflict between Buddhist ‘nominalism’ and Platonic philosophy. I think the fundamental issue is that they belong to vastly different domains of discourse. But these are all deep questions.

I must say that I think they are synonyms. It also seems to me that any fundamental differences would be the result of a text imposing such differences (as yours does here). Of course you are free to build a system of distinctions from ordinary language (other philosophers have), but I wonder if it's worth the trouble. — foo

As I mentioned before, I am intending to enroll in an external course given by Oxford, on metaphysics, which is called ‘Being, reality and existence’. The fact of that title is one of the reasons I’m interested in it. I think there’s a genuine distinction between the terms, and the reason the distinction has been lost is indeed metaphysical. That is why we can only understand things on a horizontal plane, so to speak.

As far as 'mind' goes, that seems to be a synonym of experience. At the same time, because perhaps we see 'through' the lens of a particular brain and body, it is understood also as the condition for the possibility of experience — foo

There’s more to mind than experience - which is after all textbook empiricism. But as Kant showed, the mind makes use of the categories of the understanding, the primary intuitions, and so on, in order to understand. So there’s more to that than just ‘experience’, there’s also intellectual capacity.

And the point I am pressing, is that rationality itself - the ability to compare, to say ‘this means that’, to discern similarities and differences - precedes the particular sciences, such as physics, biology, and so on. So nowadays it seems assumed that these faculties can be explained as adaptations, as if this is a theory that accounts for the nature of reason. That is what I’m saying is ass-about. A Darwin doesn’t explain an Einstein. :smile:

Because modern science insists that only what is sensible (sense-able) is real — Wayfarer

Show me a single scientist who doesn't think mathematics is real. They use it every day. You're just trying to set up scientists as some kind of cultists just so you can better justify your own brand of mysticism.

I don't know a single published scientist who denies the existence of non-material things like mathematics. I don't know a single published scientist who thinks that only what we can currently sense exists.

Either quote the people who's opinions you're arguing against or stop making strawman to knock down.

Show me a single scientist who doesn't think mathematics is real. — Pseudonym

The ontological status of mathematics is not something that has been resolved; this is the age-old question of whether maths is invented or discovered and it's still a vexed question. There are always mathematical Platonists, who accept that mathematics is real in the sense of not simply being the creation of the mind. But there are many more who believe that mathematics is invented rather than being discovered.

A recent, influential Platonist was Kurt Godel - see the Godel and the Nature of Mathematical Truth, Rebecca Goldstein:

Gödel was a mathematical realist, a Platonist. He believed that what makes mathematics true is that it's descriptive—not of empirical reality, of course, but of an abstract reality. Mathematical intuition is something analogous to a kind of sense perception. In his essay "What Is Cantor's Continuum Hypothesis?", Gödel wrote that we're not seeing things that just happen to be true, we're seeing things that must be true. The world of abstract entities is a necessary world—that's why we can deduce our descriptions of it through pure reason.

But there are many mathematicians and scientists who are not mathematical Platonists. Their explanations are grounded in evolutionary and cognitive science. In fact one of the avowed aims of Lakoff and Johnson's book, 'Where Mathematics Come From', is to deflate 'the romance of maths', that:

Mathematics is transcendent, namely it exists independently of human beings, and structures our actual physical universe and any possible universe. Mathematics is the language of nature, and is the primary conceptual structure we would have in common with extraterrestrial aliens, if any such there be.

There's a rather arcane argument, called 'the indispensability argument for mathematics', that is felt to be required by the existence of mathematical objects. The article says 'standard readings of mathematical claims entail the existence of mathematical objects. But, our best epistemic theories seem to debar any knowledge of mathematical objects.' And why do 'our best epistemic theories' seem to debar such knowledge? The argument goes as follows:

Some philosophers, called "rationalists", claim that we have a special, non-sensory capacity for understanding mathematical truths - a rational insight arising from pure thought [cue spooky music]. But, the rationalist’s claims appear incompatible with an understanding of human beings as physical creatures whose capacities for learning are exhausted by our physical bodies. Other philosophers, called logicists, argue that mathematical truths are just complex logical truths. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the logicists Gottlob Frege, Alfred North Whitehead, and Bertrand Russell attempted to reduce all of mathematics to obvious statements of logic, for example, that every object is identical to itself, or that if p then p. But, it turns out that we can not reduce mathematics to logic without adding substantial portions of set theory to our logic. A third group of philosophers, called nominalists or fictionalists, deny that there are any mathematical objects; if there are no mathematical objects, we need not justify our beliefs about them.

