It seems to me that whilst the representation is physical, the idea that is being transmitted is not physical, because it is totally separable from the physical form that the transmission takes. One could, after all, encode the same information in any number of languages, engrave it in stone, write it with pencil, etc. In each instance, the physical representation might be totally different, both in terms of linguistics and medium; but the information is the same.
How, then, could the information be physical? — Wayfarer
the sign is that ill-named thing, the only one, that escapes the instituting question of philosophy: ‘What is…?’ — Derrida
The premise is that Heidegger remained a phenomenologist from beginning to end and that
phenomenology is exclusively about meaning and its source. The essay presents Heidegger’s interpretation of the being (Sein) of things as their meaningful presence (Anwesen) and his tracing of such meaningful presence back to its source in the clearing, which is thrown-open or appropriated ex-sistence (das ereignete/geworfene Da-sein).
...
It follows, therefore, that the being of things is their intelligibility, their ἀλήθεια taken broadly. See, for example, Heidegger’s equation of Sein and intelligibility when he speaks of “the inquiry into the intelligibility of things [Sinn des Seienden], that is, the inquiry into being [Sein].”13 Or when he designates Sein as “the intelligibility [Sinn]” of phenomena.14 Or when he speaks of ontology as “the explicit theoretical question about the intelligibility [Sinn] of things.” — Sheehan
Instead, we just see that there are five asterixes. Or, on Gerson's usage, we mentally see the number five that is present in the asterixes. — Andrew M
It is not the existence of ultimate truths that I am questioning. It is about how we go about identifying them and then accepting whatever answer thus emerges. — apokrisis
A materialist would say that the mind is made of the same stuff "out there".
An idealist would say that the world is made of the same stuff "in here".
Then aren't they both saying the same thing? — Harry Hindu
But the issue is, a pre-commitment to scientific methodology narrows the scope of the kinds of answers that will be considered. — Wayfarer
Anything that sounds vaguely ‘theistic’ - well that’s knocked right out of the park, before the conversation even starts. — Wayfarer
The decision has already been made as to what might constitute a scientific analysis, and what doesn’t. Entropy is in, telos is out. — Wayfarer
He had a long-running dispute with the editor of the preeminent German physics journal of his day, who refused to let Boltzmann refer to atoms and molecules as anything other than convenient theoretical constructs. Only a couple of years after Boltzmann's death, Perrin's studies of colloidal suspensions (1908–1909), based on Einstein's theoretical studies of 1905, confirmed the values of Avogadro's number and Boltzmann's constant, and convinced the world that the tiny particles really exist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Boltzmann
To quote Planck, "The logarithmic connection between entropy and probability was first stated by L. Boltzmann in his kinetic theory of gases."
So admittance of Platonic ideas appears to to let ‘a divine foot in the door’, so to speak; it’s the thin end of the wedge, right? — Wayfarer
my interest in philosophy is Platonic in the sense of it being an existential question, — Wayfarer
Religion seeks some kind of absolute authority for its moral and aesthetic codes. — apokrisis
Or is scientific reasoning (as Peirce carefully defines it) just remarkably effective at pruning away unnecessary speculation and unfounded belief? We stick with it because it actually works. — apokrisis
I can see there is also the personal question of how to live one's life - now that the choice is being increasingly forced upon us by modern culture.
