Before we go further with this, we should probably cement just how you're using "arbitrary." Are you using it with a connotation of "random"? — Terrapin Station

No, I mean like the rules of a game. There is nothing in nature that makes chess have the rules it has. Humans arbitrarily decided how the pieces would move, what the board would look like, that there would be two players, etc.

That doesn't work when it comes to biology. We can't just make up any categories we want and have it map onto living organisms. But we are able to create categories somehow, which would suggest there is something about living things that lends itself to categorization. We don't have to go full hog and call that something universals. But that something has to do with similarities between organisms. The details about them aren't utterly particular.

Okay, but I explained this above: "Indviduals do this non-arbitrarily. It's in response to things experienced."

You're not thinking that either either it's true that there are types that are (numerically) identically instantiated in multiple things or otherwise it's true that there are no degrees of similarity and everything is effectively a completely uniform soup, are you?

And if you are, why would you be thinking that?

ou're not thinking that either either it's true that there are types that are (numerically) identically instantiated in multiple things or otherwise it's true that there are no degrees of similarity and everything is effectively a completely uniform soup, are you? — Terrapin Station

No, there are similarities and differences among particulars in the world. That much we clearly experience. Maybe I misunderstand nominalism as failing to properly account for how particulars also have similarity.

Nominalism doesn't deny similarities. It denies numerical identities (that are multiply instantiated, which is what types are).

|..|
is more simliar to
|....|
in some respects than
*(^!*(&$%
is
But
|..|
is not identical to
|....|

That's the basic idea. Nominalism isn't at all denying this. It's just saying that no two things are numerically identical in any respect. (So |..| isn't identical to |..|--they're just similar in some respects, and more similar than |....| is in some respects to either)

That's the basic idea. Nominalism isn't at all denying this. It's just saying that no two things are numerically identical in any respect. (So |..| isn't identical to |..|--they're just similar in some respects, and more similar than |....| is in some respects to either) — Terrapin Station

So laws of nature would be ruled out. A lot of physics would be approximation. Every electron in the universe couldn't actually have the exact same charge and mass, right? It's just we can't measure the difference?

But then you're positing differences beyond observation to account for similarities that are observed to be numerically identical.

The idea of type realism is that there is one thing that's somehow shared between multiple things.

The following isn't a direct analogy, but it helps convey the idea: think of one slice of pizza that is shared somehow among more than one person. It's not that they each have a slice of pizza, a different slice. It's that they all have literally the same, single slice somehow.

That's not a direct analogy because type realists aren't saying that types are something physical like a slice of pizza. Although not being a type realist and being a physicalist because the idea of nonphysical existents strikes me as completely incoherent, just what they're saying isn't very clear to me. But charitably, it's something different than a slice of pizza.

So that is what nominalists are denying.

So that is what nominalists are denying. — Terrapin Station

Right, so when physicists say that every single electron in the universe has the exact same charge, isn't that like saying every single person shares exactly the same slice of pizza?

And if the physicists are wrong, then why do they measure electrons to have the same charge?

Right, so when physicists say that every single electron in the universe has the exact same charge, isn't that like saying every single person shares exactly the same slice of pizza?

And if the physicists are wrong, then why do they measure electrons to have the same charge? — Marchesk

Well, so the issue is if, among two electrons, there's just one charge that they happen to both share somehow (how?--how does the charge get completely parceled out from wherever it's located so that both electrons share a single thing completely?) Or whether each electron has its own charge, and the charges are both −1.602×10^−19 coulomb.

Or whether each electron has its own charge, and the charges are both −1.602×10^−19 coulomb. — Terrapin Station

I accept that the electrons each have their own charge, but that raises the question of how it is that electrons would have the exact same property.

So we have to be careful when we say "they have the exact same property." If you agree that they each have their own charge, you're not saying that literally they're sharing just one ("and the same") property somehow.

How exactly it obtains is a different issue than saying that they each have their own charge versus saying that they literally share just one charge, which is the nominalism vs. realism (on types/universals) debate.

How exactly it obtains is a different issue than saying that they each have their own charge versus saying that they literally share just one charge, which is the nominalism vs. realism (on types/universals) debate. — Terrapin Station

That's a good way of explaining it. But that still leaves a question. How is it that separate properties have the same value? In virtue of what are they the same? You might respond that humans measured them to be the same, and that's the end of it.

But it's not really. The problem is how we recognize sameness. So then we ask what is it about the two properties that make them the same regarding electrons. And that will be numerical. And if anything in the world is identical, it would be numbers. So how is it that electrons have the same numbers while remaining distinct?

Or something along those lines. If the problem of universals were so easy to dismiss with, I'm guessing it wouldn't keep coming up.

We have two languages - natural language and mathematics. You travel to a distant galaxy and find an alien civilization. Which language do you think would be shared by you and aliens? — TheMadFool

That's an interesting question in itself though not the one you're initially posing. To my mind our likely shared language would be gesture. On this reading, language is the making and attempted communication of signs. Enter apo.

That's a different issue from what the core explanations of different civilizations might be built from. I can imagine a Pythagorean civilisation, for instance, where music is the core explanation. But I've been doing a lot of singing and harmonising lately so maybe my mind is leaning that way. :)

To briefly summarize the restated problem concerning electron charge in my last post, the similarity between distinct properties is numeric, and numbers are universal concepts. That's a problem for nominalism, because it needs to be able to explain particulars without resorting to universals.

That's the case whether we're talking about paintings, natural language or mathematics. — Terrapin Station

What I don't understand is how you seem to see no difference at all between math and natural language.

I agree that natural language has a longer history than math (some may disagree). I also agree that math is a language - to be truthful it's an extension of natural language invented to simplify and refine quantitave thought. That is why you may see stuff like ''gravity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between two objects''. It's easier to write and read it in math but natural language captures the meaning too.

