Your 2 is that one can't describe the way that possibilities are grounded in the physical world, so if that's your justification for 2, that's circular. — Terrapin Station

I disagree. I’m not saying they can’t be grounded in the physical world by simply assuming they can’t; rather I’m offering you the chance to disprove the premise - if the justification was circular it wouldn’t be open to that disproof. If you were to offer one and I rejected it by simply assuming the premise then in that case it would be circular.

I disagree. I’m not saying they can’t be grounded in the physical world by simply assuming they can’t; rather I’m offering you the chance to disprove the premise - if the justification was circular it wouldn’t be open to that disproof. If you were to offer one and I rejected it by simply assuming the premise then in that case it would be circular. — AJJ

???

It's circular because your support for 2 is just a restatement of 2.

Circularity has nothing to do with other people disproving anything, etc.

It isn’t actually a restatement. The premise is that possibilities can’t be grounded materially in the physical world, and the justification is that they haven’t (despite the opportunity offered) been shown to be groundable materially in the physical world.

Wait, I could just state mine as:

1. There are possibilities
2. They can't be grounded in the nonmaterial world

Then

And do the exact same thing

But I have actually shown them (in a non-circular fashion) to be groundable that way, in the divine intellect.

So I suspect what you’d be doing there is begging the question, i.e. more circularity.

So I suspect what you’d be doing there is begging the question, i.e. more circularity. — AJJ

What is wrong with you? It's the exact same thing you're doing. Are you trolling?

But I have actually shown them (in a non-circular fashion) to be groundable that way, in the divine intellect. — AJJ

You've made claims to that effect, sure. I've made claims you don't agree with, too.

1. There are possibilities
2. They can’t be grounded materially in the physical world
3. So they must be abstract objects
4. If they’re abstract objects they can’t exist in the physical world but must exist in a mind or collection of minds
5. To remain possibilities in the absence of contingent minds they must exist within an absolutely necessary mind — AJJ

I don’t see at what point I beg the question.

1.There are possibilities
2. They can’t be grounded nonmaterially in the nonphysical world
3. So they must be an upshot of material facts
4. If they’re upshots of material facts, they can’t exist in the nonphysical world but must exist in the physical world

If yours isn't circular, that isn't either.

Not that I'd say it has much to do with telling us what possibilities are--those are arguments about whether possibilities are material or nonmaterial. That doesn't tell us what possibilities are or how they obtain exactly. But for whatever reason, you want to focus on whether they're material or not. I don't think it's worth arguing whether they're material or not, because the whole idea of nonphysical existents is incoherent. It's not worth bothering with.

(And this has also had nothing whatsoever to do with nominalism, conceptualism, etc. for awhile)

1.There are possibilities
2. They can’t be grounded nonmaterially in the nonphysical world
3. So they must be an upshot of material facts
4. If they’re upshots of material facts, they can’t exist in the nonphysical world but must exist in the physical world — Terrapin Station

Underlying the above is this:

the whole idea of nonphysical existents is incoherent. It's not worth bothering with. — Terrapin Station

You’re justification for believing possibilities are groundable materially is an assumed materialism. I’m not assuming the alternative (I actually think a fully cogent materialist world view would be really interesting), rather I’m reasoning in this case that possible worlds can’t exist materially, and so if they do exist it’s as abstract objects.

I'm not just assuming for no reason that possible worlds can't exist nonmaterially. It's via reasoning that we justify that they can't exist nonmaterially.

In any event, this has nothing to do with whether it's circular.

I'm not just assuming for no reason that possible worlds can't exist nonmaterially. It's via reasoning that we justify that they can't exist nonmaterially. — Terrapin Station

What is your reasoning that they can’t exist non-materially?

It starts with trying to make sense of the notion of any nonmaterial existent. No one who posits nonmaterial existents will even posit any positive properties that they're supposed to have. ("Positive property" refers to saying properties they're supposed to have rather than listing properties they do not have, that is, rather than defining them via negation of physical properties.)

It seems to me a possible world where everything is identical apart from there isn’t a blue mug in front of me would have all the properties this world has minus the blue mug, but it would have them potentially rather than actually.

I have no idea what that's supposed to have to do with our last two posts.

This intuition is correct, but it has a serious consquence for our account of possible worlds: they cannot exist all (since existing things are actual).

Rather puts a dampener on the supposed contradiction between possible worlds and the material.


That which does not exist does not need it's existence grounded. Materialists get completely off the hook because the non- existence of abstract objects releases any need for them to appear as existing states.

You asked what properties non-material existents can have. On my view possible worlds are non-material existents and have properties in the way I described.

but it has a serious consquence for our account of possible worlds: they cannot exist all (since existing things are actual). — TheWillowOfDarkness

This isn’t true if you accept the analogical use of language, in which case potentials have being in an analogical sense rather than in a way univocal or equivocal to the sense in which actual things have being.

Not true.

Remember the problem was supposedly that possibilities had to exist, had to possess the univocal or equivocal sense of an actual state.

If we are to reject this, whether by analogy or definition as an abstract object, we are committed in the first instance to a position possibilities do not exist at all. Indeed, it is precisely in being possibilities are abstract or referred to by analogy that they are not a material (actual) state.

You asked what properties non-material existents can have. On my view possible worlds are non-material existents and have properties in the way I described. — AJJ

Ah, okay, so in a possible world sans the blue mug, is there a spatial location of your computer, for example? So that you'd be saying that spatial location is a nonphysical property?

Remember the problem was supposedly that possibilities had to exist, had to possess the univocal or equivocal sense of an actual state. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I haven’t said they need to exist in the sense univocal to something actual. My view is potentials have being, but in a sense analogical to the sense in which actuals have being: not in the same way, but not in an entirely different way.

My view is potentials have being, but in a sense analogical to the sense in which actuals have being: not in the same way, but not in an entirely different way. — AJJ

An analogy that's entirely different than what we're analogizing?

In which case you are really in little disagreement with the nominalist: like you, they hold potentials are non-existent. Both of you look out into the material world and assert the possibilities are not found there.

The analogy makes no difference here. All that's required for this similarity is the assertion potentials are not material. Both of you agree potentials are not manifesting states of the material world.

All the properties of a possible world would have to be non-physical.

In which case you are really in little disagreement with the nominalist: like you, they hold potentials are non-existent. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I don’t hold that potentials are non-existent. I hold that they exist in a sense analogical to the way actual things exist.

An analogy that's entirely different than what we're analogizing? — Terrapin Station

I think you’ve misread my post.

I know, which commits you to a position, like a nomilnalist, that these abstract objects are not at all material existence.

Always. That's how analogies work. Two different things are noted to be similar in some respect.

The trouble here is in the space question, material existence, there is nothing shared, no matter how similar or analogous they might be. If someone says, "You run like a penguin", it doesn't make me a penguin.