That you disagree with my thinking about numbers doesn't prove I am wrong, though. You don't actually argue a rival category: you don't say what type of entity you think a number is, — Olivier5

As mentioned, this is the problem of universals. Your position, conceptualism, is one of the many possible views that people have held about numbers, and universals generally. My position on universals is Aristotle's immanent realism which I describe here.

But note that Hacker said that asking what sort of entity a number is is a pernicious question. Which is to say, is it a question that is decidable according to some obvious or accepted criteria, or is it just a matter of deciding in favor of one's preferred philosophy (say, idealism or materialism)?

Hacker, following Wittgenstein, would suggest looking at how we use numbers in our language and activities. One use is when counting things. For example, I look in the fruit bowl and count three apples. The number three, here, is a quantity.

In the Categories, Aristotle considered the kinds of things that can be the subject or predicate of a proposition - quantity is one of those categories. As used in the apples example above, the quantity three is said of the apples. The quantity of apples in the fruit bowl doesn't depend on any person's mind hence it's real, not nominal or conceptual. If an apple is added to the fruit bowl, the quantity changes, so the quantity is immanent in the apples. Hence Aristotle's immanent realism.

One could still validly ask: how come Mr Hacker has a body AND a mind, and how do these two work together (or not) within the entity called "Mr Hacker"? So the problem has not disappeared at all. It was just a slight of hands... — Olivier5

I don't think you're appreciating that the ordinary use of the word "mind" is idiomatic (I changed my mind, I'm of two minds, that was a mindless act, etc.). One's body and mind aren't entities that "work together" any more than the wax "works together" with the impression on it. As Hacker puts it:

To repeat, to say that our ordinary talk of the mind is a mere façon de parler, or that it is a logical construction, is not to say there are no minds. On the contrary, it is to say that there are, only that they are not kinds of things. — Human Beings – The Mind and the Body: Wittgensteinian-Aristotelian Reflections - Peter M.S. Hacker, 2007

:smile:

:smile:

:smile:

Yeah, I guess it would be: for any x, if x has a mind, x is not justified in doubting the existence of that mind.

But note that Hacker said that asking what sort of entity a number is is a pernicious question. Which is to say, is it a question that is decidable according to some obvious or accepted criteria, or is it just a matter of deciding in favor of one's preferred philosophy (say, idealism or materialism)? — Andrew M

That is not how I read the word pernicious, which to me implies that there is something untoward in the question. Otherwise all questions of philosophy would be pernicious: they are all about what criteria to use to judge things or categorize them. So "what is a chair?" would be just as pernicious as "what is a number?".

I suspect Hacker has a specific problem with concepts.

So do you, apparently. In your example of the basket of apples, the basket functions as a set, whose cardinality is the number of apples. When you add an apple to the basket, you are adding an element to a set. And a set is a concept.

One's body and mind aren't entities that "work together" any more than the wax "works together" with the impression on it — Andrew M

It does. The impressions change the shape of the wax. Wax accepts impressions, can be impressed. Aristotle chose the example of wax for a reason: because among all the materials that he could think of, wax was the most easily malleable. A piece of wood (xyle in greek, a word which Aristotle often used for his concept of matter) would not "work" as well in this metaphor.

IOW, the cogito.

Yeah, materialism is also the least adequate paradigm ... except for all of the others (i.e. 'immaterialisms' ...) ever tried. — 180 Proof

by what metric?

The reason I don't think this is a language problem is that "mind" while hard to define for someone else is easy to define for one's self- we all know what our own mind is, even if we can't put into words just what it is. So, for any person who can think, they're going to realize it's impossible they can be mindless. They're also going to ask themselves how a bunch of non-conscious stuff can combine a certain way with some electricity and produce conscious awareness. I don't see a language problem anywhere there.

My metric?

Yet all the flavors of 'immateriality' are even more unsavory, more ad hoc or preposterous, and demonstrably more maladaptive for surviving & thriving as a natural species than materiality. — 180 Proof

The reason I don't think this is a language problem is that "mind" while hard to define for someone else is easy to define for one's self- we all know what our own mind is, even if we can't put into words just what it is. So, for any person who can think, they're going to realize it's impossible they can be mindless. — RogueAI

Of course. But like you said, "mind" doesn't necessarily refer to consciousness or awareness, which (in my opinion only) are slightly better terms for what you're talking about, also called "subjective experience," etc. If "mind" is taken as reason, or a kind of "soul," or the brain, or Descartes' res cogitans, then a different set of issues may arise. But let's just take your definition: here we are. It's impossible to really "deny" that, however we want to speak about it. All of this is as true as day, and I'm not so naive as to make the presumptuous claim that Descartes or later thinkers are "wrong."

