The notion that all ideas have always existed as actual possibilities is illogical. — Pop

Ideas can only exist relative to a consciousness. — Pop

A consciousness has to create the ideas, otherwise what is the substrate that they exist on? — Pop

actually should be 'Harry Potterhood' — Janus

Perhaps the observer finds an instance of a square and then creates an idea of it. — RussellA

If I didn't know the idea of squareness, when looking at shapes in the world, I could discover a particular shape having four equal straight sides and four right angles and have the idea that in the world there are shapes having four equal straight sides and four right angles, which for convenience I could name squareness. — RussellA

Ideas are external to the shape, as there is no information within the shape that can establish the shape has a single identity. — RussellA

As the idea of squareness has come after the discovery of the shape, it cannot be the idea that was discovered. — RussellA

However, I could have an idea and invent a definition to express my idea - for example - I could define X as a square with red inside - as long as I told someone else my definition of X - they would find the same Xness in the world as I do — RussellA

They currently exist only as possibilities. Possibilities are not ideas, as you agree. — Luke

How does the "understander" know whether a string is meaningless or meaningful? — Luke

Given that not all ideas have yet been "discovered" (right?) — Luke

Given that not all ideas have yet been "discovered" (right?), then wouldn't the "understander" require perfect knowledge or omniscience to be able to distinguish the meaningful from the meaningless? — Luke

A symbol-string that seems meaningless to us now might be meaningful to someone 1000 years from now. Given your definition of an understander as "the person or group of people who reads/read every finite-length string put out by the string-outputter", how is it (humanly) possible that any understander will rightly distinguish the meaningful from the meaningless? Also, it is self-evident that the meanings of words and symbols change over time. — Luke

You mean to tell me that your algorithm produces only representations of ideas, rather than the ideas themselves? — Luke

How can we be sure that we have ever interpreted the symbol-strings correctly? [...] — Luke

[...] But maybe that's the point. Given every possible combination of symbols, you can read whatever meaning you want into it. — Luke

The set of natural numbers is infinite, and I assume that a particular symbol can appear in a sequence more than once. [...] — Luke

[...] Doesn't that imply there will be at least some symbol-sequences of infinite length, requiring an infinite time to output? — Luke

Also, why assume that all ideas can be expressed as finite symbol-sequences? — Luke

The events can be judged to be neither simultaneous nor non-simultaneous in all (<c) reference frames? — Luke

Not sure what you mean by "in this universe", though. — Janus

And even if there were how would you establish that any such entity was identical to the fictional Harry Potter? My answer would be that you could not establish this, because by definition any substantive entity could not be identical to a fictional one. — Janus

any substantive entity could not be identical to a fictional one. — Janus

We have to wait? I thought all ideas already existed? — Luke

It seems that your algorithm will also produce (mostly) junk strings of symbols that aren't ideas. Is there some method to distinguish the ideas from the junk? — Luke

Why do you expect the number of years to be finite? — Luke

Possibilities are not ideas. — Luke

Being the first one to think of an idea does make it a new idea. — Luke

Unless you believe that ideas do not require someone to have/think them? — Luke

Similarly, it seems to require someone to interpret a string of symbols in order to understand the idea it may contain. — Luke

The direction of the implication is irrelevant to my point. It is all based on the same assumption. — Luke

I don't know who that is, [...] — Luke

but you could say that he invented the idea (not the possibility; the idea). — Luke

From which reference frame can the events be judged such that "neither event is first, but the events also don't happen at the same time"? — Luke

Then the "someone" before Alice would have invented the idea — Luke

we might just say that they both came up with the same idea independently. That is, we could go back to your own example of Leibniz and Newton. — Luke

In the preceding discussion on the previous page. — Luke

I had in mind a definition of abstract such as this: "existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence." — Luke

As far as I know, only physical, temporal, living beings have thoughts and/or ideas. — Luke

ideas are abstract concepts, not physical objects. — Luke

Does Harry Potter exist? — Janus

If so, does he exist in the same way you do? — Janus

After observing several instantiations, the observer could invent the idea of squareness, but the observer could never discover the idea of squareness within the instantiations themselves - because there is no discoverable information within the instantiations themselves that links in any special way one particular form within one instantiation to another particular form within a different instantiation. — RussellA

How does your algorithm give us the Mona Lisa? Or a toaster? — Luke

Obviously if you assume that ideas have some type of pre-existence then their discovery must be possible. I challenge the assumption. — Luke

even if they are qualitatively identical — Pfhorrest

What if they both came up with it at the same time? Anyway, it is your position that neither of them can come up with the idea without it pre-existing, so why is it absurd/impossible for the first person in this scenario to come up with the idea without it pre-existing? — Luke

and I have offered arguments for why it is not. — Luke

I take it then that we can thus start with a list of any size, even just one item long, and continually generate new numbers that aren’t on it to add to it. — Pfhorrest

