↪Arcane Sandwich
OK, that's cool. But agreement often seems to be a conversation terminator. Where do we go from here? — Janus

Well, sometimes it should be a conversation terminator, I suppose. If you've already solved the problem of the OP, what more is there to talk about, in this Thread? I'd continue the conversation in some other Thread.

Artefacts are made from the stuff around us. It's not an either-or — Banno

Not from, with. It’s an important distinction. Artifacts are produced by the way we incorporate elements of our world. What that stuff ‘is’ is their role in the normative gestalts we construct.

It’s an important distinction. — Joshs

If you must.

I think there is confusion around the term 'platonic realm'. There is a domain of natural numbers, right? Where is it? — Wayfarer

Yes, I'm aware of these arguments and well summarised. But what we don't often hear are the ideas @Joshs has proposed in more detail. I find them particularly interesting. I guess I used the term platonic realm as a short cut for transcendental.

I don't think it's so black and white—either this or that. We formulate the laws of nature, but we are constrained in those formulations by what we actually observe to be so. We see regularities and invariances everywhere we look. We encounter number in our environments simply on account of the fact that there are many things. — Janus

Sure. I guess this is a common sense account. By the way, I have no commitments either way, I am just interested to hear more.

And can you see how this notion doesn’t take away from science the usefulness that we know it has in our lives? People tend to go into a panic when you suggest his to them, as if the ground has been pulled out from under them and suddenly cats will be mating with dogs and murderers will run rampant in the streets. But accepting this idea of science as contingent artifact leaves everything exactly as it has been. It just gives us further options we didn’t see before. — Joshs

Absolutely. I accept that something doesn't have to be 'true' (or correspond to reality in some mysterious way) to be incredibly useful.

But what we don't often hear are the ideas Joshs has proposed in more detail. — Tom Storm

I've found a book on Husserl, phenomenology and mathematics. Tough going but I think my very simple grasp of philosophy of maths can co-exist peacefully with Husserl's.

:up: I've probably asked this before, but if your thesis is that the world is mind created, then why would maths and time and space not also be similar products of the human mind, a matrix of cognitive gestalts, if you like, rather than a reflection of some objective reality which (mostly) transcends our experience?

Notation might help with the idea of Platonism.
Is it physical or non-physical?

Let's say,
Physical is notated by square brackets...[ x ]
Non-physical by parenthesis....( o )
A grouping required for existence by braces..{ a;b }

(Mathematical Platonism),
Is notation for non-physical Platonism.
{ ( Mathematical Platonism) },
Is the notation for existence with no requirement for physical form.

Probably not viable.

A brain being physical is [ Brain ]
A Brain with non-physical content is,
[ Brain ]; ( Mathematical Platonism )

And giving it the designation of existing...
{ [ Brain ]; ( Mathematical Platonism ) }

Another variation?
{ [ Unknown physical phenomenon ];
( Mathematical Platonism) }.

I like the Brain; ( non-physical ) form.

I could try some others

(Mind)...creates...[ Matter ]. ???

{ [ Matter ] }...{ [Brain]; (non-physical content) } is emergent and exists.

Any more?

Splendidly put sir. They arise from our experience and interpretation of the world. See https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/955313 for an excerpt from the book I mentioned.

My heuristic, and it is only that, is that numbers, laws, etc, are real but not existent as phenomena. They do not appear amongst phenomena, but can only be discerned by the intellect (nous). So they are, in the Platonic sense, but not the Kantian, noumenal objects, object of nous. — Wayfarer

The problem I find here is that number does appear in the phenomenal world—we encounter great numbers of phenomena, and you seem to be ignoring that fact. Also what does it mean to say that number, laws etc are objects of nous? Does it simply mean that they are ideas?

Whereas the archetypal forms exist in the One Mind and are apprehended by Nous: while they do not exist they provide the basis for all existing things by creating the pattern, the ratio, whereby things are formed. They are real, above and beyond the existence of wordly things; but they don't actually exist. They don't need to exist; things do the hard work of existence.

If numbers, laws etc., and all other objects are ideas in the "One Mind" then surely, they exist as such. Do you believe they stand out for the "One Mind" ? If so then they must exist for that mind, no?

