God and time and space

[Togo]

So, if you're so familiar with the notions that Horatio is expressing, then why are you saying he has zero point, questioning his use of English, and claiming the whole discussion is nonsense? Surely you could say that you recognise and understanding what he's talking about, even if you deny that it's a meaningful or coherant concept, rather than giving the impression you don't understand the posts?

I never referred to the whole discussion.
I based my replies on what Horatio said during our exchanges. And I really don't understand his posts. I still don't know what it is, if anything, that he really wants to say in relation to Universals. If his use of English is so erratic that I can't decide what he means then his posts, the ones I'm replying to, are as good as meaningless to me. If he is too unhappy about my comments he can ignore me. If he wants to be understood and taken seriously, he can start by being more explicit, less vague, less ambiguous. But the unfortunate thing is that he keeps at it.
Also, you should know it's not the first time I reproach posters their sloppy English. Few people have escaped my vindictive inclination on this subject. Nothing special about him here if that's your concern.
And commend your ability to decide you can see through the haze of his verbiage.
EB

No effort required - they seem perfectly clear. Perhaps you could expand on what it is that is confusing you?

 

[Togo]

What I'm trying to say is that universals are a useful and valid framework through which to view reality. Particularly that part of reality where we live our lives.

Ah, finally a goal description! Good!
As it stands it seems not to be what you have been arguing for though. To me it seems that you argue for a specific view on what universals are: that they are something more than a feature of our mind.

Careful. 'We' don't have a mind. Each person has a mind. I've posted a fairly solid reason why a universal can not be said to be the feature of a single mind. Which means it must be a feature of more than one mind. Which in turn means there is something shared there, which we're tentatively calling Universals.

Can you say at which point your opinion diverges from this logical sequence, or are we describing the same thing in different ways?

 

[Speakpigeon]

When you say "Germany", you either refer to Germany right now, or to Germany between its creation and now or in the future. I fail to see the difference between that and referring to a particular.

If you're referring to a particular idea of Germany in your head, then a claim that you were wrong about "Germany" would be nonsensical. It's the idea in your head, and is right by definition.

If the idea of "Germany" in my head includes the idea that Mozart was born there, then am I right about "Germany" or wrong? If the idea in my head includes that concept, does that mean my idea of "Germany" is right (I'm referring to the particular idea of "Germany" in my head) or am I actually referring to a shared concept "Germany" that I can actually be factually incorrect about, and hold wrong ideas about?

If the idea in my head about "Germany" can be wrong, then "Germany" can't refer to the idea in my head.

I don’t even understand how it’s possible for you to so misread the bit of my post you quoted! Where is it that I suggested Germany is nothing but an idea in people’s minds? Or that what people refer to when they talk about Germany is nothing but an idea in their minds? I didn’t even use the words “concept”, or “mind”!
Or did you just happen to quote the wrong bit by any chance?
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

When you say "Germany", you either refer to Germany right now, or to Germany between its creation and now or in the future. I fail to see the difference between that and referring to a particular. Ok, in this case, I guess you just chose the wrong example (your mistake), but what about a good example (from your point of view), like "apples"? Well, I will always say "this apple", "one apple", "two apples", or even "apples" in general etc. As I understand it, I will always mean particular apples, including possible all particular apples that have ever existed and will ever exist. Of course, I have this abstract notion of apple but when I talk about it I will indeed talk about it, that is, I will talk about this particular abstract notion of apple, which is broadly just an idea in mind like my idea of Germany is presumably an idea in my mind. So talking about this particular abstract notion of apple is just again talking about a particular. Sure, the abstract notion of apple is abstract but there is nothing to say about it except as an idea in my head. I sure use it to talk about actual apples, i.e. particular apples, i.e. those that I believe exist such that maybe I could pick one of them to eat it. You may think we have the same idea of apple but this is precisely what you need to prove. Yet, you don't have access to my mind. All you may have, broadly, is access to what I say. So, you're left with words. What you may want to call "Universals" are at best just words. And then only particular words, i.e. words as they are being used at some place and point in time. We may of course suspect that there are something in the world which may cause us (each in our own particular private way) to think of apples in a general way. This is what I called X, which you have already dismissed without even thinking about it. So, I guess there must be something, but what it really is exactly I certain don't know and I haven't seen you, or anybody else, justifying about they would know what this is, be it something material, i.e. apples as they grow on trees, or abstract, as Universal, whatever that means.
EB

That's a big step. Yes, there is something. And the tentativeness of that of course can't be forgotten or overlooked, but there is indeed something.

