What would you say is an example of science positing matter that has no properties or form?

I am no scientist but I am aware of the fact that several scientific paradoxes exist. Science has no actual equation for gravity, not what it does but how it works in itself. The whole concept of mass seems at least a little shady to me.

I am suspicious of any form of knowledge that can only be understood by a select few and science is one of those. The more we discover the fewer can actually fully understand it, we are then left with new high priests to translate, interpret, simplify and feed to us of lower than very high I.Q's.

Thanks. I was just wondering if you had any specific examples in mind.

Solipsism is the risk that Descartes also ran, but Berkeley is firm on their being other minds. — Jamesk

Which would just be another assumption made by someone (Berkeley's word is not the final word) who is being skeptical of others' assumptions. What's new? One unfalsifiable claim is just as good as any other. Where's the evidence, not just of other minds, but of spiritual stuff vs. physical stuff, God, etc.?

Sometimes I wonder if it's not kind of a consequence of people who "think too much" in this regard: maybe there are some people who never are simply aware of a tree, say, but instead they always think about it--they think about what it is (including the name "tree"), they think about how they parse the color, the shape, etc. And so on. They never basically have an "empty mind" where they just experience things. If that were the case, then it would make more sense how maybe everything would seem like an idea to those folks, because they can't experience anything without having ideas about it. — Terrapin Station

Idealists typically resort to using God as the ultimate source of ideas, so I always thought that it was a consequence of some hope of immortality (death is "physical", or just an "idea"), but I can see how your explanation could be useful too.

If you experience things without having any ideas about them, AND you don't buy the realist picture of there being things in the world that are independent of you, with you being a human body situated in that realist world etc., then it wouldn't make any sense to think of the phenomenally appearing tree that it's an idea, something mental, etc. rather than "just being a tree" (not with the term attached (or any terms), etc.--but I have to type it somehow) — Terrapin Station

That would be direct realism - that the tree that is experienced is the one and only tree, it's not a representation of an external tree. Solipsism is a form of direct realism.

But that would be how it is for idealism, too. Idealism is no different than direct realism in that idealists believe that they experience things as they actually are - as ideas. This contributes to my point that there is no difference between idealism and realism that is coherent.

I thought I was making that distinction clear. I think your apparent obfuscation was pretense. — Metaphysician Undercover

Okay, so the only difference between "physical" vs. "non-physical" is difference in location - "physical" being outside the mind and "non-physical" being inside the mind?

We've been through this, one is memory, the other anticipation. I remember how my mother was, and I anticipate how she will be. Where's the problem? If you have difficulty distinguishing between your memories of something, and your anticipations concerning that thing, then I think you have some serious issues as a human being. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't see how that answers my question.

How do you recognize things, MU?

Yes, there is a constant. But the constant is distinct from the memories, and distinct from the anticipations. It appears to have been created within my mind as a means of relating the memories to the anticipations. I don't really understand the constant, do you? To me, it doesn't seem to be a form at all, it's material. That's how I understand matter, under the Aristotelian conception, it's the constant, the thing which does not change. It's not a form though, it's matter. — Metaphysician Undercover

What is "matter"?

Are you open to the concept that there is change that happens so quickly or so slowly that we don't notice it?

Well, I don't think we really agreed. You seem to think that there can be no mind without information. I think that the mind creates information, and can therefore be prior to information, creating its own information. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then you're a solipsist.

Idealism is no different than direct realism in that idealists believe that they experience things as they actually are - as ideas. — Harry Hindu

"Experience things as they are" yes, but the difference between realism and idealism is (a) in what each believes the tree is, exactly, and (b) what each believes is the relationship between themselves and the tree.

"Experience things as they are" yes, but the difference between realism and idealism is (a) in what each believes the tree is, exactly, and (b) what each believes is the relationship between themselves and the tree. — Terrapin Station

(a) I thought we established that the tree is a tree. Why would it be something else?

(b) We need the answer to (a) first.

(a) I thought we established that the tree is a tree — Harry Hindu

No--I wasn't "establishing anyting." I was talking about different ways of experiencing the world and/or parsing that experience.

It's fine to say that both direct realists and idealists think that they're experiencing the tree as it is. That's a similarity between the two.

But there are differences, too. One difference is that idealists think that what they're experiencing is an idea. Realists think that what they're experiencing as it is is an external-to-themselves, physical thing.

No--I wasn't "establishing anyting." I was talking about different ways of experiencing the world and/or parsing that experience.

It's fine to say that both direct realists and idealists think that they're experiencing the tree as it is. That's a similarity between the two.

But there are differences, too. One difference is that idealists think that what they're experiencing is an idea. Realists think that what they're experiencing as it is is an external-to-themselves, physical thing. — Terrapin Station

Hmmm. It sounds like we need to come up with a coherent definition of "experiencing" to make any sense of what you said.

Which would just be another assumption made by someone (Berkeley's word is not the final word) who is being skeptical of others' assumptions. What's new? One unfalsifiable claim is just as good as any other. Where's the evidence, not just of other minds, but of spiritual stuff vs. physical stuff, God, etc.? — Harry Hindu

No evidence really just inference from induction which is the same with science. Starting from the first person inquiry can only be justified by saying there really is no better place to start. If there is one thing we can know it is our own minds and thoughts. Not infallible knowledge of of how they work but at least of their existence.

