Our mathematical thinking certain is a handy tool, but that doesn't imply that it's something other than thinking. — Terrapin Station
no matter how exotic things are, they nevertheless have properties that make them what they are. — darthbarracuda
It's not physicalism if it posits there there are things in the world that aren't physical (whatever a particular species of physicalism considers "physical" to denote, exactly). — Terrapin Station
So you've been thinking that "physicalism" simply amounts to people who believe that some, but not all, of "what there is" is physical? Contra people who think that nothing is physical, maybe? — Terrapin Station
whatever exists "on the stage" so to speak — darthbarracuda
"Physical" itself — darthbarracuda
I'm not really familiar with that phrase, so I don't have an intuitive grasp for what it includes versus excludes. — Terrapin Station
What are you referring to there--the word? The concept (or meaning as you suggest in the next sentence)? Are you positing a necessary, real universal? — Terrapin Station
Concrete particular objects, the subjects of predicate statements. If we predicate the mind as physicalists, then the mind is a physical object. There are no concrete subjects that are not-physical. — darthbarracuda
Yes, I am positing the necessary existence of a property, physicality, for the doctrine of physicalism. — darthbarracuda
If everything is physical, then it needs to be explained what makes everything physical. — darthbarracuda
In your view, what's the difference for nonphysicalists, then? — Terrapin Station
I'm a physicalists who doesn't at all deny that there are properties. It's just that properties are physical particulars. Re this: "It's not physicalism if it posits there there are things in the world that aren't physical (whatever a particular species of physicalism considers 'physical' to denote, exactly)," to which you responded, "If that is what physicalism entails then I doubt anyone would actually want to call themselves a physicalist," I call myself a physicalist in the sense that you're saying no one would want to call themselves. — Terrapin Station
On my account, it simply refers to the fact that what there is is exhausted by matter, relations of matter and processes of matter. — Terrapin Station
Matter can only be part of the explanation, there has to be a Form as well. Neither can exist without the other. — darthbarracuda
Sorry, I meant matter in the broad modern sense that includes energy and space-time. The point is that the physicalist denies the reality of non-material forms. — aletheist
I am not a physicalist, so I can only continue to speculate. My guess is that mass-energy is not considered a (universal) property in the same way that existence is not considered a predicate. — aletheist
We can measure how much mass or energy things have. — darthbarracuda
But then we're back at square one, still. If they are nothing but concepts, then when does it end? What concept is actually referring to something that exists? — darthbarracuda
Then we simply have to ask, well, what is mass, what is energy? — darthbarracuda
... universals do not explain, but must themselves be explained. — StreetlightX
Are the physical constants examples of universals or particulars? — m-theory
So not existence, but function ought to be the wheel upon which the debate turns. — StreetlightX
. But a physicalist maintains that matter is the entire explanation, and that there are no (non-material) forms; — aletheist
Physicalism proper says that the things that are described in those terms are the only real things, matter-energy ( or matter-energy-space-time) being the only reality. That is why physicalism is called 'monistic'. — Wayfarer
In these cases, universality does not explain why the soap bubble or the snowflake looks like it does: rather one must explain the universality of both in terms of the (singular) processes which give rise to them. — StreetlightX
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