You are again completely obscure! You may either say that there is indeed something or that “that’s a big step” or it’s tentative but you don’t assert both these things without contradicting yourself.
Get a grip.

I understood your X variable to be a mechanism of beauty. Since the question is: what is beauty, it's mechanism is a side issue, particularly since these are speculative questions. If you're referrng to the metaphysical, it's a good question.

Sorry but you are claiming that we share the idea of beauty! How’s that not metaphysical!?

Any specific mechanism would be metaphysical, that much is true. Yet that there is one particular X is not.

Also, the only non-metaphysical answer to the question “What is beauty?” is that beauty is for you your own idea of beauty. That’s a non-metaphysical answer because this is the kind of beauty that you necessarily know in itself, without mediation or speculation. However, from there, there’s no justification for claiming that beauty is shared. We each have our own private idea of beauty, that we know but cannot share. Whatever may feel like it’s being shared can be attributed metaphysically to some unknown X.

So, according to that, to your question “What is beauty?”, I would say that beauty is just what beauty feels like to me whenever I feel that something is beautiful. Nothing shared there I’m afraid.

Ideas are what this about, not words. Words are the only medium we have to exchange and compare ideas. So they will have to do. Yes, when you and I discuss apples, the only way to find out how much our ideas are alike or different is by talking about them. If we decide we have a mutual understanding, we do.

So you accept you don’t have a clue as to what beauty really is for me or whoever but yourself?
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Then we are done cause we know that we do not agree about what beauty is.

I'm not interested in what you think beauty is. My point is that a conceptual framework that encompasses ideas such beauty, time, space and God is a reasonable one and not in conflict with Science.

Reasonable?! No unless you replace "God" by "Cause X", by a blank or by "the fictional character God" in your metaphysical scheme of things.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Exactly. As beauty and other concepts are real.

No doubt as mental objects. So what?

So what? How else does a person relate to reality?

How a mental object can be eternal then? Or are you saying that your mind is somehow eternal?

Also, strictly speaking, concepts are not necessary to our ideas about reality. I don't need a concept of traffic light to take it down with my car. Let alone anything eternal.

The difference is that while Germany may change, come or go, over history or even over a lifetime, beauty will not.

How could you possibly know that?

By studying and comparing people's experiences.

And how would you know that this provides actual knowledge (as opposed to fantasies about you knowing things)?

Each of our judgements about beauty is a particular judgement, not a Universal, just as each of our references to Germany is a particular reference, as informed by our perspective, knowledge, location, time etc.

Our judgements are particular, but beauty is not.

And you still don't feel like you'd need to argue your case that beauty is not a particular?

Also, you just contradicted yourself, again. Previously, you accepted that beauty and other concepts are real as mental objects, but mental objects are particulars, yet you insist here to say that beauty is not a particular. Can you explain which is which?

What is not smoke and mirrors? What is "actually" timeless? Everyone projects a mental framework onto the universe. A metaphysics that includes aesthetics as fundamental recognizes the forces that these things play in our lives. The academy may consider them pointless speculations reeking of superstition, but virtually no one lives that way.

That's what you would need to prove as opposed to just fantasise in public about it.

You're the one going on claiming the timelessness of beauty and now you admit nothing may be actually timeless?

As I said, this conversation is nonsensical.
EB

 

[George S]

I'm not interested in what you think beauty is. My point is that a conceptual framework that encompasses ideas such beauty, time, space and God is a reasonable one and not in conflict with Science.

Reasonable?! No unless you replace "God" by "Cause X", by a blank or by "the fictional character God" in your metaphysical scheme of things.
EB

There exists reality. Well, a reality at least. We can make up a story about how our observable reality came to be. Any story will do.

Any story can be made up about unobservable reality. Any just-so story will do because it will never be observed and so can never, even in theory, be disproved if false. You want a God in your metaphysics? Cannot be disproved. I like an uncaused (equivalent to self-caused) reality. Cause-effect applies within reality but not to reality itself.

 

[Speakpigeon]

What I'm trying to say is that universals are a useful

The basic notion of universal is certainly useful, much like grammatical notions are useful. So you are trying to make something like a grammatical point?!

and valid framework through which to view reality.

Valid? Like what? True? Useful? Logical? Or just something you are free to contemplate during your time on Earth?

