Surely it's not definitions. — Metaphysician Undercover
How is a physical law anything other than an immaterial Form? — Metaphysician Undercover
Because this is what the evidence shows us, that there are immaterial Forms between God's act of will and physical objects They may be what you call physical laws — Metaphysician Undercover
OK, when you say something is immaterial, or non-physical, what exactly do you mean? merely that it is not an object of the senses, or something else? — Janus
What we refer to as "physical laws" are observed invariances of physical processes. Things seem to reliably behave in certain ways, and we call these ways 'laws of nature'. — Janus
So, if the 'laws' are observed invariances of action of physical objects and processes, and those invariances are caused by, or reflect, the will of God or the will and/or the nature of the objects and processes themselves what else is required? Why do we need "immaterial forms"? — Janus
You might say that being consists in the act of being, and so it is ontologically distinct from the totality of beings in that sense. But I think of beings as acts of being, so being would equally be the totality of acts of being, that is one great act of being, and again there would be no ontological distinction. — Janus
I still cannot see how you think being unaffected does not imply being indifferent. "Being good and loving" would seem to be meaningless without action, and action implies response, and response just is being affected. — Janus
What are "particulars"? Would that be similar to saying that nature is made up of "information"? — Harry Hindu — Harry Hindu
Doesn't "what is represented or conveyed by a particular arrangement or sequence of things" relate to the cause of "what is represented or conveyed by a particular arrangement or sequence of things"?Not quite. Particulars are individual things that exist (e.g., an apple, Harry Hindu, a chair). This is contrasted with universals which are common to many particulars (e.g, red things, humans, things with four legs).
Information is a universal. A relevant definition in the context of this thread would be, "What is conveyed or represented by a particular arrangement or sequence of things" (Oxford dictionary). — Andrew M
If information isn't the sort of thing you can "bump into, or detect with your senses", then how is that you know anything about the world at all? How is it that the text on this screen got there in the first place for me, or Wayfarer, to read it? How did it go from being an idea in your head, to text on a screen, to the conveying of your ideas to Wayfarer and me? How did your ideas get from your head to ours without using something "physical" to convey it?Part of Wayfarer's argument, I think, is that information isn't the sort of thing you can bump into or detect with your senses. Therefore it shouldn't be considered to be part of the material world. Since information is not an illusion and also not reducible to material, it would seem to imply there is an immaterial (Platonic) realm of ideas or forms.
Aristotle would instead say that information is in the particulars (e.g., the flags being waved or the ship log book) and, as a consequence of being intelligent creatures, humans can perceive the information, or form, that is there. This is no different in principle from perceiving that the flag is red or that the ship log book has a rectangular shape, which are also formal aspects of those particulars.
For Aristotle nature is an inseparable unity of matter and form. Whereas for Plato, matter and form (or ideas) constitute separate and distinct natures. — Andrew M
I finally read this. It was good, and on par with my position; not too surprising as Feser and I are both catholic. And... I once again used the wrong term in my posts when it comes to 'imagination'. I used the term generally to say "thinking about the concept", where as Feser uses it strictly to say 'mental image' or 'physical visualization in the mind'. This may have been one of the sources of confusion throughout the discussion, such as this one.Think, McFly, Think (and I recommend having a read of the whole post.) — Wayfarer
Particular objects participate in triangle-ness due to their specific physical properties, but the concept triangle-ness itself is not made of physical properties, as demonstrated in my previous argument. Also, see the response below in case of confusion about the term 'imagination'.How can one imagine triangle-ness without any physical properties? Isn't that exactly what triangle-ness is, a physical property? — Metaphysician Undercover
As I read up on this stuff, I see now that I was using the term 'imagination' incorrectly. I indeed meant to say "thinking coherently" about the concept, and not "having a physical visualization in the mind". This may have created some confusions; my bad. So the fact that we can think coherently (without contradiction) about a thing that contains no particular shows that such thing is not essentially made of particulars.How would you imagine a universal triangle that is not a particular kind of triangle, namely scalene, isosceles or equilateral? I think that fails Chesterton's test. So maybe you're thinking of the definition of a triangle (e.g., a plane figure with three straight sides and three angles). And, yes, we can think coherently about that. But the definition is not separable from particulars either, whether the human being that thinks about it or the books that contain it. — Andrew M
I don't think that an image being mental demonstrates that the image is non-physical. For one thing, mental images are particulars. Do you have a reason to believe it to be so?You can represent it physically, but it's an ideal object in the sense of being a geometric primitive. And surely the triangle I am just now imagining, is not physical, on account of it's a mental image. — Wayfarer
I don't think that an image being mental demonstrates that the image is non-physical. — Samuel Lacrampe
Information like for what kind of Computer basically the hard-drive is for. — ssu
But my view is, I hope, a bit more radical than that - information of any and all kinds, really isn't physical at all, but is only represented physically. — Wayfarer
This ambiguity manifests as a real problem in metaphysics which assume information is physical, but not a representation. — Metaphysician Undercover
This seems inconsequential, because a relative property is still meaningful, so long as the standard is the same for all things. If I describe the dog I see as being at the intersection of streets A and B at time T, everybody understands the description of the location, so long as streets A and B don't move.The problem here is that space and time are not properties, so neither can place be a property. That's why motion is so difficult to understand, it's not the property of an object, it is a relationship between objects. — Metaphysician Undercover
