Is it ever coherent to claim that potentials are real existents?

[Sy Borg]

To say a chicken egg has the potential to become a chicken is not to say that it will become a chicken, because interfering factors can prevent it from developing into a chicken. For example, if you put the egg into a freezer, the development is stopped and the potential can no longer be manifested. A frozen chicken egg never becomes a chicken.

However, the chicken poops of the world have a far lower probability to producing new chickens than the eggs of the world. That potential is indisputably real, and it lies in structure. By the same token, my PC has far more potential to access the internet than, say, a blob of chook poo (despite some electrical conductivity in the latter).
IMO this question is easy and obvious. The answer sticks out like dogs' yarbles. Potentials are just as real as quantum probabilities. There's never a guarantee in reality, not of anything, but on average certain predictions can be made, hence science.

An unmanifested potential or a potential prevented from manifesting is still an actual property—as long as the potential itself isn't destroyed. For example, a boiled egg has lost its potential to develop into a chicken.

Until The Beast's observation, I would have agreed with this without provisos. The structure changes as cells break down and that changes the potentials.

In many instances the potential is unknown. A boiled egg may seem like a lost egg but, it may preserve some DNA. It is possible to extract some potential. When everything fails, we could resort to magic or the replicator or Scott’s swampman. Perhaps there is a category of natural potential or level potential that is never lost even at the level of boiled egg left to rot.

Interesting. If the DNA breaks down and is destroyed, then that would depend on forensic capabilities in the future. It would take a heck of a supercomputer to reconstitute the layout of eroded DNA, but never say never :)

[Consul]

As mentioned, I think *everything* is real, and the idea that some things that we speak about are not part of reality to be technically incoherent, in that we are in what appears to be a closed system of the universe so all of these thoughts and ideas exist within it - as thoughts and ideas. If everything is real, then we have the usual 3D entities and we have 2D representations and thoughts that relate, at least to some extent, to that 3D reality, eg. anthropomorphic deities, vampires.

However, life is not lived technically, so claiming that parts of reality such as vampires or homophobic deities are not part of reality is functionally coherent, even if these things do indeed exist as mental phenomena within our biosphere.

No, it is not the case that everything is real. Vampires aren't real, and nothing real in your mind is a vampire. Mental representations of vampires do exist in people's minds, but none of them is a vampire. No idea or thought of Dracula is called Dracula, and no idea or thought of Dracula is Dracula.

QUOTE>
"If an object is non-existent, it is non-existent. End of story."

(Priest, Graham. An Introduction to Non-Classical Logic: From If to Is. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. p. 296)

"There is a tendency to try to preserve some shadowy entity under the word 'Cerberus', for example, lest the word lose its meaning. If 'Cerberus' were meaningless, not only would poetry suffer, but even certain blunt statements of fact, such as that there is no such thing as Cerberus, would lapse into meaninglessness. Thus we may hear it said, e.g., that Cerberus exists as an idea in the mind. But this verbal maneuver conduces only to confusion. Of a tangible object such as the Parthenon, to change the subject for a moment, it would be wanton obscurantism to affirm a double existence: in Athens and in the mind. Far more straightforward to admit two (or many) objects: the tangible Parthenon in Athens, and the Parthenon-idea in the mind (or the Parthenon-ideas in many minds). 'Parthenon' names the Parthenon and only the Parthenon, whereas 'the Parthenon-idea' names the Parthenon-idea. Similarly not 'Cerberus', but 'the Cerberus-idea', names the Cerberus-idea; whereas 'Cerberus', as it happens, names nothing."

(Quine, W. V. Methods of Logic. 4th ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982. pp. 263-4)
<QUOTE

[Sy Borg]

As mentioned, I think *everything* is real, and the idea that some things that we speak about are not part of reality to be technically incoherent, in that we are in what appears to be a closed system of the universe so all of these thoughts and ideas exist within it - as thoughts and ideas. If everything is real, then we have the usual 3D entities and we have 2D representations and thoughts that relate, at least to some extent, to that 3D reality, eg. anthropomorphic deities, vampires.

However, life is not lived technically, so claiming that parts of reality such as vampires or homophobic deities are not part of reality is functionally coherent, even if these things do indeed exist as mental phenomena within our biosphere.

No, it is not the case that everything is real. Vampires aren't real, and nothing real in your mind is a vampire. Mental representations of vampires do exist in people's minds, but none of them is a vampire. No idea or thought of Dracula is called Dracula, and no idea or thought of Dracula is Dracula.

QUOTE>
"If an object is non-existent, it is non-existent. End of story."