The basic concept of universal is not idiotic but its importance can be overestimated, a lot. It's Ok to take it as some kind of grammatical notion, perhaps a grammar of semantic. Your suggestion that beauty is somehow timeless is idiotic. Sure there is a concept of beauty but that's not timeless since it's inside our minds and presumably those are not eternal. We may also have this idea that beauty is out there or in some other dimension but apparently that's not what you are talking about.

So, yes, there is a concept of beauty but it's a different one in each of our heads, so nothing shared, and nothing timeless about it. Is it a universal? Yes if you downgrade your claim to the basic concept of universal but then the usefulness of that is very limited to that of grammatical constructs, if that. We don't even need the concept of universal to have conversations and 99.99% of human beings totally ignore it without keeling over.

If you have a point, it's so moot as to be non-existent.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Reasonable?! No unless you replace "God" by "Cause X", by a blank or by "the fictional character God" in your metaphysical scheme of things.
EB

There exists reality. Well, a reality at least. We can make up a story about how our observable reality came to be. Any story will do.

Any story can be made up about unobservable reality. Any just-so story will do because it will never be observed and so can never, even in theory, be disproved if false. You want a God in your metaphysics? Cannot be disproved. I like an uncaused (equivalent to self-caused) reality. Cause-effect applies within reality but not to reality itself.

Sure, you can do that, that's one angle...

So, I could include in my metaphysical theory about reality that next year there will be a seriously malevolent God bent on making us suffer horribly and that our only escape route is to organise mankind to kill ourselves before this God comes around. If we manage to do that in time, we will be saved and forever happy!

And by your own account this is a reasonable theory. Let's do it?
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

No effort required - they seem perfectly clear. Perhaps you could expand on what it is that is confusing you?

I already have.
EB

 

[Horatio Parker]

That's a big step. Yes, there is something. And the tentativeness of that of course can't be forgotten or overlooked, but there is indeed something.

You are again completely obscure! You may either say that there is indeed something or that “that’s a big step” or it’s tentative but you don’t assert both these things without contradicting yourself.
Get a grip.

Of course I can. We know something is real, because we're here. We don't know what, so whatever explanation we come up with is to a degree tentative.

I understood your X variable to be a mechanism of beauty. Since the question is: what is beauty, it's mechanism is a side issue, particularly since these are speculative questions. If you're referrng to the metaphysical, it's a good question.

Sorry but you are claiming that we share the idea of beauty! How’s that not metaphysical!?

It is metaphysical. I thought your X was of the materialist variety, brain activity or something. I don't consider those directions helpful.

If, OTOH, X is the metaphysical framework of which beauty is a part, then yes it's relevant.

Any specific mechanism would be metaphysical, that much is true. Yet that there is one particular X is not.

I don't know what you mean by this.

Also, the only non-metaphysical answer to the question “What is beauty?” is that beauty is for you your own idea of beauty. That’s a non-metaphysical answer because this is the kind of beauty that you necessarily know in itself, without mediation or speculation. However, from there, there’s no justification for claiming that beauty is shared. We each have our own private idea of beauty, that we know but cannot share. Whatever may feel like it’s being shared can be attributed metaphysically to some unknown X.

So, according to that, to your question “What is beauty?”, I would say that beauty is just what beauty feels like to me whenever I feel that something is beautiful. Nothing shared there I’m afraid.

If your experiences of beauty are similar to others', not necessarily what you find beautiful, but what beauty does to you, why would that not be a sharing? Or if you read of such experiences and feel that it describes your experiences, how is that not a sharing?

Ideas are what this about, not words. Words are the only medium we have to exchange and compare ideas. So they will have to do. Yes, when you and I discuss apples, the only way to find out how much our ideas are alike or different is by talking about them. If we decide we have a mutual understanding, we do.

So you accept you don’t have a clue as to what beauty really is for me or whoever but yourself?
EB

I think you are similar enough to other humans that I can, through education and comparing my experiences with others, have a understanding.

 

[Horatio Parker]

I'm not interested in what you think beauty is. My point is that a conceptual framework that encompasses ideas such beauty, time, space and God is a reasonable one and not in conflict with Science.

Reasonable?! No unless you replace "God" by "Cause X", by a blank or by "the fictional character God" in your metaphysical scheme of things.
EB

I agree that it's better served by "Cause X". Or, as in Plato, the One. But even the One is not God. The One is only seen as God when in a state of contemplation with the One.