My only gripes would be (a) whether or not "mind" in this sense describes the entirety of human being and (b) if not, whether "mind" (and consciousness generally) is primary. At first these gripes sound ridiculous, I admit. But again, this isn't to say they're wrong and it isn't to doubt conscious experience or existence.

They're also going to ask themselves how a bunch of non-conscious stuff can combine a certain way with some electricity and produce conscious awareness. I don't see a language problem anywhere there. — RogueAI

Maybe it isn't -- maybe it's more conceptual. Because in this case, although it seems obvious that there are non-conscious entities in the world (rocks and planets and trees and molecules, etc), I don't see a way around the fact that whatever these non-conscious objects are (or any objects whatsoever), they are objects for me, the conscious subject, and so conditioned in part by how I perceive them. (Obviously this is Kant, Descartes, Berkley, etc. etc.) And since that's the case, to fully grasp how this "outside" world of (material?) stuff evolved into my consciousness is perhaps impossible to understand fully. As hard as understanding the big bang, in any case. Whatever story we tell, with mathematics, precise terminology, and evidence, is still just thinking. I'm not convinced that materialism or "naturalism" or physicalism are ever going to get us to any satisfactory answer; I think they're off-track in this sense.

For two reasons. First, these issues are so complex and so poorly understood that it's next to impossible to currently study. But secondly, science too is based on a perspective and thus an interpretation of the world -- an ontology. I do think it's the most successful and most powerful ontology we have to date, -- but like anything else, it has its scope and limits.

So again, maybe your question can be answered -- or maybe there are unjustified, tacit assumptions in there that makes it a dead end. Since we really don't know what consciousness is (in the sense of an explanatory theory), and any scientific notion of "material" (or "body") was abandoned in the 17th century, it's hard to even imagine a right answer to the question of how material, non-conscious stuff assembled into what you and I are (if we say that's a mind or a consciousness).

Seems nit-picky and like entering a rabbit hole, yes. But again, I mean this strictly in a sense of theory, not in an everyday, common sense respect. In the latter, yes of course we have minds, of course we're conscious, of course there are material objects "out there" that I interact with, and so forth.

That is not how I read the word pernicious, which to me implies that there is something untoward in the question. Otherwise all questions of philosophy would be pernicious: they are all about what criteria to use to judge things or categorize them. So "what is a chair?" would be just as pernicious as "what is a number?". — Olivier5

That's not quite the question originally asked. Let me quote Hacker to set the context:

Careful scrutiny of the use of the word ‘mind’ will enable us to resist, at least pro tempore, the temptation to answer the philosophical question ‘What is the mind?’ by giving a definition. ‘The mind’ being a nominal, ‘What is the mind?’ is commonly construed as ‘What sort of entity is the mind?’ But this is as pernicious a question as ‘What sort of entity is a number?’ It raises the wrong kind of expectations, and sends us along the wrong paths before we have had a chance to get our bearings. So the first step to take is to examine the use of the noun ‘mind’. — Human Beings – The Mind and the Body: Wittgensteinian-Aristotelian Reflections - Peter M.S. Hacker, 2007

Note Hacker's italicization of entity above. Here's the Lexico definition for entity:

1 A thing with distinct and independent existence.

1.1 [mass noun] Existence; being.

A chair meets the criteria for an entity in the first sense. So it needn't be problematic to investigate what kind of entity it is, assuming some distinguishing criteria (animal, vegetable, or mineral, say).

But does mind and number meet that criteria? See how chairs (and other ordinary things we observe like trees and rocks, etc.) set our expectations? If we don't first understand how these words are used in their ordinary context, it's easy to start imagining minds and numbers as things with distinct and independent existence. Before we have a chance to get our bearings, we're thinking of minds without bodies, and numbers in Platonic realms. That's why the question is pernicious.

