Yokefellow
Active Member
I asked a Quantum Bit and it said both answers are correct at the same time.
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Problem of Universals
- Thread starter Rival
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Secret Chief
Veteran Member
Welcome to my Ignore list.
Secret Chief
Veteran Member
This is why I hate Western philosophy.
Heyo
Veteran Member
The cake is a lie.
Heyo
Veteran Member
I've made a thread about this question 3 2/3 years ago where I define and defend my "nominalism" (without using that word) and keep linking to that thread over and over again.
5 Planes of Existence
Heyo
Veteran Member
You beat me to it. Sometimes even we think alike.
RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
I'm leaning towards two related positions, one from cognitive science and one from quantum mechanics; Conscious Realism Donald Hoffman’s Philosophy of Consciousness and Reality: Conscious Realism and Participatory Realism https://arxiv.org/pdf/1601.04360.pdf
Cognitive psychologist Don Hoffman argues that objective reality consists of a web of interacting points of view, these being the perspectives of individual conscious agents, each of which may be facets of some universal consciousness .
Christopher Fuchs, a former student of John Wheeler, is a proponent of Quantum Bayesianism (QBism). He argues that reality is being created around us all the time, and that we as observers have a part in that process. Pointing out that whenever two elements of the world collide, they give birth to some new phenomenon, he concludes that every interaction engenders a moment of creation.
Both Hoffman and Fuchs argue strongly that their positions are not anti-realist, but rather that we need to radically rethink what it is we talk about, when we talk about reality. These and related ideas from philosophy and theoretical physics, are de-mystified if you take as axiomatic the proposition that any account of objective reality must, by definition, include an account of both the observer of that reality, and the act of observation.
Cognitive psychologist Don Hoffman argues that objective reality consists of a web of interacting points of view, these being the perspectives of individual conscious agents, each of which may be facets of some universal consciousness .
Christopher Fuchs, a former student of John Wheeler, is a proponent of Quantum Bayesianism (QBism). He argues that reality is being created around us all the time, and that we as observers have a part in that process. Pointing out that whenever two elements of the world collide, they give birth to some new phenomenon, he concludes that every interaction engenders a moment of creation.
Both Hoffman and Fuchs argue strongly that their positions are not anti-realist, but rather that we need to radically rethink what it is we talk about, when we talk about reality. These and related ideas from philosophy and theoretical physics, are de-mystified if you take as axiomatic the proposition that any account of objective reality must, by definition, include an account of both the observer of that reality, and the act of observation.
Secret Chief
Veteran Member
Reminds me of Indra's Net, sunyata etc...
vulcanlogician
Well-Known Member
How does dividing things up into 5 planes argue nominalism? Sure, in a manner of speaking, these five categories are names (or distinctions that we are prone to name). But they could also be fundamental categories. I only read the OP. If you want to argue nominalism, let's start there.
Plato famously distinguished forms (or ideas) from the material world. Isn't that basically what you have done in your OP? People want to add some kind of ectoplasm to Plato and realism, when the fact is, we have an unresolved distinction. Plato goes on to say that the world of ideas is permanent and thus "more real" than the material world. IDK about that. Which is "higher" seems like a trivial ontology to me.
I'm not trying to diminish nominalism. I have heard some ****ing excellent arguments for nominalism. But realism just seems to be more plausible.
For those of you who don't quite get it,
Are concepts like mathematics, justice, truth, grammar etc. invented or discovered?
If they are invented, upon what are they invented?
If they are discovered, where are they to be found?
Would these concepts exist without humans here to use them? The nominalist would argue no, the realist would argue yes.
The first is nominalism (invented) the second is realism (discovered).
Plato believed abstract concepts were more real than physical phenomena because the latter breaks down and falls into entropy, whereas the former do not, they last forever.
Are concepts like mathematics, justice, truth, grammar etc. invented or discovered?
If they are invented, upon what are they invented?
If they are discovered, where are they to be found?
Would these concepts exist without humans here to use them? The nominalist would argue no, the realist would argue yes.
The first is nominalism (invented) the second is realism (discovered).
Plato believed abstract concepts were more real than physical phenomena because the latter breaks down and falls into entropy, whereas the former do not, they last forever.
wellwisher
Well-Known Member
Are you a Realist or a Nominalist?
