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Revolutionary Islam

You cannot infer the Platonic ideal from existence, or at least, doing so requires justification.

There is a school of thought that holds mathematics to exist as a form of Platonic ideal. Mathematics as god, if you like.

Here's Roger Penrose's take on this:

platonic-world.jpg


I have a lot of time for Penrose - I'm a huge fan, in fact. However, even in Penrose's schema, the apparent existence of a Platonic mathematical world only comes about through the mediation of the physical with the mental worlds. I would hold that we don't understand enough about the mental world and how it is generated to postulate any Platonic ideal. It's ok to say wrt certain questions 'I don't know'. Personally, I see no need to go beyond the statement 'existence is', or 'experience is', as that which we can know but cannot demonstrate - the Godel statement of the logical system that is the universe, if you like. And as Godel proved, any logical system must have such a statement. Its existence shows a lot about the nature of such systems, but doesn't really prove a god in any meaningful way - to do that would require stepping outside the system, and that's the one thing we cannot do. We can merely note the limitations of our perspective from within.

Godel himself disagreed - he was very religious. But I can only note that as a curious thing. Wittgenstein professed to be a Christian, despite all he did to show how divine knowledge is not possible. That is also a curious thing. If you wish to identify 'god' as 'existence' - the idea that existence is - that's fine. I don't see the point in that kind of reductionist definition, though. It's quite possible to live without it.

OK, but I don't see how any of this has anything to do with Plato. Unless you're just saying "existence precedes essence," which is a rather familiar argument?
 
I suspect that, properly understood, we would see that the universe exists because it can. Everything that can happen happens, and how could it not?

The question is: how do we know that anything either exists or happens?

And the answer is: through concepts.

So then the question becomes: how do we know concepts?

And the answer is: through another concept.

Now, if you want to refute Plato (and I know you do), the best line of attack is linguistic determinism. You might point out that language forms concepts. That's what the early Derrida did--the later Derrida changed his mind and became a theist.

Is that what you want to do? I must warn you, of course, that I have an unanswerable refutation.
 
The question is: how do we know that anything either exists or happens?

And the answer is: through concepts.


What about observation?

Your question:
"How do we know that anything exists or happens?"

Do we not know something exists or happens, through observation of the thing itself, or observation of the residue, mark or impact that this something leaves on its environment ?
Does not every "something" leave evidence of it's existence?
 
What about observation?

Your question:
"How do we know that anything exists or happens?"

Do we not know something exists or happens, through observation of the thing itself, or observation of the residue, mark or impact that this something leaves on its environment ?
Does not every "something" leave evidence of it's existence?

Human beings do not merely observe. We inevitably filter our observations through language and concepts.
 
Human beings do not merely observe. We inevitably filter our observations through language and concepts.


Do you agree that language is one tool used by humans to evaluate observation?
I see observation as being not only the precondition to conceptualisation but the tool which we use to further develop concepts.

P.s.
I'd also include experience and experiment...
 
Do you agree that language is one tool used by humans to evaluate observation?

No. I think language makes observation possible.

I see observation as being not only the precondition to conceptualisation but the tool which we use to further develop concepts.

There's a dialectical relation between concepts and empirical data to be sure. But by virtue of that very fact, you can't have one without the other. There is no non-conceptual human experience.

P.s.
I'd also include experience and experiment...

Sure, they count as observation.
 
I suspect that, properly understood, we would see that the universe exists because it can. Everything that can happen happens, and how could it not? There is no additional explanatory power in the concept 'god'.

Well, to be fair to theists, you haven't actually explained anything.
 
Original post was 'Are memories something we create?', then I thought bollocks, I'm full of shit and edited it to 'fuck off' to myself!
At least have the guts to not wriggle out of what you posted.
 
No. I think language makes observation possible..


I'd put it the other way around...ie: observation leading to thought and a need to communicate that thought through language.
Also..it would depend on what you include in your definition of language....if it's limited to words then it needs expanding.
Should the understanding of the process of thought be limited to a singularity governed by language?
 
At least have the guts to not wriggle out of what you posted.

not really a question of guts or wriggling or anything is it? Or is it, I don't know. Just I posted something, thought it sounded a bit pretentious or something and then edited it with the words 'fuck off'. Is that ok?
 
yes memories are something we create in the purely biological sense that what we remember is stored in the meat machine we have in our head.


how, what and how the memory relates to what actually happened is different. Brains lie to us
 
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