Were there not such constants as Planck's constant and so on, then there would be no 'symmetry-breaking' in the first place, would there? — Wayfarer
It's in no way saying anything like that. Be serious if you want to understand this stuff rather than responding like you're in a political forum and you want to polemically exaggerate your opponent with the aim of gaining votes/followers. It's not saying that anything is amorphous, "deserted," etc. — Terrapin Station
ALL that it's denying is that there are universals that exist extramentally as abstract existents that particulars then somehow partake of so that the universals are identically instantiated in at least two different particulars. — Terrapin Station
Creating conceptual abstractions, where we ignore details of difference and instead lump things together as common kinds, allows us to act and react quickly so that we can survive to procreate. Those conceptual abstractions into common kinds are what universals are. — Terrapin Station
If so, then the question of universals is the wrong question. It's not why things are similar, it's why they're different that needs explaining.
Is that convincing? How would a proponent of universals respond? — Marchesk
Constants emerge as the rate limit on self-optimising flows. So they describe the regularities that a process of symmetry breaking creates. They don't cause the action. They are a measure of it. — apokrisis
Re how universals wind up created by our minds, that happens simply because it's necessary for our survival as creatures (with our particular characteristics/requirements) in a world where a lot of stuff can wind up killing us. We need to be able to act and react quickly to(wards) various things we encounter. Creating conceptual abstractions, where we ignore details of difference and instead lump things together as common kinds, allows us to act and react quickly so that we can survive to procreate. Those conceptual abstractions into common kinds are what universals are. — Terrapin Station
Constants emerge as the rate limit on self-optimising flows — apokrisis
The problem shouldn't be on the existence of universals but the nature of universals themselves, i.e. abstract transcendentals vs immanents or something else. — darthbarracuda
Whereas here, reason is simply an adaption - like a peacock's tail, it improves the odds of passing on your little bundle of protoplasm - and if, as a byproduct, you happen to be able to figure out the age of the universe, then so much the better, eh? — Wayfarer
At the same time, however, we aren't perfect reasoners and we aren't objective evaluators of the world. We're filled with biases and fallacious thinking. — darthbarracuda
Given order, then something can emerge - triangles will do as an example - but I don't think you're presenting why order should emerge. Nor would I expect an explanation of that, I don't think it is something that can be explained. Naturalism assumes order, or takes it for granted - once it begins to try and explain that order, then it's dealing with a problem of a different kind. — Wayfarer
I think it's really lazy thinking and that there is a fundamental discontinuity that is reached at the point where humans are capable of abstract reasoning and language. It is at precisely that point, where the biological accounts loose their cogency and start to be missapplied to create an illusion of understanding something that really isn't at all well understood. These ideas - the nature of universals, logic, reason, and the like - aren't a highly refined version of bee-signalling or bird-calling. It is at this point where the 'rational animal' is able to see into a different ontological level than animals per se. — Wayfarer
he whole point of naturalism is to abjure transcendent explanations such that the universe can be explained immanently, on it's own grounds, without appeal to the super-natural. — StreetlightX
But there's no logical reason to draw any such line, except as a theological desideratum motivated more by fear than by facts. — StreetlightX
Although I sort of agree with the sentiment I can't help but point out the irony of you claiming reason is not equivalent to bird-calling, yet also claim that this skewed view of reason is the product of something not-too-dissimilar to bird-calling. >:O — darthbarracuda
Well, I don't think it succeeds in so doing, I think it looks a lot less likely to be able to do that now, than it did at the beginning of the 20th Century. I mean, have a look into all the interminable debates on the 'many worlds interpretation' - there you have version of 'naturalism' that has to invoke infinite parallel dimensions, in order to preserve the purported reality of the objects of observation. — Wayfarer
If the less-than-century year old debate over this disqualifies naturalism as a viable position, then theology ought to be once and for all confined not simply to the trashcan of history but it's landfill. — StreetlightX
Yet talk of rates, limits, self-optimization, flows, regularities, symmetries, all that stuff is still referring to something. — darthbarracuda
What we want to know is that properties themselves are without a regress into vagueness. — darthbarracuda
We already know that stability occurs and habits emerge, but nominalism doesn't deny this. It simply denies that these habits are actually repeatable entities that are multiply instantiated. — darthbarracuda
The problem shouldn't be on the existence of universals but the nature of universals themselves, i.e. abstract transcendentals vs immanents or something else. — darthbarracuda