The indispensability argument in the philosophy of mathematics is an attempt to justify our mathematical beliefs about abstract objects, while avoiding any appeal to rational insight.

My bolds. So the Platonist claim regarding the ontological status of numbers - that number is real but non-sensory - is the target of this argument, on the grounds that 'our best' (i.e. 'empiricist') theories of knowledge don't allow for the existence of real but non-empirical entities, such as number. (I love that 'rationalists' is put in scare quotes, like they're a throwback to another age.)

I don't know a single published scientist who thinks that only what we can currently sense exists. — Pseudonym

I'm simply referring to the principle of empiricism whereby hypotheses are subject to falsification with respect to measurable data. Of course, the range of human sense has been, and will continue to be, enhanced by technologies, such as the LHC and the Hubble Telescope. But whatever can be detected by such devices, is to be validated with respect to data that is observable by the five sense. Consider the way that paranormal scientific claims are treated - they're subjected to much higher standards of evidence than many other types of claims, because such claims are categorised as 'extraordinary', and so said to require 'extraordinary evidence'.

So all I'm saying is that modern science rules out appeals to anything like 'spiritual intuition' or 'gnosis' or 'noesis' which were the general pre-occupation of ancient philosophies. This is not a controversial claim, it is simply an historical observation.

I'm using 'real' in the sense that you propose. In that sense scientists are about the most faithful group to the idea that maths is real and you're far more likely to get dissent from philosophers. I'm well aware of the history of philosophical thought with regards to mathematics. What I was questioning was your opposing modern science with ancient views on mathematics. I'm asking you to justify your assumption that modern science takes an opposing view of mathematics. You've still failed to quote a single modern scientist who believes that mathematics is not real.

Consider the way that paranormal scientific claims are treated - they're subjected to much higher standards of evidence than many other types of claims, — Wayfarer

Again these wildly inaccurate claims to try and justify your anti-science agenda. What paranormal claims have been subjected to "much higher" standards of evidence? Last time I checked any scientific journals, the standard of evidence expected of any new theory was pretty high. I've studied statistics to quite a high academic level and even then I can't always understand the high level of statistical rigour to which new theories are expected to rise. If you're suggesting that they get special treatment over some farmer who 'reckons' he's seen Jesus, then your either insane or disingenuous.

Personally I agree that there are different levels of reality, and this is the reason of much confusion. For example if we interpret Plato as saying that "math" exists like a "material thing", then of course it is quite naive. On the other hand in "this world" we have a lot of examples of "layers of reality". For example chairs and tables "exist" even though the standard model does not mention them! The problem is when we conflate two types of "reality".

If we give to "existence" its etymological meaning, then what "exists" is "what" arises or what is "created". Whereas "reality" is a much more general concepts, for example even "dreams" are a "reality", in some sense. The "Absolute" of many philosophies instead simply "is", since it does not "arise". The same in some sense can be said to "truths" IMO, like mathematical ones (albeit there is also an element of contingency in mathematics: the language used etc).

So In my opinion the problem that our language is insufficient to express what we mean correctly and therefore confusion arises in philosophy. For example a chair does not "exist" in the same way of a "muon" but we normally use the word "exists" for both.

"Real", "existent" and "is" are metaphysically undefined. — Michael Ossipoff

What is the difference between being metaphysically defined and just being defined?

I see real, existent, and is, as synonyms.

I know you have no problem with mysticism, but some people presuppose that if something looks like mysticism it's not real philosophy. So "metaphysics" gets divided in two by these people, stuff which is intelligible from the perspective of their metaphysics, which is valid philosophy, and other metaphysics which is mysticism. Thus, when Plotinus says that Intelligence emanates from the One, and the Soul emanates from Intelligence, and the multiplicity of beings follows from the Soul, this appears to be completely backward and unintelligible to a perspective of emergence, so it's just designated as mysticism, and ignored.