Easy: They have none. My position is that non-physical things don't occupy physical spaces. I thought this was a generally accepted claim. Where would the claim that "all things have a spacial-temporal location" come from?How would you propose to determine the spatial-temporal location of a concept? — Metaphysician Undercover
Part of reality, independent of a subject. As such, math concepts are discovered and unchangeable. We cannot simply decide that "1+1=3", even if everybody agreed to do so.How are you defining "objective" here? — Metaphysician Undercover
Alright, but I admit I am not sure what the difference is between "perfect in conception" and simply "perfect". It seems that if a thing is perfect, then its conception cannot be more perfect.Yes, your definition of "ideal" is completely different from mine. Ideal to me means perfect in conception. Therefore a thing cannot be an ideal. You define ideal as the perfect thing. — Metaphysician Undercover
A fair point. I reply that it is true, that if we have never experienced basic concepts of shapes, colours, sounds, tastes, and feelings, such as, triangle-ness, redness, a music note, sweetness, and coldness, then we could never understand more complex concepts made from basic concepts, such as house, horse, sun, or law. But if we do apprehend the basic concepts from experience, then I think we can apprehend complex concepts composed of basic concepts, without experiencing them. E.g., I have never observed a chiliagon, but if it is defined as "a polygon with 1000 sides", then I can apprehend it, because I already apprehended the concepts 'polygon', '1000', and 'sides'.If conception was as you describe here, experience dependent, then we could never understand things which had just been described to us, but we had not seen. The various fields of science demonstrate that the true nature of conception is within definition, as there is much which is described and conceived of, without having been experienced. — Metaphysician Undercover
I understand your point.Besides, I have decided that what I'm really arguing for is that 'ideas aren't physical'. But that sounds kind of weak - many will say 'we knew that already', others will say 'maybe, but the brain is physical, so ideas are too'. But my view is, I hope, a bit more radical than that - information of any and all kinds, really isn't physical at all, but is only represented physically. This has lead to quite an interesting digression through the history of philosophy and especially Platonist and Aristotelian ideas about universals. — Wayfarer
I don't think that an image being mental demonstrates that the image is non-physical. — Samuel Lacrampe
Great! Well if you have a mental image which is physical, please mail it to me, I'd like to see it. — Wayfarer
As far as I can tell, the hypothesis of info being nothing but arrangements of physical parts seems adequate, when concepts are not involved. — Samuel Lacrampe
Part of reality, independent of a subject. As such, math concepts are discovered and unchangeable. We cannot simply decide that "1+1=3", even if everybody agreed to do so. — Samuel Lacrampe
But you haven't addressed the point of what I said; which is the question as to why we should not therefore think of gravity as 'non-physical". Gravity is considered by physicists to be more than merely "a physical abstraction". There is even a search for 'gravity particles', referred to as gravitons. Neuroscientists believe they have already found 'mind particles'; they refer to them as neurons. (Of course they are not fundamental since they are cells composed of more fundamental particles, but what if there were fundamental mind particles, would we then say that mind is non-physical?). — Janus
If information isn't the sort of thing you can "bump into, or detect with your senses", then how is that you know anything about the world at all? — Harry Hindu
How did your ideas get from your head to ours without using something "physical" to convey it? — Harry Hindu
The answers are all related to causation. If your information is still there in the log book after everyone living creature is dead, does the log book still contain information? — Harry Hindu
I am not sure what you mean, Andrew, regarding "the definition is not separable from particulars either". Could you clarify? — Samuel Lacrampe
All things are essentially other from God, and yet could not exist apart from God. We participate in God's essence via our very existence, but we are essentially distinct from God. — Aaron R
As such, our experience of God will always manifest temporally/sequentially. On this account, it's as if God has weaved interactive manifestations/representations of Himself into the temporal fabric of finite reality through his unitary act of creation. — Aaron R
Of course the use of "observed" means that it really refers to the description made by the observer. — Metaphysician Undercover
Do you assume that there is something real behind these laws, corresponding to them? Or are they completely imaginary? Is there a reason why we can describe the behaviour of physical things according to laws? If so wouldn't you agree that whatever this is, it would be non-physical? — Metaphysician Undercover
No, logically, the description cannot be the thing described. — Janus
But I don't see why it would need to be thought to be "non-physical" in anything other than the more or less trivial senses that it is either not an object of the senses, or is not something that could be explained by physics, since physics itself presupposes it. — Janus
What I meant is that in the phrase "observed invariances" "invariance" does not refer to a property of anything at all, so it is not a description. — Metaphysician Undercover
In the field of ontology, or metaphysics, how can you say that this is trivial, that there is something real which cannot be sensed, nor can it be explained by physics? — Metaphysician Undercover
If I observe the sun to rise each morning that is an observed invariance. — Janus
Yes, but I didn't say that the thing is trivial, I said that it is referred to as non-physical in a trivial sense; which is a totally different proposition. — Janus
An abstraction is not, by definition, physical; but what it is an abstraction from may be. So gravity is not an abstraction as you previously said it is, but is a phenomenon that may be thought of as physical insofar as its effects are observable even though it is not. My original point was to ask how mind is different than this. — Janus
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