You completely bypassed "because part of the issue we need to deal with is whether you can understand that to the people in question, they may be saying someting different than each other per their own understandings, even if it's incoherent to you."

The more I think about it I still don't understand how it all works. How do we actually receive sense data if sense data is basically Gods ideas? If it is a Brain in a vat situation I can understand, however if it isn't then where exactly do our minds exists? How do our own bodies interact with other bodies?

I also understand the frustration people are having with this discussion of ideas and matter. I still haven't understood how the immaterial universe actually functions other than God makes it so. — Jamesk

Good questions/comments.

The substance of Berkeley's philosophy is well known. What do you think it means to be a concrete thing? — Janus

Depends on the context, of course. Above, you seemed to be suggesting a context that was close to claiming a material thing.

We should simply quote Berkeley on this, though. The only thing I recall was him using "concrete" in the sense of something being a clear and distinct idea.

Whoo, that is an awfully big subject! Right now I am bothered by what looks sexual confusion to me. So many people don't appear to know what they are and what they want to be. I am not opposed to homosexuality but really, some men trying to be women won't succeed any more than I can pass as a teenager. I don't like being an old wrinkled person but I have to live with that, and some dark-skinned people may want to be white and that could lead to a lot of trouble. It is not just that trying to be what we are not, can be a problem for us, but also it can be a problem for those engage with us. Out of this comes pain, distrust, fear, and these lives can become unbearable to those lives them. :rofl: Looking 30 years younger would be a huge improvement in my self-image and ideas about what I can do with my life, but that ain't going to happen, so I look in the mirror and tell myself I look just the way a grandma should look. If I had magic wishes I would wish for everyone to be happy with who they are. — Athena

Thanks for the response. I wouldn't personally call "sexual confusion" a problem re human dignity or call it anarchy, but I'm extremely libertarian/libertine--there's probably no one more extreme than I am in that regard. Absolutely anything that people want to do consensually, any way they want to express themselves, anything that amounts to existential authenticity for anyone, is cool with me.

I already explained that; it is a concrete existent because it is thought by God. — Janus

You're misunderstanding me. I'm not asking for you to explain anything. I'm asking for some quotations from Berkeley--some textual evidence (I had specified that earlier)-- that support the notion that he believes there are concrete things.

Yes but it's a very different kind of idea; it is an idea which is a concrete existent. It doesn't accord at all to our limited idea of what an idea is. — Janus

What in Berkeley supports that he considers it a concrete existent? (Well, and where "concrete" doesn't amount to "clear and distinct" or something like that)

According to Berkeley the tree is not your idea or my idea but God's idea. — Janus

That still makes it an idea though. So there's no non-idea tree (per Berkeley).

And I already told you I'm not interested in the difference of scribbles or sounds. I'm interested in the difference of what those scribbles and sounds mean. In order for a word to be coherent it must mean something. — Harry Hindu

Yes. We went through that. So, given that you can't grasp the differences in what each side is saying in that regard, we need to look at what your beliefs/expectations are re meaning and coherency, so we can diagnose just what's going on for you not understanding the difference.

I was in the process of doing that when you bowed out.

One slightly alternate way to approach this is to figure out why, in your view, people aren't saying something different than each other just in case you don't believe that they're saying something coherent.

But from that alteranate approach, we still have to deal with what you understand meaning, coherence, etc. to be, because part of the issue we need to deal with is whether you can understand that to the people in question, they may be saying someting different than each other per their own understandings, even if it's incoherent to you.

For example, one person saying "Color my love brittle" and another saying "Polecats dance planets" are both saying something that's incoherent to me, at least at first blush, but that doesn't lead me to thinking that they're saying the same thing.

Aren't you in danger of "reifying the instrumental" by using it in this fashion? — Valentinus

I don't think that physicalism is an instrumental theory but rather what's really the case ontologically. Instrumentally, it's not very practical for some things. Psychological, sociological, etc. approaches are often better suited for making predictions, where those approaches don't focus on more or less "mechanistic" explanations re what's going on in brains.