But there has to be order for anything to emerge whatever. — Wayfarer
Naturalism assumes order, or takes it for granted - once it begins to try and explain that order, then it's dealing with a problem of a different kind. — Wayfarer
Clearly I'm talking about process philosophers like Peirce and Anaximander who cottoned on to the fact that in nature, order can emerge from disorder so long as it serves the global purpose of disordering. — apokrisis
From the various musings on the 'naturalness problem in physics' which is closely related to, or might be simply a perspective on, the 'fine-tuning problem'. That is, the universe has just those attributes that are required for stars, matter and living things to form. Those constants can't themselves be explained - hence the 'naturalness problem'. — Wayfarer
I don't see how you can deny universals, and still have physical principles. The point about a physical principle is that it is universally applicable to all kinds of particulars. That is at the very basis of science itself - you have to be able to make predictions, on the basis of principles, that certain outcomes will or won't be observed. So what are those principles, if not universals? — Wayfarer
I'm not being polemical, Quine was a hardcore nominalist and called his own system an amorphous desert. — darthbarracuda
That is plausible, but what I do not find to be plausible is that, in a world utterly void of universals, the mind pops up with universals — darthbarracuda
And Aristoteleanism is the kind of metaphysical naturalism I'm talking about, not the very recent adoption of the term within particle physics. — apokrisis
For one, you can see [physical principles] simply as a brute fact about how particulars "behave." — Terrapin Station
Peirce understood nominalism in the broad anti-realist sense usually attributed to William of Ockham, as the view that reality consists exclusively of concrete particulars and that universality and generality have to do only with names and their significations. This view relegates properties, abstract entities, kinds, relations, laws of nature, and so on, to a conceptual existence at most. Peirce believed nominalism (including what he referred to as "the daughters of nominalism": sensationalism, phenomenalism, individualism, and materialism) to be seriously flawed and a great threat to the advancement of science and civilization. His alternative was a nuanced realism that distinguished reality from existence and that could admit general and abstract entities as reals without attributing to them direct (efficient) causal powers. Peirce held that these non-existent reals could influence the course of events by means of final causation (conceived somewhat after Aristotle's conception), and that to banish them from ontology, as nominalists require, is virtually to eliminate the ground for scientific prediction as well as to underwrite a skeptical ethos unsupportive of moral agency.
don't think that's much of a challenge though, unless one simply doesn't understand what similarities are, and one wants to pretend to not be able to understand any explanations/"in other words" descriptions (such as "(family) resemblances") etc. of what similarities are. — Terrapin Station
The question is, how much of Aristoteleanism remains without a 'first cause'? If you retain some notion of telos then indeed many of the issues around reductionism are ameliorated, but I can't see how to square that with the idea that life is really just a heat sink (or a way of maximising entropy), or for that matter with a lot of current thinking in evolutionary biology. — Wayfarer
Review of Pierce and the Threat of Nominalism Notre Dame Reviews. — Wayfarer
We expect results from science. When we don't get them, it's probably because we screwed up somewhere and need to re-assess the situation.
We don't necessarily expect results from theology or metaphysics. These two disciplines, in my opinion, are not deserving of the title "discipline" but are nevertheless important (at least the latter is, not sure about theology as I'm leaning towards atheism) as speculative attempts at understanding. — darthbarracuda
They're not 'brute fact' insofar as they are only perceptible to reason. Only by reason could you arrive at the conception of the laws of motion. Sure, they may not be something that can be further explained, but I think the term 'brute fact' does no justice to the idea. — Wayfarer
But in any case, these were not the subject of the medieval debates about universals - that all came later. It was more that the idea of universals was embedded in a particular 'domain of discourse' which provided a connection between reason and the 'four types of causation', via Aristotelean metaphysics. I am extending the idea of 'universals' to encompass a wider range than was understood by the scholastics - to generalise it to cover such things as natural numbers, laws, conventions, and the like. However I believe that is a valid interpretation of the basic idea. — Wayfarer
So what are similarities? — Marchesk
How do we analyze beauty, goodness and truth other than by analyzing the way we think about them. which includes the way we use the words, as you already said? The way we use the words reflects what we think about them, that is how we judge them to be in our lives. Can you think of any other way to analyze them? — John
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