hypostatisation - regarding something abstract as a material thing
hypostatization, reification
objectification - the act of representing an abstraction as a physical thing
I believe this is similar to a point repeatedly made by Peirce with respect to the difference between what exists and what is real. — Wayfarer
Why can't mental objects be real, or physical? — m-theory
There are plenty of examples in nature where abstractions occur.
Golden ratio, fibonacci sequence, and an animal gives birth to a litter of 7. — m-theory
There are plenty of examples in nature where abstraction occur. — m-theory
The fact that an animal gives birth to a litter of 7 is not in itself an abstraction. It is an event. It is only when someone comes along and says 'aha, seven pups' that it becomes an abstraction. — Wayfarer
All the natural symmetries such as golden ratio, fibonacci sequence, and the like, are attributes of nature that rational reflection has discovered. — Wayfarer
It was that kind of thinking that became fundamental to the origins of science. It was the abilitiy to count, compare (via ratio), understand laws (logos, logic) that enabled the birth of science. According to the Greeks, only man, 'the rational animal', was capable of this, it set man apart from beast. — Wayfarer
The reality of the 'intelligible domain' was central to classical Greek philosophy, and was inherited by the Scholastics, who tended towards realism regarding universals (such as number, ratio, etc.) It was the early nominalists, William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, and others, who challenged that understanding and said that 'only particulars exist'. Conceptualists are like a middle position, saying that numbers (etc) are real but solely as concepts. — Wayfarer
7 is a naturally occurring quantity whether there is some mind to count it or not. — m-theory
The implication is that nature has some set of rules itself, which we can discover, if this is true the realist insists that those laws exist independently and do not necessitate the existence of minds. — m-theory
Surely you can't deny that universals are particularly useful? — m-theory
7 is a number, and a number can only be grasped by a mind capable of counting; it is the ability of a rational intelligence to count that is one of its defining qualities. — Wayfarer
What kind of realist? I think the idea of 'scientific laws' is actually a bone of contention nowadays. In any case, objective idealists, such as Peirce, believe that such laws are emblematic of the fact that nature seems to have something resembling grammar. — Wayfarer
It is nominalism that denies the reality of universals. — Wayfarer
7 is a real quantity without minds. Understanding that there is 7 of something requires minds sure, but that there can be 7 things requires no minds. — m-theory
(Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life, p 271. Linde is one of the originators of 'inflation theory' in the Big Bang.)The problem of including the observer in our description of physical reality arises most insistently when it comes to the subject of quantum cosmology - the application of quantum mechanics to the universe as a whole - because, by definition, 'the universe' must include any observers. Andrei Linde has given a deep reason for why observers enter into quantum cosmology in a fundamental way. It has to do with the nature of time. The passage of time is not absolute; it always involves a change of one physical system relative to another, for example, how many times the hands of the clock go around relative to the rotation of the Earth. When it comes to the Universe as a whole, time looses its meaning, for there is nothing else relative to which the universe may be said to change. This 'vanishing' of time for the entire universe becomes very explicit in quantum cosmology, where the time variable simply drops out of the quantum description. It may readily be restored by considering the Universe to be separated into two subsystems: an observer with a clock, and the rest of the Universe. So the observer plays an absolutely crucial role in this respect. Linde expresses it graphically: 'thus we see that without introducing an observer, we have a dead universe, which does not evolve in time', and, 'we are together, the Universe and us. The moment you say the Universe exists without any observers, I cannot make any sense out of that. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of everything that ignores consciousness...in the absence of observers, our universe is dead'.
How is nominalism useful, what are the practical results of applying nominalism?
Help me understand why I should care that universals are not real. — m-theory
The idea that there is a world in which no minds are present, is also a mental construction. — Wayfarer
That image might be realistic, but it still depends on a viewpoint or perspective. — Wayfarer
An implicit perspective must be introduced to make sense of any kind of universe, even one supposedly without minds. But you're supplying the perspective without realising you're doing it by projecting into the Universe that which is actually in the mind. — Wayfarer
Well I am not interested in debating the role of the observer in quantum mechanics.This is not just idealist blather, either...
(Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life, p 271) — Wayfarer
It depends on what exactly we mean by "repeatable or recurrent entities." I would say that there are no individuals that can be instantiated or exemplified by many particular things, but there are continua that can be instantiated or exemplified by many particular things. Each such instantiation or exemplification is a different manifestation of the same continuum. — aletheist
you can never be clear that you're comparing like with like, or what the other party means by anything he or she says — Wayfarer
I would answer 4? — m-theory
How could you be sure you were adding 'like' to 'like'? — Wayfarer
As soon as you admit that abstract 'objects' (and as noted, they're not actually objects) are real, it's game over for materialism. — Wayfarer
The fact that an animal gives birth to a litter of 7 is not in itself an abstraction. It is an event. It is only when someone comes along and says 'aha, seven pups' that it becomes an abstraction. — Wayfarer
7 is a real quantity without minds.
Understanding that there is 7 of something requires minds sure, but that there can be 7 things requires no minds. — m-theory
The point being made is that a mind must separate these seven things from the rest of reality, such that there actually is just seven things — Metaphysician Undercover
So any time that we individuate an individual object in existence, we arbitrarily separate out a period of time which is proper to that object, allowing for its existence. — Metaphysician Undercover
Would something like this work as a paraphrase of the general idea: "There are different actual properties, each unique, but where comparatively they are more or less similar, and we form conceptual abstractions where something like 'sphericity' is a range of those comparative similarities. Many not(-yet) actualized, similar-but-unique properties can be actualized that we count as sphericity, where those similarities are ideally in-between, in terms if relative similarities and differences, other actualized examples of the sphericity concept." — Terrapin Station
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