If we give to "existence" its etymological meaning, then what "exists" is "what" arises or what is "created". Whereas "reality" is a much more general concepts, for example even "dreams" are a "reality", in some sense. The "Absolute" of many philosophies instead simply "is", since it does not "arise". The same in some sense can be said to "truths" IMO, like mathematical ones (albeit there is also an element of contingency in mathematics: the language used etc). — boundless

Agreed. It is all real. It all exists. It all persists. The difference is how or whom can perceive it. Is it within a personal domain or a shared domain? Who knows how much is out there that cannot be perceived because we are not tuned into it, though possibly others or other life forms are? Everything is forms in the fabric of the universe, but as with a hologragram, the right reconstructive wave must be there to illuminate it. Creating distinctions where there are none merely creates confusion where there is none.

According to this classification, God, because of his transcendence, is said not to exist

I find the distinction to be incoherent, for it amounts to saying that God is (otherwise, we couldn't attribute transcendence to him) but does not exist. Eriugena can't affirm both without contradiction. I suspect, however, that either Eriugena or Dermot Moran, the author of the SEP article, is being loose in their language, for later on in the article, Moran attributes to Eriugena the claim that "God knows that He is, but not what He is." So here God does apparently exist, while his nature is inscrutable. This means that the original quote above ought to read: "God, because of his transcendence, is said not to exist in the manner of a phenomenon or creature."

became collapsed by the later Duns Scotus with the assertion of the ‘univocity of being’ — Wayfarer

Scotus didn't deny the analogy of being by asserting the univocity of being. He also wasn't a nominalist. I suspect you're getting this from Brad Gregory, but as I've said before, he's just wrong and misinformed about Scotus. If you want a villain, his name is William of Ockham, who really was a nominalist.

So all I'm saying is that modern science rules out appeals to anything like 'spiritual intuition' or 'gnosis' or 'noesis' which were the general pre-occupation of ancient philosophies. This is not a controversial claim, it is simply an historical observation. — Wayfarer

Modern science does not "rule out" such things; it simply does not concern itself with them on account of the fact that the whole methodology of science is founded on the principle of inter-subjective corroboration. "Spiritual intuition", "gnosis" and "noesis" cannot be subject to rigorous inter-subjective corroboration. Don't you ever get tired of this disingenuous railing against science?

it simply does not concern itself with them — Janus

No, it vigorously opposes them and invents its own mythology as place holders, the so-called Laws of Physics being the most obvious. Survival of the fittest being another. And then the totally fabricated Invisible Dark Energy and Dark Matter Universe. The latest I've run across is The Thermodynamic Imperative. The what?

I think the analogy between an an economy and a species is workable, at least to a degree. On a genetic level, though, species are hermetic; whereas as economies are not. There is a global economy, of which local economies may be considered to be parts.

I like the idea of concrete universals. This idea is to be found in Whitehead, also, who I am more familiar with than Deleuze. It is a dualistic conceit, a mere prejudice, that says that if a universal is not a sense object that it must therefore be a transcendent intelligible object. I see this as a failure of the imagination.

An interesting question about concrete universals concerns their causal status; is it only individuals that are causally efficacious? How would this question relate to the question of the relation between formal or final causation and efficient causation? I am still thinking about this question, and I am not clear enough to say much at this stage.

Some scientists may oppose and others may not. But your simplistic claim does not surprise me, since you have proven yourself to be the master purveyor of simpleminded generalizations.

. Don't you ever get tired of this disingenuous railing against science? — Janus

Disingenuous: 'not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does'.

Why do you think my posts are disingenuous? Don't you think that might amount to ad hominem argument?

I know I am making a contentious and unpopular case, but I endeavour to do so in good faith, and on the basis of arguments.

It is quite usual to believe, nowadays, that 'science knows' or 'science proves' many things that science neither knows nor proves. I am engaged in trying to draw that out, and will continue to do so.