(Priest, Graham. An Introduction to Non-Classical Logic: From If to Is. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. p. 296)

"There is a tendency to try to preserve some shadowy entity under the word 'Cerberus', for example, lest the word lose its meaning. If 'Cerberus' were meaningless, not only would poetry suffer, but even certain blunt statements of fact, such as that there is no such thing as Cerberus, would lapse into meaninglessness. Thus we may hear it said, e.g., that Cerberus exists as an idea in the mind. But this verbal maneuver conduces only to confusion. Of a tangible object such as the Parthenon, to change the subject for a moment, it would be wanton obscurantism to affirm a double existence: in Athens and in the mind. Far more straightforward to admit two (or many) objects: the tangible Parthenon in Athens, and the Parthenon-idea in the mind (or the Parthenon-ideas in many minds). 'Parthenon' names the Parthenon and only the Parthenon, whereas 'the Parthenon-idea' names the Parthenon-idea. Similarly not 'Cerberus', but 'the Cerberus-idea', names the Cerberus-idea; whereas 'Cerberus', as it happens, names nothing."

(Quine, W. V. Methods of Logic. 4th ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982. pp. 263-4)
<QUOTE

No no no no no.

And no.

Mental representations are part of reality. This is inarguable. They are not objects, rather they exist as processes in brains.

Now consider that millions of people have, at some time or another, believed that vampires are real. Not just modern children and the mentally ill, but people throughout history. The vampire myth exists around the world, seemingly a representation of humanity's fears of being outsmarted, outmanoeuvred and preyed upon as we do to other species.

The point is, that those images of vampires within believers' minds are real in their subjective reality. Since subjectivity is part of reality, vampires then logically enjoy fragmented, fleeting, subjective existences within various people's minds. Vampires don't exist in three dimensions, instead being locked within the two-dimensional images of screens and mental images.

It's practical to say "vampires don't exist" per se because, ultimately, most of us don't much take movies or other peoples' delusions seriously. But we cannot deny reality to anything - all these myths exist in certain forms within this biosphere.

However, not all realities are equally potent, ie. worthy of being taken seriously. Some things only exist as abstract ideas and fantasies. All of our familiar (and unfamiliar) physical entities obviously exist in real life. Potentials seem to be somewhere in between. As yet unrealised, but still possibly realisable. Unlike vampires :)

Think of it like Orwell. All things are real, but some things are more real than others.

[Steve3007]

Of course, some people would strongly object to the notion that quantum probabilities, for example, are real. They would see that as a prime example of the reification of mathematics that (they would say) physicists in particular are often particularly prone to do.

This is one reason I always tend to fall back on the principle of utility. i.e. my underlying criteria for deciding what I believe to be real are that it's (a) coherent and (b) useful to believe them to be real. Being incoherent would usually mean being self-contradictory. So, for example, if energy were defined only in terms of the relative motion of matter then the idea of energy existing in the absence of matter would be incoherent. But it isn't, so it isn't. If quantum probability were defined as a mathematical model then it would be incoherent to see it as a real existent. I'll leave that one there for now.

So, in the spirit of utility and coherence, I think it's both useful and non-self-contradictory to regard potentials as real existents so long as the term "potential" is not being used to refer only to a belief/preference/thought in a person's mind.

I am not sure what kind of beliefs or preferences stem from seeing potentials as real. Do you mean theism?

I'm not certain which part of my post you're replying to here. But anyway, I'm not thinking about theism in any of my remarks.

As mentioned, I think *everything* is real, and the idea that some things that we speak about are not part of reality to be technically incoherent, in that we are in what appears to be a closed system of the universe so all of these thoughts and ideas exist within it - as thoughts and ideas.

Yes, as I said earlier, the map is made from real paper. My thoughts exist in a real brain. Information exists in a real medium. A movie exists on a real DVD. And so on. The issue with the reification of abstractions (confusing the map with the territory), when it happens, isn't anything to do with those facts. It's more of a category error. As I said, it's about conflating references with referents (the things to which the references refer). So, in the example of the reification of mathematics in the subject of physics, the fallacy would consist of constructing a mathematical model in order to describe/reference/model an aspect of the real world, as it is observed, and treating that model as if it is the thing to which it refers.

As I said, I don't think this fallacy occurs in physics as much as some (notably Terrapin Station) claim that it does. But to the extent that it does happen, if it does, I agree with TS that it is a fallacy.

If everything is real, then we have the usual 3D entities and we have 2D representations and thoughts that relate, at least to some extent, to that 3D reality, eg. anthropomorphic deities, vampires.