It is very difficult for you to stay focused. I wasn't asking about how the difference in that post. I was asking how you can expect others to understand you if coherence is subjective. — Harry Hindu

What I'm focused on is you understanding the difference of what idealists and materialists are saying.

A tangent about communication, which is what that would be, won't help us get to you understanding the difference betwen what idealists and materialists are saying.

So then why are you trying to be coherent others when you speak? How is it that you expect them to understand anything that you say? — Harry Hindu

That would be a whole big tangent about how communication works that wouldn't help you figure out what the difference is between what idealists and materialists are saying, which is all I'd want to accomplish.

No. It would be by answering the question that you keep avoiding. — Harry Hindu

Whether you will participate in getting somewhere is up to you, but I wasn't asking your opinion about what was required. I don't consider you qualified to know.

Coherence isn't subjective. — Harry Hindu

So, we don't at all agree on this, and we don't at all agree about logic, either, including that I think that logic is subjective, and obviously, even for those who do not, there are many different species of logics, some incompatible with others.

I'm done with the game of yours. When you can actually answer the question, we can continue. — Harry Hindu

The only way we're going to get anywhere is by doing this "game."

I'm not going to keep addressing the same things over and over. It's only going to work if we go step by step.

Are you asking if something is coherent to someone else? Or to yourself?

Coherence is always to someone, isn't it?

Right now I'm clarifying what you're even asking.

You're asking something about your own understanding, right?

So what you're really asking for is not what they're saying that's different, and not whether they think about it differently, or whether they think that the nature or the world is different. You want to know what one side or the other is saying differently that you find to be coherent, that makes sense to you.

That's making it about you, no?

(I'm not disagreeing with you, by the way, but this makes it about you, about your understanding.)

You wrote, "Yet you haven't been able to explain the difference in what they are saying"

Meaning is subjective and can't be shared. Do you want different definitions?

Saying two different things that are both incoherent isn't really saying anything different — Harry Hindu

"X is flooble."

"X is not flooble."

Are those saying something different?

And I keep reiterating that what they say is incoherent. — Harry Hindu

Which is irrelevant. All that's relevant is if they're saying something different.

If at the moment you're saying that I'm not explaining any differences because I'm committing the fallacy of question-begging, then we need to sort that out.

Re "begging the question" that's only pertinent to arguments per se, no?

I asked this question a million times before your question about begging the question. — Harry Hindu

All I care about at the moment is addressing "Yet you haven't been able to explain the difference in what they are saying" because you keep saying that even though I've explained differences in what they're saying many times.

I asked you what is the difference between "matter" and "mind", or "ideas". — Harry Hindu

We can talk about that after we finish the other thing first.

Re "begging the question" that's only pertinent to arguments per se, no?

I already said it isn't. — Harry Hindu

Re "begging the question" that's only pertinent to arguments per se, no?

Is that a difference or not?

No, I'm not going to be distracted.

You said, "Yet you haven't been able to explain the difference in what they are saying."

I said, "One difference is that idealsts are saying that not every existent has mass, but materialists are saying that they do."

Is that a difference or not?

My concern is that, in general, we have trashed human dignity and made everything meaningless. We have created anarchy — Athena

Just curious what sorts of things you see as examples of the above?

All I'm saying is that if you agree with the axiom, then you agree there must have been a first motion. — Devans99

All I agree with is that we can stipulate that. It's like saying, "You must write the word 'there' with a 'z' in the middle instead of an 'e,' like this: 'thzre'"

The axiom 'material ordered collections have a first member' I made up. Combined with another axiom ‘motion exists’, this gives the first point in my argument that there must be a first motion. You disagree with the reasoning? — Devans99

I'd agree that stipulatively, material ordered collections can have a "first member." I don't know what such a stipulation is supposed to have to do with objective ontology, though. Or how it would argue agaisnt the notion that time might extend back infinitely.