I don't think they are real by definition, but they certainly exist, just as impossible things don't and can't exist. — Thorongil

I guess to my ear the term "exists" means to be actualised. To be present and individuated in terms of matter, time and place. Existence is the concrete fact of being. So my interest is in how you can understand that normal definition in terms of a holistic or process metaphysics where any such actuality or individuation is a passing feature in a more general flow.

In this view, existence becomes emergent or a kind of illusion - a state of persistence due to some context of constraints. And possibility is the fundamental wellspring of being. Existence becomes not the conversion of a possibility into an actuality, but a constraint on the generality or vagueness of a potential such as to leave behind something highly individuated. A wealth of possibilities gets suppressed to produce actuality, rather than some concrete possibility getting converted into a state of substantial being.

To say of a thing that it becomes is to say that it changes over and within time, while to say of a thing that it is is to say that it exists immutably either eternally or outside of time. To use my example, the chair as concept is, while the chair as percept becomes. A concept doesn't exist in time, but physical objects like chairs do. — Thorongil

Yep. That would be where we differ in that you take a theist and Platonist route here?

So I would take the Peircean position where to exist is to be actual and individuated. But to be real includes all three things of the contingent, the actual, and the necessary. So pure potential is real in that it is causal - it represents spontaneity. And then constraints are also real even if emergent in their regulative presence. Ultimately constraints express the necessity of mathematical-strength form. The laws are a necessary generality - which is why they seem timeless and Platonic, even though they can only be real via a process of material emergence.

Having said that, the emergent habits of nature would be both real and seen to exist if we could see the Cosmos unfolding in time and space as itself an individuated object. So "to exist" is tied to a point of view.

This is made explicit in natural philosophy approaches like Stan Salthe's hierarchy theory. For us, sitting at a particular scale of cosmic being, we can look down towards the very small and it eventually moves so fast that it merges into a constant (quantum) blur. Likewise we can look up to the very largest scales and things start to change so slowly that they apparently cease to change - much like a mountain range.

Anyway, the point so far as the thread is concerned is that terms shift their meanings to try to express their motivating metaphysics. And there are at least three metaphysics in play here.

The standard reductionist one which circles around nominalist and monistic views - brute existence. The Platonic one that leads to a hard dualism or frank idealism. And then a process metaphysics which is triadic or hierarchical in terms of what it considers real, and therefore which treats existence as being an issue of what causes localised habits of persistence within a backdrop of a generalised flow.

Disingenuous: 'not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does'. Why do you think my posts are disingenuous? Don't you think that might amount to ad hominem argument? — Wayfarer

Right, and I think you do know, or should know, on account of it having been pointed out to you so often; that you are attacking a strawdog version of science. So, I don't think it's an ad hominem, because it's what you are saying in regard to science that is disingenuous; no one has claimed you are disingenuous in general, which would be ad hominous.

I know I am making a contentious and unpopular case, but I endeavour to do so in good faith.

If you want to make a case you need solid argument. That is what seems to be lacking; you just keep repeating the same unsupported subjective opinions and references over and over. Just because it is contentious and unpopular doesn't make it a good case, you know.

Also, it seems to me that when I respond to your contentions with critical questions you make no attempt to address those questions, but instead take it personally and become offended, which makes it seems that you are personally invested in your standpoint. Now, the great thing about science is that a good scientist will do everything she can to dis-confirm her theories; yet it seems to me that you don't even want to consider the possibility that you might be mistaken. So, there is one point where you could learn from the methodology of the discipline you seem to have so little respect for.

the original quote above ought to read: "God, because of his transcendence, is said not to exist in the manner of a phenomenon or creature." — Thorongil

..."to exist" is tied to a point of view. — apokrisis

This is where the 'perspectival' nature of Eirugena's argument is significant: things that exist on one level, do not exist on another.

There is a Zen koan (which once was a popular song), 'first there is a mountain'. The whole koan is: 'First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.' It's sounds like a nonsense verse, but it actually expresses the perspectival understanding of Buddhism. 'First, there is a mountain' is naive realism - oh look, a mountain. Then the Zen student, after arduous meditation, has the initial 'realisation of emptiness' - everything is seen to be devoid of 'own-being', so not truly existent. No mountain! But then, as the student's realisation matures, the real nature of the mountain is understood as if for the very first time. A mountain!

