I've attempted to be clear. If it has mass, then it's in reality. It's also real. If it's an idea, no mass, real, not in reality. — tim wood

Tim's not correct Wayfarer. Gravity consists of particles called Gravitons (the hypothetical graviton, is a massless particle traveling at the speed of light, just like photons in the electromagnetic theory/we don't actually know for sure), which have no mass. Neither do photons. But gravity seems to be more complicated. Gravity is a force, which can exist in the form of Gravitational Waves, which are ripples in the spacetime. Hence gravitational waves are massless too. All in all, we can say that gravity/photons don't have a mass.

In the real world of everydayness, there are many things from consciousness (thoughts and feelings themselves) that don't have 'mass'. And that's a no-brainer!

If it has mass, then it's in reality. — tim wood

Does the will to survive have mass :snicker:

sense of wonderment is a feeling; wondering is thinking; consciousness is an idea.
— Mww

What do all of them have in common? — 3017amen

Humanity? Intellect? Rationality? All of the above? — Mww

Self-awareness. — 3017amen

Oh. Ok. I was going for the irreducible, in order to not affirm the consequent, that is to say, that which is both necessary and sufficient, rather than one or the other. But true enough, self-awareness is common to feeling, thinking, and consciousness, without being the primary condition for them.

LOL, there are few real answers in philosophy, but at least we know self-awareness exists! Or at least it's true that philosophy itself requires having self-awareness in order to practice it!!

Tim's not correct Wayfarer. Gravity consists of particles called Gravitons (the hypothetical graviton, is a massless particle traveling at the speed of light, just like photons in the electromagnetic theory/we don't actually know for sure), which have no mass. — 3017amen

It would be nice if you knew English. "Hypothetical," "we don't actually know." It would also help if you read the posts you're responding to. I define the words I us with some care. I admit at the edges there's ambiguity.

Read, comprehend, write English. Else I shall dismiss you, and with that anger for wasting my time.

Does the will to survive have mass — 3017amen

This question is not relevant to the discussion, because of failure to understand the discussion.

If it has mass, then it's in reality. — tim wood
Does the will to survive have mass :snicker:[/quote]


Does 'Doubt' have mass? Or how about 'Reason'?

I think these do not have mass, consequently not, on my understanding, in reality, though perfectly real. If you think they exist outside of minds, then an adequate account of that would be nice.

I think these do not have mass, consequently not, on my understanding, in reality, though perfectly real. If you think they exist outside of minds, then an adequate account of that would be nice. — tim wood

Great! So you stand corrected. Those things have no mass, yet are real.

As far as something existing outside the mind (phenomenology), and/or mathematics having an independent existence (as examples), I tend to side-in with Wayfarer. But that's just my Kantian intuition :gasp: I think when you think of infinity/speed of light; something existing outside of time (eternity) that creates temporal time, (mathematics being a so-called timeless eternal truth) so on and s forth you can't help but wonder for a deeper explanation. Or at least wondering about the causes of something existing independent of temporal time itself (like relativity/the speed of light).

But only theories exist there. It could be that some other possible world has yet another language altogether that in-turn explains itself (existence). Or, maybe there are other worlds like ours with limited explanation, just a different set of rationality. I think we're back to multiverse theories...the notion of possible worlds is intriguing. But we're kind of off topic there... .

Reason and Doubt apparently don't have mass.

Great! So you stand corrected. Those things have no mass, yet are real. — 3017amen

Read! That is exactly what I started off saying! Useless!

That is exactly what I started off saying! Useless! — tim wood

Useless for whom?

When you mis-read, mis-represent, mis-state, mis-understand, fail in response, write incoherently, and are often simply non-responsive, then you're useless to all, even yourself.

If it has mass, then it's in reality — tim wood

I agree, particularly when you mistakenly conflated mass with reality :joke:

Never did. Why don't you get it right, oh useless one. See, try reading "If it has mass, then it's in reality" for comprehension. Look at the words. What do they mean? Together what do they say? I'll own going back and forth between materiality and mass, but the distinction lies in what makes this thing here this thing here and not that thing there, qualities ideas don't have.

