What you mean by “organizing principles” is what I meant by “structure” and “pattern” — khaled
Some people suppose that things that aren't physical exist, — Pfhorrest
That's the form-substance distinction again, which as stated already is not something anybody is denying: — Pfhorrest
What are we seeing, when we say that 'this equals that' or 'this means that'? We take for granted this ability, but really it is at the foundation of rationality, it is an awesome power. — Wayfarer
I would agree, with the caveat that these structures and patterns are not material. — Wayfarer
But they're not physical - they exist as bounds, limits, principles, and regularities. — Wayfarer
But they are structures of material stuff. Always. So in the end the number of "kinds of stuff" that exist is still 1. — khaled
You agreed that the word (binomial) 'New York's is a name. There are seven such words on that page so it follows that there are seven names on that page also — Isaac
"New York" is a place name composed of two words: the word "New" and the word "York". — Olivier5
there are 7 instances of the name "New York" on the page. Not 7 different names. — Olivier5
What you interpret as 'what exists', is always that which can be made an object - which is why you think of it as 'stuff'. — Wayfarer
I note that you have not even tried to express the map-territory relation in monist language. — Olivier5
I also note you sport yourself as a panpsychic, which I take as being the dualist view where tables have thoughts — Olivier5
Material stuff which could not exist without those forms. — Wayfarer
So they’re prior to matter — Wayfarer
and they’re not physical in nature. — Wayfarer
They don’t have to exist - things do the hard work of existing - but things depend on them for existence. — Wayfarer
Alrighty, tell me what you think then. Are you saying that the city of New York has many different names? — Olivier5
But "experience" in this sense is not thought, belief, or even feeling, perception, or sensation. It's whatever the supposed difference between a real human being and a fully functional replica of a human being who is "not actually conscious" (a philosophical zombie) is supposed to be. — Pfhorrest
We commonly say that 'New York' has one name, but it is a façon de parler, what we really have is multidudinous instances all of which are similar enough for our purposes. — Isaac
if we thought that New York has many different names that all share enough similarity, then our life would be far more complicated. — Olivier5
We would have to define the boundaries of that similitude. — Olivier5
we CAN recognised the same name New York written in seven different fonts on that pic I posted. So we would need another explanation of our recognizing New York than the common sense one — Olivier5
Where would the boundaries of the "New York" similitude lie? What would it take for a scribble on a page to NOT be recognised as meaning "New York"? — Olivier5
the common sense one (=it's the same mental concepts or "ideal mental forms", e.g. letters / words / name but simply written in different fonts, — Olivier5
Why? We don't have to define the boundaries of similitude to understand "stand roughly here", — Isaac
Labelling your own preferred position as 'the common sense one' is a cheap trick. We're talking about ontology here, there's no common sense account at all. — Isaac
Are you suggesting that there exist no ambiguous cases? That there's no scribble I could make where some might read it as saying 'New York' and others might not? — Isaac
if we care to be understood we need to express ourselves clearly, and this means abiding to certain theoretical or practiced rules. — Olivier5
There's a full blown typographic theory out there that underpins all modern written communications. — Olivier5
It is not practical, it doesn't tell you how to write New York so that the reader understands New York. We cannot use it to think and express ourselves simply and clearly about typography and writing. — Olivier5
You've not answered the challenge that similitude gives sufficient clarity to be understood. — Isaac
Many fonts can be read as 'N' because they're all similar in ways close enough for the purpose. — Isaac
Thanks for the cheerleading, Proof. Much appreciated. — Olivier5
That is a rather strange definition of "experience", as equal to the difference between a real entity and a fictional one. — Olivier5
How does that definition apply to panpsychic tables? — Olivier5
You have not said what similitude means. — Olivier5
W is similar to M but they are not the same letter. — Olivier5
What is 'N' standing for in this sentence, if not the idea of the one and only letter 'N'? — Olivier5
I don't know what "prior" means here. — khaled
Again, we call sound waves physical even though sound waves are a pattern of air and patterns don't have mass. — khaled
I would call that physicalism. — khaled
The only point of talking about kinds of stuff is to discuss whether or not (stuff or things or objects or whatever of) one form can be trans-formed into (whatever of) a different form, e.g. can a bunch of quarks and electrons etc get transformed somehow over billions of years into a thinking experiencing human being, or not? If changing the form can't get you from one kind of whatever to another kind of whatever, then it's implied that there's something besides form "underlying", or "sub-standing" if you will, the difference between the whatevers; some sort of different kinds of sub-stance. — Pfhorrest
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