There is the checkered shirt, that is a physical thing. Then there is the pattern which the colours are said to be in, that is not physical. So the pattern which a checkered shirt has, is not a physical thing. — Metaphysician Undercover
And why are we using the ease with which you personally can imagine something as a measure of what is, or may be, the case. What possible mechanism of reality could there be which ensures its inner workings are conceivable to a particular 21st century Homo sapiens? — Isaac
You'll have to explain this, as I'm not getting it from your assertion alone. How would such a universe violate the laws of statistics? — Isaac
In order to see that as statistically unlikely you'd have to make two presumptions 1) the default position of particles in the absence of guidance is to act randomly, and 2) out of all the other universes with fundamental particles none of them (or very few of them) are like ours. — Isaac
The universe exhibits form rather than obeying it or creating it as the horns of the dilemma suggest. — Andrew M
There are alternatives to dualism, which is what I was arguing for - monism.I'm not assuming dualism. There are a number of alternatives to physicalism and dualism. — Dusty of Sky
This sounds like indirect realism. How is Kantian idealism different from indirect realism? It seems to me that you'd need to explain the difference between physical things and ideas. If both of these things have causal power, then what difference is there between them other than the type of thing it is? - not any more different than how dirt is different from water. How is it that we can put dirt and water in the same domain of "physical" but not minds, even though they all have causal power and interact with each other?I personally prefer a sort of Kantian idealism. I believe in an external world of one kind or another, but I don't think we can know what it is. We can only know how it affects us. — Dusty of Sky
The fundamental thing to keep in mind is that (according to Armstrong), everything that exists is a state of affairs (a particular with its properties and relations). The properties and relations do not exist independent of the state of affairs in which they are instantiated. We can still think abstractly about properties and relations (through the "way of abstraction"), but these are just mental exercises.Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Armstrong's theory is that physical properties are universals which particulars instantiate. So even if physical laws are just functions of properties, the properties have universal natures which exists over and above their particular instances. Are these universal natures real things? They're not physical objects. How do you resolve this problem without admitting non-physical objects into your ontology? — Dusty of Sky
The fundamental thing to keep in mind is that (according to Armstrong), everything that exists is a state of affairs (a particular with its properties and relations). The properties and relations do not exist independent of the state of affairs in which they are instantiated. We can still think abstractly about properties and relations (through the "way of abstraction"), but these are just mental exercises. — Relativist
The idea that the universe can be understood is a fundamental presupposition that underlies nearly all human thought, especially scientific thought. If we can't use logic and mathematics to draw conclusions, then science is futile. — Dusty of Sky
It can't just be that the coin flips we came across happened to result in heads half the time for no reason. There must be something about coin flips, as a particular kind of phenomena, that causes them to behave this way. And the same applies to objects of mass attracting objects of mass. If all the objects we observe attract each other in accordance with the law of gravitation, then we conclude that gravitational attraction applies to all objects. It can't just be an arbitrary pattern in the sample we took. — Dusty of Sky
Randomness is the default state of something which isn't governed by laws. Isn't that self evident? — Dusty of Sky
Coin flips are random because there isn't any regular principle which determines how we flip them. — Dusty of Sky
No. A state of affairs is not "relations between abstract entities." Abstract entities do not exist (that would be inconsistent with physicalism). Abstractions are just tools of the mind (useful fictions) they do not actually exist as ontic objects.Interesting, and good to know. But if Armstrong takes the most basic objects in the universe to be states of affairs, then I don't see how he can call himself a physicalist in the traditional sense. States of affairs, as I understand them, consist of relations between abstract entities like properties, relations and particulars without instantiations. — Dusty of Sky
That you see logic as a law without which the universe seems absurd, tells us about you, your beliefs and your limits of sense. It doesn't say anything about the universe. That you think you can imagine a universe without gravity tells us about your imagination (or your confidence in it), not the universe. — Isaac
No. That's exactly the question of the thread. Why would you presume something must be governed externally in order to not be random. Have you seen Lagton's Ant? — Isaac
We don't know in advance how we would expect objects of mass to behave, so we can make no probabilistic statements whatsoever about the fact that they all act the way gravity describes. — Isaac
No. Coin flips appear random because we don't have the data to determine their path. If we did, their resting face would be entirely predictable. — Isaac
No. A state of affairs is not "relations between abstract entities." Abstract entities do not exist (that would be inconsistent with physicalism). Abstractions are just tools of the mind, they do not actually exist. — Relativist
if we can't use logic to decide what can and can't be true about the universe, then we can't use anything. — Dusty of Sky
A universe that disobeys logic is absurd by definition. — Dusty of Sky
So what's the point in saying that universe might not actually make any logical sense? — Dusty of Sky
If something happens over and over again in the exact same way, I assume there's a reason for it. — Dusty of Sky
If there is any consistent pattern in the behavior of objects of mass, then I think it's safe to assume that those patterns did not just show up coincidentally. — Dusty of Sky
If you don't think that gravity is a result of an external law, then what is it a result of? — Dusty of Sky
Sort of. The constituents exist (within a SOA), and we can think abstractly about them.I'm not claiming that particulars, properties and relations can exist independently. But in order to explain what a state of affairs is, don't you need to appeal to the existence of its abstract constituents?
