That a universal concept, such as triangle, exists by definition, (i.e., the existence of the concept of triangle is dependent on the definition of triangle), does not provide an argument that the concept is not dependent on "some process occurring in the brain". Any definition requires interpretation, and this is done by a brain. What is non-physical, is the content within the brain, which the brain is using, in the process of interpretation, the thoughts, and ideas, which are used for interpretation. This appears to produce an infinite regress, because some non-physical thoughts are required to interpret physical definitions etc.. But it need not lead to infinite regress if we accept that the non-physical, which is prior to, and necessary for the physical brain activity of interpretation, is something other than concepts. Then we allow, as Aquinas does, that human concepts are inherently tied to bodily existence, without negating the non-physical existence which is necessary for the existence of concepts. — Metaphysician Undercover

What is this 'something other', according to Aristotle and Aquinas?

What is this 'something other', according to Aristotle and Aquinas? — Wayfarer

I think that for Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas, the "something other" is the soul. It seems consistent through these philosophies that the soul is non-physical, immaterial. The soul is the non-physical existence which is part of that immaterial realm.

Bingo, you win the lucky door prize for the correct answer.

Before when you said you didn't understand the reference to the 'principle of intelligibility' - here's a really good summary. Notice that 'form' IS what makes particulars intelligible. Form is immaterial, as is the intellect/soul/nous which grasps it. The bodily senses are corporeal. This is basically Aristotle's hylomorphic dualism.

“EVERYTHING in the cosmos is composed of matter and form. Everything is concrete and individual. Hence the forms of cosmic entities must also be concrete and individual. Now, the process of knowledge is immediately concerned with the separation of form from matter, since a thing is known precisely because its form is received in the knower. But, whatever is received is in the recipient according to the mode of being that the recipient possesses. If, then, the senses are material powers, they receive the forms of objects in a material manner; [this is 'body'] and if the intellect is an immaterial power, it receives the forms of objects in an immaterial manner [this is 'intellect']. This means that in the case of sense knowledge, the form is still encompassed with the concrete characters which make it particular; and that, in the case of intellectual knowledge, the form is disengaged from all such characters. To understand is to free form completely from matter.

Moreover, 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.

The separation of form from matter requires two stages if the idea is to be elaborated: first, the sensitive stage, wherein the external and internal senses operate upon the material object, accepting its form without matter, but not without the appendages of matter; second the intellectual stage, wherein agent intellect operates upon the phantasmal datum, divesting the form of every character that marks and identifies it as a particular something.

Abstraction, which is the proper task of active intellect, is essentially a liberating function in which the essence of the sensible object, potentially understandable as it lies beneath its accidents, is liberated from the elements that individualize it and is thus made actually understandable. The product of abstraction is a species of an intelligible order. Now possible intellect is supplied with an adequate stimulus to which it responds by producing a concept.

From Thomistic Psychology: A Philosophical Analysis of the Nature of Man, by Robert E. Brennan, O.P.; Macmillan Co., 1941.

That's a good reference, I like it. Now let's get to some specifics. I'll start from the end and go to the beginning.

Abstraction, which is the proper task of active intellect, is essentially a liberating function in which the essence of the sensible object, potentially understandable as it lies beneath its accidents, is liberated from the elements that individualize it and is thus made actually understandable.

Notice here, that according to the process of human abstraction, what is left in the human intellect, as "the form" of the object, is the essence of the object, without the accidentals. As described, this is an operation carried out by the senses and the intellect. The sensible object is only understandable to the human intellect in its essence, that is without its accidentals.

Now consider this opening statement:

“EVERYTHING in the cosmos is composed of matter and form. Everything is concrete and individual. Hence the forms of cosmic entities must also be concrete and individual.

Accordingly, each entity in the universe has a form which is proper to it, and it alone. This is the complete form of the object, including all particularities, all accidentals. According to the principles expressed in Plato's "Timaeus", supported by Aristotle, and carried forward by the Neo-Platonists, the form of the material object is necessarily prior in existence to the material object itself, as the cause of existence of the material object. Because the particular form of the individual object is prior to the material existence of that object, this necessitates the conception of separate, immaterial, Forms. The cosmological argument produces the conclusion that there must be an immaterial Form which is prior to all material existence.