Now suppose a child comes to you and asks "What is a number?" The ordinary answer involves looking at how we use numbers, in counting and as quantities, which is what I attempted to do with the apples example. Similarly, the ordinary answer of "What is a mind?" is that it has an idiomatic usage - it's an abstraction over our intellectual abilities and their exercise. But to ascribe substance or agency or independence to an abstraction is a conceptual confusion, and that's the legacy of the mind/body problem.

I suspect Hacker has a specific problem with concepts.

So do you, apparently. In your example of the basket of apples, the basket functions as a set, whose cardinality is the number of apples. When you add an apple to the basket, you are adding an element to a set. And a set is a concept. — Olivier5

First, Hacker uses the terms "concept" and "conceptual" throughout his essay in a conventional way, so I don't think he finds concepts problematic. And neither do I. Second, the word concept derives from the Latin conceptum, meaning "something conceived". It's also related to thought and imagination. So to claim that a set or a number is a concept is to create a dependence on human thought (in a way that trees and rocks apparently aren't - i.e., are they concepts?) Yet a water molecule was composed of three atoms prior to the emergence of humans in the universe, violating that dependency.

One's body and mind aren't entities that "work together" any more than the wax "works together" with the impression on it
— Andrew M

It does. The impressions change the shape of the wax. Wax accepts impressions, can be impressed. Aristotle chose the example of wax for a reason: because among all the materials that he could think of, wax was the most easily malleable. A piece of wood (xyle in greek, a word which Aristotle often used for his concept of matter) would not "work" as well in this metaphor. — Olivier5

:up: I can "work" with that! The point for me here is that the Aristotelian (holistic) conception of form and matter is fundamentally different to the Cartesian (dualistic) conception of mind and body.

it's easy to start imagining minds and numbers as things with distinct and independent existence. — Andrew M

Yet a water molecule was composed of three atoms prior to the emergence of humans in the universe, violating that dependency. — Andrew M

Aren't you contradicting yourself in those two paragraphs? In the first you say numbers have no mind- independent existence, and then you say the opposite in the second para.

The point for me here is that the Aristotelian (holistic) conception of form and matter is fundamentally different to the Cartesian (dualistic) conception of mind and body. — Andrew M

Sure, and yet there is still a duality here: that of matter and form. No matter without form, no form without matter.

I kind of like the analogy too. It is pointing at a possible direction for an answer, but it doesn't bring you very far. The body already has a form, a structure, which seems quite different from what we call "minds". And if the mind is the form of the body, why does it need to go on holiday every 24 hours? Do wax impressions sleep???

I think we can do better than Aristotle.

it's easy to start imagining minds and numbers as things with distinct and independent existence.
— Andrew M

Yet a water molecule was composed of three atoms prior to the emergence of humans in the universe, violating that dependency.
— Andrew M

Aren't you contradicting yourself in those two paragraphs? In the first you say numbers have no mind- independent existence, and then you say the opposite in the second para. — Olivier5

No. Per the above example, the quantity of atoms is independent of mind (real), but dependent on the atoms (immanent). So the quantity doesn't have an independent existence.

I think we can do better than Aristotle. — Olivier5

Maybe, but it's worth noting that Aristotle's project was very different to Descartes'. Aristotle was seeking to provide a natural and investigative account of living organisms (what they have in common and what differentiates them), whereas Descartes was seeking a foundation of certainty against the skeptic. From Hacker again:

Aristotle’s profound account of psuche was concerned with demarcating the animate from the inanimate, with the classification of the animate into (very general) categories according to the classes of powers that characterize living beings – the vegetative psuche and the sensitive psuche being the powers that characterize plant and non-human animal life. What is distinctive of humanity over and above the powers of the vegetative and sensitive psuche is the rational psuch – the ability to reason and to act for reasons. To have a mind, according to the Aristotelian-scholastic tradition, is to have an intellect and rational will. It is to be able to reason, to apprehend things as affording reasons for thinking, feeling and acting. It is to be able to deliberate, decide or choose what to do or believe, and to modify one’s feelings and attitudes, in the light of reasons. These far-reaching and complex powers are corollaries or consequences of being language-users. — Human Beings – The Mind and the Body: Wittgensteinian-Aristotelian Reflections - Peter M.S. Hacker, 2007

Per the above example, the quantity of atoms is independent of mind (real), but dependent on the atoms (immanent). So the quantity doesn't have an independent existence. — Andrew M

This is a mistake. Before you can count anything, you have to set the boundaries of what you want to count. Those boundaries are not real, they are postulated, conceived by the person counting.