And if like some others you would reduce all to QM and wave-functions, I must take that as a radical denial of your own being and the being of everything else.

So I can tell the difference. I asked you if we were fruit salad. It appears we are. And I think you are allowing for a careless equivocation in your usage. — tim wood

What the hell are you talking about? You distinguish between reality and not reality, on the basis of materiality, because that makes it easy for you? Does being easy mean your distinction is correct?

Sorry I didn't reply to your quip about "fruit salad", I thought you were making a joke.

And how would they know? Are they making any distinction between real and reality? And, "part of" reality: what part, how? — tim wood

What kind of a distinction is that? I really don't see how reality can be anything other than the complete collection of what is real. Isn't that what reality means to you? That's what the dictionary says, so it must be what it means to most people. What sense does it make to say that there are some real things, which for some obscure reason, are not part of reality? As I pointed out, with my example of wavefunctions and particles, it really doesn't make the distinction any easier for you. All it does is defer the question of whether a thing is a part of reality or not, to a question of whether the thing is material or not. And if this is the wrong question in the first place you are just making a mistake.

It appears you mean "inside itself." That is not what I mean (nor, I suspect, anyone else on the planet). I merely meant that which corresponds to your act of naming and pointing. "Brick" is an idea. But a brick, the particular one named and referred to, the one having mass, is both real and (ok, here) inside of reality, in ways that "brick" is not. — tim wood

I don't understand why you believe that a thing must be capable of being pointed at in order to be part of reality. The fact that we cannot point to it might only indicate that our knowledge of it is deficient. But why should we exclude things from reality just because our knowledge of these things is deficient. Something makes an unfamiliar sound in the night. We cannot exclude this from reality just because we can't point to it. We cannot exclude wavefunctions from reality just because we cannot point to the particle. Nor can we exclude ideas from reality just because we cannot point to them. All these things, we cannot point to them merely because we are deficient in knowledge about them. This does not mean that they are not part of reality.

And, to be sure, wave functions in any case just are ideas - methods of describing. — tim wood

Sez you, but "wavefunction" describes something real, just like "brick" describes something real. And, just like you can point to a particular place where "brick" is applicable (an object called a brick), you can also point to a particular place where "wavefunction" is applicable. (in a field of electromagnetic radiation). I'm afraid your distinction is really not getting you anywhere. Use of the word "brick" is supported by ideas, so that we can use "brick" to refer to something in the world, but so is "wavefunction" supported by ideas so that it can be used to refer to something in the world.

Why, tell me please, are the ideas which are employed in the use of words, any less a part of reality than the things which are referred to by the words. If using words is part of reality, then we must include both of these essential aspects of word usage as part of reality as well.

But ours is essentially simple. There are various ways that I might demonstrate to you the reality of a brick. And those criteria I define as being the criteria not for the real, but for reality. You're certainly free to not like my definition and to have your own. But I invite you to show me how an idea, by these criteria, is, in reality. And I will allow that my criterium, for it's an -um and not an -a, is mass. — tim wood

Suppose someone takes a brick, and slaps you upside the head with it. Are you going to turn around and tell me that intentions are not a part of reality, because they are not material like the brick is? Do you think it's the brick that gets up and slaps you in the head? Do you think a brick could even exist in the first place, without intentions to create it? Tim, get your shit together, and face reality! Otherwise it will slap you in the face while you're standing there thinking, ideas can't do that, they're not part of reality.








,

but "wavefunction" describes something real, — Metaphysician Undercover

Great! What? The world wants to know.

You ignore my distinction between reality and real, even as I tell you it's my distinction and why I make it. But put it away: my distinction is between ideas and things not ideas, ideas being matters of mind. If they're not matters of mind, say so, and tell me what they then are and where they are.