I prefer to leave the God word out as much as possible, since it carries so much baggage. But it is the essential point of the OP and therefore needs to be included.

 

[Horatio Parker]

How a mental object can be eternal then? Or are you saying that your mind is somehow eternal?

Also, strictly speaking, concepts are not necessary to our ideas about reality. I don't need a concept of traffic light to take it down with my car. Let alone anything eternal.

I disagree. You will have some concept of a traffic light if you interact with it. As experiences go, it's trivial, sure, but even the trivial exists within a metaphysics.

Eternity in this context means unchanging. Our minds are not eternal, but they are drawn to concepts of eternity(or timelessness). They therefore participate in eternity.

The difference is that while Germany may change, come or go, over history or even over a lifetime, beauty will not.

How could you possibly know that?

By studying and comparing people's experiences.

And how would you know that this provides actual knowledge (as opposed to fantasies about you knowing things)?

Because that is my experience and education. Because the clarity and unity of these ideas make it easier and more beautiful for me to interact with reality. Knowledge in this context is not simply a fact or a system. It has a spiritual quality, by which I mean my mental state is altered(for the better). From it, I gain insight into my own relationship with reality.

Each of our judgements about beauty is a particular judgement, not a Universal, just as each of our references to Germany is a particular reference, as informed by our perspective, knowledge, location, time etc.

Our judgements are particular, but beauty is not.

And you still don't feel like you'd need to argue your case that beauty is not a particular?

Also, you just contradicted yourself, again. Previously, you accepted that beauty and other concepts are real as mental objects, but mental objects are particulars, yet you insist here to say that beauty is not a particular. Can you explain which is which?

There's more than one thing going on. There's Beauty itself, seen as something external and eternal(not meant as an empirical statement), and then there's a particular experience through which a mind discerns beauty. So, while Beauty is conceived of as eternal, an experience is necessarily not.

What is not smoke and mirrors? What is "actually" timeless? Everyone projects a mental framework onto the universe. A metaphysics that includes aesthetics as fundamental recognizes the forces that these things play in our lives. The academy may consider them pointless speculations reeking of superstition, but virtually no one lives that way.

That's what you would need to prove as opposed to just fantasise in public about it.
You're the one going on claiming the timelessness of beauty and now you admit nothing may be actually timeless?

As I said, this conversation is nonsensical.
EB

The difference between fantasy and reality in this realm is the degree to which the idea is universal and to the degree it influences one's life. Fantasies are real, they're just not very important. A fantasy, or "mental object" that's an intimate part of your life is much more than a simple imagining. If that idea, at this point "fantasy" is no longer appropriate, is part of the human condition, it is a reality. Beauty is perhaps the easiest way to see this.

 

[Horatio Parker]

and valid framework through which to view reality.

Valid? Like what? True? Useful? Logical? Or just something you are free to contemplate during your time on Earth?

All of those. What I contemplate during my time on earth isn't trivial. Maybe in your world.

The basic concept of universal is not idiotic but its importance can be overestimated, a lot. It's Ok to take it as some kind of grammatical notion, perhaps a grammar of semantic. Your suggestion that beauty is somehow timeless is idiotic. Sure there is a concept of beauty but that's not timeless since it's inside our minds and presumably those are not eternal. We may also have this idea that beauty is out there or in some other dimension but apparently that's not what you are talking about.

I am talking about that, but the problems with external and eternal in an empirical sense are obvious. But remember we're not in an empirical context. We're in a subjective context where eternity is feasible. Why? Because we can conceive it. If we can conceive it, we can contemplate it. Beauty as timeless is not idiotic, your own experience with ancient Chinese poetry is an indication of it. Proof? No. Validation? Yes.

I think one of the problems you're having is the idea that whatever system you come up with must be external. This system involves the relation of the mind to reality, it's not a dogmatic in the sense of the laws of physics.

So, yes, there is a concept of beauty but it's a different one in each of our heads, so nothing shared, and nothing timeless about it. Is it a universal? Yes if you downgrade your claim to the basic concept of universal but then the usefulness of that is very limited to that of grammatical constructs, if that. We don't even need the concept of universal to have conversations and 99.99% of human beings totally ignore it without keeling over.

If you have a point, it's so moot as to be non-existent.
EB

This is just reductionism. If you want to understand these ideas, you should approach them on their terms.

