Potentials and actuals.

So you're telling a falsehood then? These particles are not of this universe?

More to the point, this move engaging in a special pleading. How it is that our language about the electron and proton means something, but our language about the universe does not? If it were all just a thought experiment that said nothing, our language of proton and electron would not refer. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Do you really not get the thought experiment or are you trying to be an idiot?

What in my explanation do you find unsatisfactory?

Their transition merely requires space.

Can you give an example from science that deomstrates that particles could behave non-detremistically? — Janus

Now who is changing the topic?

You said that the idea is incoherent in your view.

I explained it. The explanation had nothing whatsoever to do with what anyone else believes is the case.

Was the explanation coherent in your view? If not, why not?

Oh, well yeah. Physical change if you’ve already assumed it to be potentials becoming actuals merely requires space, I agree.

There are 'real possibilities'. That a banana can turn brown is a real possibility, that it can turn into a fish is not. So that 'domain of possibilities' is real but doesn't refer to existents. — Wayfarer

Non-actual possibilities are existents in AJJ's view. He was who I was going back and forth with.

Likewise, what would you say to substituting 'real' in case for Nominalism and Conceptualism with 'perceptible'?

They function like a man locked within a room, who holds no experience of events outside.
They function out of imperceptibility.

You could say despite not being able to perceive or establish how possible worlds exist on a nominalist view that they do anyway, sure. But that seems to me to be an assertion of a brute fact, which I don’t think is an adequate way of explaining anything.

When a change occurs, the same defines it. — TheWillowOfDarkness

That to my understanding is the use of positing substantial properties and accidental properties. Something remains the same by virtue of its substantial properties while changes occur in its accidental ones.

Let's consider the three as a Matryoshka.

Nominalism is the smallest container, Conceptualism is the next in line and hence forth.

What would this explanation be lacking?

Is that an explanation? It only seems to me like a representation of expanding possibilities as the dolls grow in size, or of how much each view is willing to posit.

I am saying something else entirely. The words we use in this situation refer to something. They describe something. In making out statement, whether do a thought experiment or not, we are speaking about something. Our language is referring to something specific when we say "universe." We are disingishing the fact of where these electron and proton belong-- they are of this specific universe (as opposed to not).

You misunderstand my point. It's not about properties because sometimes they change. What stays the same is not an accidental or necessary property, but rather an entity which is doing it's properties.

I have changed many times over my life. How have I stayed the same? Well, I remain the same existing entity, which is why my changed properties belong to me rather than something new. The fact I changed depends on the sameness of my existence.

You said particles could interact and there could be several different possible outcomes of any actual interaction. Firstly if you are talking about anything more than merely logically possible outcomes then I have no idea what you mean. Secondly I still have no idea what it could mean for you to say that your purported possibilities are non-actual and yet are concrete facts. So, no I dont think what you have said is coherent, because it doesn't make sense as far as I can tell and also because it is not coherent with scientific theory as I understand it.

You said particles could interact and there could be several different possible outcomes of any actual interaction. Firstly if you are talking about anything more than merely logically possible outcomes then I have no idea what you mean. Secondly I still have no idea what it could mean for you to say that your purported possibilities are non-actual and yet are concrete facts. So, no I dont think what you have said is coherent, because it doesn't make sense as far as I can tell and also because it is not coherent with scientific theory as I understand it. — Janus

Think of it simply as a logical possibility at the moment. So whether it's consistent with what's commonly accepted in the sciences is irrelevant for that.

Do you agree that the following would be a concrete fact? A particle, A that interacts with particle B, so that B can have immediately consequent states, with nothing else involved, of either C or D.

No, I would not say that counts as a 'concrete fact", but merely as a logical possibility; and logical possibilities are abstract. I think that's the problem with physicalism; that it cannot coherently account for abstraction, generality and possibility or logic itself. Nothing you have said so far convinces me otherwise.

It's true that if you're thinking just of logical possibility then science is irrelevant. But if you want to claim that possibilities are "concrete facts", then you would need to give some ontic account of the "concrete factuality" of possibility which is consistent with science and coherent on its terms, because otherwise you would be claiming that something obtains despite its not being in accordance with current scientific understanding, an extraordinary claim that it would be incumbent on you to provide evidence for if you want it to be taken seriously or even simply made sense of.

You would also need to explain, as I have said several times now, how something could be a "concrete fact" and yet "non-actual", since that just seems to be a plain contradiction in terms.

No, I would not say that counts as a 'concrete fact", — Janus

:-/ :-\

Do you think that particle A is a concrete fact?

We are talking about possibilities, not particles. Although as a side note it is a common view in quantum physics that electrons are probabilities, not concrete facts.

You have explained nothing so far.

We are talking about possibilities, not particles. — Janus

Do you think it's possible to talk about a particle where we're talking about a concrete fact?

Again, by the way, I'm in no way appealing to any conventional (or unconventional for that matter) view in the sciences. So forget about what the sciences say.

Your questions do not seem to address what I have said, and your answers seem incoherent, so don't worry about replying further, I've lost interest.

lol okay. Great conversation like usual.

I would deem it an explanation of layered acuity, as the possibilities technically remain the same throughout states, but some turn practically inaccessible.

That wouldn’t fit my understanding of each view in this context. Nominalism denies possible worlds exist apart from the world, conceptualism denies they exist independently of contingent minds and realism claims they exist objectively in the abstract. Beyond thinking about them it seems possible worlds that remain only potential are inaccessible on each view.

That would be the explanation, that possibilities are present but inaccessible, hence rejected.

Both frames of possibilities fall prey to objectivity, as they would foremost have to be objective, prior to moulding their limits; hence the matryoshka.

This rejection is not a rejection of the existence of possibilities outside of those frames, but a rejection of such a description - due to lack of experience; hence layered acuity - like with anatomy, cells, atoms, etc.

I offered the Matryoshka, as I think it would be the most apt explanation of change and limitations.

If nominalism and conceptualism want to sit inside realism saying we all believe in the same possibilities but disagree about the nature of them then I still say they owe an explanation of how those possibilities can be called real on their terms, as opposed to some or other description of the present world or something imagined.

Do you find the explanation of 'real' as experience, unsatisfactory?

It is so - we may outline something we've no experience of as real, but we may not name it, as we've no experience of its content.

The two hinge on this inability to name as to wholly disregard possibilities, whereas realism accepts possibilities with disregard to naming.

An allusion can be made to the 'unheard sound'.
If a sound is unheard, does it exist? It does, its existence is a prerequisite to the question - leaving it merely unheard, hence not perceptibly experienced.

It seems to me that the content of a possible world is the potential state of things it amounts to. I don’t see a problem with naming all the potential ways things could have been “possible worlds” or saying they exist in the abstract.

You could likewise call it 'future', as despite existing, it is a yet unexperienced possibility.

Does the myopia of the two seem apparent now?

I think that's the problem with physicalism; that it cannot coherently account for abstraction, generality and possibility or logic itself. — Janus

:cheer:

Have I shown you this before?

Perhaps the myopia is mine since I don’t actually know what point you’re making that I haven’t answered already. Naming and explaining things we have no direct experience of doesn’t seem problematic to me, but insisting something exists without giving a proper account of precisely how does.