On being and attributes

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
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Consul
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Re: On being and attributes

Post by Consul »

Terrapin Station wrote: July 15th, 2020, 9:07 am Ah--I just realized that people are apparently taking "concepts" literally with respect to the initial post saying, "The problem I have is that I was trying to inquire about concepts such as space, time and being." People are apparently thinking that servyya wants to talk about concepts as concepts.

I don't think this is clear at all, and from what follows the quoted sentence above, I think it's rather clear that he wants to talk about space, time, being, etc. as space, time and being. Not as concepts. "Concepts" in that sentence seems to be a casual way of saying something along the lines of "things such as"--"I was trying to inquire about things such as space, time and being." Of course "things such as" is just as awkward if it's taken literally. Then you get people saying "Being isn't a thing!!" and so on.

If one wants to talk about space, time, being and other >>whatevers<< in that vein, it's not easy to come up with a term to denote those >>whatevers<< without suggesting something misleading to anyone reading comment overly literally . . . and that's especially not easy if one isn't a native English speaker.

But who knows, maybe servyya did want to talk about concepts as concepts for some reason.
Strictly speaking, it should read "…concepts such as "space", "time" and "being" [<space>, <time> and <being>]…".
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Sculptor1
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Re: On being and attributes

Post by Sculptor1 »

Terrapin Station wrote: July 15th, 2020, 9:44 am
Sculptor1 wrote: July 15th, 2020, 9:31 am I'd claim for sure that you cannot talk about anything except with concepts of them.
I'd agree with that, but what we're talking about isn't simply talking about things or concepts we have.

It's like we can't point without pointing (obviously) but what we're pointing at isn't our pointing (at least most people aren't confused into thinking that we can only point at our pointing). Thinking that we can only talk about concepts qua concepts is the same as thinking that we can only "point at pointing."
teehee.
And I thought I was sounding like Wittgenstein!!

Anyway, since, servyya, has not been see for a couple of days we'll have to see if s/he returns to digest all these posts.
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The Beast
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Re: On being and attributes

Post by The Beast »

It is the new and the flow of the new. How did we come to be what we are? It is about the choosing of the path and of the essence unto the being. Frege spoke of a dependency (Erinnerungsbilder). So, he invented something.
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The Beast
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Re: On being and attributes

Post by The Beast »

Of help may be the project ARCHE at St. Andrews and/or the learning of meta coding. Crispin Wright is at NYU.
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Angel Trismegistus
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Re: On being and attributes

Post by Angel Trismegistus »

servyya wrote: July 13th, 2020, 2:49 pm...[S]o do attributes define something existing or is it the existing things that define the attributes?...
It seems to me something along these lines: Things present themselves to mind in terms of attributes, to different species of mind in terms of different attributes (that is, variously to the minds of man, cat, bat, bird, fish, fly, etc.). In other words, mind represents things in terms of attributes, and things exist only as represented in terms of these attributes. The existence of things is dependent on mind.
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Gertie
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Re: On being and attributes

Post by Gertie »

Angel Trismegistus wrote: August 5th, 2020, 1:49 am
servyya wrote: July 13th, 2020, 2:49 pm...[S]o do attributes define something existing or is it the existing things that define the attributes?...
It seems to me something along these lines: Things present themselves to mind in terms of attributes, to different species of mind in terms of different attributes (that is, variously to the minds of man, cat, bat, bird, fish, fly, etc.). In other words, mind represents things in terms of attributes, and things exist only as represented in terms of these attributes. The existence of things is dependent on mind.
There's a difference between the epistemological issue of how we come to know of the existence of say an apple, and the ontological fact of the matter as to what we call 'an apple' existing independently of our perceptions.

We can't know if things exist independently of our conscious experiencing of them (including other people we ask if they see the apple too), but it doesn't follow they don't exist, or ''the existence of things is dependent on mind''.
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Angel Trismegistus
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Re: On being and attributes

Post by Angel Trismegistus »

Gertie wrote: August 5th, 2020, 6:31 am
Angel Trismegistus wrote: August 5th, 2020, 1:49 am
It seems to me something along these lines: Things present themselves to mind in terms of attributes, to different species of mind in terms of different attributes (that is, variously to the minds of man, cat, bat, bird, fish, fly, etc.). In other words, mind represents things in terms of attributes, and things exist only as represented in terms of these attributes. The existence of things is dependent on mind.
There's a difference between the epistemological issue of how we come to know of the existence of say an apple, and the ontological fact of the matter as to what we call 'an apple' existing independently of our perceptions.