If you wanted to propose that everything, including for example vampires or Santa Claus or unicorns or whatever, is real, I'd have no problem with that, so long as it's clear how the word "real" is being used. But as I've said in this topic and elsewhere, in contexts like this topic I use the word "real" to refer to things that we propose to exist extra-mentally; outside of our thoughts. In that usage, I propose that vampires are not real. That's not the same as saying that they and other similar things are something separate from the physical world. Our thoughts are part of the physical world.

However, life is not lived technically, so claiming that parts of reality such as vampires or homophobic deities are not part of reality is functionally coherent, even if these things do indeed exist as mental phenomena within our biosphere.

Precisely. We believe them to exist as mental phenomena. That's how I'm using the word "abstract" as the antonym of "real". As I've said, if you use the word "real" in a different way - one in which everything is real - that's fine. I think different word usages between different people and/or in different contexts are fine so long as we're clear about them and don't fall into fallacies of ambiguity or equivocation.

[The Beast]

There are several levels of coherence. What I think it is said: “coherence with what I believe due to theism, code, and prejudices”. I do not have to come up with a new word for a vampire like A.I.; cell phone; superhero or the Goat.
The recognition of gender is an example. So, there is a transgender that goes thru the transition from male to female and wants to be a male again. Here we have the potential to eliminate gender altogether. Everyone will be male and female in the future. What makes reality is a misunderstood force in the hands of a misunderstood coherence. I have a plan. Maybe we could go back to being saurian or birds in the form of a superhero. I agree with potentials could be as dangerous as a cannibal. Finally, I am coherent not in denying coherence but in disagreeing with the sole use of Steve’s coherence to express his potential. In addition, the level of coherence is low when recognizing change as reality (evolution) and not being able to recognize the potential for change. I propose, as a refinement, that on the many steps from known potential to reality the first is the idea of something expressed by a word. The rest is unknown potential from the unknown force. (Pushing the line to the beginning of language). But, to have a word you must have a paradigm otherwise risk the label of schizophrenic not to say the invention of new meaning and where the map said it is… and who is we?

[Consul]

No no no no no.

And no.

Mental representations are part of reality. This is inarguable. They are not objects, rather they exist as processes in brains.

Now consider that millions of people have, at some time or another, believed that vampires are real. Not just modern children and the mentally ill, but people throughout history. The vampire myth exists around the world, seemingly a representation of humanity's fears of being outsmarted, outmanoeuvred and preyed upon as we do to other species.

The point is, that those images of vampires within believers' minds are real in their subjective reality. Since subjectivity is part of reality, vampires then logically enjoy fragmented, fleeting, subjective existences within various people's minds. Vampires don't exist in three dimensions, instead being locked within the two-dimensional images of screens and mental images.

It's practical to say "vampires don't exist" per se because, ultimately, most of us don't much take movies or other peoples' delusions seriously. But we cannot deny reality to anything - all these myths exist in certain forms within this biosphere.

However, not all realities are equally potent, ie. worthy of being taken seriously. Some things only exist as abstract ideas and fantasies. All of our familiar (and unfamiliar) physical entities obviously exist in real life. Potentials seem to be somewhere in between. As yet unrealised, but still possibly realisable. Unlike vampires

Think of it like Orwell. All things are real, but some things are more real than others.

Fictional things such as vampires aren't less real than nonfictional ones because they aren't real at all. Their degree of reality is zero. Representations of them (thoughts, concepts/ideas, mental images, physical pictures, movies, stories, myths) are real, being part of human culture; but "it would be wanton obscurantism" (Quine) to say that fictional things exist as (mental or physical) representations of them. As I said, what isn't real or doesn't exist doesn't exist as anything anywhere. Vampires aren't real, don't exist—period. Vampire-representations do exist, but no vampire-representation is a vampire.

[Steve3007]

...However, not all realities are equally potent, ie. worthy of being taken seriously. Some things only exist as abstract ideas and fantasies. All of our familiar (and unfamiliar) physical entities obviously exist in real life. Potentials seem to be somewhere in between. As yet unrealised, but still possibly realisable. Unlike vampires

In my view (as expressed previously in this topic) it depends on the context in which the word "potential" is being used. I think it's used very differently in "my daughter has the potential to be a professional snooker player" and "the potential difference between these two points in this cicuit is 12 volts".

Vampire-representations do exist, but no vampire-representation is a vampire.

Yes, references are neither the referent nor the medium. A reference to vampires in a book about vampires is neither a book nor a vampire.

[Consul]

A famous painting by René Magritte: Ceci n'est pas une pipe. (This is not a pipe.)

[Steve3007]

Fictional things such as vampires aren't less real than nonfictional ones because they aren't real at all. Their degree of reality is zero...

