Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

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Terrapin Station
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Consul wrote: July 5th, 2020, 3:14 pm
Consul wrote: July 5th, 2020, 2:50 pmIf matter or space/spacetime is pointless, then it either doesn't have any basic parts, being "atomless gunk", or it does have basic parts with some minimal nonzero volume.
Regarding the structure of matter or space/spacetime, there are four options:

1. point-based&continuous (with an infinite number of matter-points or space-points in any given volume or region of space)

2. point-based&discrete (with a finite number of matter-points or space-points in any given volume or region of space)

3. point-free&continuous (with no matter-points or space-points in any given volume or region of space, and with no non-0D matter-"granules" or space-"granules" in any given volume or region of space)

4. point-free&discrete (with no matter-points or space-points in any given volume or region of space, but with a finite number of non-0D matter-"granules" or space-"granules" in any given volume or region of space)
Space or time (or "spacetime") doesn't exist as anything on its own. It's a way of talking about matter and the relations of matter.
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Atla wrote: July 5th, 2020, 3:14 pm Here are three meaningless reified concepts or mental images, projected onto the world: "physical", "matter", "chunks of stuff". :)
I'm surprised that you'd confuse concepts and what the concepts are about.

And if you believe that, let me tell you about a bridge I have for sale.
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by Atla »

Terrapin Station wrote: July 5th, 2020, 3:23 pm
Atla wrote: July 5th, 2020, 3:14 pm Here are three meaningless reified concepts or mental images, projected onto the world: "physical", "matter", "chunks of stuff". :)
I'm surprised that you'd confuse concepts and what the concepts are about.

And if you believe that, let me tell you about a bridge I have for sale.
Well I'm not surprised that you completely missed what I was saying.
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Atla wrote: July 5th, 2020, 3:42 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: July 5th, 2020, 3:23 pm

I'm surprised that you'd confuse concepts and what the concepts are about.

And if you believe that, let me tell you about a bridge I have for sale.
Well I'm not surprised that you completely missed what I was saying.
Yeah, that must have been it. But you have to get in line behind creation/evolution for that.
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by Atla »

Terrapin Station wrote: July 5th, 2020, 3:47 pm
Atla wrote: July 5th, 2020, 3:42 pm
Well I'm not surprised that you completely missed what I was saying.
Yeah, that must have been it. But you have to get in line behind creation/evolution for that.
Actually you have a lot in common with that guy.
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Atla wrote: July 5th, 2020, 3:49 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: July 5th, 2020, 3:47 pm

Yeah, that must have been it. But you have to get in line behind creation/evolution for that.
Actually you have a lot in common with that guy.
True. We can name many commonalities and differences between any two things, really.
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by Steve3007 »

Terrapin Station wrote:
Steve3007 wrote:So you're talking about measurement now? What would constitute an accurate measurement in your view? Would it be measuring the distances between literal points? It can't be, can it? Measurement is something that happens in the real world and points don't exist in the real world. They're abstract concepts.
So size isn't just the extension between parts then, right?
If you're talking about measurement then size is the measured distance from one part to another. Parts have non-zero size, therefore measurements cannot ever be 100% accurate. They always have tolerances. But they can approach arbitrarily close to 100% accuracy by making the sizes of the parts approach arbitrarily close to zero, while never actually reaching zero. "Arbitrarily close" means whatever value of closeness you care to think of you can always think of a closer one. We're talking about the theory of limits now.

To talk, as you have above, of the extension between parts, we'd be talking about the extension between the nearest points on each part. But that introduces the abstract concept of a dimensionless point again which is incompatible with a consideration of the real activity of measurement.
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by Steve3007 »

A brief point about part of a previous post:
Terrapin Station wrote:We could have an indivisible, single, spherical particle with a diameter of 1 unit, defined by the sphere itself
Here you're specifying this sphere as being the size of itself. Equivalent to saying that 1 metre is 1 metre long or that time passes at a rate of 1 second per second. Since it's logically impossible not to be the size of itself this doesn't say anything.
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Steve3007 wrote: July 6th, 2020, 2:59 am
Terrapin Station wrote:So size isn't just the extension between parts then, right?
If you're talking about measurement then size is the measured distance from one part to another. Parts have non-zero size, therefore measurements cannot ever be 100% accurate. They always have tolerances. But they can approach arbitrarily close to 100% accuracy by making the sizes of the parts approach arbitrarily close to zero, while never actually reaching zero. "Arbitrarily close" means whatever value of closeness you care to think of you can always think of a closer one. We're talking about the theory of limits now.