So the point to consider here is that the human conceptions, produced by abstraction, do not contain the particulars, the accidentals. They are produced by abstracting from material objects through sensation and intellection, and are therefore posterior to the material existence of the object. The independent Forms are the forms of the particular entities, accidentals included, which are prior to the material existence of these objects as the cause of their material existence.

Therefore the material world, temporal existence, can be regarded as a medium of separation between the human forms (essences) created by abstraction from the material world, and the independent Forms, which include the accidentals, and are understood as prior to, and the cause of the material objects. The riddle involves the question of the relationship between the particular forms and the essential forms. Why is it that objects are known to the human intellect through essential forms, when the actual form of the object is a particular form? As they are both "forms", they are each inherently intelligible, but the particular forms are not apprehended by the human intellect due to its mode of intellection.

Sorry, but I think your last two paragraphs do not at all represent or paraphrase the passage that we're referring to. But it has been a helpful discussion, for me at least.

EVERYTHING in the cosmos is composed of matter and form. Everything is concrete and individual. Hence the forms of cosmic entities must also be concrete and individual.

I too read this as saying that each particular thing has a particular form associated to it. But I could be misreading it, because my understanding is that forms are generals, not particulars. E.g., particular rocks participate in the one form of rock-ness, and particular rivers participate in the one form of river-ness.

I want to summarize what I learned so far on the original post, including the arguments and counter-arguments.

(1) The original post serves to demonstrate that the container of information is a separate thing from the information itself, because while all the properties of the container may fully change (say from purely visual properties of a letter to purely audio properties of a speech), the information does not. In other words, the metadata is a separate thing from the data. It may be that information is dependant on a container as a necessary cause for its existence (at least in our physical universe), but it remains that they are separate things, as an effect is separate from its cause.

(2) By the law of identity, the information stripped of its container is not merely a copy in each separate container, but is in reality one and the same thing, because all the properties that make the information is the same in all containers. The same info is acquired whether it is obtained from a book, an ebook, or an audiobook.

(1) and (2) together should be sufficient to deduce that information is not physical, as a single set of info may be located in many places at the same time; but let’s back it up with another argument.

(3) By the law of conservation of mass and energy, all physical things transmitted from an emitter to a receiver must be lost by the emitter by the same amount that is gained by the receiver. Information does not behave that way because the emitter does not lose the info transmitted. The containers abide to that law, but as previously demonstrated, the info contained is a separate thing from the containers.

Bob’s your uncle.

I too read this as saying that each particular thing has a particular form associated to it. — Samuel Lacrampe

This is one of the reasons that William of Ockham invented his razor - that would be an example of what he criticized as the 'proliferation of entities' inherent in scholastic metaphysics. However:

The existence of the form “sight,” by which the eye sees, may be some positive presence in the nature of things (which biologists can describe in terms of the qualities of a healthy eye that gives it the power to see), but the existence of the form blindness in the blind eye need be nothing more than the nonexistence of sight ‒ the 'form' of blindness is a privation of the form of sight and so not really an additional form at all.

In general, distinguishing and qualifying the different ways there can “be” a form present in a thing goes a long way toward alleviating the apparent profligacy of the realist account of words signifying forms. Arguably such qualification of modes of being, and not theological discourse, is the real theoretical crux of Aquinas’s views on the “analogy of being.”

Aquinas’s famous thesis of the unicity of substantial forms is an example of another strategy: linguistically I may posit diverse forms (humanity, animality, bodiliness) to account for Socrates being a man, an animal, and a body, but according to Aquinas there is in reality just one substantial form (Socrates’ soul) which is responsible for causing Socrates to be a man, an animal, and a body. In this and other cases, ontological commitment can be reduced by identifying in reality what, on the semantic level, are treated as diverse forms. As Boethius had seen, what the mind is capable of logically distinguishing need not be actually distinct in the nature of things.

In principle, any number of strategies for reducing overall ontological commitment are available within the framework of realist semantics, so that in general, the kind of form that fulfills the required semantic function did not need to be the kind of form that has a distinct and positive metaphysical presence in the nature of things.

What's Wrong with Ockham, J P Hochschild

Bob’s your uncle. — Samuel Lacrampe

Thanks, although I will admit to glossing over many issues.

However, even from your summary of the argument, a dualism can be discerned, namely that of an idea and it's representation. In this case, it's a 'ship, 3 masted, Greek, arrives after noon', and the various ways it is represented. I have been attempting to show that this resembles, in some sense, the Platonic meaning of 'an idea', even though the example is a specific idea, and not a general form.