But my reply on that is to seek the answers at the social level where life actually has to be lived, not in metaphysics. And religions have tended to be pretty wise about how to actually function socially. — apokrisis
Religion seeks some kind of absolute authority for its moral and aesthetic codes. — apokrisis
In this transaction, a single item of information has been relayed by various means. — Wayfarer
Well and good, but we’re born alone, and we die alone. The ultimate questions have to be faced alone. — Wayfarer
the difference between the world being the expression of timeless ideas, and it being the quickest possible route to maximum disorder, — Wayfarer
No, it doesn't depend on it. Concrete particulars are instances, or instantions, of the principles. They depend on the principle, but the principle doesn't depend on them. — Wayfarer
Were some other planet to form, and life to evolve on it, then they would eventually discover the law of the excluded middle. — Wayfarer
How can you feel at home in the world if you think you have wound up in the wrong place, stuck in the mechanical realm of physical being when you believe true being is somewhere else? — apokrisis
Plato was clearly concerned not only with the state of his soul, but also with his relation to the universe at the deepest level. Plato’s metaphysics was not intended to produce merely a detached understanding of reality. His motivation in philosophy was in part to achieve a kind of understanding that would connect him (and therefore every human being) to the whole of reality – intelligibly and if possible satisfyingly. He even seems to have suffered from a version of the more characteristically Judaeo-Christian conviction that we are all miserable sinners, and to have hoped for some form of redemption from philosophy. ...
The Platonic sense of the world is that its intelligibility and the development of beings to whom it is intelligible are nonaccidental; so our awareness and its expansion as part of the history of life and of our species are part of the natural evolution of the cosmos. — Thomas Nagel
I am thinking of two other options — mcdoodle
Per Aristotle, the abstract principle depends on the concrete particulars. — Andrew M
I agree that each thing (a) to (d) do not have all the same properties, because they all look physically different, but they still all have the same property of pointing to the concept of "five-ness". This should clarify why only V is the correct answer to the question "what is the Roman numeral for five?", while all of them are correct answers to the question "What results from 2+3?".
By what principle of identity do you claim that these are the same concept? — Metaphysician UndercoverI will indeed use a principle of identity: If things have the exact same properties, then they are one and the same thing; and if not, then not. Two sticks may look identical, but are not one and the same because they have different x, y, z properties. What about the concept of 'triangle'? To me, its essential properties are 'surface' + 'three straight sides'; nothing else. What about for you? If your concept has the exact same essential properties as my concept, then they are one and the same. — Samuel Lacrampe
You didn't 'refute' it, you're obfuscating the meaning of 'the same'! As I said, endless obfuscation. No further comment. — Wayfarer
his view was that forms could only be known through the form of concrete particulars, or that the universals could only be known in the form in which they took — Wayfarer
...actuality is prior to potentiality in respect of generation and time.
But it is also prior in substantiality; (a) because things which are posterior in generation are prior in form and substantiality; e.g., adult is prior to child, and man to semen, because the one already possesses the form, but the other does not;and (b) because everything which is generated moves towards a principle, i.e. its end . For the object of a thing is its principle; and generation has as its object the end . And the actuality is the end, and it is for the sake of this that the potentiality is acquired; for animals do not see in order that they may have sight, but have sight in order that they may see.Similarly men possess the art of building in order that they may build, and the power of speculation that they may speculate; they do not speculate in order that they may have the power of speculation—except those who are learning by practice; and they do not really speculate, but only in a limited sense, or about a subject about which they have no desire to speculate.
Further, matter exists potentially, because it may attain to the form; but when it exists actually, it is then in the form. The same applies in all other cases, including those where the end is motion — Metaphysics of Aristotle 1050a
Well and good, but we’re born alone, and we die alone. The ultimate questions have to be faced alone. So there is nothing the matter with what you’re saying, but it’s not sufficient, either. — Wayfarer
Obviously 'prior' is not about time in this quote. — mcdoodle
...actuality is prior to potentiality in respect of generation and time. — Metaphysics of Aristotle 1050a
Here's a relevant bit of the Metaphysics, which perhaps helps — mcdoodle
In particular, “real” should not be restricted to “actual” objects or events in spacetime. Reality ought also be assigned to certain possibilities, or “potential” realities, that have not yet become “actual.” These potential realities do not exist in spacetime, but nevertheless are “ontological” — that is, real components of existence.
“This new ontological picture requires that we expand our concept of ‘what is real’ to include an extraspatiotemporal domain of quantum possibility,” write Ruth Kastner, Stuart Kauffman and Michael Epperson.