We can't know if things exist independently of our conscious experiencing of them (including other people we ask if they see the apple too), but it doesn't follow they don't exist, or ''the existence of things is dependent on mind''.
To be sure. but "what we call an apple" appears to a mind, and what exists beyond or behind that appearance that we call "an apple," our rational inference to the "noumenon" or "Unknown=X" (Both Kantian terminology, as I recall) underlying our experience of "an apple" is inaccessible to the human mind and certainly cannot rightly also be "called an apple." The apple qua "apple" exists only as a mind-dependent entity. Experience takes us only as far as the "apple" -- whatever that which we call "an apple" is beyond that experience of an apple is unknown and unknowable experientially. Does it exist? We rationally infer its existence, but experience limits us only to the existence of the mind-dependent "apple."

In short, ontology follows epistemology and the existence of the apple qua "apple" is restricted to the limits of epistemology. Beyond that it possesses a kind of honorary existence, a theoretical existence, but to call it "an apple" is an extrapolation unwarranted by experience. The existence of the "apple-in-itself" is an apple only in a manner of speaking.
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Gertie
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Re: On being and attributes

Post by Gertie »

AT
To be sure. but "what we call an apple" appears to a mind, and what exists beyond or behind that appearance that we call "an apple," our rational inference to the "noumenon" or "Unknown=X" (Both Kantian terminology, as I recall) underlying our experience of "an apple" is inaccessible to the human mind and certainly cannot rightly also be "called an apple." The apple qua "apple" exists only as a mind-dependent entity. Experience takes us only as far as the "apple" -- whatever that which we call "an apple" is beyond that experience of an apple is unknown and unknowable experientially. Does it exist? We rationally infer its existence, but experience limits us only to the existence of the mind-dependent "apple."
Right.

In short, ontology follows epistemology and the existence of the apple qua "apple" is restricted to the limits of epistemology. Beyond that it possesses a kind of honorary existence, a theoretical existence, but to call it "an apple" is an extrapolation unwarranted by experience. The existence of the "apple-in-itself" is an apple only in a manner of speaking.

This I'm not sure of, it seems like an unwarranted stretch from the above, but I might not be parsing you correctly.


I'd put it this way. There is a fact of the matter as to whether a 'real world out there' exists independently of my first person experiential states. This is a fact of the matter issue, either it does or doesn't, but I have no way of knowing. If it doesn't, I'm talking to myself here, so lets assume it does.


I can only know stuff about this real world via the contents of my experiential states. From that I believe I inhabit a particular body which correlates with my experiencing, located in space and time, in that external world.

I encounter other people like me within the world I can compare notes with. I can't know directly what it's like to be you, but we can compare notes, and together we can create an inter-subjective working model of the world we share. That's what science does, essentially. And we've read the science which tells us our sensory systems, cognition, memory, etc, all the neural processes correlated to our experience, have evolved for utility, not perfect accuracy. Our experiential toolkit is 'good enough' to generally enable us to successfully navigate the world, but is limited and flawed.


So while we can agree we both perceive something we agree to call ''an apple'' exists, we can't directly know what it's like to be that apple. We can also understand its green-ness and taste only exists in our minds, and that in fact we and it might be reducible to fluctuations in a quantum field or somesuch. But that doesn't mean the object we call ''an apple'' and its actual properties are dependent on us, only exist as perceptions. Any more than my existence and properties are dependent on you coming across me on a forum or in the street.
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Angel Trismegistus
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Re: On being and attributes

Post by Angel Trismegistus »

Gertie wrote: August 6th, 2020, 5:58 am
In short, ontology follows epistemology and the existence of the apple qua "apple" is restricted to the limits of epistemology. Beyond that it possesses a kind of honorary existence, a theoretical existence, but to call it "an apple" is an extrapolation unwarranted by experience. The existence of the "apple-in-itself" is an apple only in a manner of speaking.

This I'm not sure of, it seems like an unwarranted stretch from the above, but I might not be parsing you correctly.


I'd put it this way. There is a fact of the matter as to whether a 'real world out there' exists independently of my first person experiential states. This is a fact of the matter issue, either it does or doesn't, but I have no way of knowing. If it doesn't, I'm talking to myself here, so lets assume it does.