However, I suppose a modernised version of the argument might be that it's only because the mind understands general forms and ideas that abstraction and verbal communication is possible. In other words, the capacity to grasp general meaning and general ideas, is intrinsic to rationality. The point that 'thought is a universalising activity' is driven home by the quotation from Lloyd Gerson, who says that although it's Aristotle's argument (in De Anima), it is the articulation of an idea from Plato.

You better correct that before we continue - the quote was 'blended with a body'.

But, no, of course I don't subscribe to many of the ideas in Aristotle and other ancient philosophers, just because they held them. However, the topic at hand is of a different order.

What I’m telling you is that you misquoted.

Understanding is grasping how the data of sense (or of consciousness) are interrelated; it is adding to the manifold of the mere presentation a complex of relations, a meaning, that reduces the manifold to unity.  When this happens, the mind is able to pronounce the interior word that the tradition calls 'the concept'. — Bernard Lonergan

(Yes, another Thomist. :-} )

However, even from your summary of the argument, a dualism can be discerned, namely that of an idea and it's representation. In this case, it's a 'ship, 3 masted, Greek, arrives after noon', and the various ways it is represented. I have been attempting to show that this resembles, in some sense, the Platonic meaning of 'an idea', even though the example is a specific idea, and not a general form. — Wayfarer

The Platonic meaning of "idea" is that if you take away the material representations, the eternal idea remains. That is the ghostly existence that Aristotle and Ockham rejected. Instead, the information is only in the material (i.e., flag movements, log book ink) and anyone with the requisite intelligence and skills is able to identify it.

The Platonic meaning of "idea" is that if you take away the material representations, the eternal idea remains — Andrew M

It all hangs on the meaning of the word ‘exists’ (in this case, ‘remains’.) My example of the ship, is indeed a particular instance. But more general forms, such as geometrical and arithmetical forms, might be ‘awaiting discovery’ as it were - any rational being in the Universe would discover such forms. The same could be said in the case of logical laws, such as the law of the excluded middle and so on. Now, I know this is not something spelled out in Platonism in those terms, I have to do the work to understand where this kind of idea is represented in the Platonic corpus, but I’m sure something like it is there.

Say in the case of ‘the idea of the Good’, I would think this is something entirely transcendental, i.e. can’t be represented materially at all. The same could be said of some of the other foundational concepts of Greek philosophy, such as Plotinus’ Ta Hen (the One). This was clearly something that must be real - a necessary being - but could never be represented at all.

I think there’s some merit in what you’re saying, but I do wonder you’re trying to squeeze Aristotle’s ‘moderate realism’ into the Procrustean bed of modern empiricism.

the physical representation might be totally different — Wayfarer

This statement is what makes it physical.

Of course numbers have a causal effect on things. Take for instance the numbers in a recipe. If the recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper and you put 10, the food will give the consumers a serious case of heart burn, not to mention mouth-burn. — Harry Hindu

In such cases, numbers are causally efficient only because human agents act on the basis of an instruction. The fact that numbers are able to influence human behaviour, is because humans are rational agents. — Wayfarer

But not only because we are rational agents, but also because we have senses that take in information about the world, one of which is numbers. How could you know anything about numbers, what they mean, or how to use them, without having first acquired that information at some point in the past? Numbers take the shape of squiggles on a sheet of paper and sounds in the air which have to be seen and heard in order to associate them with other things that aren't squiggles and sounds, but are the ideas those squiggles and sounds generate in the mind, which then influence behavior. This is why I don't get the division between the rationalists and empiricists. In order to be rational, your rationality has to take some form and the form it takes is the forms of our sensory perceptions.

Right. That is simply the empiricist argument - that all knowledge comes from experience. However humans have linguistic and rational abilities that animals don’t - they’re born with that, as per Chomsky’s ‘universal grammar’.

Right. That is simply the empiricist argument - that all knowledge comes from experience. However humans have linguistic and rational abilities that animals don’t - they’re born with that, as per Chomsky’s ‘universal grammar’. — Wayfarer

Right. Thanks to the differences in our brains - thanks to the way we are "designed".

I'd like to know the form our linguistic abilities take prior to having learned any language.

