Problem of Universals

[Onasander]

One of the reasons I want to move near the library of congress is my inability to find and resource primary texts. I never really agreed with the concept of universals but it began hitting differently when I looked into the presocratics, in how they saw perception and physics. I don't disagree with either camp's existence but think the two halves do not add up to the cognitive whole, alot of earlier stuff happens in cognition that matters alot to when discussing universals. May be more as well than what I'm thinking, so want to do a very careful sweep of classical texts from around the world and root out any tradition that goes against the modern trends.

 

[Ostronomos]

Concepts, numbers, abstractions, generalizations, notions, things imagined, all exist as ideas.

When no brain is around that holds any particular idea, it doesn't exist.

Ooh, so what is the mind's language and images if not reality?

Your argument is riddled with atheistic delusion.

 

[Ostronomos]

To anyone else who's judgement is clouded by atheistic delusion; the brute force distinction between inner and outer realities is an illusion.

 

[Onasander]

Ooh, so what is the mind's language and images if not reality?

Your argument is riddled with atheistic delusion.

Look into the Pythagorean Table of Opposites. Reality in your take can be broken down into modular dualistic parts that can be put together or broken down into parts to produce phonemological non-realities that empirical data MUST align with. I've seen Buddhist do it in reverse with their higher Buddhist realms each ruled by Buddha with their own one tier decreased level of conscious awareness of the Table of Opposites. It largely parallels Hypnagogic Visual Cortex hallucinations.

Basically they are built in, innate universals. But not universals, our concept of reality comes out of them (or parallels them), but are not reality. Every aspect of a a scientific proof is accounted and expressed by some aspect of them playing off one another, but they are non-noumenal. Nothing mystic about it, but our mysticism usually grows out of it, as well as our sense of paradox.

I'm pretty certain it's the vehicle (or means, possibly just a side effect that closely parallels) of how our minds imprints data points to memory.

I don't think we are close to the end of the story on universals. The presocratics and sometimes Buddhists were deep in on this stuff.

 

[Ostronomos]

Look into the Pythagorean Table of Opposites. Reality in your take can be broken down into modular dualistic parts that can be put together or broken down into parts to produce phonemological non-realities that empirical data MUST align with. I've seen Buddhist do it in reverse with their higher Buddhist realms each ruled by Buddha with their own one tier decreased level of conscious awareness of the Table of Opposites. It largely parallels Hypnagogic Visual Cortex hallucinations.

Basically they are built in, innate universals. But not universals, our concept of reality comes out of them (or parallels them), but are not reality. Every aspect of a a scientific proof is accounted and expressed by some aspect of them playing off one another, but they are non-noumenal. Nothing mystic about it, but our mysticism usually grows out of it, as well as our sense of paradox.

I'm pretty certain it's the vehicle (or means, possibly just a side effect that closely parallels) of how our minds imprints data points to memory.

I don't think we are close to the end of the story on universals. The presocratics and sometimes Buddhists were deep in on this stuff.

The information you provided is fascinating.

Might I suggest a link? https://www.reddit.com/r/holofractal/comments/17609a1

 

[Ostronomos]

I gather from the following video that metaphysics will become the future of science and technology:

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I don't know.

I don't know if any of it is real.

"Life is but a dream" is something I began to look at in a whole new way when some meds I was on were giving me extremely vivid dreams.

 

[JustGeorge]

"Life is but a dream" is something I began to look at in a whole new way when some meds I was on were giving me extremely vivid dreams.

Reminds me of this song:

 

[blü 2]

Ooh, so what is the mind's language and images if not reality?

Your argument is riddled with atheistic delusion.

Objective reality is the world external to the self. Gods are not found there, otherwise we'd have photos, interviews, blood (ichor?) samples for the genetics lab, and a place on the tree of evolution for them.

But if you can show me an uninstantiated two running around in the wild, that would be a start.

 

[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).

Well instead of using the term "ideal" why don't we use the term "ideas and concepts." Not that you are wrong to use the term "ideal"... it's just that I think it carries a connotation that places them in the realm of the subjective. As a realist, I see two fundamental categories: real and unreal.

The unreal includes fictions or erroneous ideas. It also includes hallucinations. A hallucination is something that is perceived as a physical object (ie. you saw a person out of the corner of your eye that wasn't really there). A fiction or erroneous idea might be "the moon is made of cheese" or perhaps the flat earth model. All the things listed in this paragraph are unreal. Some of them are ideas, others are sensory experiences.

Now let's talk about the real. In the category of "real" we should obviously include physical objects that we sense that are really there. But we can also include ideas like the Pythagorean theorem. Is the pythagorean theorem not REAL? I think it is. There are actually quite a few proofs demonstrating it is so.

The nominalist has all their work ahead of them to show why mathematics works so well if it's merely invented-- AND they also have to describe how mathematical concepts can be understood purely in abstracto and then later turn out to be useful in describing the physical world. Such has happened multiple times. If mathematics isn't discovered, aren't things like these awfully coincidental?

I'm not trying to give a counterpoint to your argument. I'm more so trying to create a jumping off point for a discussion on the matter and lay out a few preliminaries.

 

[osgart]

It takes relationship for abstracts to arise and manifest themselves. I do not think that relationship is a meaning of non existence because there is endless much in abstracts, and life exists.

If qualities exist and they do then these qualities are meant for relationship.

Where would humans be without descriptive information that actually does what the description entails?