That's consistent with Armstrong's view. The constituents (e.g. specific properties) actually exist, but only in their instantiations as part of states of affairs. Returning to laws of nature as "relations between states of affairs types" - it shows that there's not actually a dependency on an equation existing as an ontic abstract object. Abstract objects (as ontic objects) are incompatible with physicalism. Constrast this with Platonism, which can assume Newton's law of gravity exists independent of there being objects to which it applies. For that matter, Armstrong would deny the existence of "4" as an abstract object. Rather, there are states of affairs consisting of 4 objects (sub-SOAs), but we can still think abstractly about the universal "4".Just because the abstractions are codependent doesn't mean they don't exist. And I don't think it would be helpful to define existence as being exclusive to things which can (hypothetically) exist independently. Because independent SOAs consist of their codependent parts and therefore depend on them.
Why would you think it is contradictory? — Janus
Look at a car. It's made of metal, rubber, plastic and glasses that come in varird shapes. Separate they're nothing but together they acquire a property/function that can't be understood if we consider only the parts. Only the whole, all parts together, is what we call a car. I think brain-mind is something very similar and, so, shouldn't cause us to overactivate our imagination. — TheMadFool
Well, if we take a cellular phone and time travel back to the 12th century it would be unexplicable and I'm quite sure 12th century folks will ''explain'' it as sorcery or something to do with spirits etc. The truth however is that cellular phones are correctly explained with physical radiowaves. This clearly shows that we shouldn't default to magical thinking just because something can't be explained readily with the physical sciences. — TheMadFool
The pattern is simply the arrangement of colored threads as they comprise the shirt, the relations of them to each other. — Terrapin Station
So, if the pattern exists as some other thing to the shirt, what happens if we destroy just the pattern (but leave the shirt completely untouched)? — Isaac
If the two are two different things, there should be some result that is one without the other (A+B, - B, is A, not A+B still), but I can't think what that could be. — Isaac
I can't believe that this is not obvious to you. If a thing emerges, it emerges from those constituent parts, and is therefore reducible to those parts. How does it make sense to you that something could emerge, but is not reducible to the parts from which it emerges? That would be like saying that there is an effect which cannot be explained by its causes. — Metaphysician Undercover
Do you believe that the non-physical is magical? — Metaphysician Undercover
Something seems very wrong to me about saying that everything in universe exhibits the same forms for no reason. And if there is a reason, I don't think the reason could be framed as simply a property of the objects which exhibit form. For instance, it seems to be a property of mass that it causes space-time to warp around it. But I don't think you can just take this fact at face value. Why does the universe exhibit these patterns? It's not logically necessary. Maybe it's physically necessary, but necessity, it seems to me, implies the existence of laws. Something can't just happen to be necessary. There must be something else that makes it necessary. — Dusty of Sky
Assuming an external law wouldn't move us closer to an explanation. It would just raise the question of why there happens to be one particular law in effect rather than another. — Andrew M
The pattern is something other than the shirt because many different shirts are said to have the same pattern. — Metaphysician Undercover
So the question doesn't make any sense until you propose how a pattern would be destroyed. — Metaphysician Undercover
it's actually quite easy to imagine the pattern without the shirt. I don't see why this might be difficult for you. — Metaphysician Undercover
Properties are emergent, and properties are not "composed of parts". — Janus
Dangerously close to it; not to mention the fact that it closes all inquiry since the non-physical, by definition, can't be investigated in anyway. — TheMadFool
That said I see an opening for inquiry into the mind with the mind itself - a sort of self-examination which philosophy encourages. However I don't know how much objectivity, a necessity I presume, can be attained along such lines. — TheMadFool
I'm not seeing the necessity here. How is our repeatedly using the same name to describe similar arrangements of colour and shape forcing a thing into existence? — Isaac
If I asked you to imagine a world without apples are you seriously suggesting that the question doesn't even make sense until I can provide you with the details about how exactly I plan to destroy all the apples. Do you ask Putman how exactly he planned on making his vat? Do you require architectural drawings before considering Searle's Chinese room to have any meaning? — Isaac
It's a thought experiment. Just presume I have some means of destroying things that exist in the realm of platonic forms (or whatever realm you're positing for this pattern). What would the shirt with alternating stripes now look like if I destroyed the pattern {alternating stripes} within the realm in which it exists? — Isaac