@jorndoe, who seems to have a gift for succinct expression, no doubt because he knows what he is talking about, has this, which I admire.

"• x is subjective = x's existence is mind-dependent (e.g. fictional (fictions exist too))
• x is objective = x's existence is mind-independent (e.g. real)"

I've been using mass and materiality to try to make this distinction. Subjective/objective seems good too.

we know self-awareness exists — 3017amen

Ya know.....there is a standing argument where existence cannot be the predicate of a proposition. The logical error, in this case at least, is that just because it seems I am aware of myself and therefore my mental activities, I cannot infer from that alone, that self-awareness is something that exists. The very best that can be claimed, is that self-awareness is a subjectively valid representation.

There’s no real harm in positing the existence of self-awareness, but a philosophical problem will arise when it is claimed that ping pong tables and self-awareness exist equally.

I've attempted to be clear. If it has mass, then it's in reality. It's also real. If it's an idea, no mass, real, not in reality. — tim wood

That's the materialist view. I don't agree with it, and you're giving me no reason to accept it. The fact that it seems obvious to you is not an argument for it. But, I've answered your questions as well as I'm able, so I'll leave it there.

That's the materialist view. I don't agree with it, and you're giving me no reason to accept it. — Wayfarer

You shall have to tell me what the materialist view is, because I suspect I am not a materialist, because I suppose ideas to be non-material. And that my view, such as it is, seems reasonable and makes sense. Unless I'm misunderstanding, you want ideas to be other than creatures - product - of mind, and not material or matter, but you won't say what. And so you can, but please refrain from parting shots if that's all you've got

The point you keep missing was Wayfarer's platonic ideals from the simple standpoint of physical v. metaphysical. Like mathematical abstracts, they can describe a circle or a structural beam, through using calculations (ideas), but never come into existence. In themselves they hold no mass or weight yet they are used in physics to effectively describe physical things as found in nature, or in engineering to describe and design a structure, etc. etc..

You shall have to tell me what the materialist view is, — tim wood

Materialism is a form of philosophical monism that holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materialism, mind and consciousness are by-products or epiphenomena of material processes (such as the biochemistry of the human brain and nervous system), without which they cannot exist. — Wikipedia

You ‘suppose ideas to be non-material’ but you say

Ideas are certainly real. But not real in any material sense. — tim wood

They’re ‘real’, then, in the same sense as opinions or convictions are real - because they’re held by subjects. They’re real for them. Which at once subjectivises and relativises.

But I’m arguing that ideas are real in a more profound sense than that. They are constituents of reality, no less than are atoms and electric fields, but that they manifest as elements of judgement, not as objects. Whenever we declare what is or what isn’t real, whether matter is real or mind is, we’re relying on judgement. Even the belief that ‘everything is ultimately material’ is a judgement. But modern thought tends not to see that, because it attributes reality to ‘what exists independently of any mind’. What is real, we think, is what is ‘out there’, what is real independently of any perspective or viewpoint, the vast universe in which h.sapiens are ‘mere blips’.

The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies. — Stephen Hawking

What this doesn’t see, is that this is only clear to us, because we’re capable of judgement. In a sense, h.sapiens is the means by which the Universe is able to arrive at such an understanding. ‘A physicist’, said Neils Bohr, ‘is just an atom’s way of looking at itself’. So that ‘looking at’ is as fundamental to reality as ‘what is looked at’ - an elemental truth which has only barged its way into modern philosophy by way of the ‘observer problem’ in physics. (Which is why post-modernism in philosophy coincides with the advent of relativity.)

gets it right. The ‘standard model’ of particle physics IS a mathematical model. Now, certainly, and as I already said, modern science demands that the mathematics is validated against observation, and a lot of that subject matter will never be understood by me or anyone without a degree in mathematical physics, although that is also beside the point.

