there are three broad options. — mcdoodle
Therefore I think your question would be better stated as "what is the actual world", as any logically consistent description is a possible world, but what is unknown is what makes a given possible world the actual world. — Metaphysician Undercover
I don't feel as if I live in a possible world, should I? — mcdoodle
...I wondered if I could first define 'world' for myself, so the concept didn't slide out of control.
Well, that didn't work... — mcdoodle
According to Christopher Menzel via the Stanford Encyclopedia, combinatorialists hold that "an object exemplifying no properties, and . . . an unexemplified property are considered incoherent; insofar as they exist at all, the existence of both particulars and universals depends on their 'occurring' in some fact or other. — Terrapin Station
Abstractions being strictly mental, of course. — Terrapin Station
"Abstract" and "mental" are different. — Mongrel
For me it's better to look at the concepts without ontological considerations. If you subsequently want to say there is no such thing as an abstract object.. fine. Ontology does not provide leverage for redefining terms. — Mongrel
If no mathematical proof was performed by the computer, if abstract entities were not instantiated and operated upon, then it is quite difficult to explain just what is going on. — tom
Electrical signals are being directed around silicon chips, mechanically influencing the pixels on the display. Presumably nothing's going on that can't in principle be seen with a sufficiently powerful magnifying glass. — Michael
You mean like the electrical signals in your brain, mechanically influencing your fingers? — tom
Still, it is tempting to think that, when a team of mathematicians have finished programming a computer to perform a proof, and finally, after months of toil, run the program, that there is indeed a mathematical proof being performed by the computer.
If no mathematical proof was performed by the computer, if abstract entities were not instantiated and operated upon, then it is quite difficult to explain just what is going on. — tom
Sure. So how does that help the idea that computers somehow have real abstracts in them? — Terrapin Station
What else could it be? — m-theory
What does it mean to say abstractions are not real? — m-theory
But if your concern is ontology - of what worlds really are - then this logicist's view leaves out the very things that physics might think definitional - like generalised coherence — apokrisis
If you do not know what a world is, how could you ever know whether or not you live in a world? So if it feels like you live in a world, why would you think that this is anything other than a possible world? — Metaphysician Undercover
...exactly what objects and universals exist is ultimately a matter for natural science, not metaphysics, to decide... — Terrapin Station
Perhaps I was a fiction writer for too long, there's something about 'logically impossible' that gives me the urge to respond with 'Ah, but what if...?' — mcdoodle
If you agree that abstractions exist then in some sense you are acknowledging that abstractions are real.
It is really that simple. — m-theory
Sorry I am confused about what is your point. — m-theory
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