What I want to say is that math and natural language differ from each other in a significant way:

Imagine you're an explorer who knows math and English. Your expedition in a foreign land has discovered a couple of books written in a different language. One is on science and the other is on history. Lukily you find a translator and begin work on deciphering these books. What you'll find is that the science book, being mathematically based, matches number to number with what scientists in your world know of the universe. However this will not be the case with the history book. In essence, the laws of the universe are mathematical and, well, universal. Therefore the concordance between people, cultures, civilizations, and even galaxies.

That's a good way of explaining it. But that still leaves a question. How is it that separate properties have the same value? In virtue of what are they the same? You might respond that humans measured them to be the same, and that's the end of it.

But it's not really. The problem is how we recognize sameness. So then we ask what is it about the two properties that make them the same regarding electrons. And that will be numerical. And if anything in the world is identical, it would be numbers. So how is it that electrons have the same numbers while remaining distinct?

Or something along those lines. If the problem of universals were so easy to dismiss with, I'm guessing it wouldn't keep coming up. — Marchesk

So realizing that the properties aren't numerically the same (which of course isn't saying something about a number we might be assigning to anything; it just denotes whether we're talking about one "thing" or more than one "thing"), it doesn't seem mysterious to me that two different particulars would have or be non-numerically the same property. What would seem more mysterious to me would be a claim that they shouldn't be the same if they're unique particulars. Why shouldn't they be the same? Is there something about the world that's supposed to preclude two particulars from both having some property?

To briefly summarize the restated problem concerning electron charge in my last post, the similarity between distinct properties is numeric, and numbers are universal concepts. That's a problem for nominalism, because it needs to be able to explain particulars without resorting to universals. — Marchesk

I kind of have to translate what you're saying there. First, concepts are occurences in individuals' minds on my view. What it means to say that a concept is a "universal concept" is that it's a concept that individual has about universals or types. (It wouldn't be that the concept is of a type or universal, because all concepts are. That's what it is to be a concept.) I'm an anti-realist on mathematical objects, and on abstract objects period. On my view, mathematics is a way that we think about relations on a very abstract level.

Nominalism doesn't have to explain anything while avoiding concepts/universals/types--and after all, language isn't possible without those things. It's just we're denying type realism.

Nominalism doesn't have to explain anything while avoiding concepts/universals/types--and after all, language isn't possible without those things. It's just we're denying type realism. — Terrapin Station

I get that, but if nominalism can't explain why we find it necessary to utilize universal types to make sense of particulars, then it hasn't resolved the universals issue.

What you'll find is that the science book, being mathematically based, matches number to number with what scientists in your world know of the universe. However this will not be the case with the history book. — TheMadFool

I don't agree with that claim, however.

I get that, but if nominalism can't explain why we find it necessary to utilize universal types to make sense of particulars, then it hasn't resolved the universals issue. — Marchesk

We have to think in terms of universals in order to survive. There's too much information to deal with otherwise. We need abbreviations, generalizations so we have a good idea, that we can reach quickly, whether some animal, some plant, etc. is likely to try to kill us or provide nourishment for example.

I don't agree with that claim, however. — Terrapin Station

But why?

But why? — TheMadFool

Because it's just an example of fiction writing.

Because it's just an example of fiction writing. — Terrapin Station

Well, the mathematical description of gravity is true everywhere and for everyone. What I said may've been hypothetical but the laws of nature are still real as ever.

Assuming that's the case, it doesn't at all follow that the way of expressing it in something akin to mathematics would be any more or less universal than the way of expressing "The cat is on the mat" in natural language or painting a landscape on a canvas.

The ''cat is on the mat'' is not true always and everywhere e.g. well, when the cat is not on the mat. However, the laws of nature are always true, everywhere.

A painting can capture the moment but that's it. Time and change will make the painting, to say the least, outmoded. But, again, the laws of nature are universal, both temporally and spatially.

I'm afraid, having seen Guardians of the Galaxy II (including the extras during the credits), that I'll have to challenge the basic premise as laid out in the OP. It seems to me that, the people who understand Groot are the people who are closest to him... and that includes Peter Quill.

But, perhaps it is also true that the people who understand best what the universe is saying, are those who are closest to it (whatever that means).

I'll have to challenge the basic premise as laid out in the OP — anonymous66

All I want to say is math seems to be the language of the universe. Do you think this isn't so? Why?

Hmm. Could be.. Have you read Paul Davies' The Mind of God?

The Mind of God is a 1992 non-fiction book by Paul Davies. Subtitled The Scientific Basis for a Rational World, it is a whirlwind tour and explanation of theories, both physical and metaphysical, regarding ultimate causes. Its title comes from a quotation from Stephen Hawking: "If we do discover a theory of everything...it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we would truly know the mind of God."

In the preface, Davies explains that he has been interested in ultimate causes since childhood, having annoyed his parents with unending "why's" about everything, with each answer demanding another "why," and usually ending with the reply, "Because God made it that way, and that's that!" In the book proper, Davies briefly explores: the nature of reason, belief, and metaphysics; theories of the origin of the universe; the laws of nature; the relationship of mathematics to physics; a few arguments for the existence of God; the possibility that the universe shows evidence of intelligent design; and his opinion of the implications of Gödel's incompleteness theorem, that "the search for a closed logical scheme that provides a complete and self-consistent explanation is doomed to failure."

He concludes with a statement of his belief that, even though we may never attain a theory of everything, "the existence of mind in some organism on some planet in the universe is surely a fact of fundamental significance. Through conscious beings the universe has generated self-awareness. This can be no trivial detail, no minor byproduct of mindless, purposeless forces. We are truly meant to be here."