Thus if a certain type of info is imaginable without any physical properties, then physical properties are not essential to this type of info. And this is precisely what we do when we imagine universal forms such as triangle-ness, whiteness, justice, etc. — Samuel Lacrampe
As such, the properties of place and time are sufficient to determine if two physical objects observed are the same. — Samuel Lacrampe
And... it is also possible for universal concepts, because they have a limited quantity of essential primary properties (they may have an infinite quantity of essential secondary properties, but these are not critical in defining the concept, as previously explained). — Samuel Lacrampe
agree that we can learn some concepts in school, but it does not follow that concepts are subjective. We are taught some math concepts, and yet it is clear that these concepts are objective. Besides, what about the fact that people born blind cannot apprehend the concept of redness, despite having gone to school? Remember that the essential property of redness is not "this light frequency range", which is merely its cause (and good luck explaining light), but purely this. — Samuel Lacrampe
What is your definition of ideal? Mine is "perfection; as good as a thing can possibly be". Note that I don't mean Perfection in everything (this could only be God); only in the thing discussed. Under that definition, it is definitely possible to reach ideals. The ideal answer to 2+2 is 4, because it is as good as it can possibly be. And a 100% score on an exam is the ideal score, because there is nothing to add to reach a better score. I don't understand your example of "40% score on an exam"; what is this ideal of? Not score, because it is possible to obtain a better score. — Samuel Lacrampe
How can one imagine triangle-ness without any physical properties? Isn't that exactly what triangle-ness is, a physical property? — Metaphysician Undercover
The ideal answer to 2+2 is 4, because it is as good as it can possibly be. — Samuel Lacrampe
I think that if you explain to a blind person, the concept of red, then that person can understand that concept without having to see an example of red, just like a blind person can understand the concept of triangle without having to see an example of a triangle. — Metaphysician Undercover
You can represent it physically, but it's an ideal object in the sense of being a geometric primitive. And surely the triangle I am just now imagining, is not physical, on account of it's a mental image. — Wayfarer
How possibly could a blind person understand 'the concept of colour', when colour is a purely visual experience? (On second thoughts, don’t try to explain that.) Surely the blind can understand 'the concept of a triangle' because aside from imagining it, they can handle it, feel it, pick it up - shape is tactile. But a colour is a different matter altogether, being solely visual. — Wayfarer
You can represent it physically, but it's an ideal object in the sense of being a geometric primitive. And surely the triangle I am just now imagining, is not physical, on account of it's a mental image. — Wayfarer
That's a particular triangle you are imagining, not "triangle-ness" — Metaphysician Undercover
Now we are faced with the task of figuring out how the non-physical soul may apprehend the non-physical noumena directly, without the use of the physical medium, information. — Metaphysician Undercover
A blind person can understand the concept of colour through definition, description, — Metaphysician Undercover
The procedure I prefer then, is not to deny the existence of the non-physical altogether, — Metaphysician Undercover
The triangle is certainly not material, but it can be argued that the representation of it in your mind is physical. — tom
Because we are embodied beings, then a mental image has physical correlates. But in this case, the physical correlates are analogous to the role of 'representation' in the OP, in which 'meaning' and 'representation' are shown to be separable. — Wayfarer
You won't find an image in a brain scan, or by examining someone else's brain. Well, not an image of a triangle — Wayfarer
You seem to be claiming that representation can be physical, but meaning can't, as if representation is somehow easy and meaning isn't. — tom
Once you understand the form - plane figure bounded by three intersecting straight lines - then you don’t need to imagine it. — Wayfarer
It just defies common sense that the blind understand colours, any more than the permanently deaf will fathom music. — Wayfarer
Although it would be pointless to argue that, because it’s plainly false. — Wayfarer
That's like what I'm claiming - representation is one thing, and meaning another; it's a form of dualism. And the interpretation done by computers is only meaningful because they are in turn interpreted by humans; data has no intrinsic meaning to computers. — Wayfarer
Representation - the physical encoding of an idea.
Meaning - the physical encoding of how to interpret the representation.
