TLDR: 1. An object is an object non-deriviatively whereas a mereological sum is an object only derivatively. Objects are constituted out of mereological sums.
2. The primary difference between mere sums and objectslie is in persistence conditions.
3. The arguments against eliminativism assumes an object and begs the question against eliminativism
4. The difference in persistence conditions only points to a set of particles dispersed and those aggregated objectwise and subjected to the principles of physics like the Pauli Exclusion principle.
5. Because all the work is being done by those physical principles and constraints then it follows there is no difference between mere sums and an object. — Ignoredreddituser
there would still be atoms without people. — Ignoredreddituser
Yeah you’re basically saying there’s things are grounded, whereas he just says they don’t exist only the grounding stuff exists, if that. — Ignoredreddituser
Why does any of this matter? — T Clark
That which we call a ‘table’ is nothing but... — Ignoredreddituser
C'mon TC. This is a philosophy forum, and it's a perfectly valid philosophical question. It's a lot better thought-out than many of the one-liner OP's that are posted. Not seeing the point of an OP is not a constructive criticism. — Wayfarer
At least it gave you a chance to kick me in the pants. — T Clark
Why does any of this matter? — T Clark
C'mon TC. This is a philosophy forum, and it's a perfectly valid philosophical question. — Wayfarer
The Lego example is pretty contentious because you can recover an individual Lego from a block as opposed to say an atom which cannot, in principle, recovered from a molecule. — Ignoredreddituser
The real underlying question is basically if anything we typically think of as existing actually does, including ourselves. — Ignoredreddituser
how to reply to an argument Steven French makes below. — Ignoredreddituser
it wasn't Ignoredreddituser's writing, it was Steven French's. — T Clark
the non-eliminativist must also argue for the ontological existence of relations - not an easy task — RussellA
I know that Glasgow is west of Edinburgh, but does Glasgow know that it is west of Edinburgh !
IE, the non-eliminativist must also argue for the ontological existence of relations - not an easy task. — RussellA
From which if finally follows that relations exist. Putting this conclusion together with our earlier one, we can see that relations have ontological existence. — Cuthbert
Doesn't it require a mind to determine whether something is West of something else? — RogueAI
Still, I am not quite sure why Glasgow should be aware of its geographic position respective to Liverpool. — Olivier5
Yes.Ask any city what it's aware of - if you can work out how to ask things of cities - and you will draw a blank. Perhaps I did need to go on about category mistakes. — Cuthbert
Why does it matter? What is the discussion about? If we want to know about tables, their history and uses, then the discussion will give us nothing new. — Cuthbert
Yeah, so you something like hylomorphism? — Ignoredreddituser
Let's borrow an example from the opposing camp. Glasgow is west of Edinburgh - so we are told. We are further led to believe that 'being west of' is a 'relation'. Now, what would it mean for such a relation to exist? — Cuthbert
Consider such a proposition as 'Edinburgh is north of London'. Here we have a relation between two places, and it seems plain that the relation subsists independently of our knowledge of it. When we come to know that Edinburgh is north of London, we come to know something which has to do only with Edinburgh and London: we do not cause the truth of the proposition by coming to know it, on the contrary we merely apprehend a fact which was there before we knew it. The part of the earth's surface where Edinburgh stands would be north of the part where London stands, even if there were no human being to know about north and south, and even if there were no minds at all in the universe. ...We may therefore now assume it to be true that nothing mental is presupposed in the fact that Edinburgh is north of London. But this fact involves the relation 'north of', which is a universal; and it would be impossible for the whole fact to involve nothing mental if the relation 'north of', which is a constituent part of the fact, did involve anything mental. Hence we must admit that the relation, like the terms it relates, is not dependent upon thought, but belongs to the independent world which thought apprehends but does not create.
This conclusion, however, is met by the difficulty that the relation 'north of' does not seem to exist in the same sense in which Edinburgh and London exist. If we ask 'Where and when does this relation exist?' the answer must be 'Nowhere and nowhen'. There is no place or time where we can find the relation 'north of'. It does not exist in Edinburgh any more than in London, for it relates the two and is neutral as between them. Nor can we say that it exists at any particular time. Now everything that can be apprehended by the senses or by introspection exists at some particular time. Hence the relation 'north of' is radically different from such things. It is neither in space nor in time, neither material nor mental; yet it is something.
It is largely the very peculiar kind of being that belongs to universals which has led many people to suppose that they are really mental. We can think of a universal, and our thinking then exists in a perfectly ordinary sense, like any other mental act. Suppose, for example, that we are thinking of whiteness. Then in one sense it may be said that whiteness is 'in our mind'.... In the strict sense, it is not whiteness that is in our mind, but the act of thinking of whiteness. The connected ambiguity in the word 'idea', which we noted at the same time, also causes confusion here. In one sense of this word, namely the sense in which it denotes the object of an act of thought, whiteness is an 'idea'. Hence, if the ambiguity is not guarded against, we may come to think that whiteness is an 'idea' in the other sense, i.e. an act of thought; and thus we come to think that whiteness is mental.
But in so thinking, we rob it of its essential quality of universality. One man's act of thought is necessarily a different thing from another man's; one man's act of thought at one time is necessarily a different thing from the same man's act of thought at another time. Hence, if whiteness were the thought as opposed to its object, no two different men could think of it, and no one man could think of it twice. That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them. Thus universals are not thoughts, though when known they are the objects of thoughts.
So if you're in a philosophy forum, and someone asks that question, I don't think 'yeah so what?' is much of a response. — Wayfarer
Articulating a metaphysics for the manner in which the structure of the world yields that which we call ‘atoms’, ‘molecules’, etc. is a tricky business, but the core point remains: that which we call a ‘table’ is nothing but a manifestation of that fundamental structure. — Ignoredreddituser
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