Personally, I hope (and believe) he’s going to get charged with perjury and that he won’t see out his term. — Wayfarer

There's no way that's going to happen even if he gets charged with perjury today. They could easily tie that up with all sorts of legal stalls--plus it would take forever even without intentional stalls. No way that would get done in less than two years at this point.

Democrats need to put their focus on who they're going to run against Trump and just how they're going to successfully market that person so they can win. They should be getting started on this already. It's really pretty foolish to wait until four-five months before the election (which practically means that they need a narrow stable of candidates now and they need to develop marketing strategies for all of them now).

Trying to win via getting rid of or somehow handicapping Trump isn't going to work. You're not going to get rid of him quickly enough (if at all), and he's basically impossible to handicap. If Democrats can't make a candidate seem more appealing on his/her own merits, Trump will win again.

Time is not change — Devans99

I wasn't asking what you thought, so that I might simply adopt your view.

In my ontology/metaphysics, time is simply change/motion. Could someone convince me to change my ontology? Perhaps. But that certainly wouldn't be easy. I didn't just pick my view out of a hat (and not just a moment ago).

Do you agree with the axiom 'material ordered collections have a first member'? — Devans99

I have no idea. I'm not entirely sure what it's referring to. What is the source of that axiom? I don't recall encountering that before. (Maybe I did and I just don't recall it . . . I'd have to review it.) Just for general info, I don't at all buy realism for sets or for mathematics/mathematical objects in general. Sets are something we make up.

There is just one universe, just one big bang and one big crunch. No need for multiple universe, it's the same universe in an eternal circle of time. — Devans99

Well, then time wouldn't have a beginning.

It doesn't seem to me like you're talking about empathy in any of this, but just sympathy (and indeed you change to using the term "sympathy" later in the post). For example, "feel empathetic for" is an odd way to phrase anything about empathy. It sounds more like "feel sympathetic towards."

At any rate, I don't know the answer, but I'm skeptical that there would be a correlation between beliefs about free will and tendencies towards sympathy or empathy.

The start of time could be coincidental withe the end of time, with the big bang triggered by the big crunch. The big crunch after all is the only place in the universe to get enough matter/energy for the big bang. — Devans99

I'm not at all fond of talk that has more than one universe. I wouldn't say that a big crunch is the end of one universe and a big bang the start of another. I'd just call it one universe that has undergone a (or that regularly undergoes periodic) big crunch(es) and big bang(s).

1. There must have been a first motion in the universe; no first motion implies no motion at all in the universe which makes no sense. — Devans99

Either there was a first motion or the universe extends infinitely back in time.

2. There cannot be a stretch of infinite length time before the first motion as what would then trigger the first motion? — Devans99

There can't be any time at all prior to a first motion. Time is motion/change.

3. The only alternative to the infinite length of time before the first motion is a start of time. — Devans99

That premise we agree on.

4. IE there must be a start of time. — Devans99

No, because of my comment re the first premise.

Which existent do idealists say has mass (you said not every...so some might) — Harry Hindu

Irrelevant. Saying that not every existent has mass is different than saying that they do, isn't it?

Thanks for the info, although that kinda leaves me with more questions than answers. :razz:

"Pro defending borders" is not something I'm in favor of, but we have enough problems with that issue in the U.S. at the moment.

There hasn't been a Democrat Senator in Texas since 1993. Cruz won it in 2012 by 16pp, but only beat Beto by 2.6pp. That's a big swing. I don't know how much of that is down to Beto being Beto, but he probably appealed to a lot of people who usually vote Republican.

If he can pull that off in the swing states that Trump won then he can beat Trump. — Michael

So maybe there's some hope for that, then.

Well, if he can't beat Trump in any of the traditionally conservative states, doesn't that make him score low in the "ability to appeal to some of the people who would otherwise vote for Trump" metric?

So Beto. — Michael

I don't know enough about him, really. What would you blame for him being defeated by Cruz last month?