It's a question of preference, of what "parlance" one chooses, but I'll go with there being one table, described in two ways, participating in two language games, and hence that the table one sits at is the space mostly strung together with forces. — Banno
Here? Following on from the OP. — Banno
Not sure I can use this and I have, of course, heard such things expressed for much of my life. I spent my early life with Theosophists, followers of various forms of Buddhism, Hinduism, Gnosticism and mysticism. What is the discovery that one actually exists mean? — Tom Storm
I don't disagree, but how far to take it? I think of science as a tool for acquiring tentative models that are useful in certain contexts. Is the gap between science and reality or the gap between anything and reality worth filling with speculations? For me it isn't. An issue for me is that reality itself is a gap. It's an abstract idea, we fill with our values and anticipations. — Tom Storm
Not sure, if science has to be consulted for that assurance. Wouldn't common sense or intuition do? And we don't really care about a set of atoms unless for some peculiar reason. To me atoms are just an abstract concept, that doesn't exist in the real world. Or if it did, it has nothing to do with me, or daily life. — Corvus
What is crucial is a logical connection between the thing-in-itself in the world and the appearance in the mind, and this connection is what Kant understands as the Category of Cause. Kant's Category of Cause is what ensures that there is only one cup, even though the cup may exist in different forms, first as a set of atoms in three dimensional space in the world and then as a two-dimensional appearance in the mind.
Kant's Category of Cause is crucial to the viability of his Transcendental Idealism. — RussellA
Science can tell us things that intuition cannot, such as when we perceive a red object, such as a post-box, the object may have emitted a wavelength of 700nm. — RussellA
n a sense, "atoms" are a convenient figure of speech for mereological simples, whatever they may be, but could be fundamental forces and fundamental particles existing in time and space. — RussellA
This morning, when making a cup of tea, it didn't pass my mind whether the cup was an appearance or a thing-in-itself. But this is a Philosophy Forum, where such considerations are of interest. — RussellA
Both the Indirect and Direct Realist see a red cup, take it out of the cupboard, boil the kettle and make themselves a cup of tea.
However, the Indirect Realist takes into account the fact that science has told us that the cup we perceive as red is actually emitting a wavelength of 700nm. This causes them to question whether what they perceive as a red object is actually red. They then begin to question the relation between the appearance of an object and the object as a thing-in-itself. — RussellA
Strictly speaking, wouldn't it be the instruments (invented and calibrated for their own convenience by humans) which tells the wave length of 700nm emission, rather than science? — Corvus
See, could be, not necessarily or for definite. "could be" sounds a negativity in disguise here — Corvus
I think that what you call Indirect and Direct Realism reflect a pseudo-problem.........................We see a cup made up of atoms, then. Does that make it any less a cup? — Ciceronianus
Difficult to escape from a metaphorical use of language. I am using "science" is a figure of speech that includes the instruments of science. — RussellA
Wholes have parts, which in turn have parts, which in turn have parts. But sooner or later one assumes there are parts which have no parts, ie, simples. In contemporary mereology, a simple is any thing that has no proper parts. Sometimes the term "atom" is used, although in recent years the term "simple" has become the standard.(Wikipedia - Simple (philosophy)). It may be that fundamental forces and fundamental particles are simples, but science may discover it to be something else altogether. — RussellA
It is not a cup that is the object of consciousness, but rather the thought of a cup that is the object of consciousness. There is no cup in our minds, only the thought of a cup. — RussellA
No. I meant that if you have a choice, you'd perhaps best not do philosophy. — Banno
Wittgenstein's philosophy as remediation, or Midgley's plumbing.Can you say some more about what you mean by 'if you have a choice'? — Tom Storm
When I look at a cup, in my mind is a two-dimensional appearance, but science tells me that what I am actually looking at is a set of atoms in a three-dimensional space. — RussellA
You do philosophy when you pick at folk's thinking, trying to get at what is going on underneath. — Banno
We might be in agreement here, I'm not sure. Some folk would read the above as diminishing the import of verbal disputes. But I suspect that what we are doing in these disputes is choosing between various logics, grammars or language games; stetting up the game, as it were.Traditional metaphysics, in my understanding, isn’t willing to concede that basic ontological questions are verbal disputes. — J
Wholes have parts, which in turn have parts, which in turn have parts. But sooner or later one assumes there are parts which have no parts, ie, simples. In contemporary mereology, a simple is any thing that has no proper parts. Sometimes the term "atom" is used, although in recent years the term "simple" has become the standard — RussellA
A fact exists only when a mind extrudes it from the undivided flow of ongoing physical process. Indeed, the external world is a seething cauldron of activity where every molecule is in continual random motion. What we take to be a fact is deeply embedded in this maelstrom, and must be painstakingly and precisely cut out by a living mind. This feat is accomplished by an almost uncanny process which requires huge amounts of unconscious mental computation. The mind-independent world is not naturally divided into individual parts: At the most fundamental level, we can say that external reality is a continuous flow of ongoing cosmic process. — Pinter, Charles. Mind and the Cosmic Order (p. 92). Springer International Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Do you have the feeling that there is something wrong in what is being said, together with a compulsion to put your finger on what, exactly, it is? — Banno
We may think of a cup, certainly, but no "thought of a cup" results — Ciceronianus
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