The actuality is the substance of the possibility which makes it real, and therefore the essence of why we can call the possibility real. — Metaphysician Undercover
Well I'm asking you to give me the technical distinction. — Metaphysician Undercover
Everything that exists is real, but not everything that is real exists.Briefly, reality means being whatever it is regardless of whether any person or finite group of people thinks it so, while existence means reacting with other like things in the environment. — aletheist
If you accept this, that some realities are not actual, I want to see your principles, your reasons, what gives substance to this idea? — Metaphysician Undercover
I assign "possibility" to the boundary, because if the boundary is vague, there is the possibility of assigning the area within the boundary, to either one of the two actualities. — Metaphysician Undercover
Consider that there is a grey area, between the black spot, and the white of the paper, or a grey area in the Colorado/Wyoming border terrain, such that in this area, it is not definitively one or the other, we are open to possibilities. — Metaphysician Undercover
I didn't know we were involved in a realism/nominalism debate. — Metaphysician Undercover
Inductive principles are any conclusions derived from inductive reasoning. — Metaphysician Undercover
How would you differentiate between real and unreal inductive principles? — Metaphysician Undercover
This implies that the only real possibilities are those that are actualized - i.e., determinism; there are no genuine alternatives when we make choices. Since I did not actually ignore your message, it was not really possible for me to do so. Is that your position? — aletheist
But a boundary between two areas cannot itself be an area, it has to be a line. If it is an area, then there are two additional boundaries - in your diagram, the boundaries between the area that represents possibility and the areas on either side of it that represent the two kinds of actuality. — aletheist
Did you somehow miss this post from yesterday? — aletheist
Are you monitoring my ongoing conversation with Terrapin Station? A real law of nature governs actual things and events, but the law itself is not actual - it has to do with what would be under certain conditions, not what was or is; not even what (determinately) will be. — aletheist
But a boundary between two areas cannot itself be an area, it has to be a line. If it is an area, then there are two additional boundaries - in your diagram, the boundaries between the area that represents possibility and the areas on either side of it that represent the two kinds of actuality. — aletheist
However, to be fair, state borders are arbitrary creations of particular human minds, and thus do not qualify as real in the sense that we are discussing. — aletheist
I would agree in thinking about the self as swimming in a sea of language, at least in terms of its intersubjective dimension; but I do not think of the self as 'made" of language. For me it is more like it is made by something that might be called 'emotion'; perhaps 'affective disposition' is a better term. affective disposition and the creativity it engenders is "not well represented in language" if you mean by "language" something along the lines of discursive analysis. I think you're right that emotion, or as I would prefer, affective disposition, at least contributes towards driving the evolution of ideas, but I do also think that ideas have their own supplementary dialectical engine, with its own logical momentum. — John
No, that's not what I said, the so-called real possibility is based in an actuality, it is not one that's been actualized. — Metaphysician Undercover
Take your black ink spot on the white paper, and look at it under a microscope, the boundary looks completely different from how it looks to the naked eye. — Metaphysician Undercover
I'm still waiting to see that technical definition which demonstrates the difference. — Metaphysician Undercover
How can a non-actual thing govern an actual thing? — Metaphysician Undercover
This is where you are wrong, unless you propose a third thing, which separates the two things, the boundary is always an area, it is an area where the two things on the opposing sides of the boundary are intermixing. — Metaphysician Undercover
It is this vagueness which gives rise to possibility. — Metaphysician Undercover
On your view, how can a possibility that has not been actualized be real at all? — aletheist
By being real per the definition that I gave, despite not being actual per the definition (of existence) that I gave. — aletheist
No matter how powerful a microscope you use, you will always see black on one side of the boundary and white on the other. More below. — aletheist
In mine (ink blot), a boundary is not a third thing at all - it is the demarcation between two things that do not intermix. — aletheist
By being real per the definition that I gave, despite not being actual per the definition (of existence) that I gave. This is why the terminological distinction is so important - it obviously makes no sense if you insist on treating reality and actuality/existence as synonyms. — aletheist
A more pertinent case is the "boundary" between P and not-P with respect to anything that is actual, and therefore determinate; the law of non-contradiction prevents anything from being both P and not-P, while the law of excluded middle prevents anything from being neither P nor not-P. — aletheist
That possibilities are real is an illusion. — Metaphysician Undercover
I don't understand why you would equate "actual" with existence, instead of with "real", as per standard dictionary definitions. — Metaphysician Undercover
It seems you have never looked through a microscope before. If you had, you would know that this statement is totally incorrect. — Metaphysician Undercover
So I ask you how is it possible for a real thing to interact with an actual thing, without that real thing itself being actual? — Metaphysician Undercover
But your P and not-P are totally fictional, so there is no boundary between them because each of them refer to absolutely nothing. — Metaphysician Undercover
Well, you still have not answered the questions that I asked first. — aletheist