I have often said to you that your position needs a universal mind or God in order to explain how we all experience the same world. But you always seem to pass this over and to be reluctant to posit such a mind. That is why your position seems confused and inadequate to me—you seem to want to make a claim, but then when asked just what your substantive claim is, you seem to have no answer.

Sure. I guess this is a common sense account. By the way, I have no commitments either way, I am just interested to hear more. — Tom Storm

Do you think it is more plausible that our formulations are completely arbitrary or that they are constrained by what we actually experience—that the whole logic (grammar) of our language evolves in keeping with the primordial, given nature of that experience.

Note I am referring to the logical structure of language, not to the particular sounds and marks that conventionally represent this and that—they are, onomatopoeia aside, seemingly mostly arbitrary.

Well, sometimes it should be a conversation terminator, I suppose. If you've already solved the problem of the OP, what more is there to talk about, in this Thread? I'd continue the conversation in some other Thread. — Arcane Sandwich

:up:

number does appear in the phenomenal world—we encounter great numbers of phenomena. — Janus

Because as a rational sentient being, you can number them.

Also what does it mean to say that number, laws etc are objects of nous? Does it simply mean that they are ideas? — Janus

The point about objects of intellectual cognition such as numbers, geometric and scientific principles and the like is that while they are ideas, they are the same for all who think. They're not the property of individual minds. See in this post 'Augustine on Intelligible Objects'.

If numbers, laws etc., and all other objects are ideas in the "One Mind" then surely, they exist as such. Do you believe they stand out for the "One Mind" ? If so then they must exist for that mind, no? — Janus

There are many difficult metaphysical questions involved in this enquiry. First, I don't believe, on the same grounds that I don't believe numbers exist, that the 'One Mind' exists. It is an expression, like a figure of speech, to convey the irreducibly mental side of whatever can be considered real. Put another way, whatever is real, is real for a mind. But that mind is never an object of experience, it is only ever the subject to whom experience occurs.

(From Eriugena, "things accessible to the senses and the intellect are said to exist, whereas anything that, “through the excellence of its nature,” transcends our faculties is said not to exist. According to this view, God, because of his transcendence, is said not to exist. He is described as “nothingness through excellence.” Likewise Paul Tillich 'to argue that God exists is to deny Him.')

I've started to explore the connection between the unknowable subject and Terrence Deacon's absentials. Absentials, as you will recall, are 'constitutive absences: A particular and precise missing element that is a critical defining attribute of 'ententional' phenomena, such as functions, thoughts, adaptations, purposes, and subjective experiences.'

I have often said to you that your position needs a universal mind or God in order to explain how we all experience the same world. But you always seem to pass this over and to be reluctant to posit such a mind. — Janus

Because it's a reification. To declare that such a mind exists is to make of it an object, one among others. The sense in which intelligible objects are reified into 'objects' parallels the sense in which God is reified into 'a being'. (Heidegger also makes a similar point in his distinction of seine and seiendes.)

As for how we experience the same world, I invariably reply that as we are members of the same species, language-group, culture and society, then there is a considerable stock of common experiences which we will draw on in interpreting what we see. But it's nevertheless true that different individuals all experience a unique instantiation of reality albeit converging around certain commonalities.

I think that one might coherently say that oysters have an identity, sure. They have something that makes them oysters and not stones, for example. Perhaps everything does. For example, one might suggest, as Kripke does, that the essence or identity of gold is having one or more atoms that each have 79 protons in its nucleus. I'm sure that oysters have a distinguishing property, we can call that essence, identity, essential property, etc. And they have that property independently of humans and their languages. — Arcane Sandwich

I agree oysters have properties and essence for being oyster. Likewise stones and golds do too.
But I am not sure if oysters have identity. Having identity sounds like the owner of the identity has some sort of idea of self e.g. arcane sandwich identifies himself as an Argentinian, and also a professional metaphysician. Before arcane sandwich identified himself with the property, no one in the universe knew the identify apart from arcane sandwich himself and the ones who knew him already.

Hence when you say oyster has identity seems to imply that the oysters are self conscious, and know who they are, and also let the world know they are the oysters.

