Have you come up with anything in that respect....from scratch? — Mww
I would not be surprised if there were cases of people who lacked the capacity to visualize such elementary figures — Manuel
That's a good point, but is it any use? If there's no criterion for membership, then the class you create is arbitrary, isn't it? — Srap Tasmaner
I think it's kind of the opposite, as I see it: we see imperfect triangles all the time, which makes us think of triangles (which are perfect in our minds). You could perhaps say that imperfect triangles are a kind of derivative of mental triangles. — Manuel
Should I actually be defending thinking for myself here? — Srap Tasmaner
Or were you making some point about the conceptual scheme I ought to admit I'm stuck with? — Srap Tasmaner
I heard an interview with one such person who works as a professional animator. — Srap Tasmaner
I don't see what "perfection" has to do with universals anyway. What would it mean for a universal tree to be "perfect"? — litewave
That's extraordinary. — Manuel
It seems that I could in principle define a part of the ball that constitutes the ball's particular red color. That part would be a subcollection in the ball, a subcollection whose structure interacts with light in such a way that it reflects certain wavelengths of light, — litewave
According to set theory, any mathematical universal can be instantiated as a collection. — litewave
Is there a difference in principle between a simple looking predicate like "is red" and a complicated looking predicate like "whose structure interacts with light in such a way that it reflects certain wavelengths of light"? — Srap Tasmaner
Anyway, there's no trace here of your proposed resemblance relation. — Srap Tasmaner
both predicates — litewave
I just identify a universal with a resemblance relation and thus simplify the metaphysical picture — litewave
That was my point. You're supposed to be grounding the use of predicates, aren't you? Or was your intention all along to ground some kinds of predicates in other kinds? — Srap Tasmaner
ground our use of predicates in the resemblance of things to each other. — Srap Tasmaner
If I say that predication is constituted by the instantiation of universals, you have exactly the same resemblance relation, and its existence is no challenge at all to the universals account of predication. — Srap Tasmaner
I see what you're trying to say, but you can't say "part" because parts are concrete rather than abstract exactly in the sense that they can exist independently. (That much I learned from Andrew M's explanation of hylomorphism.) And you really shouldn't be saying "collection" because that's a soft word for "class" and you precisely can't have classes without universals or predicates to define them. Clearly you're hoping to get structure — which is crucial, particulars aren't bags of properties — out of how the various collections are arranged.
Stepping back, this begins to sound like breaking down an object into its fundamental particles and then reassembling it, down the chain through chemistry to quarks and then back up again. We assume such a thing is possible in principle, I guess, but the argument for special sciences has always been that on the way back up, you have no way to know where you are and what you're building, so the particulars of interest are gone forever, leaving just an undifferentiated sea of particles. — Srap Tasmaner
A foreigner watching his first game of cricket learns what are the functions of the bowlers, the batsmen, the fielders, the umpires and the scorers. He then says ‘But there is no one left on the field to contribute the famous element of team-spirit. I see who does the bowling, the batting and the wicket-keeping; but I do not see whose role it is to exercise esprit de corps.’ Once more, it would have to be explained that he was looking for the wrong type of thing. Team-spirit is not another cricketing-operation supplementary to all of the other special tasks. It is, roughly, the keenness with which each of the special tasks is performed, and performing a task keenly is not performing two tasks. Certainly exhibiting team-spirit is not the same thing as bowling or catching, but nor is it a third thing such that we can say that the bowler first bowls and then exhibits team-spirit or that a fielder is at a given moment either catching or displaying esprit de corps. — Concept of Mind - Gilbert Ryle
Abstract, "pure mathematics" shows that we dream up universal principles (axioms) first, from the imagination, or they come to us intuitively, then we try to force the particulars of specific circumstances to be consistent with the universals. — Metaphysician Undercover
That's at least in the neighborhood of Sellars's argument and the impasse I expected to reach, that empiricism from a blank slate can't actually get started. — Srap Tasmaner
Your idea is that we start with the phenomenon of resemblance, explain that in terms of predication, then explain predication in terms of universals. You want to cut off the last step, but you keep saying it means taking resemblance as more fundamental: it means no such thing; you're still explaining resemblance using predication, you just want to take predication as primitive. — Srap Tasmaner
Ok, but I am saying that these "universal principles" are just resemblance relations between particulars rather than additional entities (universals) that instantiate in the particulars. — litewave
How? — litewave
t seems that I could in principle define a part of the ball that constitutes the ball's particular red color. — litewave
So, for example there is a resemblance relation between two red particulars in the sense that they are both red. — litewave
(Thanks for the notes on the ancients, btw.) — Srap Tasmaner
You don't see how this produces an infinite regress? If a concrete particular is a collection of concrete particulars, then each concrete particular in that collection is itself a collection of concrete particulars, and each concrete particular in that collection is itself a collection of concrete particulars, ad infinitum. — Metaphysician Undercover
If they appear to be the exact same colour, then whatever it is which separates them as two distinct particulars, must be something other than colour. — Metaphysician Undercover
Any way you look at it, we would have to conclude that there is something "the same" about the circumstances, something underlying, which is truly the same, which could produce the exact same colour in two completely different situations. — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, that's how I think each particular is constructed. Except that there may be empty collections (non-composite particulars) at the bottom instead of infinite regress. But even if there was infinite regress I am not sure that would be a problem, as long as the whole (infinite) structure was logically consistent. — litewave
Yes, they have a different location and thus different relations to the rest of reality, which makes them two different particulars which however resemble in the sense that they are red. — litewave
There is an underlying sameness but I am not sure that there would need to be a single object (universal) to "produce" the resembling particulars. — litewave
How could there be a concrete entity which is an empty collection of parts? — Metaphysician Undercover
So the appearance of infinite regress is an indication of unsound premises. — Metaphysician Undercover
As you yourself say the instance of colour here is a distinct particular from the instance of colour over there. So the proper logical conclusion is that it is incorrect to say that they are both the same colour, you have stipulated that they are different. — Metaphysician Undercover
I think you need to respect the meaning of "same" as described by the law of identity. "Same" means one and the same, "a single object". — Metaphysician Undercover
So if there is an "underlying sameness", this means that there is one and the same thing which underlies the two distinct instances, such that they are multiple occurrences of the same thing — Metaphysician Undercover
It would be a concrete entity without parts. — litewave
Mathematics is full of infinities and it doesn't mean that it is unsound although infinities can be pretty mind-boggling. — litewave
They are two different particulars that are the same in the way that they are red. — litewave
When two objects are the same it means that they are also different in some way because if they were the same in every way then they would be one object and not two. — litewave
They are two different particulars that are the same in the way that they are red. — litewave
Ok but for example, what is the underlying thing that underlies all circles? One thing is clear: it does not look like a circle at all because if it looked like a circle it would be a particular circle and not a universal one. A particular circle is continuous in space but a universal circle would not be because it is not supposed to be located in some continuous area of space. A universal circle looks more like a recipe how to create all possible circles from an arbitrary particular circle: first define a particular circle by specifying all points on a plane that are the same particular distance from a particular point and then create additional objects by translating, rotating or scaling (enlarging/shrinking without deformation) this particular circle and you can call all those additional objects "circle" too. And they all resemble each other in the way of being a circle because any of them can be mapped onto any other via the relation of translation, rotation or scaling, and no other object can. — litewave
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