Buddhism is particularly adept at this kind of dialectical understanding. But it's also present in traditional Western philosophy, where it goes back to the Parmenides. That lead to the whole development of trying to understand what the object truly is. That unfolded over many centuries in the ancient world. Then that in turn became incorporated into Christian philosophical theology in the Medieval period. And Eriugena translated the seminal works of the mysterious 'pseudo-Dionysius' into Latin. This is where he developed his dialectic of being and non-being as per the quotation I gave above.

So it is very challenging to consider that in these forms of philosophical theology, 'being' or 'existence' is viewed from different perspectives. And I think that is because, for a long period, up until recently, the idea of there being 'different perspectives' was rejected. Nominalism and scientific realism tends towards the view that something either exists, or it doesn't; there isn't a scale along which things can exist 'in a different manner', whereas there was in pre-modern philosophy. But the idea of a 'dialectical' understanding has been revived through process philosophy, Peirce's semiotics, and the like. (Peirce described himself as a scholastic realist, i.e. accepted the reality of universal, and also explicitly wrote of the ways in which 'existence' and 'reality' can be distinguished.)

Also - I never did finish Brad Gregory. It was the kind of book that is really only of interest if you're doing post-grad studies in that specific topic. The convergence of 'the univocity of being' with Nominalism, and the abandonment of classical metaphysics, is a much bigger topic than that. That is the subject of Richard Weaver, Michael Allen Gillespie, and also the 'radical orthodoxy' movement, of which there is quite a good review here (starts from the bottom of the page.)

I know you have no problem with mysticism, but some people presuppose that if something looks like mysticism it's not real philosophy — Metaphysician Undercover

I do get that. Mysticism is usually shorthand for 'not being able to really understand anything', and that is often true. But in the case of Plotinus, we're considering one of the definitive sources of the mystical tradition, so he belongs to a different category.

This is where the 'perspectival' nature of Eirugena's argument is significant: things that exist on one level, do not exist on another. — Wayfarer

That is the inescapable problem of "unity". Consider the existence of an object. We are inclined to say that the object is composed of parts. With our analytical minds, we want to treat the parts as if they are themselves objects. But the parts do not have independent existence as individual objects, unless the original object is dismantled, annihilated. This requires that the original object ceases to exist as an object in order for its parts to be objects. Therefore it is logically impossible that an object, and its parts coexist, at the same time, as objects.

And I think that is because, for a long period, up until recently, the idea of there being 'different perspectives' was rejected. Nominalism and scientific realism tends towards the view that something either exists, or it doesn't; there isn't a scale along which things can exist 'in a different manner'. But the idea of a 'dialectical' understanding has been revived through process philosophy, Peirce's semiotics, and the like. — Wayfarer

Hmm. But I am then concerned to make the further distinction that is only now coming through in the past century of science and physics.

So it is not just that there are different points of view on the same thing - that figure/ground shift you describe where the mountain, or whatever, is first seen as an existent object, then appreciated as a contextual feature (a wave in the earth's crust generated by plate tectonics), and then finally seen as the wholeness of these two opposing views.

The even larger story is that any possible view is going to see the same general thing simply by virtue of it being "a view". So this is the fractal or scale-free story. Anything viewed on any scale will resolve into a view where at the same scale as the observer, there are a bunch of individuated entities. And then in one direction, those entities shrink in size until they effectively become a continuous blur. And in the other direction, the entification gets so large that it completely fills our entire view and becomes again a constant backdrop as we can no longer see the edges of the thing.

So there is a flip-flopping dichotomy where we can - in Gestalt fashion - switch views to see the individuated in terms of an object that exists and a context that is doing the individuating. And then there is the hierarchical development of that duality so that it is an asymmetry expressed over all possible scales of being. That dichotomy of the individuated vs the contextual is being spread over all scales, from the smallest to the largest, in such a way that it is always present for an observer.