I didn't claim to be having any trouble imagining the pattern without the shirt. If you actually read my post I'm asking entirely about imagining the shirt (completely unchanged physically), but without the pattern. — Isaac
To say that the threads are in an arrangement, or a pattern, is to refer to something other than the threads. — Metaphysician Undercover
Would you agree that you must know the pattern, in your mind, prior to arranging the things according to that pattern? — Metaphysician Undercover
If you are having a problem with the word "exists", then we might leave it out, and say that the pattern is in your mind prior to the things being arranged in the pattern. Do you not understand this, or see some reason to deny it? — Metaphysician Undercover
If "apples" were the type of thing which were impossible to remove from the world, as "patterns" are, then you would see that it makes no sense to ask someone to imagine a world without apples. — Metaphysician Undercover
OK, I'll try this thought experiment for you. I remove from my mind, a particular pattern. Let's say I forgot it. — Metaphysician Undercover
The real issue here, which you seem to have no respect for, is that the pattern existed in the mind of the designer, before it is expressed in the shirt. — Metaphysician Undercover
It depends upon the property. The apple's redness is not a property of the apple alone. It is a property of an interaction between the apple, light, and our sensory system. Through causation, redness can inform us of the state of our sensory system, the wavelength of light and ripeness of the apple. The property of ripeness belongs the the apple alone, not redness. Redness is a property of the mind when looking at, or thinking of, an ripe apple.As having properties is how we describe things. Where does the property emerge from, the human mind which does the describing? If you are direct realist, then the property is the thing, and it is therefore composed of parts. — Metaphysician Undercover
I see the issue as this - given scientific laws/regularities/order, then science can do an awful lot of work. But it doesn't explain those laws; it doesn't know why f=ma or e=mc2. Put another way, science reveals many things about the order of nature, but nothing much about the nature of the order ;-) And that is something that is often lost sight of. — Wayfarer
It's referring to the relation of the threads--the way they're situated with respect to each other extensionally (or we could more conventionally say the way they're situated in space). You don't think that the relation of the threads is nonphysical, do you? — Terrapin Station
You seem to be saying everything, including the physical, is non-physical since the only window to the world we have is our mind. It's kinda like saying an apple is the very same thing as light just because we need light to see an apple, which is incorrect. — TheMadFool
No. I must have an image (or instructions) relating to a pattern in order to try to create another pattern just like it. Neither of them are the pattern in some way. They are two different patterns with many similarities. — Isaac
Yes. "Exists" is not the problem, "the" is the problem. There's no such thing as the pattern. There are patterns (which are just collections of properties we focus on), those patterns have similarities, that's all there need be to it. We don't need to then reify some archetype. — Isaac
But a tartan pattern, for example, is just as possible as apples to remove from the world. In fact, before the advent of weaving, there was a world with no tartan pattern. What you can't do is remove all the tartan patterns from the world but leave all the kilts exactly as they were, meaning that the tartan pattern does not exist independently of the thing it is describing. — Isaac
No. A pattern existed in the mind of the designer. A different pattern exists on the shirt. Are you trying to claim that the exact same pattern has been removed from the mind of the designer and placed on the shirt? — Isaac
The property of ripeness belongs the the apple alone, not redness. — Harry Hindu
Do you think there is, at least in principle, an explanation? And if so where and how is it to be found? — Andrew M
Can we agree that there is no point in talking about "the pattern", or "a pattern" if you insist that there is no such thing as 'the pattern", and to say that the shirt has a pattern is pure nonsense? if there is no such thing as "the pattern" which the shirt has, it is nonsense to say that it has a pattern. — Metaphysician Undercover
Talking about the world prior to the existence of some thing, is not the same as attempting to remove something already existing in the world, and then talk about that thing afterwards. These two are completely different. So this comparison is not useful. — Metaphysician Undercover
Let's say that there is a pattern in the mind, and there is a pattern on the shirt, and they are not the same, and neither can be said to be "the pattern". Do you agree that the pattern on the shirt is a copy of the one in the designer's mind? — Metaphysician Undercover
Well not an exact copy, obviously. It will have some similarities and some differences. The key difference (which obtains no matter how accurate the representation) being the location in space. One is in someone's head, the other is on a shirt — Isaac
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