Quale - the subjective sensation of the act of giving meaning. — tom
unless of course you posit some sort of spirit realm, which seems a very boring idea. — tom
If the Quale (or the Meaning) is not physical, then how do we Represent them? — tom
Part of Wayfarer's argument, I think, is that information isn't the sort of thing you can bump into or detect with your senses. — Andrew M
Meaning - the physical encoding of how to interpret the representation. — tom
And this is non-physical. — Metaphysician Undercover
This does not mean that the form of every material object is derived from a free will decision. It is possible that the form of every object comes about from a freely willed decision, and that's what those who argue that the universe is created by the will of God say. — Metaphysician Undercover
Meaning isn't physical - the interpretive act is internal to thought. It's first person, although not necessarily 'subjective' in the sense we usually intend that word, 'pertaining only to oneself'. There are shared domains of meaning which are, therefore, 'inter-subjective'. But they comprise conventions and agreements between humans, in other words, they're dependent on the imputations which we agree with. — Wayfarer
By the means appropriate to the subject. Science uses scientific and mathematical notation; poets deploy verse; painters use colour and texture; and so on. But always, there's an interpretive act going on; the mind is making something out of what it sees. — Wayfarer
If that is the case, how can the codes TAA, TAG, and TGA mean STOP in DNA encoding and UAA, UAG, UGA mean STOP in RNA encoding? — tom
How can information be detected if not by means of the senses? — Janus
if the proper knowledge of the senses is of accidents, through forms that are individualized, the proper knowledge of intellect is of essences, through forms that are universalized. Intellectual knowledge is analogous to sense knowledge inasmuch as it demands the reception of the form of the thing which is known. But it differs from sense knowledge so far forth as it consists in the apprehension of things, not in their individuality, but in their universality.
There are ideas that are not at all 'detectable by the senses', i.e. in pure mathematics and many other forms of abstract reasoning and logic. — Wayfarer
If you see a sign in a language you can't understand, then you receive the same physical sensations as the person standing next to you, who can - but you don't know the meaning, obviously. — Wayfarer
if the proper knowledge of the senses is of accidents, through forms that are individualized, the proper knowledge of intellect is of essences, through forms that are universalized. Intellectual knowledge is analogous to sense knowledge inasmuch as it demands the reception of the form of the thing which is known. But it differs from sense knowledge so far forth as it consists in the apprehension of things, not in their individuality, but in their universality.
I am working on the idea that language is implicitly a kind of 'universal' in that symbols represent entire classes of things, and not just this or that thing. That maps against Chomsky's ideas of there being a universal grammar, which is a kind of intellectual structure which humans alone possess, which make the acquisition of language possible. — Wayfarer
How do you represent a number to yourself if not by a symbol derived from an auditory or visual representation? — Janus
I'm not clear what you mean to show by this example — Janus
All this really says is that what we know via the senses are particulars and what we know in thought are generalities. — Janus
A particular cannot be known as a particularly without knowing what it is in general, or in other words what kind of thing it is; and a generality cannot be known as a generality without prior knowledge of particulars; so I would say that knowledge of things and kinds of things is utterly codependent, and neither kind of knowledge is prior — Janus
Right from the beginning of this thread it has been acknowledged that the representation is physical. But number is not - it's a rational operation, a mental act. — Wayfarer
It was in response to 'the detection of information'. Certainly the senses play a part, but the interpretation of the information is not sensory, but intellectual. — Wayfarer
It is simple enough to demonstrate that information is not physical (at least certain types). We can use the Test of Imagination, as Chesterton calls it: If a thing x is imaginable without the property y, then y is not essential to x. Thus if a certain type of info is imaginable without any physical properties, then physical properties are not essential to this type of info. And this is precisely what we do when we imagine universal forms such as triangle-ness, whiteness, justice, etc. — Samuel Lacrampe
Nowadays I think naturalists believe, mistakenly, that science explains the order. But science doesn't explain that order - it assumes it. However, the question of the ‘nature of order’ is, by its very definition, 'meta-physical'; the order is physical, but the 'cause of the order' is beyond, or prior to, the forms in which the order shows up. Trace all the sequence of material causes back to the year dot, and it is said to begin at 'the singularity' (as if by magic!) — Wayfarer
How can information be detected if not by means of the senses.? — Janus
It is true that you cannot "bump into" information; it is not a physical object. You cannot bump into gravity, neither is it a physical object; does it follow from that fact that gravity is not physical — Janus
What we detect with our senses are particulars - we see the flags and the person waving them, the log book, and so on, but we don't literally see information. To detect it requires the capability of abstracting over those particulars. — Andrew M
Like information, gravity is a physical abstraction. What we actually feel is the ground beneath us (as it accelerates towards us). — Andrew M
How do you know that? Is it nothing more than a matter of definition? — Janus
But in the world objects engender other objects in various ways, and the forms those engendered objects take seem to be determined by invariances that we call "physical laws". — Janus
Even if the forms of entities were exhaustively determined by God's will as in Leibniz's Monadic metaphysics; why would there need to be a determining immaterial form in between God's act of will and the actual, physical forms of the entities? — Janus
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