Sorry, but I think your last two paragraphs do not at all represent or paraphrase the passage that we're referring to. But it has been a helpful discussion, for me at least. — Wayfarer

Right, those paragraphs express what I take as important consequences of what is said in the quotation. Maybe you have different concerns? I'm glad we managed to have a productive discussion though

I too read this as saying that each particular thing has a particular form associated to it. But I could be misreading it, because my understanding is that forms are generals, not particulars. E.g., particular rocks participate in the one form of rock-ness, and particular rivers participate in the one form of river-ness. — Samuel Lacrampe

That is Plato's theory of participation, you've expressed it well. It is drawn from his earlier work, and represents his efforts to make sense of Pythagorean idealism. There's a good representation of it in "The Symposium", with the Idea of beauty.

As I explained earlier in this thread, as Plato started to grasp the difficulties involved with that type of idealism, his understanding evolved, such that the form of idealism which he ends up supporting is quite different from this. In The Republic, he exposes "the good", and finds the need to assume divine Ideas. This brings on a completely different type of idealism, because the divine ideas are ideals, the best, most perfect conception of each class of general concepts. Now the independent Idea must be an Ideal, the best possible conception of "just", or in the case of your examples, the best possible conception of "rock-ness", the best conception of "river-ness" .

But this throws a wrench into the whole structure of participation, because now the individual things, with their unique particularities cannot properly participate in the Ideal, because the Ideal must be an unique perfection in itself, and the particulars are lacking in this perfection. This produces the notion that all things suffer from privation. But the reverse of that is that all things have a perfection proper to themselves, and it is this perfection which makes a thing the thing which it is. This gives two possible directions. One is that "perfection" is proper to the ideal universal conception, the other is that "perfection" is proper to each particular object, that which makes it the unique object which it is. The latter choice is supported by material existence, material existence is good (though some mystics claim matter is evil, and go the opposite direction assuming all material existence is privation). In comparison, the ideal universal conception is an untenable principle because it cannot be produced, while material existence is evident. So we choose the direction which assumes that there is a perfection which is proper to each individual material object, making it the object which it is.

That is why Aristotle goes on to produce his law of identity so as to represent a perfection which is proper to each individual particular, in itself, "a thing is the same as itself". So any individual thing is identifiable as having a unique, particular form, which is proper to itself only. It is not identified in the way of the sophists, by a general form, which allows that a multitude of similar things have the same identity.

2) By the law of identity, the information stripped of its container is not merely a copy in each separate container, but is in reality one and the same thing, because all the properties that make the information is the same in all containers. The same info is acquired whether it is obtained from a book, an ebook, or an audiobook. — Samuel Lacrampe

This is the point which I objected to in this thread. It is physically impossible to strip away the container from the information package, because then the information would be lost. Without the container, there is no information. So the container, which makes the existence of information possible is just as essential as the contents. There is no contents without a container. Therefore it must be accepted that the container is part of the information package.

That is the problem with "the difference which makes a difference", it contravenes the law of identity, which implies that every difference must be respected, by implying that we can disrespect certain differences. When we disrespect those differences, contravening the law of identity, and we remove the container, as a difference which makes no difference, we assume "a difference which does not make a difference". This is just veiled contradiction, or at best, it moves "difference" into the subject, making what constitutes a "difference" completely subjective. So we cannot strip away the container without violating the law of identity, placing identity within the subject (sophistry), rather than within the object according to Aristotle's law of identity.

I say; yes, and heres why:

Information is matter and energy yes? Therefore is physical right?

Each thought is made up of electro-chemicals, and electricity; along with a pattern of nueral pathways. They have short lifespans, I don't see any part of the thought that is not physical.

The same goes for information within computers: across a chalk board, or on a sheet of papper.

Gods, ghosts, and spirits as far as I've seen have anatomical and physical decriptions within the classic religious scriptures. I was always under the assumption that energy, and or plasma, would be the most likely canidate substance for such things, but even if they are made of something yet to be discovered, they would still be physical, is a god even considered meta-physical? How can something exist without being physical, if God exists as a sentient being, then he would have to be physical(wether made of matter, energy, or plasma); otherwise there would only be thoughts of god, writings of god, therories if god, all of which are physical.

Even a thoery may be a physical thing; if you destroy all writings, and physical descriptions of a theory, does that theory still exsist?

