Yes, the problem of many and casual overdetermination are the two physics-based ones.

And you don't see these as word games?

No, I see them as problems with our conception of ordinary objects which philosophical inquiry and science reveals.

Consider the notion of material solidity of ordinary objects before atomic theory was accepted. Take a standard materialist arguing against an atomist. It's clear our everyday notion of solidity did not include particles and space.

Maybe we should talk about concepts then.

What sort of thing is a concept?

What sort of thing is a concept? — Banno

I don't know a good definition. It's a way our cognition organizes our experiences into understandable units, I guess. So the world is full of objects and events that we can recognize and do useful things with, such as survive.

So maybe a definition is the wrong way to go.

Let's look at... democracy. How does the concept of democracy differ from democracy?

Or... how does the concept of 2 differ from 2?

Let's look at... democracy. How does the concept of democracy differ from democracy? — Banno

One is a word that has meaning and the second is the actual political organization that some countries use in a mixed manner which the word is about.

Or... how does the concept of 2 differ from 2? — Banno

That is a tricky question. Two things or mathematical two?

One is a word that has meaning and the second is the social organization that some countries use in a mixed manner. — Marchesk

OK, now to get bit pedantic. You've given me the difference between "democracy" - the word, note the quote marks - and democracy - the thing.

But is there also a third thing, the concept of democracy, that is different to both the word "Democracy and to democracy?

Is there a third thing, the concept of 2, which is not the same as 2, nor as "2"?

OK, now to get bit pedantic. You've given me the difference between "democracy" - the word, note the quote marks - and democracy - the thing. — Banno

Being pedantic here, I understand "word" to be the symbolic form we use in some language to denote the meaning which is also the concept, and in order for there to be concepts, which although social in nature, depends on having brains that can cognate (form concepts).

SO is a concept something in the brain - or should I say mind - that is different to the word and the thing?

SO is a concept something in the brain - or should I say mind - that is different to the word and the thing? — Banno

This is difficult question, because we might want to locate concepts in culture. Being pedantic, I wanted to differentiate between the sounds we say or print and the meaning they denote. But our ability to understand and generate concepts is definitely in the brain (or mind).

I think we can cut through all that.

the meaning they denote. — Marchesk

See the incidental treatment of concept as a noun? But we can't quite identify what it is the name of... We talk of the meaning of the word and the concept; but neither is very clear.

What if instead of talking about concepts, we talk instead about how words are used? Let's leave aside this third category, not name, not thing, but concept; let's talk instead about words and what we do with them.

Okay, so there is how we use words like chairs and tables.

some of them are problems within the concept itself under an ordinary understanding of parts and wholes without referencing physics. — Marchesk

So when we have a problem with the "concept itself", let's just drop back for a bit and look at how we are using the words.

↪Banno Okay, so there is how we use words like chairs and tables. — Marchesk

And there are words like molecules and quanta.

Unfortunately I have a bad habit of editing after I post instead of taking the time to reread and edit beforehand. So you quoted something I replaced, but that works.

I do the same.

And there are words like molecules and quanta. — Banno

Yes, and these have a more technical use than chairs and tables.

Sure.

But there is no incompatibility here. We can talk about the chair in terms of moving it around the table, and then in terms of it's chemistry. We are still talking about the chair.

The concept 'existence' applied to 'chairs', or 'molecules' or 'gods' implies nothing other than the functional utility of those concepts which varies according to context and user. — fresco

Going back to this particular sentence. Many religious believers do not understand God or gods existing as fulfilling some functional utility, anymore than they think that about other people existing. I speak as a former believer.

Some more nuanced or philosophically inclined religious believers might phrase things along those utility lines where God is inside us or some principle of the universe, taking into account the lack of empirical supports for gods. But your average believer, to the extent they believe, probably think in terms of God as existing like a person.

But there is no incompatibility here. We can talk about the chair in terms of moving it around the table, and then in terms of it's chemistry. We are still talking about the chair. — Banno

We can, but then some pedantic person might point out that the chemistry entails the possibility that we're moving about more than one chair, since the molecules making it up don't have clear boundaries.

I don't see that as a problem. There might indeed be another chair with the same chemistry.

But I think you want to say something deeper...

But I think you want to say something deeper... — Banno

We're moving about a single chair, and some annoying shit wants to point out that since the chair is made up of molecules, and those molecules don't have a determinate boundary, that we can't say exactly which molecules make up the chair. So there are 1 million chairs for each different collection of molecules that could make up the chair.

But that's a problem since we're only moving one chair. The deeper issue is that our use of "chair" includes a determinate boundary where we can clearly say it's a single chair. But the physics makes the boundary indeterminate. So we have a conflict with how we use chair and it's physical constitution.

Not being able to list the molecules that make the chair up doesn't stop us from moving the chair around.

Why should it then stop us from talking about the chair?

Perhaps the error here is to think that we cannot talk about things that do not have a 'determinate' boundary...

We can and do.

It's perhaps only metaphysicians that get confused into thinking we can't.

If you like; the point being that context is all. It's a real paining as opposed to an illusion, but it's not a real McCubbin. The frame is real wood, not plastic. — Banno

It's only in the context of the 'real/ illusion' distinction that the term 'real' has any bite. Regarding the distinctions between being a McCubbin or not, and being wood or plastic, the term 'real' is redundant. So, the painting is either a McCubbin or not and the frame is wood or plastic.

In those latter contexts we could say that a painting that appears to be a McCubbin creates the illusion that it is so, and that a plastic frame that appears to be wood creates the illusion that it is wood; but then there is no such distinction between different contexts as you claimed.

It's perhaps only metaphysicians that get confused into thinking we can't. — Banno

The issue here isn't whether we language is practical. The issue comes up when you take your first physics class and learn that the world is a lot stranger than everyday experience would suggest. But this goes all they way back to noticing the appearance/reality distinction that got people asking metaphysical questions.

So I think this sort of dissolving is missing the point. I want to know what the world is like, not whether ordinary concepts are useful. Of course they are and we can continue to talk about and move chairs regardless of the physics.

And that would be true if we lived inside the Matrix. But it would completely miss the point when we're asking what sort of world we live in.

I want to know what the world is like, — Marchesk

The world is like chairs and desks and particles and space. What is it that remains a puzzle?

The world is like chairs and desks and particles and space. What is it that remains a puzzle? — Banno

The world is also like the sun moving through the sky on a flat, stationary land at the center of the cosmos. What remains a puzzle?

The puzzle is the difference between how the world appears to us and how it is.

That things disappear over the horizon bottom first. That the shadow of the Earth on the moon is always a circle. The procession of the planets. A few other things.

Notice that these are physical issues, not metaphysical..