Considering potential things to be real is not exactly a new idea, as it was a central aspect of the philosophy of Aristotle, 24 centuries ago. An acorn has the potential to become a tree; a tree has the potential to become a wooden table. Even applying this idea to quantum physics isn’t new. Werner Heisenberg, the quantum pioneer famous for his uncertainty principle, considered his quantum math to describe potential outcomes of measurements of which one would become the actual result. The quantum concept of a “probability wave,” describing the likelihood of different possible outcomes of a measurement, was a quantitative version of Aristotle’s potential, Heisenberg wrote in his well-known 1958 book Physics and Philosophy. “It introduced something standing in the middle between the idea of an event and the actual event, a strange kind of physical reality just in the middle between possibility and reality.”
You ignored my post, perhaps because it doesn't fit your frame of embattled theism (David) and towering, trendy materialism-scientism( Goliath). — t0m
I agree that it's indeed not easy to sell information as physical. I think that this information you ask about is synonymous with meaning. So we might ask whether meaning is physical.
I don't think it can be. I don't think we can define "meaning." — t0m
f these "ultimate questions have to be faced alone," then this "not sufficient, either" must be a personal matter. IMO, you tend to frame it as a social matter. You often gripe about the plague of individualism. — t0m
my reply on that is to seek the answers at the social level where life actually has to be lived, not in metaphysics. And religions have tended to be pretty wise about how to actually function socially. — apokrisis
You say that religion isn't science, and yet you seem to resent religion's lack of "respectability" for the scientific method. It's as if you want to have your cake and eat it, too --that you're not happy with the "subjectivity" of religion. — t0m
If religion is not a set of propositions about public reality, then what has it to do with science at all? — t0m
But it is not sufficient simply to understand such truths purely through society and culture, they also have to be understood in one's own heart, mind and experience. — Wayfarer
But it is not sufficient simply to understand such truths purely through society and culture, they also have to be understood in one's own heart, mind and experience. — Wayfarer
You are arguing for the very poison that causes the problem. — apokrisis
You are arguing for the very poison that causes the problem. By situating meaning "deep inside the spiritual self", you are just letting yourself get conned by a highly materialistic system. — apokrisis
This is obviously in reference to a very different kind of truth than the scientific and empirical kinds of truth, though; which cannot really be lived, even though it is obviously possible to organize one's lifestyle according to them. Such truths cannot touch life as it is lived in the primordial sense. — Janus
Monks in the middle ages were troubled that the fervour of their belief might be lacking. They might just be going through the motions during their day-long rounds of prayer and contemplation. — apokrisis
But notice that anything that deviates from what you take to be the correct, scientific approach, is treated with scorn and opprobrium. You can't even discuss it without the spleen rising. My way or the highway, right? — Wayfarer
In return, if you want to consider my feelings, you could stop just labelling me as your ideal enemy, the reductionist materialist. — apokrisis
It is one of the myths of Romanticism. — apokrisis
the Church (whether it be Christian, Buddhist, whatever) creates the space in which it can insert itself in people's minds, hearts and experience. The Church gets to take over and run the show. — apokrisis
You are arguing for the very poison that causes the problem. — apokrisis
I actually find it unbelievable that you might believe that you were born alone, will die alone, and must discover any meaning to your existence alone. I never thought of you as that kind of nihilist. — apokrisis
So, you don't mean that what I am arguing for is a 'poisonous myth' and 'social parasitism'? — Wayfarer
This is obviously in reference to a very different kind of truth than the scientific and empirical kinds of truth, though; which cannot really be lived, even though it is obviously possible to organize one's lifestyle according to them. Such truths cannot touch life as it is lived in the primordial sense. — Janus
Of course! Just how I see it. — Wayfarer
I would maintain a strict division between questions concerning information (as per the OP) and questions concerning life (in the transcendental lived sense). — Janus
Surely you see the inherent madness in wishing you were already dead and at one with your maker, or better yet, never born? — apokrisis
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