Children abstract the concept of redness simply by seeing a few red things. — Samuel Lacrampe
Simple proof: ask a toddler to pick the red ball out of other coloured balls, and as long as he can understand the language, he will do so correctly. — Samuel Lacrampe
Are you asking how we know that universal forms (2) are one, and not duplicates in individual minds? The ontological principle that supports this is the law of identity. — Samuel Lacrampe
Universal forms (2) or concepts have no accidental properties, by definition of being universals.
These forms, although in minds, are separate things from the minds they are in.
The law of identity states that if "two" things have the exact same properties, then they are one and the same thing.
Therefore the form in two minds must be one and the same in both. — Samuel Lacrampe
Note that the builder is a hylomorphic substance. It is the builder, not his mind, that is the causal actor. It is he that is constructing the building so that people can live in it (the final cause). — Andrew M
That is also the form that the cosmological argument must take if it is to be coherent. It is hylomorphic substances all the way down. — Andrew M
He can't show you; it's the nature of the beast. You would only ever be convinced by a testimonial if you had a feel for it yourself. — Janus
If I understand correctly, you say that because the information "Montréal is in Québec" was spoken at a specific time and place, then that indicates that info is physical. But as I was trying to show, the info is a separate thing from its container. The container has a time and place, but not the information. People acquire the same information from the message "Montréal is in Québec", regardless if they hear it today or tomorrow, in Canada or in France.I'd argue in the same sense as you, but rather viewing temporal and spatial properties of information as yet another indication that information is physical. Datum informs also the processor from their occurences in space and time, and therefore in no actual way does Epp applies in a meaningful way to both individualised occurences of "Montréal is in Québec" and "Montréal is in Québec". — Akanthinos
My position is that "pure experience" is just a lack of differentiation. — apokrisis
[to Janus] You are arguing for an epistemology that can make claims about experience as something we both could all share, and yet could never actually share. This is the radical inconsistency I keep pointing to. — apokrisis
Human beings have the unique ability to view the world in a detached way: We can think about the world in terms that transcend our own experience or interest, and consider the world from a vantage point that is, in Nagel's words, "nowhere in particular". At the same time, each of us is a particular person in a particular place, each with his own "personal" view of the world, a view that we can recognize as just one aspect of the whole. How do we reconcile these two standpoints--intellectually, morally, and practically? To what extent are they irreconcilable and to what extent can they be integrated? Thomas Nagel's ambitious and lively book tackles this fundamental issue, arguing that our divided nature is the root of a whole range of philosophical problems, touching, as it does, every aspect of human life. He deals with its manifestations in such fields of philosophy as: the mind-body problem, personal identity, knowledge and skepticism, thought and reality, free will, ethics, the relation between moral and other values, the meaning of life, and death. Excessive objectification has been a malady of recent analytic philosophy, claims Nagel, it has led to implausible forms of reductionism in the philosophy of mind and elsewhere. The solution is not to inhibit the objectifying impulse, but to insist that it learn to live alongside the internal perspectives that cannot be either discarded or objectified. Reconciliation between the two standpoints, in the end, is not always possible
You (Wayfarer) would be right that science - hard physical science - deliberately leaves out values. But that is because it is seeking the mind-independent view of reality. Or if you look closer, the view of reality that allows us the most effective way of inserting our own values into the general story. — apokrisis
We can see exactly how to start pulling the levers of the world to do the things we think are of value. — apokrisis
Dang. Once again, I have trouble understanding your big words. Could you provide an example of what you call 'non-relational aspects of an object'? — Samuel Lacrampe
The container has a time and place, but not the information. — Samuel Lacrampe
We may elaborate our thoughts, but I doubt anyone genuinely questions their deepest intuitions about how things are. — Janus
But any critique will be based on some other groundless assumptions. — Janus
So, I say own your own experience and elaborate your worldview upon your deepest and most honest intuitions. — Janus
You might argue that you go for the inference to best explanation; but, in metaphysical matters at least, there is no way to measure, or collaboratively assess, that; so it ultimately comes down to what you want to believe; in the sense of what feels most right to you. — Janus
IF you had your way, it seems, everybody would have the same worldview... — Janus
This is why, to you, quantification is the first step in any valid knowledge - ‘show me the data’. — Wayfarer
What you refer to as ‘scientific validation’ always requires a separation between knower and known - your ‘epistemic cut’. — Wayfarer
Thomas Nagel's ambitious and lively book tackles this fundamental issue, arguing that our divided nature is the root of a whole range of philosophical problems, touching, as it does, every aspect of human life. — Wayfarer
This is why, to you, quantification is the first step in any valid knowledge - ‘show me the data’.
