It's not a matter of 'locating' them. That depiction is only because of the inability to conceive of anything not located in time and space. The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences and the abilities that it provides to discover facts which otherwise could never be known, indicate that numbers are more than just 'products of thought'. They provide a kind of leverage (that also being something discovered by a mathematician, namely, Archimedes). Which lead to many amazing inventions such as computers, and the like, which all would have been inconceivable a generation or two ago (as previously discussed.) — Wayfarer
This is where I think the problem lies. They will say "I have direct knowledge of this, as do other Christians" (or whatever sect). You and I would largely reject this, but we also do not know their phenomenal experiences. Maybe they have... (this is unserious, but hopefully illustrates). — AmadeusD
There are, on many reliable accounts, billions who do not find rape, murder, child abuse etc.. objectionable, when posited by a religious doctrine (or, rather, required by it). I suggest this is probably more prevalent than most in the West want to accept (and here we also need take into account the types within the West who perhaps feel these ways. We have enough abusers around for whom the Law is not a deterrent it seems). — AmadeusD
If this is just a claim to an average, I think it's empirically true. I do not think your next claim follows. Among the 'smartest' people, you're likely to get more disagreement as each can bring more nuance and see different things in the same sets of data (or, different relations). I don't think this has much to do with feeling, though I am not suggesting we can avoid feelings when deciding on theories, for instance. — AmadeusD
Huh. I've had several give me what I think is a satisfactory answer. Something like:
"real" in relation to Universals obtains in their examples. The same as "red" which is obviously real, "three" can exist in the same way: In three things. Red exists in red things. I don't see a problem? — AmadeusD
We can agree, and do, agree on what's real in most contexts of ordinary usage. When it comes to metaphysics it's a different matter.
— Janus
This is important. "Real" is perfectly clear and useful in most contexts, because we know how to use it. — J
If you want to say that the effectiveness of mathematics in science tells us anything about more than just how the world appears to us, then you are supporting the idea of a mind-independent reality. — Janus
But if you don't believe that difference, diversity, structure are mind-independently real or that time and space are mind-independently real―are you then
going to say that number is? — Janus
Empirical objects do have the appearance of being mind-independent — they confront us in space and time as separate objects — but that appearance is conditioned by (dependent on) the structures of perception and cognition. — Wayfarer
They are never given except as appearances to a subject. That is the main point of the mind-created world argument, as it pertains to 'the world' as the sum of sense-able particulars. — Wayfarer
Mathematical truths are of a different order: they are independent of any individual mind in the sense that they’re the same for all who can reason — but they are only accessible to mind, not to the sensory perception (hence the subject of dianoia in Platonist terms, so of a 'higher' order than sensory perception.) — Wayfarer
As for time and space, they’re not mind-independent containers but, as Kant said, “forms of intuition” — the necessary preconditions of any experience. They are objectively real for the subject, in the sense that all appearances to us must be ordered in temporal sequence and spatial perspective. But that’s not the same as saying they exist as things-in-themselves apart from all possible subjects.