But from empirical observation on oysters, that looks a highly unlikely case. Here lies a contradiction which could be clarified. :)

I agree oysters have properties and essence for being oyster. Likewise stones and golds do too.
But I am not sure if oysters have identity. Having identity sounds like the owner of the identity has some sort of idea of self e.g. arcane sandwich identifies himself as an Argentinian, and also a professional metaphysician. Before arcane sandwich identified himself with the property, no one in the universe knew the identify apart from arcane sandwich himself and the ones who knew him already.

Hence when you say oyster has identity seems to imply that the oysters are self conscious, and know who they are, and also let the world know they are the oysters.

But from empirical observation on oysters, that looks a highly unlikely case. Here lies a contradiction which could be clarified. :) — Corvus

Right, what you're talking about there is something similar to identity politics, but that's not what I was talking about. What I was referring to is something more like the classical Law of Identity, also called the Principle of Identity. It says that every entity is identical to itself, A = A, or in first-order logic, ∀x(x=x). What the Principle of Identity doesn't say, by itself, is if Reality is One or Many (i.e., a single gigantic, indivisible Universe, or a Universe in which there are many different individual things). In that sort of the debate, I'm with the "Many" camp, I think that the Universe is many things, not one gigantic thing that cannot be divided. In that sense, the Principle of Identity, together with the premise that there are Many things, not just one, entails not only that each entity is identical to itself, but also that it is different from other entities. What is it that guarantees that difference? It might be the identity that each entity has, be it a human, an oyster, or a stone. But the identity of each thing doesn't tell us much, it only tells us that this oyster = this oyster, it doesn't tell us how that oyster is different from a stone. Which is why, arguably, you need the concept of an essential property, or an essence. Perhaps there's nothing more to that than the concepts of spacetime and uniqueness: for example, this oyster has a different spatiotemporal location than that other oyster, and each of them is unique in its own way. Otherwise, they would be the same oyster, instead of being two different oysters. However, insofar as both of them belong to the same group (the group of oysters), they presumably have something in common, which differentiates that group from other groups (for example, the group of stones). So, oysters in general, as a group, probably have something that makes them unique and different, and that is what you may call the oyster's essence, essential property, or even identity.

So, oysters in general, as a group, probably have something that makes them unique and different, and that is what you may call the oyster's essence, essential property, or even identity. — Arcane Sandwich

Great explanation. I see your point. Yes, I was talking about the identity which identifies an individual or an entity as denoting or naming. You must have been talking about identity as the principle of identity A=A or ∀x(x=x).

I still don't get it, because you don't say oysters are identical to oysters or oyster groups, or stones are identical to stones or stone groups. You just say, oysters are a specie of fish, or stone belongs to the non-metallic mineral type material.

You never say humans are identical to the human group. The word human already has meaning for the entity belongs to human specie.

Hence, I am not sure if it makes sense to say oyster has identity to mean oysters are identical to the other oysters or oyster group.

You just say, oysters are a specie of fish — Corvus

Technically they're mollusks, not fish, but it's an understandable mistake. People call them "shellfish" (literally meaning "fish with a shell"), but they're not fish. Some other people think that whales are fish, for example, but they're not fish either, they're mammals. If these creatures had no identity, if they had no essential property, then we humans would not be able to recognize them as different creatures. There are counter-arguments to what I'm saying, I'm aware of that, but I think that those counter-arguments can be defused.

You never say humans are identical to the human group. — Corvus

Sure you do. Every human is a member of the human species, Homo sapiens. I understand species as groups, not as composite objects. But what is it that allows us to group humans into a single species? It must be something that each human has, some "human essence", if you want to call it that.

The very word "essence" is a very loaded word, and scientists usually avoid it. But I see no reason to avoid it, other than the fact that it has some religious and metaphysical connotations. But if you remove those connotations, it's actually quite a practical term.

The very word "essence" is a very loaded word, and scientists usually avoid it. But I see no reason to avoid it, other than the fact that it has some religious and metaphysical connotations. But if you remove those connotations, it's actually quite a practical term. — Arcane Sandwich

:ok: :fire:

The other option is to accept Pansychism. The general idea would be that everything has a mind. There are many different kinds of panpsychism (for example, depending on what they answer to the One vs Many debate). In the example of the oysters and the stones, a panpsychist who is on the side of the Many, can say that each individual oyster has a mind, and that each individual stone has a mind. We just don't know what those are, currently, in the 21st Century. Maybe it is something for science to discover in the future. As for myself, I don't accept panpsychism. I don't think that inanimate objects have minds. A stone has no mind. With oysters it's complicated. I would say that no, they do not have a mind. Why is the case of oysters complicated? Because currently, vegans (and non-vegans as well) are asking the following question: are oysters Vegan?