If physics includes the study of other dimensions then won't anything discovered within those demensions become part of physics?

So, what's the argument? — Πετροκότσυφας

Aristotle, in De Anima, argued that thinking in general (which includes knowledge as one kind of thinking) cannot be a property of a body; it cannot, as he put it, 'be blended with a body'. This is because in thinking, the intelligible object or form is present in the intellect, and thinking itself is the identification of the intellect with this intelligible. Among other things, this means that you could not think if materialism is true… . Thinking is not something that is, in principle, like sensing or perceiving; this is because thinking is a universalising activity. This is what this means: when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular - including a particular neurological element, a circuit, or a state of a circuit, or a synapse, and so on. This is so because the object of thinking is universal, or the mind is operating universally.

….the fact that in thinking, your mind is identical with the form that it thinks, means (for Aristotle and for all Platonists) that since the form 'thought' is detached from matter, 'mind' is immaterial too.

Lloyd Gerson, Platonism vs Naturalism

**

Information is matter and energy yes? — “XanderGrey”

No.

The mechanical brain does not secrete thought "as the liver does bile," as the earlier materialists claimed, nor does it put it out in the form of energy, as the muscle puts out its activity. Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day.

Norbert Wiener (founder of the science of cybernetics) Computing Machines and the Nervous System.

**

thanks to the way we are "designed". — Harry Hindu

According to neo-darwinian materialism - which is why I mentioned Coyne.

It all hangs on the meaning of the word ‘exists’ (in this case, ‘remains’.) My example of the ship, is indeed a particular instance. But more general forms, such as geometrical and arithmetical forms, might be ‘awaiting discovery’ as it were - any rational being in the Universe would discover such forms. The same could be said in the case of logical laws, such as the law of the excluded middle and so on. — Wayfarer

Yes, we live in an intelligible universe where such laws and forms can be discovered by any rational being.

Say in the case of ‘the idea of the Good’, I would think this is something entirely transcendental, i.e. can’t be represented materially at all. — Wayfarer

Since the common thread for Aristotle is that universals can only be grounded in material particulars, you can probably predict what he thought about Plato's 'idea of the Good':

Aristotle discusses the Forms of Good in critical terms several times in both of his major surviving ethical works, the Eudemian and Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle argues that Plato’s Form of the Good does not apply to the physical world, for Plato does not assign “goodness” to anything in the existing world. Because Plato’s Form of the Good does not explain events in the physical world, humans have no reason to believe that the Form of the Good exists and the Form of the Good is thereby irrelevant to human ethics. — Wikipedia

I think there’s some merit in what you’re saying, but I do wonder you’re trying to squeeze Aristotle’s ‘moderate realism’ into the Procrustean bed of modern empiricism. — Wayfarer

The way I see it, Aristotle provided some important insights that can inform a modern empiricism, of which his view on universals is one.

I have an interesting book by Thomas McEvilly, The Shape of Ancient Thought, which is a cross-cultural comparison between ancient Inndian and Greek philosophy. In the introduction, he says that a professor of his once noted that ‘everyone is either a Platonist or an Aristotelian’. I think by temperament, I’m the former.

Since the common thread for Aristotle is that universals can only be grounded in material particulars — Andrew M

I would prefer 'instantiated' to 'grounded'. It's more that particulars are 'grounded in form' rather than vice versa. According to A's 'hylomorphic dualism', particulars are always composed of matter (hyle) and form (morphe) - and the form is what is grasped by the intellect, both the intellect (nous) and form (morphe) being immaterial. I would say that is the aspect of Aristotelianism which was rejected by the advent of nominalism and then empiricism, as forms and formal causes.

In the introduction, he says that a professor of his once noted that ‘everyone is either a Platonist or an Aristotelian’. I think by temperament, I’m the former. — Wayfarer

Even better though one could be like Aquinas, both Platonist and Aristotelian.

But, according to A's 'hylomorphic dualism', particulars are always composed of matter (hyle) and form (morphe) - and the form is what is grasped by the intellect. Both the intellect (nous) and form (morphe) being immaterial. — Wayfarer

The form of the particular may be what is grasp by the intellect, but the intellect only grasps what it apprehends as essential, missing the accidentals. So its grasp of the forms of particulars is imperfect, and we need to account for this fact in our metaphysics.