I think you’re [Luke] still interpreting me in an unnecessarily Platonic fashion. — Pfhorrest

I’m saying that it makes no sense to talk of making or creating ideas (not merely instantiating them), so their existence status doesn’t change when someone thinks of them. They don’t come into existence or go out of existence, we can’t do things to make or destroy or change what kinds or ideas there are to be had. We can just have them, start having them, stop having them, but they themes[elves] don’t change, only what we do changes. — Pfhorrest

I’m not saying that, unless some idea already exists “out there” somehow — Pfhorrest

But what they are is nothing more than the possibilities of us doing (thinking) things, so it’s also not so clear that we’re “discovered” them like we discover concrete things. We’re just also not “creating” them like we create concrete things either. — Pfhorrest

But when we're talking about concrete objects, if I make a chair, and you make an identical chair, we've still made two chairs, not one chair. — Pfhorrest

If in coming up with an idea, I make that idea, I create it, invent it, bring it into being... and elsewhere independent of me you come up with an identical idea, in the same way that I already did unbeknownst to you... then you and I have made two different, but identical, ideas, like the two different but identical chairs. — Pfhorrest

you [Luke] say that coming up with an idea is like building a chair: a clear act of creation. — Pfhorrest

You appear to be a platonist, [...] — Janus

[...] in that you seem to be asserting the substantive existence of possibilities. — Janus

[..] is a mere tautology [...] — Janus

and neither of these, as I see it, have any substantive existence. — Janus

It is logically possible, although perhaps not physically possible, that rainbow coloured, translucent leprechauns exist; but that doesn't entail that they really exist in any sense. Also, it may not be physically possible for them to exist. If something is logically possible, yet not physically possible would you still want to say it enjoys substantive existence of any kind? — Janus

• ”Is-there”-statements, such as “The number 9 is there” or “The number 9 exists”. This truly asserts the existence, the being-there of a thing, namely the number 9. In German, these are “ɂist-da”-statements, as in “Die Zahl 9 ɂist da” and “Die Zahl 9 ɂexistiert”.
• “There-is”-statements, such as “There is an odd number”. These are logically equivalent to infinite disjunctions. For example, “There is an odd number” is logically equivalent to the disjunction “1 is odd or 2 is odd or 3 is odd or ...” of all propositions of the shape “n has oddness”. In German, these are “ɂes-gibt”-statements, as in “Ɂes gibt ɂeine ɂungerade Zahl” and “Ɂes ɂexistiert ɂeine ɂungerade Zahl”. The thing which plays the key role in a “there-is”-statement is a property; in our case, the very property of being odd – oddness itself.

Each irrational number is an "idea", so this process cannot exist. — jgill

With abstract things, ideas, that's not so clear. Because abstract things are just possibilities to begin with, and being the first one to do something that was always possible doesn't make it possible; but it's also not like the possibilities are lying around out there in space somewhere apart from the instances of people doing them. So neither invention nor discovery in the sense that we use them of concrete things really makes complete sense applied to abstract things, but something that's kind of like both of them at the same time does. — Pfhorrest

Tristan L claims that it has been demonstrated "at length" to be false that anybody needs to come up with ideas, yet his supposed proof of this involves two people coming up with the same idea. — Luke

It seems to me that he’s not arguing against invention-only, but rather he is arguing for discovery-only. — Luke

I wouldn’t say that that means ideas are discovered-only though, because the act of finding the content of an idea is also an act of creating an instance of it, which is why I don’t think the two can really be distinguished. — Pfhorrest

• the argument with possibilities (though there are differences in the particulars, such as Pfhorrest making the additional assumption that all abstract things are possibilities, whereas I see only an essential link between abtract things in general and corresponding possibilities), which I first wrote down more than two years ago (in which I argue not just about ideas, but about things broadly), and
  
• the idea that ideas are discovered, but instances thereof invented, which is a central pillar of my theory of intellectual property (but see my next comment; Pfhorrest may not hold that same position after all).
  