We rely on judgement whenever we say ‘is’, ‘is not’, ‘because’, ‘is equal to’. Reason itself is reliant on these elements - they are like the ‘ligatures’ of thinking, based on the ability to abstract. You won’t find those elements ‘out there somewhere’, there not amongst the objects of scientific analysis, but science couldn’t even get started without them.

The very best that can be claimed, is that self-awareness is a subjectively valid representation. — Mww

Mww!

LOL yep I remember that in my studies of Existentialism. Sort of a huge topic that deserves a separate thread. The particular distinction of predication (whether existence is a true predicate) reminds me of a similar one where some argue that a subjective truth is not a truth that I have, but a truth that I am. :smile:

Remember, man tends to forget existence. It happens, however, that he must first exist in order to have self-awareness and use reason.

If no mind, then does 2+2=4?

We rely on judgement whenever we say ‘is’, ‘is not’, ‘because’, ‘is equal to’. Reason itself is reliant on these elements - they are like the ‘ligatures’ of thinking, based on the ability to abstract. — Wayfarer

If no mind, is there judgment? If no mind, is there an ability to abstract?

Remember, man tends to forget existence. It happens, however, that he must first exist in order to have self-awareness and reason. — 3017amen

And a fortiori, no existence no self-awareness (no self) and no reason (no reasoner).

If no mind, then does 2+2=4? — tim wood

I'm still not sure on why you're asking me that, but I'm inclined to say, as I said, that primitive arithmetical truths will be the case for any mind capable of grasping them, but they're only graspable by a mind. There's a paper I read - I don't read a lot of philosophy papers - called 'Frege on Knowing the Third Realm' by Tyler Burge who shows that Frege has the same view. And that most modern philosophers will find this 'perplexing'. Why will they find it 'perplexing'? Because, again, it suggests that 'mental objects' - i.e. primitive arithmetical truths - are real, 'in the same way', says Frege 'as are stars and planets'. But - they're mental! So how can they be real? Only what's 'out there' in time and space is real, right? That's what you say, isn't it?

I've also found some insights in an Encylopedia of Philosophy article, the Indispensability Argument in the Philosophy of Mathematics. It begins:

In his seminal 1973 paper, “Mathematical Truth,” Paul Benacerraf presented a problem facing all accounts of mathematical truth and knowledge. Standard readings of mathematical claims entail the existence of mathematical objects. But, our best epistemic theories seem to debar any knowledge of mathematical objects.

So, what are 'out best epistemic theories'? Why, naturalist ones, of course!

It's almost comical in its earnestness, this article. Further down, it says:

Mathematical objects are not the kinds of things that we can see or touch, or smell, taste or hear. If we can not learn about mathematical objects by using our senses, a serious worry arises about how we can justify our mathematical beliefs. .....Sets are abstract objects, lacking any spatio-temporal location. Their existence is not contingent on our existence. They lack causal efficacy. Our question, then, given that we lack sense experience of sets, is how we can justify our beliefs about sets and set theory. ...Some philosophers, called rationalists, claim that we have a special, non-sensory capacity for understanding mathematical truths, a rational insight arising from pure thought. But, the rationalist’s claims appear incompatible with an understanding of human beings as physical creatures whose capacities for learning are exhausted by our physical bodies.

To me, the answer is just staring us in the face: that mathematical reasoning relies on and reveals non-physical reals. But this article, and many of the books and papers it refers to, goes to tortuous lengths to argue against this. Ask yourself why.

Anyway - I'm at the work-desk for 8 hours, really must log out altogether and show some discipline.

but I'm inclined to say, as I said, that primitive arithmetical truths will be the case for any mind capable of grasping them, but they're only graspable by a mind. — Wayfarer

And thus any truth. How not? And truths about truths, and truths about falsehoods, and etc., ad infinitum. And these all lodged where, grounded in or on what. The world? Reality? The universe? None of these know anything of truth - show me where I am mistaken at any time - of any kind. In case you forget, truths are propositional. No proposer, no proposition, no truth.

entail the existence of mathematical objects.

