No, I'm asking about "matter" and "ideas" and how you understand the difference. You've only supplied a difference in scribbles.You're asking something about your own understanding, right? — Terrapin Station
Okay, so then your idea of "matter" and "mind" is only coherent to you, then.Coherence is always to someone, isn't it? — Terrapin Station
I'm done with the game of yours. When you can actually answer the question, we can continue. — Harry Hindu
Are you asking if something is coherent to someone else? Or to your self? — Terrapin Station
No. It would be by answering the question that you keep avoiding.The only way we're going to get anywhere is by doing this "game." — Terrapin Station
Coherence isn't subjective. — Harry Hindu
So then why are you trying to be coherent to others when you speak? How is it that you expect them to understand anything that you say? Do words mean things? Are they coherent?So, we don't at all agree on this, and we don't at all agree about logic, either, including that I think that logic is subjective, and obviously, even for those who do not, there are many different species of logics, some incompatible with others. — Terrapin Station
No. It would be by answering the question that you keep avoiding. — Harry Hindu
So then why are you trying to be coherent others when you speak? How is it that you expect them to understand anything that you say? — Harry Hindu
It is very difficult for you to stay focused. I wasn't asking about how the difference in that post. I was asking how you can expect others to understand you if coherence is subjective.That would be a whole big tangent about how communication works that wouldn't help you figure out what the difference is between what idealists and materialists are saying, which is all I'd want to accomplish. — Terrapin Station
It is very difficult for you to stay focused. I wasn't asking about how the difference in that post. I was asking how you can expect others to understand you if coherence is subjective. — Harry Hindu
Making it all physical is interesting but will that lead to a theory where the difference between first and third person is illuminated? — Valentinus
I don't know, but in my view, the goal isn't to lead to a theory. The goal is to have accurate views about what is. If an accurate view about what is doesn't lead to a theory, but an inaccurate view does, that doesn't make the inaccurate view better.
That's not to deny the utility of instrumentalism. But it doesn't make the instrumental approach better for anything other than making successful predictions or for applications for practical matters, just in case the instrumental approach in question can do this. It's important in those cases not to reify the instrumental theory, and it's important to not theory worship. Both of those things are big dangers, because there are personality types that are both attracted to instrumental theories and that tend to reify and worship them. (The personality type best suited to being an engineer is one of the prime examples.) — Terrapin Station
What I'm focused on is you understanding the difference of what idealists and materialists are saying. — Terrapin Station
Aren't you in danger of "reifying the instrumental" by using it in this fashion? — Valentinus
And I already told you I'm not interested in the difference of scribbles or sounds. I'm interested in the difference of what those scribbles and sounds mean. In order for a word to be coherent it must mean something. — Harry Hindu
In Berkeley, there's no non-idea tree is there? If you're claiming there is, what would be the textual evidence of that? — Terrapin Station
According to Berkeley the tree is not your idea or my idea but God's idea. — Janus
Yes but it's a very different kind of idea; it is an idea which is a concrete existent. It doesn't accord at all to our limited idea of what an idea is. — Janus
I already explained that; it is a concrete existent because it is thought by God. — Janus
The substance of Berkeley's philosophy is well known. What do you think it means to be a concrete thing? To my understanding it means to be a stably persistent entity that does not depend on the human mind for its existence. How would Berkeley's things, which are stable entities in the mind of God, not qualify as concrete objects? — Janus
The substance of Berkeley's philosophy is well known. What do you think it means to be a concrete thing? — Janus
The more I think about it I still don't understand how it all works. How do we actually receive sense data if sense data is basically Gods ideas? If it is a Brain in a vat situation I can understand, however if it isn't then where exactly do our minds exists? How do our own bodies interact with other bodies?
I also understand the frustration people are having with this discussion of ideas and matter. I still haven't understood how the immaterial universe actually functions other than God makes it so. — Jamesk
There was nothing to grasp. You keep referring to what scribble or sounds an idealist and materialist makes when I'm talking about what those scribbles and sounds mean. You have only shown that they make different scribbles and sounds. You have yet to explain the difference that those scribbles and sounds mean.Yes. We went through that. So, given that you can't grasp the differences in what each side is saying in that regard, we need to look at what your beliefs/expectations are re meaning and coherency, so we can diagnose just what's going on for you not understanding the difference. — Terrapin Station
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