And then the precision in it all with what actually works, vs. a void, mindless reality that in endless cycles finally sparks something of meaning. Life is of meaning for humans cannot survive without making meaning and relationship.

If things didn't mean anything, then there'd be no navigating terrain, swinging from trees, or manipulating objects. And what if nature did not select for meaning machines?

 

[Heyo]

Well instead of using the term "ideal" why don't we use the term "ideas and concepts." Not that you are wrong to use the term "ideal"... it's just that I think it carries a connotation that places them in the realm of the subjective. As a realist, I see two fundamental categories: real and unreal.

As a nominalist, I see two fundamental categories: real and unreal. (And subdivisions in the unreal.)

The unreal includes fictions or erroneous ideas. It also includes hallucinations. A hallucination is something that is perceived as a physical object (ie. you saw a person out of the corner of your eye that wasn't really there). A fiction or erroneous idea might be "the moon is made of cheese" or perhaps the flat earth model. All the things listed in this paragraph are unreal. Some of them are ideas, others are sensory experiences.

Now let's talk about the real. In the category of "real" we should obviously include physical objects that we sense that are really there. But we can also include ideas like the Pythagorean theorem. Is the pythagorean theorem not REAL? I think it is. There are actually quite a few proofs demonstrating it is so.

Try to formulate a definition of "real" that is not a list. The physical is obviously a category of itself, you have to add the ideal (I'll keep using that term for hysterical reasons) making clear that it is not the same kind of real as the physical. You can't measure the Pythagorean Theorem in SI units.

 

[vulcanlogician]

You can't measure the Pythagorean Theorem in SI units.

So, you don't consider the Pythagorean theorem to be real, then?

 

[Heyo]

So, you don't consider the Pythagorean theorem to be real, then?

That's correct. Real is only the physical, what is measurable with scientific instruments.
Shapes and numbers do exist and I believe they exist objectively. But they are abstractions. Unlike constructs they don't go away if nobody believes in them, they can be rediscovered any time by a sufficiently complex mind and they will functionally be the same. In one way they are "more real" than reality as, I believe, they would be the same in any other universe. In other ways they are more like constructs as they only manifest in brains.
You may not agree with ordering them into the unreal but I think you have to agree that they are fundamentally different from the physical world.

 

[Rival]

That's correct. Real is only the physical, what is measurable with scientific instruments.
Shapes and numbers do exist and I believe they exist objectively. But they are abstractions. Unlike constructs they don't go away if nobody believes in them, they can be rediscovered any time by a sufficiently complex mind and they will functionally be the same. In one way they are "more real" than reality as, I believe, they would be the same in any other universe. In other ways they are more like constructs as they only manifest in brains.
You may not agree with ordering them into the unreal but I think you have to agree that they are fundamentally different from the physical world.

Why is the physical world the baseline for what is 'real'?

 

[vulcanlogician]

Shapes and numbers do exist and I believe they exist objectively.

Aren't you a realist, then?

But they are abstractions. Unlike constructs they don't go away if nobody believes in them, they can be rediscovered any time by a sufficiently complex mind and they will functionally be the same.

So, if a meteor strikes the Earth and wipes out all life, this changes the fundamental nature of right triangles?

The Pythagorean theorem is a truth-statement about the nature of right triangles. It says that the sum of the squares of the interior angles equals the square of the hypotenuse. THAT doesn't change if all beings capable of understanding such a principle cease to exist. The moon obviously exists. How do we know? We can see it. We can point to it and say, "Hey, there's the moon." But the Pythagorean theorem also exists. A mathematician can point to the relation between three points in space and say, "Hey, there's the Pythagorean theorem."

If all life were wiped from the face of the earth, there would be no one around to say, "Look, there's the moon." But the moon would still be there. Likewise, if all life were wiped from the face of the earth, there'd be no one to say, "Look, there's the Pythagorean theorem." But (just like the moon) it'd still be there. If a slime mold somehow survived the apocalypse and evolved into a thinking creature, and these creatures started thinking about right triangles, there it would be... the Pythagorean theorem.

I say the Pythagorean theorem is just as real as any material object. The only thing separating it from realness is an arbitrary ontology that classifies material objects as the only things that are real.

 

[Heyo]

Why is the physical world the baseline for what is 'real'?

Because I say so.
I use that definition because it is the one most commonly accepted. If you aren't a Hindu or a Simulation Hypothesis believer, we can all agree that the physical is real. You may not agree that the physical is the only thing that is real but I think you'll agree that abstracts are different from physical objects, do you?

 

[Rival]

Because I say so.
I use that definition because it is the one most commonly accepted. If you aren't a Hindu or a Simulation Hypothesis believer, we can all agree that the physical is real. You may not agree that the physical is the only thing that is real but I think you'll agree that abstracts are different from physical objects, do you?

They differ but they're both real. Tea differs from quantum physics but both exist.

 

[Heyo]

They differ but they're both real. Tea differs from quantum physics but both exist.

Why are they both real? Because you say so. We are arguing semantics - which I don't give much value. As long as we agree about the fundamentals, I don't care how you name things.
I asked @vulcanlogician this and he chose not to answer (or wasn't able): What is your definition of "real"? And I don't accept a list.

 

[Heyo]

Aren't you a realist, then?

Depends on your definition. I don't care about labels.

So, if a meteor strikes the Earth and wipes out all life, this changes the fundamental nature of right triangles?

No. I thought I made that clear.