Problem of Universals: Nominalism vs. Realism | Highbrow
The Problem of Universals posits two theories about the nature of reality: nominalism and realism, that oppose each other and argue the question of whether “universal” things are in fact “real.”gohighbrow.com
The line between these two POV is not as clear cut. For example, below.
Galileo observation of the phases of Venus allowed him to prove Venus and Earth move around the sun, at a time when the consensus of people believed the sun and planets moved around the earth. What Galileo did was not intuitively obvious. It was not an obvious experience people were competing to publish. It took ingenuity and special tools to happen. It was resisted at first, since people could not yet see it that way.
If it was not for modern science teaching us, how to look at Galileo's data and how his experiment works, it would not be as obvious, as watching the sun passing over the earth. It took science nominalist; theory, for people to become more realists, since what is real is not always obvious. I am in the middle, since both things are at work.
All knowledge has specialist, who know the data well enough to be first tier realists. The rest of us look for approval by their peers, to tell us it is safe to visualize that way, so we can see the same things, without being tier one experts. We depend more of the prestige of the experts, than our own observation skills and the ability to analyze their hard data on computer printouts. That data skill, itself will need nominalist skills, even for the experts to follow.
Realism is about bottom lines, while ignoring all the strings attached. This makes science more dogmatic and less open to change, since change, needs changes in nominalist theory, so we know how to see the data differently, and if taught, allows everyone else appear to see, reality, as it is staged by the theory.
If you read a foreign journal article, and did not know the language, but had all the data, you would not be sure how and what you are supposed to see, to target reality, for your bottom line realism. The line in the sand is an illusion. It is not so much magic trick, but we sets the mental stage, so our view allows the connections to come to sight.
There are tricks, like spatial illusions that can add confusion to dogmatic realism. A spatial illusion, by a nominalist, will look 3-D to the eyes, but it is really 2-D. It is an illusion of 3-D, using shadows and highlights; denial of facts with some good points to help highlight and contrast the shadow, so it appears 3-D; integrated.
For example, man made climate change works too hard to deny; shadow, natural affects on climate. This tells me we got a spatial illusion, that is staging realism with a 3-D CO2, illusion. Better theory cannot deny anything if it is real. However, many people view reality from that shadowed 2-D stage, to develop their bottom line, realism. Below is a ball that looks 3-D but if you touch the computer screen you can prove it is 2-D. But looks real to the eyes.
Heyo
Veteran Member
I agree with Plato in so far as we both say that material objects and ideal objects objectively exist and can thus be discovered. Plato thinks that that makes the ideals real, I don't.
I guess that makes me kind of a chimera as you can call me a realist or a nominalist by just tweaking the definitions a bit. @Rival: your definition deviates that much from the one in the OP to facilitate that.
Ideals can't be measured in SI units, you need a brain to find them. But you do find them, not invent them as you do with constructs.
@vulcanlogician: That's why there are more than two categories. Ideals don't fit either the real nor the imaginary. You may call them a special kind of real ("more than real") or a special kind of unreal (not tangible but also not invented).
dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
Afaik they operate in no base system. Their numbers are 1, a couple (2), a few (3) and many (4-4+).
"Cultures without numbers, or with only one or two precise numbers, include the Munduruku and Pirahã in Amazonia. Researchers have also studied some adults in Nicaragua who were never taught number words. Without numbers, healthy human adults struggle to precisely differentiate and recall quantities as low as four."
"This and many other experiments have converged upon a simple conclusion: When people do not have number words, they struggle to make quantitative distinctions that probably seem natural to someone like you or me. While only a small portion of the world’s languages are anumeric or nearly anumeric, they demonstrate that number words are not a human universal."
How Do You Count Without Numbers?
Some human societies lack words for numbers. What does this tell anthropologists about humanity and human evolution?www.sapiens.org
Nice! Thank you.
The location here is key, in my opinion. These are isolated tribal communities? If so, when you said "they do just fine" that would be in a specific circumstance of isolation?