I think we can do better than Aristotle.
— Olivier5

Maybe, but it's worth noting that Aristotle's project was very different to Descartes' — Andrew M

Supposedly we can also do better than Descartes.

I like the Aristotelian idea of the form-matter duality. It fits with my bio semiotics. It is the shape of molecules that gives them their power. Stericiy. But that's as far as it goes. For instance, I fail to see how to ground logic on forms.

My metric? — 180 Proof

how do you entrench yourself in the realm of materialism without trickling down into excessive hedonism? materialism may be more “efficient” per say as for the survival of an organism, but it doesn’t explain why im amazed at gazing out into the void of the universe, or the experience of a song that i really like. if it’s just material, why does it ultimately matter? why not focus on biological goals exclusively such as reproduction then?

i don’t think much good philosophy can come from by how “useful” it is in a practical manner.

What we empirically experience is not 'material stuff' but merely qualities of experience. Someone, somewhere, sometime, decided to call these qualities 'material' but there's no actual reason to do so. And as far as I know, nobody has ever given a reason to do so.

Qualities exist, what they are called is, as far as I can tell, irrelevant. The real question is: are these qualities true, and real? And that's the problem of universals. If these qualities aren't genuine, nothing is. Because reality exists only in relation to qualities in experience juxtaposed to other qualities. Hence, nominalism is nihilism. Only Platonism (in the broad sense) can make sense of our qualities of experience.

The 'string' upon which these 'pearls' rest. — Dharmi

this is very beautiful.

... how do you entrench yourself in the realm of materialism without trickling down into excessive hedonism? — Ignance

I'm an 'epicurean-spinozist' (or absurdist) meaning that aponia & ataraxia without transcendent illusions (or sisyphusean eudaimonia) is (my) "hedonism".

materialism may be more “efficient” per say as for the survival of an organism, but it doesn’t explain why im amazed at gazing out into the void of the universe, or the experience of a song that i really like.

Materialism is, in my understanding, an enabling-constraint on explanations (that coarse-grains away 'immaterialist' considerations & ad hockery) and is not itself an explanatory hypothesis. Read some studies in cultural anthropology (re: amazement) & cognitive / developmental psychology (re: musical experience).

if it’s just material, why does it ultimately matter?

Why wouldn't it for that very reason? Besides, we humans are proximate, not "ultimate", beings, so things need not "matter ultimately" to us – what could "ultimately matter" even mean? – for them to matter at all.

why not focus on biological goals exclusively such as reproduction then?

Well, for starters, we humans have excessively large forebrains ... :smirk:

i don’t think much good philosophy can come from by how “useful” it is in a practical manner.

I never said "philosophy" was "useful" "in a practical manner". I say materiality offers a less maladaptive stance than any immaterialist stance (e.g. shared practices are less maladaptive than 'dogmas'; fallibility is less maladaptive than 'infallibility'; clinical medicine is less maladaptive than 'faith healing'; public health & hygiene are less maladaptive than 'exorcism & mortification'; sustainable ecology is less maladaptive than 'anthropocentricity'; esp. for humans, the cooked is less maladaptive than 'the raw'; dancing is less maladaptive than 'astral projecting', sound logic is less maladaptive than 'occult magic'; etc). :mask:

I understand where you're coming from. My reply before was kind of pompous sounding. You sound sympathetic to mysterianism.

I understand where you're coming from. My reply before was kind of pompous sounding. You sound sympathetic to mysterianism. — RogueAI

Not sure. I think if we can one day formulate a technical notion of "consciousness," then perhaps we can explain it. Right now it's obviously too hard -- but who knows what comes of it. I'm open to it. Clearly the brain has something to do with consciousness, for example -- I'd be crazy to deny that. And I think that's where a lot of mistakes are made -- with thought and language, too: it's as if because we currently don't understand something the only alternative is that we have to become mystics, and resort to magic. But that's not the alternative to our lack of scientific understanding in the realms of economics or politics or sociology or even the weather. We can make some progress here and there, but overall they're just too complex to currently grasp. It's not classical mechanics -- and even there it's only simple principles and processes that allow us to generalize.

My basic position is that before this project gets off the ground, before the question gets asked, we're already in troublesome waters. That shouldn't necessarily stop us from trying to answer, of course. But from my perspective it seems like a dead end.

