No, I'm not sure what that's supposed to refer to, because all I believe exists are particulars. — Terrapin Station
The point isn't for it to have "weight," though, either. It's just to accurately describe the world in a way that's coherent/that makes sense. — Terrapin Station
Right, and just a few hours ago you were talking about the existence of music, and matter. How you contradict yourself. — Metaphysician Undercover
There is a shared world that is represented in unique, yet similar, ways in unique, yet similar, minds. — Harry Hindu
You can separate the formal and material causes of substantial being. So you can point to the form - the bottle - and you can point to the matter - the glass. But then you are losing sight of the thing you thought you were talking about - substantial being - in saying the form "just is" the matter. — apokrisis
Descartes employs a two prong retreat (mind and matter) from solipsism but is left with the mind-body problem as well as a few others. — Jamesk
If we saw people as minds the world would be very different. Ignore the body, the sex, the social position and just focus on the mind. That is where our individuality lies, it is everything important in our lives. It is the next stage of evolution that the materialists are not yet ready for and so do all they can to focus on wealth, beauty and fun. — Jamesk
I am most fascinated by that in 'myself' which transcends me in some sense, but not as an 'alien' object. I — sign
Ultimately I think we want our lives to be beautiful and fun, which is not to insist on some shallow beauty or fun but quite the reverse. — sign
That is your Kantian position. — Jamesk
And here we have your Utilitarian / hedonist position. — Jamesk
Must we fit it into that jacket? — sign
But I find it hard to separate high states of being from some kind of positive feeling, something like a 'deep' pleasure. — sign
Sir may currently choose between jackets made from three types of material, Virtue, Duty, and Consequence. Once you choose the material there are further choices of 'cut' and 'style' for Sir's jacket, but yes the options are quite limited until someone invents or discovers a new concept. :) — Jamesk
In search of our own pleasure we ignore the plight of the weak and of those yet to be born. IMO we need to have duty as the main position for morality. A duty to ourselves, to others, to the world, and to future generations. We must learn to forfeit pleasure for long term security. — Jamesk
, but this person is in their situation exactly because they tend to turn order into chaos (and recently squandered an unearned, relative fortune on drugs in a spree.) — sign
You have no way of supporting such a generalization. People fall on hard times through no fault of their own, or by being unlucky. We are all just accidents of geography and family. Those who may have fallen into chaos also cannot be judged, we are all victims of circumstance and you really shouldn't judge anyone until you have walked a mile in their shoes. — Jamesk
So asking people to ignore someone who doesn't hold your views and doesn't conform to how you think a philosophy discussion ought to be is doing philosophy?I suggest that we just stop answering this Terrapin until he starts doing some philosophy. — Jamesk
All is quantifying all instances (not universals :wink:) of the predication of existing with the predication of being particulars. In predicate logic form: ∀x(Ex→Px).The statement 'all that exists are particulars' is a general statement. So if 'all' denotes anything, then the word 'all' must be general, which means the statement is false. because ‘all’ is an existing word; and if it doesn't denote anything, then the statement is meaningless. — Wayfarer
So asking people to ignore someone who doesn't hold your views and doesn't conform to how you think a philosophy discussion ought to be is doing philosophy? — Happenstance
Yet you haven't been able to explain the difference in what they are saying.If you're saying that realists and idealists are saying the same thing, I don't agree with you. — Terrapin Station
It seems to be the other way around.The idea of the physical is, among other things, the idea of radical, brute separation of all things from one another, whereas the idea of the mental is the idea of the deep inherent interconnection of all things.
So, if the substance is mental then all things are really one, and if the substance is physical then all things are separate and if interdependent are only so on account of quantifiable mechanical, energetic connections with one another. — Janus
This is begging the question. What is it about "physical" and "non-physical" that are different?Matter is physical and mind is not. — Jamesk
We used to think that it was fantasy that human beings would walk on the Moon. What science has done since it's formal inception (the Scientific Method) is beyond what religion and philosophy have done and science has only been around a fraction of the time.Materialists are gambling that one day they will have advanced enough equipment to actually 'see' our thoughts. Idealists are gambling that science will never be able to so. — Jamesk
Finally you made an attempt to answer my question.Material is made up of atoms that we can empirically measure. Mental states produce thoughts and ideas which cannot be empirically measured. We do not know how the brain works, all we know is which parts of the brain are working when we are thinking. — Jamesk
Science explains the smallest unit of matter as protons, neutrons and electrons (or maybe quarks now). The arrangement and amount of protons, neutrons, and electrons dictate the the type of element that emerges on a larger size scale, and the amount and number of atoms dictate the emergent property of molecules on an even larger size scale, and so on, up to galaxies and universes.I'm open to this. I think it's fair, however, to question whether it makes sense to talk about a primary substance. Maybe it does. The mind (or matter in a mind-like mode) seems to aim at unifying experience this way. Let's grant your point. Then all the apparently plurality (all the different kinds of things) would seem merely to be renamed as 'arrangements' or 'modes' of a primary substance. So there is 'really' just one kind of thing. But it's the nature of this primary thing to express itself not only in different modes that ask for useful and illuminating categorization but also this categorization itself.
The primary substance has to be the kind of thing that can mistake itself as a plurality. Moreover the primary substance has to be able to exist in the form of the question too. The primary substance unveils itself as primary substance, within time, by having a conversation with itself. So it also has a memory. It is (or one of its arrangements is) a speaking, thinking mode of primary substance (tempting us to call it a subject all over again.) It is also the world in which these subjects converse. Even if 'mind' and 'matter' are 'false' categorizations in some sense, they are inescapable at least as the ladder with which primary substance learns to grasp itself as one and homogeneous. [All this is just following out the implications of there being a primary substance and us becoming aware of it and how it happened.] — sign
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