But while it can be clearly seen at scales sufficiently close to the observer, at scales much smaller or larger than the observer, it again changes apparent character. The dichotomy fuzzes into a steady blur as it becomes something very small to us, and then expands to fill our entire view to create a generality or constancy as it becomes something very large to us.

So yes, it is pretty complicated. :)

The dialectical is the step that leads towards the hierarchical. The dialectical is the fact of a symmetry-breaking - the emergence of a figure~ground distinction or individuation. The hierarchical is then that symmetry-breaking becoming fully expressed over all possible scales of being. It accounts for the limits that then emerge to "ground" that being for an observer.

Eventually, things become either too small or too large to be part of the "world of process". Just purely due to the distances involved, they become a constancy of sub-microscopic fluctuations or the constancy of macroscopic changes too large to be encompassed by our experience. The macroscopic - as in the laws of nature as they impinge on us - may as well be fixed, God-given and eternal.

It is this shift - from same-scale dialectics to scale-free hierarchical organisation - which is the key for a pan-semiotic understanding of nature, I would say.

It is this shift - from same-scale dialectics to scale-free hierarchical organisation - which is the key for a pan-semiotic understanding of nature, I would say. — apokrisis

You seek to do the logically impossible, to apprehend the object, and its parts, coexisting as objects, at the same time.

As opposed to you simple minded generalizations on your post? Totally disingenuous. Flagrant biases masquerading as some neutral umpire just doing his job. What a crock of nonsense.

You seek to do the logically impossible... — Metaphysician Undercover

So why is it logically impossible?

You might want to argue that based on some particular metaphysical premise. But then you know that I have my own view about the lack of holistic coherence in your usual metaphysical approach.

If you reject holism, you reject holism. But can you give a good reason for rejecting holism yet?

I, in reply, agree with reductionism - but only as far as is sensible. And a Peircean approach says that holism can only be reduced to a triadic or hierarchical relation. Dualism is too simple. Monadism is even worse.

So why is it logically impossible? — apokrisis

I'll repost my prior post

That is the inescapable problem of "unity". Consider the existence of an object. We are inclined to say that the object is composed of parts. With our analytical minds, we want to treat the parts as if they are themselves objects. But the parts do not have independent existence as individual objects, unless the original object is dismantled, annihilated. This requires that the original object ceases to exist as an object in order for its parts to be objects. Therefore it is logically impossible that an object, and its parts coexist, at the same time, as objects. — Metaphysician Undercover

But you adhere to process metaphysics, so you do not even recognize that any objects have real existence. Boundaries are vague to you. There is no such thing as unity in your metaphysics. Your claims to holism are the hollow claims of pragmatism, which renders the object completely subjective.

But you adhere to process metaphysics, so you do not even recognize that any objects have real existence. — Metaphysician Undercover

Can you explain why you think objects cannot be recognized by process metaphysics?

What is the difference between being metaphysically defined and just being defined? — Harry Hindu

"Real" and "Existent" have various different dictionary meanings, and they're widely used in non-metaphysical usages.

"Is that dollar-bill real?"

"My essay is only about existent authors, and not fictitious ones."

I see real, existent, and is, as synonyms. — Harry Hindu

I used to say that too.

Exist:

But now I agree with others who say that "exist" only applies to objects of metaphysics--discussable, describable things. In fact, it's been argued here that "existent" only refers to timebound things that come into and out of existence. ...maybe only physical things, in fact.

Real:

There seems to be some consensus that "Real" is much broader in applicability than "Existent". For example, abstract objects are often called "Real", but not "Existent".

I use the word "Reality" to mean "All" (as the all-inclusive noun). That's my only use of "Real" or "Reality"

(...with the exception noted below.)

Is:

I use "is" all-inclusively too. So, in my usage, "what is" means the same thing as "All".

...and "All that Is" is just a (maybe clearer) way of saying the same thing.

-----------------------------

I often use "is" as described above. That's what I mean when I use "is" at the end of a clause, without a predicate-nominative, speaking of one thing, rather than equating two things.

I avoid using "Real" or "Exist", "Exists" or "Existent".