Per the above example, the quantity of atoms is independent of mind (real), but dependent on the atoms (immanent). So the quantity doesn't have an independent existence.
— Andrew M

This is a mistake. Before you can count anything, you have to set the boundaries of what you want to count. Those boundaries are not real, they are postulated, conceived by the person counting. — Olivier5

I choose what to measure and how to measure it. But when I do so, that I measure three atoms in a water molecule doesn't depend on my mind, it depends on the water molecule itself.

Otherwise aren't you effectively saying that the world isn't real, but mind-dependent?

For instance, I fail to see how to ground logic on forms. — Olivier5

Here's a reference that I think gets at what Aristotle was doing.

Criticisms of Aristotle’s logic often assume that what Aristotle was trying to do coincides with the basic project of modern logic.
...
Aristotle, however, is involved in a specialized project. He elaborates an alternative logic, specifically adapted to the problems he is trying to solve.

Aristotle devises a companion-logic for science. He relegates fictions like fairy godmothers and mermaids and unicorns to the realms of poetry and literature. In his mind, they exist outside the ambit of science. This is why he leaves no room for such non-existent entities in his logic. This is a thoughtful choice, not an inadvertent omission. Technically, Aristotelian science is a search for definitions, where a definition is “a phrase signifying a thing’s essence.” (Topics, I.5.102a37, Pickard-Cambridge.) To possess an essence—is literally to possess a “what-it-is-to-be” something (to ti en einai). — Aristotle: Logic - IEP

The point here is that, for Aristotle, form is not separable from substantial things (except in an abstract sense). So logic about forms is, basically, logic about things that we investigate naturally. For example, what-is-it-to-be a human being? Well, what differentiates us from other animals is our language and reasoning capabilities. A word signifying that might be "rationality", i.e., what-it-is-to-be a human being is to be a rational animal. So that's a definition. But note that rationality isn't itself something substantial like a Cartesian mind. It is instead a formalization of one class of things (human beings) in terms of a broader class of things (animals), with a differentiating criterion (rationality).

This then becomes the ground for developing logic, such as:

All human beings are animals.
Socrates is a human being.
Therefore, Socrates is an animal.

Materialism is, in my understanding, an enabling-constraint on explanations (that fine-grains out 'immaterialist' considerations & ad hockery) and is not itself an explanatory hypothesis. — 180 Proof

Just as well, as it can't account for 96% of the mass of the universe, nor the behaviour of atomic particles without resorting to the many-worlds extravaganza.

I choose what to measure and how to measure it. But when I do so, that I measure three atoms in a water molecule doesn't depend on my mind, it depends on the water molecule itself. — Andrew M

Using Collingwood's presupposition analysis:

1) You are assuming there is such a thing as "the water molecule itself", as opposed to, say, one single Schrödinger equation describing the whole universe.

2) You are in your mind conceiving ONE such molecule, so you are already counting right from the start.

3) You are assuming that this ONE molecule is composed of atoms that are still somewhat countable within the molecule, rather than, say, thinking of the molecule of water as the result of atoms fusing into a coherent whole described by one single Schrödinger equation.

4) Once you have (unconsciously) assumed this ONE, INDIVIDUATED yet GENERIC molecule of water BREAKABLE into countable pieces, you are then defining the unit of measurement itself (the atom), ie the "countable pieces". The atom itself is a concept. Nobody ever saw one.

5) You are assuming that all molecules of water have the same structure and are composed of the same number of atoms. Chemists actually disagree. In its liquid form, they often write it down as H3O+, and see it as formed of 3 atoms and a half. (with H+ counted it as half an atom of hydrogen).

6) Finally, you are assuming that the counter is English-speaking and uses base 10. A computer would count 11 atoms in a molecule of water. A Frenchman would arrive at the result "trois". So what is the mind-independent number?

Otherwise aren't you effectively saying that the world isn't real, but mind-dependent?

No. If one considers one's own mind as real, then things that are mind-dependent can be perfectly real so the distinction "mind vs real" does not apply.

All I am saying is that numbers are concepts. They are made in the mind. Otherwise, who's counting?

