Are Philosophers lost in the clouds?

@guigus,

guigus wrote:

Fido wrote:

guigus wrote:

Fido wrote:

guigus wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

guigus wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

ACB wrote:

guigus wrote:
What you are missing, and which is the central point he's making, is that all we have to know that a concept has a real object is, well, concepts. If you have ever read Kant, you should know that. We do not have direct access to the objects of our concepts: we have only access to them by means of our concepts, which is why we will never be definitely sure that our concepts have the real objects we believe them to have. We can be sure of that only by forgetting the circumstance that we depend on concepts to be sure of that: again, the dual nature of truth.

But we can still make the distinction between (a) the concept of a concept with a known object and (b) the concept of a concept without a known object.

Or between a concept with an object, and a concept that has no object. Why must we know whether or not the concept has an object? We can distinguish between being checkmated and not being checkmated whether or not we know whether or not we are checkmated. So, why can't we distinguish between a concept with, and a concept without an object, without having to know which it is?

A concept having an object that is only a possibility still has an object: you cannot even talk about being checkmated if you don't know what being checkmated is, at least as a possibility. The object of the "checkmate" concept is always a real checkmate, regardless of whether that real checkmate is an actuality or only a possibility: an at least possible checkmate is the real meaning of the "checkmate" concept, without which it ceases to be a concept, by having - only then - nothing to refer to. A concept without an object is a concept without a meaning.

But the possibility of checkmate is not checkmate, and the object of the concept checkmate is, obviously, checkmate. I think you must be thinking of the concept of the possibility of checkmate. Now, the object of the concept of the possibility of checkmate is (yes, you guessed it) the possibility of checkmate. So, the object of the concept of checkmate is, checkmate. And the object of the concept of the possibility of checkmate is (not checkmate) but the possibility of checkmate.

The object of the concept of checkmate must be a checkmate, otherwise the concept renders meaningless. Hence, if it is not an actual checkmate, then it must be a possible checkmate. There is no concept of checkmate without an at least possible checkmate as its object, contrarily to your "concept that has no object" (remember?).

It is out of our concepts of the impossible that the impossible is made real... The form changes and then reality is reformed with the form as a template... But until that happens, and it never happens perfectly since a person with a form of a house in mind, though perfect, never makes the perfect house with it; so the object is not real, or actual, and the form is only a moral form... Real checkmates are made out of moral forms of check mates, just as real nuclear bombs were once made out of so many moral forms...

It is not the form which is real, nor the thing conceived... There seems to be two classes of being, and moral being is not being at all, but rests on common consent because we find meaning in it... Real being is simply being we cannot deny, and find meaning in... When a person denies real being, and moral being then the object and moral meaning are not in danger... It is a prelude to an attack upon the person holding the forms in question as valid... Dead people do not have ideas, forms, or concepts, and sans life, sans meaning... Whether the form is real, of being with meaning, or moral, and meaning only, all meaning grows out of life...

So now platonic ideas are "moral forms." Do you really believe you can think something knew just by renaming old concepts?

Heidegger called them something else, but the object is the same, and it is to make us authentic, that is, Valid, and it is to that end that we talk of what is real outside of us all...

You mean Heildegger? Sorry, I couldn't resist.

I only call him smart because so much of it I came up with on my own... I don't want to look too hard at the politics of one who tends to back me up... For an institutional, or rather, a formal philosopher, he was not bad, though that whole generation was riding the storm of Nietzsche still..

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Fido,

You really quoted that much to only type three broken sentences?

0 Replies

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

Do you consider how impossible life is and how tenuous, and how certain is death???

Relax, death is just a concept, a form of relationship... Change your relationships and you will live forever... Frankly, this ellipsis-overloaded style of yours, in which the words appear to echo from an immemorial time, is just plain annoying...

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@Fido,

Fido wrote:

Logic is always flawed because it is based upon a reality that is only hypothetical to begin with... We do not understand the world except by analogy, so to say we can know something real based upon reason based upon analogy is daft... Reason suggests a new reality and there is where experiments and insight should go to work...