The conflation of possibilities and ideas continues... — Luke

What about fictional concepts/characters? Surely they are invented and not discovered? — Luke

They each came up with the same idea independently. Isn’t that what you’ve told us? What other ground do you need? — Luke

I asked what algorithm exists. Such an algorithm does not exist. — Luke

{
* Copyright (c) 2020 Tristan L. All rights reserved.
* }

program AllEndlyStrings (input, output);

  const
  FIRSTASCII = 32;
  LASTASCII = 126;

  type
  tRefChainlink = ^tChainlink;
  tChainlink = record
                 c : integer;
                 next : tRefChainlink
               end;
  
  var
  charstr : tRefChainlink;
  HowManyTextsNext : longint;
  z : tRefChainlink;
  seekfurther : boolean;
  textnumber : int64;
  
  procedure writecharstr ( incharstr : tRefChainlink );
  
    var
    t : tRefChainlink;
    seekfurther : boolean;
  
  begin
    t := incharstr^.next;
    while t <> nil do
    begin
      write ( chr(t^.c) );
      t := t^.next
    end
  end;

begin
  writeln ( 'Copyright (c) 2020 Tristan L. All rights reserved.' );
  writeln();
  new ( charstr );
  charstr^.c := -1;
  charstr^.next := nil;
  HowManyTextsNext := 1;
  textnumber := 0;
  while 0 = 0 do
  begin
    while HowManyTextsNext > 0 do
    begin
      HowManyTextsNext := HowManyTextsNext - 1;
      z := charstr;
      if z^.next = nil then
        seekfurther := false
      else
        if z^.next^.c < LASTASCII then
          seekfurther := false
        else
          seekfurther := true;
      while seekfurther do
      begin
        z^.next^.c := FIRSTASCII;
        z := z^.next;
	    if z^.next = nil then
          seekfurther := false
        else
          if z^.next^.c < LASTASCII then
            seekfurther := false
          else
            seekfurther := true
	  end;
	  if z^.next <> nil then
	    z^.next^.c := z^.next^.c + 1
	  else
	  begin
	    new ( z^.next );
	    z^.next^.c := FIRSTASCII;
	    z^.next^.next := nil
	  end;
	  writeln ( 'Please read and understand the following text #', textnumber, ' if it is meaningful:' );
      writecharstr ( charstr );
      writeln();
      writeln();
      textnumber := textnumber + 1
    end;
    write ( 'How many texts do you want to read next?' );
    readln ( HowManyTextsNext );
    writeln();
  end
 end. { AllEndlyStrings }

• On what ground can we say that Alice and Bob have independently come up with the same idea?
  
• How can ideas be created when my algorithm deterministically spits them out?
  
• You seemed to imply that one could not algorithmically find the Mona Lisa or the toaster as one can find natural numbers, but Pfhorrest and I have shown you otherwise. What do you say to that?

When I write a poem, am I inventing or discovering it? I would say inventing because that is different than, say, calling to mind a poem I have previously memorized, which would be an act of discovery of or finding something already there, however complete or incomplete it might be. — Janus

This presupposes that all ideas already exist in their entirety prior to being discovered. — creativesoul

Another proof uses possibilities, which Pfhorrest already mentioned. It runs thus: For every idea EID that anyone can come up with, the possibility that someone can come up with EID must have always existed. But since this possibility is essentially tied to EID itseld, EID must also always have existed. — Tristan L

I must have missed it. — Luke

Can you quote where this was "shown at length"? — Luke

It would be possible in principle to set out on a deterministic process of mechanically identifying every possible idea — Pfhorrest

Surely every possibility is already possible, right? There is some (infinite) set of things that are possible, and by discovering that something is possible, we don't thereby become the cause of its possibility; it was already a possibility, we just found it among that infinite set of possibilities. — Pfhorrest

What similar algorithm exists in order for us to "discover" the supposedly pre-existing ideas of the Mona Lisa or the toaster? — Luke

Trivially, one could mechanically iterate through every possible series of brush strokes on the canvas (more clearly illustrated if we think of a digital image and iterate through every possible series of pixels) and eventually get the Mona Lisa. Likewise one could iterate through every possible arrangement of atoms and eventually get a toaster. Or instead one could randomly throw together brush strokes or atoms until eventually one got the thing in question — like the infinite monkeys with typewriters producing the complete works of Shakespeare. — Pfhorrest

Indeed, all ideas already exist, only waiting for minds to discover them. Here’s a proof: It’s certainly possible for two individuals, say, Alice and Bob, to come up with the same idea EID independently of each other (this happened e.g. with Newton and Leibniz independently discovering calculus). But what gives us the right to say that they have both come up with the same idea? Well, if Alice and Bob had independently invented EID, then Alice’s EID would be different from Bob’s EID, and there would be no basis whatsoever on which we could rightly say that Alice and Bob came up with the same idea EID. Therefore, Alice and Bob must have independently discovered one and the same idea EID, which is an abstract entity which always was and always will be and whose existence is independent of Alice and Bob.