So logic about forms is, basically, logic about things that we investigate naturally. For example, what-is-it-to-be a human being? Well, what differentiates us from other animals is our language and reasoning capabilities. A word signifying that might be "rationality", i.e., what-it-is-to-be a human being is to be a rational animal. So that's a definition. But note that rationality isn't itself something substantial like a Cartesian mind. It is instead a formalization of one class of things (human beings) in terms of a broader class of things (animals), with a differentiating criterion (rationality). — Andrew M

My question is not about how to use logic on forms, but how does logic itself emerge from the geometric (spatial) shape of things.

What part of "Materialism ... is not itself an explanatory hypothesis" don't you understand? :roll:

Using Collingwood's presupposition analysis:

1) You are assuming there is such a thing as "the water molecule itself", as opposed to, say, one single Schrödinger equation describing the whole universe. — Olivier5

You are assuming those two notions are opposed. But, yes, I assume at least the first.

2) You are in your mind conceiving ONE such molecule, so you are already counting right from the start. — Olivier5

Yes. And you are assuming that the quantity of something (say, the number of atoms in a water molecule) depends on what you conceive of or count.

And so on...

So we all make assumptions. But that doesn't imply that what we're talking about - water molecules, say - have a dependency on our assumptions - or even on our existence. Though, of course, if someone's assumptions are false then they might not actually be describing anything in the world.

Otherwise aren't you effectively saying that the world isn't real, but mind-dependent?

No. If one considers one's own mind as real, then things that are mind-dependent can be perfectly real so the distinction "mind vs real" does not apply. — Olivier5

Do you consider that the world is mind-dependent?

All I am saying is that numbers are concepts. They are made in the mind. Otherwise, who's counting? — Olivier5

Human beings such as you and I are counting. How would that imply that numbers (and in this case, the number of atoms in a water molecule) depend on one's mind?

Do you consider that the world is a concept?

My question is not about how to use logic on forms, but how does logic itself emerge from the geometric (spatial) shape of things. — Olivier5

Aristotle's logic is grounded in our observation and investigation of the world (i.e., Aristotle is seeking to understand the nature of things). So logical principles such as the LNC and LEM emerge from that observation and investigation. For example, a thing is not observed to both have some characteristic and not have it at the same time and in the same respect.

Also form (Greek: morphe or eidos or idea) is not merely about how a thing looks to us, but about a thing's deeper structure and organization that shapes the material (and which might only be "seen" in our speech). For example, human beings are reasoning and language-using creatures - that is their shape (or pattern) that we can describe in speech. As Joe Sachs puts it:

Morphe never means mere shape, but shapeliness, which implies the act of shaping, and eidos, after Plato has molded its use, is never the mere look of a thing, but its invisible look, seen only in speech (Aristotle's Physics 193a 31). Idea, from the same root as eidos, is used primarily when technical discussions within Plato's Academy are referred to, but the English words "idea" and "ideal" are distortions of it, suggesting something that can only be present in thought, which no-one who used the Greek word intended. — Joe Sachs (translator of Aristotle's works)

Note that "speech" in the above Aristotle's Physics quote is the translation of the Greek logos. From Wikipedia:

Logic comes from the Greek word logos, originally meaning "the word" or "what is spoken", but coming to mean "thought" or "reason". — Logic: History - Wikipedia

So a possible answer to your question is that our reasoning in natural language just is an informal logic. Our language, and consequently logic, emerges as a result of our interactions with things in the world.

So we all make assumptions. But that doesn't imply that what we're talking about - water molecules, say - have a dependency on our assumptions - or even on our existence. — Andrew M

I agree, but still, the number of elements in a set depends on how the set is defined: what are its boundaries. I see countable sets as conceptual. In my view the world has no set. Everything is in everything and vice versa. So when we think of an object, the object may exist objectively. I can think of the Empire State Building for instance, a real, gigantic thing in real steel and concrete. But by doing so I also INDIVIDUATED this building as a THING. One could say that the skyscraper is in fact but a collection of steel beams and other elements, connected with each other but also connected to other structures eg the bedrock, other nearby structures and utility pipes. So where does the Empire State Building starts and ends? Well, one can make decisions about that, but these ARE decisions. We are setting the boundaries of things, often a bit artificially. We need to do so, we cannot embrace in our mind the full complexity of reality, so we simplify.

Reality is one. We conceptually cut the cake of reality into "things", but there's always several ways to cut a cake.

Our language, and consequently logic, emerges as a result of our interactions with things in the world. — Andrew M

I can agree with that, as a broad brush sketch.