You still seem to think I believe that the world is 'all in the mind', but I'm not arguing that. — Wayfarer
I think most people are against rape, murder, child abuse etc — Janus
all others to be of their kind―humankind unbounded by religious bigotry and cultural antipathies — Janus
I don't deny that there are sociopaths, those lacking in normal human empathy, who don't have a problem with violent crimes. — Janus
which cannot be empirically determined — Janus
Yes,...but are symbols of numbers) — Janus
If we cannot coherently conceive of something being real without it existing somewhere at some time or everywhere at all times then that tells against your position. — Janus
I have to say, I'm not so sure. Billions in communities outside the West see, for instance. Honour killings as a requirement, morally. All but the victim will agree. Just an example, but its these things I'm speaking out (while trying not to target religious thinking). This may ultimately not be all that important, though. — AmadeusD
But even within communities who see each other as 'kin', horrifically violent actions take place with support of the law, and one's family, all the time. — AmadeusD
Unfortunately, I think a quote from Sam Harris bears repeating: There are good, and there are bad people. Good people do good things. Bad people do bad things. But to get a good person to do bad things, you need religion. Ah fuck, now I'm just bashing religion. Perhaps I shouldn't be so reticent. It is poison. — AmadeusD
We see it among that which can be, though. I'm unsure its particularly reasonable to presume everyone accepts "empirical evidence" as actual evidence. Those of us who understand what you're saying will do, but plenty (perhaps most) do not. They are skeptical of 'evidence' unless it agrees with their feelings. You and I would want to jettison this, and assess it against the claim, rather htan our feelings. I suggest this is far more common, and far more obvious than you are allowing here. — AmadeusD
Nothing to quibble with here. I guess I just don't understand why the response I get isn't satisfactory. I don't know that anyone claims numbers exist outside examples of number. Or that colours exist outside examples of color (though, perhaps Banno would). — AmadeusD
Do you recognize that this may indicate that you are in some way mentally handicapped? — Metaphysician Undercover
We'll continue to use "colour" as we long have, regardless of peculiar and idiosyncratic stipulations of those on Philosophy forums.The thing is, you started this walk by yourself, and forgot about other people. That's the trouble with idealists - they are all of them closet solipsists." — Banno
Ok, you're right that "honour lkillings" are an exception. — Janus
as though it must have been their fault and they are now forever defiled. — Janus
motivated by dogmatic religious views which effectively dehumanize them. — Janus
they understand that their faith is for themselves and should never be inflicted on others — Janus
But if you allow that different wavelengths of light reflected from things are colours then they would be thought to exist independently of percipients. — Janus
I think they are used in both ways, but the answer to "What is red" is never a frequency. Largely because that's an unsupportable answer... — AmadeusD
Some hold these views — AmadeusD
Notice that we - you and I - do not share a perceptual system? We have one each.These rely on our reports of what they do to our perceptual system though. — AmadeusD
Sure, but they are wrong. — Banno
I have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about "real" at the moment. So I hope you won't mind if I suggest that statement needs to be modified. I agree that there is no established way of categorising Heaven as real or not. But there is pretty much universal acceptance about how to categorise some other things as real. Unicorns, for example, forged paintings, dramatic performances. There is no single way of categorizing things as real or not. It depends on what kind of thing you are talking about. The same applies to questions of existence (which is what the issue of Heaven comes to). Numbers don't exist in the same way that tables and chairs do.I rejected that this is a good way to determine real, but that it is clearly showing us that there is no universal acceptance of how to categorise things as real or unreal. — AmadeusD
Real" is perfectly clear and useful in most contexts, because we know how to use it.
— J
Real is authentic, not fake, the real deal. Reality is distinguished from delusion, illusion or duplicity. — Wayfarer
to agree on the meaning of 'real' would be to agree on what is real. — Janus
But would you import it (designation of 'real') into a consideration of numbers, for instance? It seems like a bad fit. My contention is that, the more we enter metaphysics and epistemology, the less useful "real" is. — J
]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. ... 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 ["north of"] 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 [real].
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. — Bertrand Russell, The World of Uhiversals
And the question is, in what direction does the justification go? Do we discover a knowledge or nous of a certain sort of thing, and say, "This is real", based on what "real" means? Or do we have a term, "real", which we then attempt to match with certain sorts of things in order to discover what it does or could mean? — J
And BTW, I think (most) universals are every bit as mind-independent as you do. But there we are: "mind-independent" is a property or characteristic we can get our teeth into. Adding ". . . and real" seems unnecessary. — J
The schema you're laying out makes sense, and can clearly be useful in dividing up the conceptual territory, but would you want to argue that it's the correct use of "real" in metaphysics? — J
No, because I know my command of the English language is such that I would be able to understand any coherent explanation. It doesn't follow though that I would necessarily agree with it. Are you one of those who think that you are so right that if anyone disagrees with what you write, they must therefore not understand it? — Janus
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