But the thing which is not all-or-nothing is our assessment of the probability that a reference refers to a real referent. That's where the example of the Macbeth dagger scene comes in, with its simple illustration of the process of determining the probability that our sensations are caused by a real object.

[The Beast]

A more advanced choleric tantrum is to emphasize the real vs the unreal and why is it the only possible form of coherence and maybe say period! at the end. The present chiasm of real and unreal as to stablish the line of coherence with bulging eyes and stern voice. But the question is not of the existence of vampires or a daughter but in the possibility of existence of vampires and where in the map is this possibility from the focus of reality. As far as real I conclude this: Unrealized and realized potentials in the realm of reality are both coherent as far as they can be explained. However, to entertain my limitations in this dichotomy: could I assign the word vampire to anyone and then add: not a real vampire? Would this be coherent.?

[Sy Borg]

Vampire-representations do exist, but no vampire-representation is a vampire.

Yes, references are neither the referent nor the medium. A reference to vampires in a book about vampires is neither a book nor a vampire.

If subjective reality is real, then the objects of that subjectivity have a certain reality.

It is illogical for post-apes enveloped *within* a planet, barely able to peer at what lies outside, to claim that the things we invented within this "biological sheltered workshop" are not part of the universe.

For example, are vampires more or less real than Tallybinks - a mythological creature I have just invented, with twelve, long, outward-facing fangs, six viciously-clawed feet and a long, whiplike tail. It feeds exclusively on hard materialists. Does the Tallybink exist:

1. Not at all, in any way whatsoever
2. As a mental image within the mind of one person
3. In physical reality.

Consul, your posts here suggest that you would choose option #1, but then you would have to explain the difference between Tallybinks and vampires.

[Steve3007]

If subjective reality is real, then the objects of that subjectivity have a certain reality.

As I said, if that's the definition of "real" that you want to use, I have no problem with that, so long as it's clear. As I said, the definition of "real" that I've said I'm using is, roughly: extra-mental. So, according to that definition, if by "subjective reality" you mean our thoughts then it's not real. But, as I say, I accept that other definitions of "real" are available.

If you wanted to propose that everything, including for example vampires or Santa Claus or unicorns or whatever, is real, I'd have no problem with that, so long as it's clear how the word "real" is being used. But as I've said in this topic and elsewhere, in contexts like this topic I use the word "real" to refer to things that we propose to exist extra-mentally; outside of our thoughts.

[Steve3007]

It is illogical for post-apes enveloped *within* a planet, barely able to peer at what lies outside, to claim that the things we invented within this "biological sheltered workshop" are not part of the universe.

I agree (because "universe", in my usage, means "everything"). For the avoidance of doubt: my usage of "real" is not a synonym for "part of this universe", such that "not real" would mean "not part of this universe". See earlier comments on that and on how I use the word "real".

[Consul]

If subjective reality is real, then the objects of that subjectivity have a certain reality.

It is illogical for post-apes enveloped *within* a planet, barely able to peer at what lies outside, to claim that the things we invented within this "biological sheltered workshop" are not part of the universe.

For example, are vampires more or less real than Tallybinks - a mythological creature I have just invented, with twelve, long, outward-facing fangs, six viciously-clawed feet and a long, whiplike tail. It feeds exclusively on hard materialists. Does the Tallybink exist:

1. Not at all, in any way whatsoever
2. As a mental image within the mind of one person
3. In physical reality.

Consul, your posts here suggest that you would choose option #1, but then you would have to explain the difference between Tallybinks and vampires.

To be fictional is to be unreal. As opposed to your Tallybinks, Wookiees (Chewbacca) are famous fictional creatures, the idea of them being a cultural meme. Nonetheless, Wookiees are as unreal as Tallybinks.

By the way, fictional things cannot be invented or created, since to invent or create something is to bring it into existence; and fictional things do not exist. So, strictly speaking, to say that Harry Potter was invented or created by Joanne Rowling is a loose way of saying that she created representations of him—the Harry-Potter-idea (the individual concept of HP) and Harry-Potter-stories.

Generally, it is not the case that "if subjective reality is real, then the objects of that subjectivity have a certain reality", because the intentional objects of real representations needn't be real or have any nonzero degree of reality. Thoughts whose intentional objects don't exist are perfectly meaningful, because they don't depend for their meaningfulness on existing or real referents.

[The Beast]

Maybe by realms it is meant potentials.
Nope. P- standing. I could use “real numbers” to calculate this what the eyes say is real and factually it is unreal by the standards of evaluating reality at the chiasm of realized/unrealized potentials. Just look at the stars. They are there but they are not there. Reality is the whole spectrum. Further, to describe reality to mean only certain mental representations and ban other mental representation is not what coherent means. I can go with practical and unscientific whatever.