What Aquinas argues, is that this imperfection is due to the human intellect being not completely immaterial. So he develops Aristotle's distinction between passive and active intellect. The passive intellect, whereby we receive the forms of things through sensation, must be of the nature of potential, or matter, in order that it can be "informed". I believe that the active, or agent intellect is supposed to be the immaterial aspect of the intellect.

My argument for the sense in which information is NOT physical can be illustrated with respect to the following thought-experiment.

There is a sentry in a watchtower, looking through a telescope. The watchtower stands on top of a headland which forms the northern entrance to a harbour. The sentry’s job is to keep a lookout.

When the sentry sees a ship on the horizon, he sends a signal about the impending arrival. The signal is sent via a code - a semaphore, comprising a set of flags. — Wayfarer

It just occurred to me that the sentry and the receiver of the sentry's signals could both be computers. (I'm not sure if anyone else has already brought this up, since I haven't read through the entire thread, but if so apologies for redundantly repeating a point).

What do you think the implications of this are for your argument.

Can you cite any text where Aristotle claims that " intellect (nous) and form (morphe)" are "immaterial"?

It just occurred to me that the sentry and the receiver of the sentry's signals could both be computers. — Janus

Computers are human instruments. They could replace flags and morse code, but the same arguments apply. It's similar to the point that Apokrisis often makes about the fundamental difference between physical and semiotic systems.

Can you cite any text — Janus

Have a look for the Lloyd Gerson argument that I have quoted numerous times in the thread. It's also in this video in this post. (This is a brief reference to an Aristotelian argument, from a lecture called Platonism vs Naturalism. Gerson is a leading academic specialist on Plato and Aristotle.) There's also a very nice modernised summary in this post.

Even better though one could be like Aquinas, both Platonist and Aristotelian. — Metaphysician Undercover

Edward Feser describes his school as Aristotelian-Thomistic (A-T) - it was his argument about 'the triangle'. You do realise that in many of your responses to that issue, you have taken a position which is basically nominalist, i.e. opposing the A-T analysis?

Computers are human instruments. They could replace flags and morse code, but the same arguments apply. It's similar to the point that Apokrisis often makes about the fundamental difference between physical and semiotic systems. — Wayfarer

The burden is on you to show how the fact that computers have been created by humans is relevant to your argument that information is not physical. Computers could sail the ships, be the sentries and the receivers; all without human beings, and probably do a better job. In such a scenario, would you say that there is any information being conveyed in the system?

As another example, computers can recognize faces; isn't that the ability to recognize a generality (that it is a face), coupled with the ability to recognize a particular (that it is the face of some particular person)? Is the computer not receiving and acting upon information in such a system? If you say 'no' then it would be possible that, similarly, we are not acting on information in similar contexts, wouldn't it?

Also, I asked for a quote from Aristotle, not from tendentious interpreters.

You do realise that in many of your responses to that issue, you have taken a position which is basically nominalist, i.e. opposing the A-T analysis? — Wayfarer

I've justified my responses by referring directly to what Aristotle wrote, and my understanding of what Aquinas wrote. So your claim that my responses are "opposing the A-T analysis", only indicate that you have a misunderstanding of the A-T analysis.

Do you recognize the distinction of passive intellect and active intellect? Or are you ready to deny that this is part of the A-T analysis?

Do you recognize the distinction of passive intellect and active intellect? — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure do. What does the active intellect do, that the passive intellect can't?

I've justified my responses by referring directly to what Aristotle wrote — Metaphysician Undercover

Beside the point. What I'm saying is that in many places in this thread, you have responded from the perspective of nominalism.

Here are some examples:

Do you not recognize, that in both these cases, our agreement to call objects by a specific name, "X", or "Y", says something about our capacity to agree on this type of thing, rather than something about the objects themselves? — Metaphysician Undercover

We call things wet. I say water is wet, you agree that water is wet. We agree that certain things are wet, and that certain things are not wet. But this does not produce the conclusion that "wetness" has essential properties, it just means that we agree about which things we should call wet and which things we should call not wet. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is what I mean by 'nominalism':

"Nominalism: the doctrine that universals or general ideas are mere names without any corresponding reality. Only particular objects exist, and properties, numbers, and sets are merely features of the way of considering the things that exist. Important in medieval scholastic thought, nominalism is associated particularly with William of Occam.'

Correct me if I'm wrong.