The problem with that question, in my opinion, is that it wrongly assumes that vegans do not eat animals because they are animals, and not because they are entities capable of suffering. If it turns out that oysters cannot feel pain, then vegans can eat oysters. For the purposes of veganism, it doesn't matter that they are animals. What matters is that they cannot experience suffering.

EDIT: Another example. Imagine that someone discovers a new species of plant, in the Amazon or somewhere else. And imagine if that plant could feel pain. In that case, it would not be vegan to eat it. Why not, if it's just a plant? Well, it doesn't matter. It would not be vegan to eat it because it can experience suffering.

So, it's complicated.

I don't accept Pansychism either. I don't believe inanimate objects have minds. I don't believe oysters have minds and can experience suffering.

So, it's complicated. — Arcane Sandwich

It is, which makes Philosophical discussions and readings fun.

Because as a rational sentient being, you can number them. — Wayfarer

Animals also apprehend great numbers of things. but they don't have the language to name them and declare their quantities.

The point about objects of intellectual cognition such as numbers, geometric and scientific principles and the like is that while they are ideas, they are the same for all who think. They're not the property of individual minds. — Wayfarer

They were probably first articulated by an individual mind. The fact that they make sense to most all human minds can be explained by the idea that human brains have evolved to be generally structurally the same as each other.

First, I don't believe, on the same grounds that I don't believe numbers exist, that the 'One Mind' exists. — Wayfarer

But you believe numbers are real and you believe the One Mind is real.

It is an expression, like a figure of speech, to convey the irreducibly mental side of whatever can be considered real. Put another way, whatever is real, is real for a mind. But that mind is never an object of experience, it is only ever the subject to whom experience occurs. — Wayfarer

Of course considering something real is irreducibly mental. and whatever is judged to be real is judged to be real by a mind. Do you think experience occurs to anything other than individual subjects? Does the One Mind experience everything like God is said to? Do you think the minds of individual subjects are somehow connected, connected in some way hidden from us and that that explains why we all experience the same world?

Because it's a reification. To declare that such a mind exists is to make of it an object, one among others. — Wayfarer

I would agree with you that it is a reification. But those who believe God is real (as opposed to imaginary) would deny that their belief is a reification and would also deny that God is an empirical or abstract object. So, it is not necessarily either/or.

Absentials, — Wayfarer

For me Deacon makes too much of absentials. It's not controversial at all that sentient creatures can be motivated by the absence of things, by lack. So, in that sense the absent has causal efficacy. But the feeling or apprehension of absence is not itself an absence.

As for how we experience the same world, I invariably reply that as we are members of the same species, language-group, culture and society, then there is a considerable stock of common experiences which we will draw on in interpreting what we see. But it's nevertheless true that different individuals all experience a unique instantiation of reality albeit converging around certain commonalities. — Wayfarer

I've addressed this idea of yours before. It just doesn't pass muster. That we are all similarly constituted as perceivers explains that we see things like colour in the ways we commonly do. But it cannot explain the fact that we see precisely the same things in the same places at the same times. Either there are real existents there that we are seeing, or existents are ideas in a universal mind in which we all participate or our minds are connected in some way we have no idea about.

Any other explanatory ideas come to mind for you?

But you believe numbers are real and you believe the One Mind is real. — Janus

Hence the distinction between what exists and what is real. I said, I know it's a difficult distinction to make and that it's controversial, and that it's an heuristic rather than a theory as such, but I hope you can at least see what I'm getting at. (I think @Tom Storm does.)

For me Deacon makes too much of absentials — Janus

That's convenient for you. It happens to be central to his entire project of Incomplete Nature.