Because that is what we mean when we talk about universals - when we talk about laws of nature, in this case. There is something real that governs events in such a way that whenever certain conditions obtain, certain outcomes happen. Without it, no mere aggregate of particular events that occurred in the past can warrant the confident expectation that similar events will occur in the future. — aletheist
As I said before, this entails that what we call "free will" is an illusion. If there are no real possibilities, then whatever actually happens had to happen; there were no real alternatives. — aletheist
It seems you have never discussed a thought experiment before. If you had, you would know that this statement is totally irrelevant. — aletheist
So now the "boundary" is between purple and not-purple with respect to anything that is actual, and therefore determinate; the law of non-contradiction prevents anything from being both purple and not-purple, while the law of excluded middle prevents anything from being neither purple nor not-purple. — aletheist
On the other hand, generality means that the law of excluded middle does not apply; neither purple nor not-purple can be attributed to a real general, even though each actual instance of it must be either purple or not-purple. — aletheist
There is something real about particular properties that makes them 'behave' in certain ways, including when interacting with other particular properties, so that when particular conditions obtain, particular outcomes will obtain. — Terrapin Station
I'm asking for something like an explanation of how/why it works the universalist-picture way ontologically. — Terrapin Station
As I said, if we look at the edge of a purple thing under a microscope, we will see that the boundary between purple and not-purple is vague. — Metaphysician Undercover
The problem that I am having is understanding how this statement is somehow denying the reality of a (general) law of nature. If everything is particular, then there is no warrant (as far as I can tell) for making confident assertions about the future - e.g., that if particular conditions were to obtain, then particular outcomes would happen. — aletheist
I am still not sure exactly what you mean by this, and - to be honest - I am even less sure that I am capable of providing it right now. — aletheist
If the thing is actual, then it has to be either purple or not-purple; it cannot be both or neither. — aletheist
If the thing is possible, then both purple and not-purple are still possible. — aletheist
I wouldn't say there's any warrant for making confident assertions about the future just because we're positing universals/generals. — Terrapin Station
... you shouldn't believe universalism, either, because no one has a "mechanical" or blueprint-like explanation of just how/why it works as it does. — Terrapin Station
Are you saying that you see no distinction between treating predictable regularities as a brute fact vs. explaining them as the logical consequence of there being real laws of nature that really govern actual (and counterfactual) events? — aletheist
Are you saying that you do not see how real laws of nature would work to cause predictable regularities? — aletheist
I know that this is getting repetitive, but I still would like to know - on your view, what warrants our confident predictions that particulars will "behave" in the future as they have in the past? — aletheist
Are we ever justified in making law-like counterfactual claims about circumstances that may never actually occur? — aletheist
I think that induction is good enough, especially since in my view, certainty isn't something to be concerned with. — Terrapin Station
I think that plenty of counterfactual claims are justified--"If static electricity hadn't built up, the gasoline vapors wouldn't have ignited" for example. — Terrapin Station
I know that this is getting repetitive, but I still would like to know - on your view, what warrants our confident predictions that particulars will "behave" in the future as they have in the past? — aletheist
Are we ever justified in making law-like counterfactual claims about circumstances that may never actually occur? — aletheist
As I see it, realism does explain predictable regularities — aletheist
by acknowledging that such consistency is a real feature of the universe - i.e., it works that way regardless of what any person or group of people think about it. — aletheist
Why it works that way is another matter - one that calls for further inquiry, rather than giving up and treating it as inexplicable. — aletheist
That is a counterfactual regarding something that actually happened in the past. I have been asking about counterfactuals regarding something that may or may not actually happen in the future. "If I were to drop this rock, then it would fall to the ground." — aletheist
So successful that you can't give a single example of a scientific theory arrived at by that method. — tom
If so, what's the explanation? — Terrapin Station
We're simply saying that those are properties of particulars, not something other than particulars. — Terrapin Station
At some point, you can't answer any longer, because you don't have an infinite amount of time. — Terrapin Station
Our knowledge permits us to make counterfactual claims. — tom
Interestingly, we can even test counterfactuals these days. — tom
Realism, on the other hand . . . — aletheist
But you are saying that those are particular properties of particulars, right? — aletheist
How can regularities across different particulars be explained in terms of other different particulars? — aletheist
Scientific progress would cease altogether if we adopted this approach. — aletheist
Realism, on the other hand . . . — aletheist
. . . has inexplicable regularities as real abstract/non-particular laws of nature that govern individual things and events. — Terrapin Station
How can regularities across different particulars be explained in terms of other different particulars? — aletheist
?? Why other? They're regularities of those particulars. We're not positing something other. — Terrapin Station
Scientific progress would cease altogether if we adopted this approach. — aletheist
But that's unavoidably the approach we have! The only way to not have that approach is to have an infinite amount of time to answer successive "whys/hows." — Terrapin Station
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