It is only on ground of both Pfhorrest and I having independently discovered the idea that ideas are abstract and cannot be made and how to show this, that it is meaningful and true that we both came up with the same idea. Like that, we can use the theory that ideas are eternal and uncreated to prove that very same theory :wink:. — Tristan L

Another proof uses possibilities, which Pfhorrest already mentioned. It runs thus: For every idea EID that anyone can come up with, the possibility that someone can come up with EID must have always existed. But since this possibility is essentially tied to EID itseld, EID must also always have existed. I used a very similar argument with the same idea some years ago on another forum to show that coming into existence and going out of existence are illusions. — Tristan L

It would be possible in principle to set out on a deterministic process of mechanically identifying every possible idea — Pfhorrest

For example like this: Write a program that systematically outputs all possible finite-length strings of letters: a, b, c, ..., z, aa, ab, ..., az, ba, bb, bc, ..., bz, ..., ..., aaa, aab, aac, ... . For every idea EID expressible in finitely many symbols (including relativity theory, quantum mechanics, Plato’s Theory of Shapes, his unwritten Theory of Principles, the plot, theme and ideas of Hamlet, to name just a few), this program will output a description of EID after a finite amount of time. Does that mean that the mind is unneeded for finding new ideas? Certainly not, for the program doesn’t understand the meaning of the symbol-strings which it outputs. What you still need is a person (or group of people) who reads every string output by the program. The system made up of program and person (or group of people) will find every finitely describable idea after a finite time in a fully deterministic, uncreative way, independently of all other folks who might come up with the same ideas in the more traditional (and efficient) way. This shows that all the ideas must be abstract and uncreated, and it is the nail in the coffin of any claim that ideas are invented rather than discovered. It also shows that while the mind is totally needed and indispensible when finding new ideas, its creative faculty is not needed in the least; rather, what is needed is the mind’s ability to understand, to “see” ideas, and to map symbol-strings to ideas. — Tristan L

We have already given concrete examples of such algorithms. The Mona Lisa is made up of finitely many atoms; hence, my algorithm will spit out a complete description of the Mona Lisa after a finite time. The same goes for the toaster – the algorithm will spit out a complete and accurate description of the toaster after a finite time. This description is then read by the reading person in a finite time, whose mind is thus directed to “look at” the abstract idea of the toaster. No invention needed whatsoever. — Tristan L

It would be possible in principle to set out on a deterministic process of mechanically identifying every possible idea — Pfhorrest

I don't accept that; someone needs to come up with those ideas. — Luke

What similar algorithm exists in order for us to "discover" the supposedly pre-existing ideas of the Mona Lisa or the toaster? — Luke

As I understand it, PB states that there are only two (bivalence) truth values viz. true and false — TheMadFool

the LEM states that (p v ~p) [...] — TheMadFool

[...] which simply means that given a proposition, either the proposition itself is true or its negation is true. — TheMadFool

Also, as I understand it, the surreals are the biggest possible ordered set — Pfhorrest

in other words, when we say something is the same as something else, we do not necessarily also mean that the thing "affirms" something else. — PuerAzaelis

Since this is so it is not necessarily true to say that affirmation "negates" negation. it doesn't affirm or negate anything, it is just not the same as it. — PuerAzaelis

one [world] that follows the rules of logic as it's been for thousands of years — TheMadFool

one [world] that is your own — TheMadFool

Your argument isn't circular and also circular in the world that you've created which is both something that fascinates me and also confuses me. — TheMadFool

This situation, I realize, has no resolution since the two systems you and I are operating in are mutually incompatible — TheMadFool

“Let me think,” said Charlie and thought for a while. Then he said, “I think that everything boils down to the problem of the definition of negation. It seems that such a definition is not possible; I’m afraid that if someone doesn’t have intuitive, not-verbal knowledge of what negation is, including that it’s not the same as affirmation, then you can’t tell them what it is. Alice, since your brother is so clever as to claim not to have such intuitive knowledge, it’s likely best for you to just let him go.” — Tristan L

This claim by his apologists is of course belated and half-hearted — bongo fury

they [Bob's apologists] wanted to insinuate a continuity between sense and nonsense. — bongo fury

[sophism and monism] Arguably the same thing. — bongo fury

Point words indiscriminately and they point at everything (and nothing). — bongo fury

No, in applying the rule he needs to compromise, and suggest coherent reference to utterances, otherwise he can't introduce contradictions in any hope of impressing as a sophist, i.e. as feigning inference and not mere nonsense. — bongo fury

I disagree. Rights (like reference) are inferred from practice. — bongo fury

trying to define negation — Tristan L

1) As a word's (or other symbol's) happening not [Tristan’s italics] to point at an object

2) As some corresponding negative's (or antonym's) [Tristan’s italics] happening to point at the object — bongo fury

I think you [Alice] are unwise to suggest you are having a meaningful agreement or disagreement with Bob about anything. You may as well just treat him as a non-speaker of the language, who fails to observe basic distinctions of meaning. — bongo fury