No evidence really just inference from induction which is the same with science. Starting from the first person inquiry can only be justified by saying there really is no better place to start. If there is one thing we can know it is our own minds and thoughts. Not infallible knowledge of of how they work but at least of their existence. — Jamesk

Yes! Philosophy is a science.

The rest is spoken just a like a true realist.

So you're not sure what we're talking about when we talk about experiencing something? That would be interesting, but I'm just curious if it's what you're really saying.

So you're not sure what we're talking about when we talk about experiencing something? That would be interesting, but I'm just curious if it's what you're really saying. — Terrapin Station

For the idealist and the realist, "experiencing" must mean completely different things. How would they define it?

Does that mean that you have any idea what "experience" refers to or not? A simple definition would be something like "Awareness of facts or events."

Yes! Philosophy is a science. — Harry Hindu

Physics is the only science.

Okay, what is "awareness"? I'm not trying to be an ass. I'm simply trying to get at the difference between the two. You've made this claim about the difference being in how they interpret their experiences. I'm trying to get at the substance of that difference and so far there isn't one that you've shown.

Who was it that said something like, "The wise man questions the simple things, while the fool takes them for granted." I think is was some old Chinese philosopher - and no I'm not getting it from a fortune cookie :grin:

I'm simply trying to get at the difference between the two. — Harry Hindu

I don't understand why you can't understand that ideas and external-to-me physical stuff are not identical.

Could you explain how, in your view, ideas and external-to-me physical stuff are identical?

I don't understand why you can't understand that ideas and external-to-me physical stuff are not identical. — Terrapin Station

Our ideas are impressions of external-to-me physical stuff. Forget about identical, ideas cannot even be similar that stuff, ideas can only be similar to other ideas, that is one of Berkeley's points.

...a general difference to what? — Harry Hindu

To the emergent macroproperties.

Apparently Harry Hindu can see no difference between the two, though. Hopefully when he gets back to the board we can try to figure this out.

Could you explain how, in your view, ideas and external-to-me physical stuff are identical? — Terrapin Station

I never said they were identical. I said the differences between physical and non-physical are incoherent. It's up to the person making the claim that the physical and nonphysical exist to explain what they are and what their differences are.

So far the only difference you seem to imply is location - external vs. internal. Is that the only difference?

So far the only difference you seem to imply is location - external vs. internal. Is that the only difference? — Harry Hindu

First, if you think that ideas and external-to-me physical stuff aren't identical, there's a difference for you between idealism versus realism.

I don't personally posit that at least some things are nonphysical, but idealists do. So that's part of the difference, to them, between idealism and realism. An idealist isn't going to say that the difference has anything to do with location, most likely, at least not via anything like the realist picture, because of course they don't buy the realist picture of things.

Again, I'm not saying that they are identical or different. I'm saying that the notion of physical and non-physical is incoherent, so you can't even say that they are different or similar.

If there is more to the physical vs. Non-physical dichotomy than a difference in location, then what is it? If this distinction is so easy to understand then why hasn't anyone been able to explain it?

Well, personally I think that the idea of nonphysicals is incoherent, so I can't explain that end.

How is it any less coherent than the idea of matter? What is matter? Atoms? Quarks? Higgs-Bosun's? Dark matter? Is light a particle or a wave? What the hell is Quantum theory all about? Hawkins last theory points to a multiverse, is any of that any more coherent than God?

Re matter, it's simply saying that a tree, for example, is the relatively hard-to-us stuff it seems to be, with a location, extension, mass, etc. Maybe all of that is incoherent to you, and we'd have to try to figure out why, but also I think it would be difficult to be capable of interacting with the world at all while that's incoherent to you--that is if you don't understand location, shape, or if you'd not understand object manipulation so that you'd be familiar with things like weight, density, pliability, etc.

I'm not saying you'd have to agree with it, by the way, but it would be weird if the notion of it doesn't make any sense at all to you.

Re nonphysical stuff, well, supposedly it doesn't have a location, it's not some sort of material or substance phenomenally, it doesn't have a shape or extension, etc.--all I can say about it is what it's not, unfortunately, because no one ever tries to pin down any properties nonphysicals have to make any sense of them. In fact, people sometimgs say that the whole idea that nonphysical would have properties is misconceived. But I just can't make any sense out of the idea that there would be something somehow with no properties.

Well, personally I think that the idea of nonphysicals is incoherent, so I can't explain that end. — Terrapin Station

Which is why you gave up when I asked you to define "awareness" as a idealist would define it. The problem is that "awareness" has no meaning in an idealist "universe" - the same for "experience".

Remember that I also pointed out that idealists are really just direct realists.

How is it any less coherent than the idea of matter? What is matter? Atoms? Quarks? Higgs-Bosun's? Dark matter? Is light a particle or a wave? What the hell is Quantum theory all about? Hawkins last theory points to a multiverse, is any of that any more coherent than God? — Jamesk

Exactly. What is "matter"? What are "ideas"? How do they differ if not just by location (Ideas are in a mind. Matter is everywhere else)?