To talk, as you have above, of the extension between parts, we'd be talking about the extension between the nearest points on each part. But that introduces the abstract concept of a dimensionless point again which is incompatible with a consideration of the real activity of measurement.
Above, you wrote, "Because size is the distance between one part and another part," didn't you?

Doesn't that imply that parts have no sizes? Otherwise why wouldn't size be pertinent to parts as well?
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by Terrapin Station »

It sucks when conversations amount to "trying to figure out how to pry a response out of someone" versus "trying to figure out how to not possibly provide the response asked for while still responding." And that's unfortunately what a large percentage of philosophy board and chat room discussions seem to devolve into.
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by The Beast »

The movement of my hand has a representation. Inside the mind. This representation supervenes on the actual hand. The representation is immaterial. The representation can be observed and judged by the actual changes. It can also be observed in a peg scan. It is the geometrical shape of the hand under my volition; the volumetric components are basic geometry. The phenomenological stream can be observed. We may say fishes or twins are seen in the sky. But I only have control of my hand and where I look. I am only one man. If I was a brain surgeon, I may have control of someone else hand. So, there is a signature and there is the geometry and… all the immaterial math. The grand celestial baton. I only have access to mine. However, the representation of reality may be “one man’s roof is another man’s floor”. In a allegorical scenario we put all the man next to the sink and collapse the floor on top of each other. Properly and since it is an idea they are immaterial. Only one man comes out. Basic math.
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by Steve3007 »

Terrapin Station wrote:Above, you wrote, "Because size is the distance between one part and another part," didn't you?
Yes, I did.

Note: The second paragraph was referring to the non-inclusive distance between the two parts. i.e. the distance between two points on those parts - the two points that are closest together. It was a continuation of what I said in the first paragraph: that the idea of a measurement of a distance between two literal points is incoherent because measurement is real and, as you've pointed out, points are abstract concepts. As I said, the way in which we resolve these things is via the theory of limits.
Doesn't that imply that parts have no sizes?
No. Parts have non-zero size.
Otherwise why wouldn't size be pertinent to parts as well?
It is. The size of the parts represents the tolerance of the measurement. As I said, we can make that tolerance arbitrarily small by making the size of the parts arbitrarily small. That's not the same as making the size of the parts zero.
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by Steve3007 »

(Apologies if it sometimes takes me a while to reply. I've got lots of stuff to do at the moment.)
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by Gertie »

Consul wrote: July 5th, 2020, 3:14 pm
Consul wrote: July 5th, 2020, 2:50 pmIf matter or space/spacetime is pointless, then it either doesn't have any basic parts, being "atomless gunk", or it does have basic parts with some minimal nonzero volume.
Regarding the structure of matter or space/spacetime, there are four options:

1. point-based&continuous (with an infinite number of matter-points or space-points in any given volume or region of space)

2. point-based&discrete (with a finite number of matter-points or space-points in any given volume or region of space)

3. point-free&continuous (with no matter-points or space-points in any given volume or region of space, and with no non-0D matter-"granules" or space-"granules" in any given volume or region of space)

4. point-free&discrete (with no matter-points or space-points in any given volume or region of space, but with a finite number of non-0D matter-"granules" or space-"granules" in any given volume or region of space)
Apologies if you've already covered this.

What does the ''point'' in ''point-based'' refer to?

And what is the current scientific theory of the most fundamental nature of the universe?

I've seen the notion of wave fields 'collapsing' into material particles with specific locations, but I don't understand what they are thought to be waves or fields of?

If you could explain in simple lay terms that would be great - I am a simple lay person!

Thanks.
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Steve3007 wrote: July 7th, 2020, 4:04 am
Terrapin Station wrote:Above, you wrote, "Because size is the distance between one part and another part," didn't you?
Yes, I did.

Note: The second paragraph was referring to the non-inclusive distance between the two parts. i.e. the distance between two points on those parts - the two points that are closest together. It was a continuation of what I said in the first paragraph: that the idea of a measurement of a distance between two literal points is incoherent because measurement is real and, as you've pointed out, points are abstract concepts. As I said, the way in which we resolve these things is via the theory of limits.
Doesn't that imply that parts have no sizes?
No. Parts have non-zero size.
Otherwise why wouldn't size be pertinent to parts as well?
It is. The size of the parts represents the tolerance of the measurement. As I said, we can make that tolerance arbitrarily small by making the size of the parts arbitrarily small. That's not the same as making the size of the parts zero.
If the parts have non-zero size, then size isn't the same thing simply as the distance between parts. We have to include the size of the parts, right?

Say that you had an indivisible part that was a 1-meter sphere. And then you had another indivisible 1-meter sphere suspended 1 centimeter away. The size of that system wouldn't be a 1-centimeter length, would it?
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