I can only know stuff about this real world via the contents of my experiential states. From that I believe I inhabit a particular body which correlates with my experiencing, located in space and time, in that external world.

I encounter other people like me within the world I can compare notes with. I can't know directly what it's like to be you, but we can compare notes, and together we can create an inter-subjective working model of the world we share. That's what science does, essentially. And we've read the science which tells us our sensory systems, cognition, memory, etc, all the neural processes correlated to our experience, have evolved for utility, not perfect accuracy. Our experiential toolkit is 'good enough' to generally enable us to successfully navigate the world, but is limited and flawed.
Right.
Gertie wrote: August 6th, 2020, 5:58 am So while we can agree we both perceive something we agree to call ''an apple'' exists, we can't directly know what it's like to be that apple. We can also understand its green-ness and taste only exists in our minds, and that in fact we and it might be reducible to fluctuations in a quantum field or somesuch.
I'd tweak this: "we can't directly know what it's like to be that apple."
Instead I'd put it: we can't directly know what an apple is like.
Otherwise, we're still in accordance.
Gertie wrote: August 6th, 2020, 5:58 am But that doesn't mean the object we call ''an apple'' and its actual properties are dependent on us, only exist as perceptions. Any more than my existence and properties are dependent on you coming across me on a forum or in the street.
Correct -- the "actual properties" of "the object we call ''an apple''" are NOT dependent on us. But the experienced properties are. The experienced properties are dependent on the mind experiencing them. What that selfsame "apple" is in human experience is not what it is to the cat, the bat, the bird and the fly, to say nothing of the worm. Either that thing we call an "apple" exists as a myriad of different things defined by different properties or it exists as one thing -- one unknown and unknowable thing -- experienced in a myriad of ways by myriad kinds of minds.
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Gertie
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Re: On being and attributes

Post by Gertie »

Angel Trismegistus wrote: August 7th, 2020, 6:30 am
Gertie wrote: August 6th, 2020, 5:58 am
This I'm not sure of, it seems like an unwarranted stretch from the above, but I might not be parsing you correctly.


I'd put it this way. There is a fact of the matter as to whether a 'real world out there' exists independently of my first person experiential states. This is a fact of the matter issue, either it does or doesn't, but I have no way of knowing. If it doesn't, I'm talking to myself here, so lets assume it does.


I can only know stuff about this real world via the contents of my experiential states. From that I believe I inhabit a particular body which correlates with my experiencing, located in space and time, in that external world.

I encounter other people like me within the world I can compare notes with. I can't know directly what it's like to be you, but we can compare notes, and together we can create an inter-subjective working model of the world we share. That's what science does, essentially. And we've read the science which tells us our sensory systems, cognition, memory, etc, all the neural processes correlated to our experience, have evolved for utility, not perfect accuracy. Our experiential toolkit is 'good enough' to generally enable us to successfully navigate the world, but is limited and flawed.
Right.
Gertie wrote: August 6th, 2020, 5:58 am So while we can agree we both perceive something we agree to call ''an apple'' exists, we can't directly know what it's like to be that apple. We can also understand its green-ness and taste only exists in our minds, and that in fact we and it might be reducible to fluctuations in a quantum field or somesuch.
I'd tweak this: "we can't directly know what it's like to be that apple."
Instead I'd put it: we can't directly know what an apple is like.
Otherwise, we're still in accordance.
Gertie wrote: August 6th, 2020, 5:58 am But that doesn't mean the object we call ''an apple'' and its actual properties are dependent on us, only exist as perceptions. Any more than my existence and properties are dependent on you coming across me on a forum or in the street.
Correct -- the "actual properties" of "the object we call ''an apple''" are NOT dependent on us. But the experienced properties are. The experienced properties are dependent on the mind experiencing them. What that selfsame "apple" is in human experience is not what it is to the cat, the bat, the bird and the fly, to say nothing of the worm. Either that thing we call an "apple" exists as a myriad of different things defined by different properties or it exists as one thing -- one unknown and unknowable thing -- experienced in a myriad of ways by myriad kinds of minds.
Got you now. We are, as you say, in accord.
Either that thing we call an "apple" exists as a myriad of different things defined by different properties
Interesting thought. It can't be ruled out, there might be something fundamentally relational about properties I suppose. But then I'm a thing, and I don't feel like my properties actually change when a cat or dog looks at me.
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