Also, I think, ( I hope ) I'm not too bold to say that we agree that symbols are universal? Words are just a type of symbolism. From my research symbols are pre-language, and pre-human, going way way way back into our shared animal ( maybe even plant ) evolutionary history. Lacking the "number words" as universals would not prohibit words themself from being universal, because they are symbols which are conveying shared concepts which are themself universal. These symbols represent shared experiences, and as humans, we all share common phenomena. If we agree this far, then maybe I can consider in my mind which of these experiences ( concepts / qualia ) are perhaps completely unique making them "real" for some, but "unreal" for others. That would be helpful for me.
What are your thoughts on these two points? ( not for debate or arguing, I promise ) I'm still trying to figure out how to answer the poll.
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I chose nominalist in the poll because that would seem closest to my position based on links provided. I would not, however, use that label personally. In general, I consider many philosophical concepts as antiquated.
Abstract concepts, abstractions, are invented or created, and exist solely in complex neurophysiological systems (at least for now and specifically on this planet, as we can't speak to what exists elsewhere in the Cosmos with any specificity or detail.) Here on earth, Human Beings appear to make the greatest use of abstraction.
I'm not sure I agree with the underlying assumption of this question. Abstraction at its inception, I would posit, is the result of the evolutionary introduction of memory in biological systems. Memory is an abstract representation of some experience of the organism. Abstraction then grew from simple storage and use of information of an individual organism by that individual organism, to communication of information between individuals, resulting in an expansion in forms of abstraction.
Absent an entity to store and communicate abstractions, they would not exist. If there are no human beings, no abstraction specific to human beings would exist, but that does not mean abstractions (as a broad general category) would not exist or be used by other organisms.
And Plato was wrong, understandably so, given his level of ignorance and that of humanity in his time.
Abstract concepts, abstractions, are invented or created, and exist solely in complex neurophysiological systems (at least for now and specifically on this planet, as we can't speak to what exists elsewhere in the Cosmos with any specificity or detail.) Here on earth, Human Beings appear to make the greatest use of abstraction.
I'm not sure I agree with the underlying assumption of this question. Abstraction at its inception, I would posit, is the result of the evolutionary introduction of memory in biological systems. Memory is an abstract representation of some experience of the organism. Abstraction then grew from simple storage and use of information of an individual organism by that individual organism, to communication of information between individuals, resulting in an expansion in forms of abstraction.
Absent an entity to store and communicate abstractions, they would not exist. If there are no human beings, no abstraction specific to human beings would exist, but that does not mean abstractions (as a broad general category) would not exist or be used by other organisms.
And Plato was wrong, understandably so, given his level of ignorance and that of humanity in his time.
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Ostronomos
Well-Known Member
Abstract concepts are more than just a figment of the imagination.
Few would doubt that reality is a perception or that reality is mathematics or that reality is real or that reality is a proposition. Or that reality has axioms.
Example only: existence and non-existence are one, therefore the ideal world of forms is no different than the material one.
Properties are indisputably real. It is clear that Aristotle never erred in this point.
Only a fool would argue otherwise.
Few would doubt that reality is a perception or that reality is mathematics or that reality is real or that reality is a proposition. Or that reality has axioms.
Example only: existence and non-existence are one, therefore the ideal world of forms is no different than the material one.
Properties are indisputably real. It is clear that Aristotle never erred in this point.
Only a fool would argue otherwise.
Nominalism is reality, realist is make-believe.Are you a Realist or a Nominalist?
Problem of Universals: Nominalism vs. Realism | Highbrow
The Problem of Universals posits two theories about the nature of reality: nominalism and realism, that oppose each other and argue the question of whether “universal” things are in fact “real.”
Solid argument.
Concepts, numbers, abstractions, generalizations, notions, things imagined, all exist as ideas.Are you a Realist or a Nominalist?
Problem of Universals: Nominalism vs. Realism | Highbrow
The Problem of Universals posits two theories about the nature of reality: nominalism and realism, that oppose each other and argue the question of whether “universal” things are in fact “real.”
When no brain is around that holds any particular idea, it doesn't exist.
David Armstrong is alas now defunct, but I agree with a lot of his stuff ─ so much so that a friend of mind at Berkeley U arranged a lunch for the three of us when he visited. (Brag? Namedrop? Me? Don't be ridiculous!)