And what might they be? This: "A mathematical object is an abstract concept arising in mathematics. In usual language of mathematics, an object is anything that has been (or could be) formally defined, and with which one may do deductive reasoning and mathematical proofs. Typically, a mathematical object can be the value of a variable, and therefore can be involved in formulas. Commonly encountered mathematical objects include: numbers, integers, integer partition, or expressions."

How can there be a abstract concept without an abstractor? You don't have your feet on any ground at all. And were you to touch ground, your notions would implode. And these "truths" that are just out there somewhere, universal, for "any mind capable of grasping them"? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe they will have truths of their own.

Given the roughly 5x10^8 years of the evolution of mind on this planet, and all that mind, for better or worse, has accomplished by itself, it does not trouble me to suppose that mind invented logic. Or discovered that some ideas comport well with the way the world seems to work. After all, if you buy the mind of God, then you acknowledge that mind can do pretty much anything.

You ignore my distinction between reality and real, even as I tell you it's my distinction and why I make it. — tim wood

Obviously I'm not ignoring your distinction, that's why I'm in this discussion. I just think it's not consistent with reality, and therefore it's wrong.

But put it away: my distinction is between ideas and things not ideas, ideas being matters of mind. If they're not matters of mind, say so, and tell me what they then are and where they are. — tim wood

I have no reason to say that ideas are not matters of mind. The issue is with your assumption that matters of mind are not part of reality.

"• x is subjective = x's existence is mind-dependent (e.g. fictional (fictions exist too))
• x is objective = x's existence is mind-independent (e.g. real)"

I've been using mass and materiality to try to make this distinction. Subjective/objective seems good too. — tim wood

The problem is that mass, and materiality, are concepts, what we say about things, descriptions, and therefore not mind independent. Likewise, subjective/objective has the same problem, these are just concepts, proposed for division. But on what basis can you divide two categories and say that the things in the one category are not part of reality? The simple act of dividing, and designating this part as a part of a larger whole, denies that the part could be outside reality. What could that even mean, to have identified two distinct types of things, and then say that this one type is not part of reality?

I think that this 'of the mind', and 'not of the mind' distinction is not a good one to base an understanding of reality on. And to make a distinction like that and remove one side from the realm of reality, yet try to say that this side is somehow "real", is just contradiction. There are other distinctions which are much more productive, like passive/active, and past/future, which allow both sides to be part of reality, and also allow that both mind and matter partake of both sides. Then we bypass this bias which makes you want to contradict yourself by saying that there are real things which are not part of reality. If you'd open your mind to other possibilities you might see that if it's real, it's got to be part of reality. Then, when we except the reality of immaterial things, we can get to work on understanding them. But denying the reality of them doesn't give us any headway toward understanding them.

...because I suspect I am not a materialist... — tim wood

Wow, a person who defines "reality" with "materiality" and doesn't consider that to be a case of materialism. I'm dumbfounded.

if you buy the mind of God, then you acknowledge that mind can do pretty much anything. — tim wood

But, you don't.

Given the roughly 5x10^8 years of the evolution of mind on this planet, and all that mind, for better or worse, has accomplished by itself, it does not trouble me to suppose that mind invented logic. — tim wood

Discovered logic.

...because I suspect I am not a materialist...
— tim wood

Wow, a person who defines "reality" with "materiality" and doesn't consider that to be a case of materialism. I'm dumbfounded. — Metaphysician Undercover

A materialist, fool!, apparently maintain that ideas are material, that all that is, is material. Which. I. Have. Made. Clear. Is. Not. What. I. Think. Get your terms straight!

And if it's all concepts, then no material, no materiality, no mass, no subjective/objective, everything is concepts, and no world, therefore everything a matter of mind. Woo-woo, the Matrix! C'mon!

But, you don't. — Wayfarer

What I buy is all that is really for sale, that God is a creation of mind, and there and only there exists. And as such a mixed bag of benefits, but the good is pretty good, because it represents the best of mind. Not too shabby, that.