But it cannot explain the fact that we see precisely the same things in the same places at the same times. — Janus

That's because we don't. The most detailed analysis of objects is, of course, physics. And quantum physics is the most detailed form of physics. And here, it has been demonstrated that no two observations of quantum events are exactly the same for different observers. See A quantum experiment suggests there’s no such thing as objective reality. Why also I refer to Christian Fuchs and QBism - he says:

The very idea of science from the usual point of view is to take out everything to do with human subjectivity and see what remains. QBism says, if you take everything out of quantum theory to do with human subjectivity, then nothing remains.

And this is because there is an ineluctably subjective aspect to anything we perceive as real. Our minds construe the same things in the same ways because we are similar kinds of subjects, so we can arrive at inter-subjective agreement with respect to objects. Of course those objects exist, but the reality we impute to them originates with the mind, through identification, naming, apperception, etc.

existents are ideas in a universal mind in which we all participate. — Janus

That is very much the thrust of Bernardo Kastrup's analytical idealism, with which I'm definitely sympathetic (despite disagreement with some of his polemics). I think it's also implicit in neo-platonist philosophy. It's much nearer to what I believe to be the case, than the direct realism which holds that the world comprises individual subjects and particular objects that are all independently real.

That's convenient for you. It happens to be central to his entire project of Incomplete Nature. — Wayfarer

Yes, and I've read it; although more than ten years ago now. Is he an authority? Must I agree with him?

That's because we don't. — Wayfarer

Of course we do. The dog sees the ball I throw. If you and I stand in front of a complex painting and I point to a particular spot on it and ask you what colour you see there, we will almost certainly agree. I see a tree three feet to left of the post of my carport—do you imagine you might see something different there—a mouse, a car, a tractor. If you were here with me now, I could point to hundreds of objects in the house and environment and ask you what you see there, and we would agree every time about just what it was I was pointing at. You are simply wrong about this—you just don't want to admit it because it doesn't suit your narrative.

It's much nearer to what I believe to be the case, than the direct realism which holds that the world comprises individual subjects and particular objects that are all independently real. — Wayfarer

So, you don't actually believe it, but it's nearer to what you do believe. Then what is it that you do believe?

Is he an authroity? Must I agree with him? — Janus

Of course not. When I cite a source for support, it is to orient my arguments with respect to others, standard practice in debates.

You are simply wrong about this—you just don't want to admit it because it doesn't suit your narrative. — Janus

And you're what Kant describes as a transcendental realist. That is a term he uses to describe the philosophical position that treats objects of experience (phenomena) as if they exist independently of the mind and are exactly as they appear to us. In other words, a transcendental realist assumes that the world as we perceive it corresponds directly to the way the world truly is, independent of our cognitive faculties.

This is not part of 'my narrative' but a philosophical argument which you've never demonstrated a grasp of, then, having failed to understand it, at which you lob various ineffective responses. But, thanks for the target practice!

Of course not. When I cite a source for support, it is to orient my arguments with respect to others, standard practice in debates. — Wayfarer

Your argument should be support enough for your position. But you don't present arguments, you just cite authorities.

And you're what Kant describes as a transcendental realist. That is a term he uses to describe the philosophical position that treats objects of experience (phenomena) as if they exist independently of the mind and are exactly as they appear to us. — Wayfarer

Typical! Instead of engaging with my point, that we all see the same things in the same places at the same times you seek to dismiss me by labelling. The question as to whether or not things exist in themselves exactly as we perceive them to be (which I think is probably an incoherent question anyway) is irrelevant to the point. What has to explained is the incontrovertible fact that we (and even animals) all do see the same things.

And you don't answer anything that would commit you to a definite position:

It's much nearer to what I believe to be the case, than the direct realism which holds that the world comprises individual subjects and particular objects that are all independently real.
— Wayfarer

So, you don't actually believe it, but it's nearer to what you do believe. Then what is it that you do believe? — Janus

I've reached the point where I cannot even take you seriously. My honest opinion is that you do not argue in good faith. I guess it's time to stop trying.

I guess it's time to stop trying. — Janus

I'd agree with that. I've tried to field your many repetitive complaints in good faith for a lot of years, but it does become wearisome.

:rofl: You're so full-o-shit, Wayfarer. Dream on—you've never dealt adequately with any of my objections.

Incomprehension followed by profanities. True to form.