First you say that "logic is always flawed because it is based upon a reality that is only hypothetical to begin with," then you say that "reason suggests a new reality and there is where experiments and insight should go to work." Well, if reality is only hypothetical, then how can we validate our hypotheses by confronting them with reality?

1 Reply

philosophers are both on the Earth and in the clouds

Naturally

1 Reply

@north,

north wrote:

philosophers are both on the Earth and in the clouds

Naturally

South.

1 Reply

@guigus,

guigus wrote:

north wrote:

philosophers are both on the Earth and in the clouds

Naturally

South.

north , south , west and east

1 Reply

@north,

north wrote:

guigus wrote:

north wrote:

philosophers are both on the Earth and in the clouds

Naturally

South.

north , south , west and east

Since you seem to be a well-informed person who at least knows the cardinal points, let me propose a game to you: I will show you a very short logical reasoning and you will tell me where it went wrong. Can you do that? Assuming you can, here it is:

1. If you actually exist and your existence becomes impossible, precisely then you cease to actually exist: your actual existence and its necessary possibility are simultaneous.

2. If the possibility of your existence were identical to its actuality, then it would become the necessity of your existence, rather than its possibility.

3. Hence, the possibility of your existence must be both different from its actuality and simultaneous to it.

Finally, for being both different from and simultaneous to your actual existence, your possible existence must exist: its nonexistence would require its being either identical or asynchronous to your actual existence.

1 Reply

@guigus,

guigus wrote:

north wrote:

guigus wrote:

north wrote:

philosophers are both on the Earth and in the clouds

Naturally

South.

north , south , west and east

Since you seem to be a well-informed person who at least knows the cardinal points, let me propose a game to you: I will show you a very short logical reasoning and you will tell me where it went wrong. Can you do that? Assuming you can, here it is:

1. If you actually exist and your existence becomes impossible, precisely then you cease to actually exist: your actual existence and its necessary possibility are simultaneous.

2. If the possibility of your existence were identical to its actuality, then it would become the necessity of your existence, rather than its possibility.

3. Hence, the possibility of your existence must be both different from its actuality and simultaneous to it.

Finally, for being both different from and simultaneous to your actual existence, your possible existence must exist: its nonexistence would require its being either identical or asynchronous to your actual existence.

Yeah, North, deal with that! And when you do, be sure to let me know what he is saying.

I think he might mean that if X exists then it is possible that X exists, and, of course, that is true. Just as it is true that if the number seven is larger than the number 6, then it is larger than the number 5. And being larger than the number 6 and being larger than the number 5 "happen simultaneously" (although since since a number being larger than another number is not an event, and since only events can be simultaneous with one another, that really makes no sense. It is as if someone were to say that A's being B's parent, and B being A's child "happen simultaneously". Logical relations are neither simultaneous nor are they not simultaneous since logical relation are not temporal relations, and only temporal relations can happen at the same time or not.

1 Reply

@guigus,

guigus wrote:

Fido wrote:
Do you consider how impossible life is and how tenuous, and how certain is death???

Relax, death is just a concept, a form of relationship... Change your relationships and you will live forever... Frankly, this ellipsis-overloaded style of yours, in which the words appear to echo from an immemorial time, is just plain annoying...

Think better of it and write better, for example.... The world waits with baited breath and buttered farts to snicker at your refrains.

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@guigus,

guigus wrote:

Fido wrote:
Do you consider how impossible life is and how tenuous, and how certain is death???

Relax, death is just a concept, a form of relationship... Change your relationships and you will live forever... Frankly, this ellipsis-overloaded style of yours, in which the words appear to echo from an immemorial time, is just plain annoying...