 

[Juma]

I agree that it's better served by "Cause X". Or, as in Plato, the One. But even the One is not God. The One is only seen as God when in a state of contemplation with the One.

Wtf? The one? What is that?

 

[Horatio Parker]

I agree that it's better served by "Cause X". Or, as in Plato, the One. But even the One is not God. The One is only seen as God when in a state of contemplation with the One.

Wtf? The one? What is that?

One is the universal by which we make all distinctions. Anything not of the One is undifferentiated chaos. The universe seen through the One is intelligible, the rest unintelligible.

I've been discussing universals through beauty, because it's easy to understand. The One is more fundamental but also more abstract, because it's further from the world of sensation than beauty. More a purely intellectual construction.

Whenever we understand a thing as discrete, we attribute to it a quality or property that it is itself, a stone or tree or sub-atomic particle. That quality or property, elevated to a universal is the One. One is said, therefore, to not be a number, it is the measure of number. Every separate thing is so because it participates in the One.

Probably the nearest thing to this that you may have heard of is American Transcendetalism, which was influenced by the first translations of Plato into English by Thomas Taylor.

 

[Kharakov]

Someone who hasn't felt love or orgasms might not understand universal beauty.

Anyone who feels them can sort of agree that they are beautiful, but those who haven't felt them or do not understand them might not agree that there are at least some universal beauties.

Without a seed of understanding of universal beauty, one probably doesn't get many jokes....

 

[Juma]

Wtf? The one? What is that?

One is the universal by which we make all distinctions. Anything not of the One is undifferentiated chaos. The universe seen through the One is intelligible, the rest unintelligible.

I've been discussing universals through beauty, because it's easy to understand. The One is more fundamental but also more abstract, because it's further from the world of sensation than beauty. More a purely intellectual construction.

Whenever we understand a thing as discrete, we attribute to it a quality or property that it is itself, a stone or tree or sub-atomic particle. That quality or property, elevated to a universal is the One. One is said, therefore, to not be a number, it is the measure of number. Every separate thing is so because it participates in the One.

Probably the nearest thing to this that you may have heard of is American Transcendetalism, which was influenced by the first translations of Plato into English by Thomas Taylor.

Of course we classify stuff. That is hardwired way deep down into our neurosystem. "Universals" is the result of that. But what is so interesting with that?
I think you fall into the wrong rabbit hole if you think that that is some profound mystery/truth.

 

[Horatio Parker]

Someone who hasn't felt love or orgasms might not understand universal beauty.

Anyone who feels them can sort of agree that they are beautiful, but those who haven't felt them or do not understand them might not agree that there are at least some universal beauties.

Without a seed of understanding of universal beauty, one probably doesn't get many jokes....

Physical love is described in the Symposium as the first step towards recognizing universal beauty.

For he who would proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one such form only—out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognize that the beauty in every form is and the same! And when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the beauty of the outward form. So that if a virtuous soul have but a little comeliness, he will be content to love and tend him, and will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young, until he is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws, and to understand that the beauty of them all is of one family, and that personal beauty is a trifle; and after laws and institutions he will go on to the sciences, that he may see their beauty, being not like a servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or institution, himself a slave mean and narrow-minded, but drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom; until on that shore he grows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, which is the science of beauty everywhere.

 

[Horatio Parker]

One is the universal by which we make all distinctions. Anything not of the One is undifferentiated chaos. The universe seen through the One is intelligible, the rest unintelligible.

I've been discussing universals through beauty, because it's easy to understand. The One is more fundamental but also more abstract, because it's further from the world of sensation than beauty. More a purely intellectual construction.

Whenever we understand a thing as discrete, we attribute to it a quality or property that it is itself, a stone or tree or sub-atomic particle. That quality or property, elevated to a universal is the One. One is said, therefore, to not be a number, it is the measure of number. Every separate thing is so because it participates in the One.

Probably the nearest thing to this that you may have heard of is American Transcendetalism, which was influenced by the first translations of Plato into English by Thomas Taylor.

Of course we classify stuff. That is hardwired way deep down into our neurosystem. "Universals" is the result of that. But what is so interesting with that?
I think you fall into the wrong rabbit hole if you think that that is some profound mystery/truth.

Pretty much what I expected from you. Contentious, clueless and content-free. "Nuerosystems" is a catchall for you. Unfortunately, it explains nothing. No matter, you can stick with Superman. At least he goes around doing cool stuff.