I might sometimes speak of "physical reality" or "metaphysical reality" (uncapitalized) to refer to the set of things and relations described in those subjects.

But I avoid any debates about what's "real" or "existent" in metaphysics.

Nor do I debate (at least not anymore) the limits of discusability or describability.

Michael Ossipoff

I can see you just want your usual argument, and to get it started you must misrepresent what I say, and so force me to spend the next 100 posts trying to correct you. I suppose we could do that. :)

But you adhere to process metaphysics, — Metaphysician Undercover

Yep.

so you do not even recognize that any objects have real existence — Metaphysician Undercover

It's more complex. Simple physical "objects" like rivers, stars and mountains are highly contextual. As individuated objects, they do depend on a context that individuates them. But complex objects, like a cat or a chair, can be organismic. A cat is formed by the genetic information it contains and so reflects the constraints or a particular evolutionary history. A chair is formed by cultural information - shaped by a human purpose, and furthermore is designed to be resistant to natural erosive or entropic forces. A chair is as context-independent as we humans can make it. We choose materials we know are going to last.

Thus a wave on the ocean exists in a highly contextual sense. A chair is at the other end of the spectrum in being the least wedded to a natural context. People who want to endorse an object oriented ontology will naturally think of chairs rather than waves when wanting to argue their case for the existence of objects.

Boundaries are vague to you. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well I said the opposite really. Boundaries are the definite limits that emerge to regulate vagueness or indeterminacy.

There is no such thing as unity in your metaphysics. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, that is the opposite of what I always say. The unity may have an irreducible triadic structure. But then that triadic structure is thus a single unity by definition. It is the relation the three aspects have which allows us to speak of their holism as being a thing.

Your claims to holism are the hollow claims of pragmatism, which renders the object completely subjective. — Metaphysician Undercover

My pragmatism would instead say that the holism of a sign relation approach - ie: a triadic semiotic - is about the whole of that relation. So it shows how our notion of "an object" would arise as the best way to mediate between the subjective and objective aspects of being - if here you are meaning to talk of the duality of mind and world.

The characters in a novel stand apart from one another, so under your definition they exist. — Janus

It goes without saying that the events of Gone With the Wind really happened in that story, and that the characters really had certain experiences in that story.

But imagine that you're Rett Butler. Your experience would necessarily be much more detailed than his is related in the novel or the movie. So then it's obvious that neither the novel nor the movie is a complete possibility-world or experience-possibility-story.

So the novel and screenplay are just very incomplete and sketchy stories, nothing like a possibility-world or a life-experience possibility-story.

If they were incomparably more detailed, and self-consistent, (like some hypothetical computer-simulation of our universe) then they could only be said to be mimicing or duplicating a genuine possibility-world or life-experience possibility-story, but not "creating" it. But of course there's never been such a movie, nor could there be, without some very futuristic computers and programming (the kind hypothesized by the "simulated-univere hypothesis (...which I've debunked)) Of course even if there were such a "movie" or simulation, no one would have time to watch all of it..

(And of course there's no requirement for a novel or movie to be self-consistent. For example, consider the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, a movie about a city's district called " 'Toon Town".)

...though there no doubt are many possibility-stories whose events and persons are very similar to those of a novel and screenplay such as Gone With the Wind. But that's irrelevant to the matter of the status of the novel and screenplay.

Michael Ossipoff

"You must whip it.....
........Whip it good......"

OK, let's get going on those ten posts then.

As individuated objects, they do depend on a context that individuates them. But complex objects, like a cat or a chair, can be organismic. — apokrisis

How would a context act to individuate an object?

But then that triadic structure is thus a single unity by definition. — apokrisis

So an object, as a unity, is defined into existence?

My pragmatism would instead say that the holism of a sign relation approach - ie: a triadic semiotic - is about the whole of that relation. So it shows how our notion of "an object" would arise as the best way to mediate between the subjective and objective aspects of being - if here you are meaning to talk of the duality of mind and world. — apokrisis

I'm not talking about "our notion of 'an object'", I'm talking about the very existence of an object. Does your metaphysics allow that an object, as an individual unity, has any real existence?