— Wayfarer
That misrepresents me. — apokrisis
you and Janus urge me to look inwards and make the same quantifications. — apokrisis
But what if ‘awakening’ actually is a natural event, and one with real significance? Something real, something our science has completely lost sight of?
— Wayfarer
OK. Show me.
I can accept any conjecture. All I ask is for some evidence. — apokrisis
Actually, the builder's mind is the cause of the various activities of the builder's body. So ultimately, it is the builder's mind which is the "causal actor" in this case. That is what final cause is all about, and this is understood through the concept of free will. The mind sets into motion physical bodies. But the decisions of the mind, which set these motions, are not caused by any physical motions themselves. So the chain of causes, which we trace back from the existence of the material building, through the hands of the builder, ends with the intentions of the builder, hence "final cause". — Metaphysician Undercover
No, this is just a statement of your prejudice. You probably aren't even acquainted with the cosmological argument so you just assert that it must be consistent with what you already believe in order to be coherent. But its coherency is based in principles which you haven't considered yet. — Metaphysician Undercover
As I said before, the crucial step, if not the first step, in modern scientific methodology, is to ascertain what is measurable, and eliminate other factors. — Wayfarer
'Looking inwards' is not a quantitative matter. It's a different stance, not an application of the same method to a different subject matter. — Wayfarer
...there is a category of evidence called 'the testimony of sages'. — Wayfarer
If some formula of words makes no observable difference, then it is an empty and meaningless thing to say. — apokrisis
Was the lesson we took from Ancient Greece that we should trust experience and feeling, or trust dialectical reason and concrete observation? — apokrisis
And that winds up being "scientific" in that theories have to be contested on evidential consequences. Conclusions must somehow be "showable". — apokrisis
In particular with regards to the persistence of something: a human body persists because its parts persist, which are made of atoms, which have electrons, protons, neutrons, which are made of subatomic particles, but also because the body is in an environment that is not completely hostile, etc. The explanation of one thing's existence gets pushed onto another thing. Which forms a hierarchy. — darthbarracuda
What is the evidence, what is the context, what is the domain of discourse for such a science? Which science is it? — Wayfarer
It's not atomistic as I mentioned how the environment plays a role in how the body survives. The point is that the existence of x is explained by the existence of y which is explained by the existence of z, just like how a laptop rests on a table, which rests on the floor, which rests on the Earth, etc. An "Aristotelian" (not "the" Aristotelian) demonstration is that this hierarchical explanation ultimately follows back to the prime mover. — darthbarracuda
So in claiming the existence of x is explained by the existence of y, you are only telling the tale of material causality. And you are making a big mistake in presuming that stability is a property simply inherited from baser levels of being rather than it being the property a hierarchical system needs to impose on its "base layers". — apokrisis
Do formal and material conditions or universal laws exist? How do they maintain their existence? — darthbarracuda
If the hierarchical system imposes stability on its base layers, it is only because the base layers are capable of being arranged in some way. — darthbarracuda
The workings of the composite is done through the combined efforts of the parts, but it's still the parts doing the work. — darthbarracuda
When I turn on a light, it is clear that the lightbulb requires a voltage source to work. — darthbarracuda
So the demonstration here is that things require other things to keep them hoisted in existence and if there cannot be a physical entity that pulls itself up by its bootstraps, then there must be something non-physical that ultimately keeps everything existing. Which we presumably call God. — darthbarracuda
That's solely because I go to the trouble of trying to explain it, and you don't understand it. — Wayfarer
I think understanding happens in a time, but not in a space. Here is why: Consider time t1 before I understand an info, and time t2 after I understand it. If we could go back to t1 (somehow), then I would not understand the info. But I understand the info at places p1 and p2, provided it is at time t2. In other words, the existence of understanding seems to be a function of time but not of place.Why not? Understanding happens in a time and a space. — Akanthinos
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