Perhaps death as we talk about it is only s form of relationship... Think of all the formalities surrounding death, and the rituals... But death, the moral form, stands in sharp contrast to all we find meaningful, for we can find no meaning in death... Mr. Smiley waits waits patiently while we croak out our gallows song, and then he lowers the curtain to no applause... Can you conceive of nothing, or only illustrate it with a curved line??? What if nothing waits for you, and rewards good and bad each for the crime of life with nothing, nothing, and more nothing???... Is that too much to bear??? Then that I dare... For hell would not be bad if hell we share, and heaven to life cannot compare, but what of nothing and how well will nothing share, and who will care???

0 Replies

@guigus,

guigus wrote:

Fido wrote:
Logic is always flawed because it is based upon a reality that is only hypothetical to begin with... We do not understand the world except by analogy, so to say we can know something real based upon reason based upon analogy is daft... Reason suggests a new reality and there is where experiments and insight should go to work...

First you say that "logic is always flawed because it is based upon a reality that is only hypothetical to begin with," then you say that "reason suggests a new reality and there is where experiments and insight should go to work." Well, if reality is only hypothetical, then how can we validate our hypotheses by confronting them with reality?

Logic is flawed, and so is sense and experience; but reality is for the greater part, unchanging... Even in the change of the seasons, the sky of night through the year our primitive brothers found patterns in... The power of nature suggested Gods, and that was the first science because having an hypothesis, mankind could begin to test the hypothesis against reality... Still we conceive of reality only by analogy... We cannot look at the most simple part of nature without finding more and more to find... We never grasp anything whole... Every concept only represents what we think we know, and that is only hypothetical...Concepts are not truth, but they are the knowledge we have, and truth is the measure of how well the concept defines the reality...

So If I said reality is hypothetical, I only mean that our concepts of reality are hypothetical... But; it is enough, and it is a start...

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

guigus wrote:

north wrote:

guigus wrote:

north wrote:

philosophers are both on the Earth and in the clouds

Naturally

South.

north , south , west and east

Since you seem to be a well-informed person who at least knows the cardinal points, let me propose a game to you: I will show you a very short logical reasoning and you will tell me where it went wrong. Can you do that? Assuming you can, here it is:

1. If you actually exist and your existence becomes impossible, precisely then you cease to actually exist: your actual existence and its necessary possibility are simultaneous.

2. If the possibility of your existence were identical to its actuality, then it would become the necessity of your existence, rather than its possibility.

3. Hence, the possibility of your existence must be both different from its actuality and simultaneous to it.

Finally, for being both different from and simultaneous to your actual existence, your possible existence must exist: its nonexistence would require its being either identical or asynchronous to your actual existence.

Yeah, North, deal with that! And when you do, be sure to let me know what he is saying.

I think he might mean that if X exists then it is possible that X exists, and, of course, that is true. Just as it is true that if the number seven is larger than the number 6, then it is larger than the number 5. And being larger than the number 6 and being larger than the number 5 "happen simultaneously" (although since since a number being larger than another number is not an event, and since only events can be simultaneous with one another, that really makes no sense. It is as if someone were to say that A's being B's parent, and B being A's child "happen simultaneously". Logical relations are neither simultaneous nor are they not simultaneous since logical relation are not temporal relations, and only temporal relations can happen at the same time or not.

So for you it is perfectly possible that you actually exist without your existence at the same time being possible? That is, if your existence was possible but no longer is you still exist? Or, if your existence is not yet possible you already exist?

1 Reply

@guigus,

guigus wrote:

So for you it is perfectly possible that you actually exist without your existence at the same time being possible? That is, if your existence was possible but no longer is you still exist? Or, if your existence is not yet possible you already exist?

I have already said that X exists entails (possible) X exists, since (necessarily) actuality entail possibility. But there are no times involved. Do you think that if something is a triangle it is "at the same time" trilateral? If you mean by "same time" what it means in that sentence, then sure. But "same time" is there just a figure of speech. There is no time in logic. Logic is a-temporal.

3 Replies

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

guigus wrote:

So for you it is perfectly possible that you actually exist without your existence at the same time being possible? That is, if your existence was possible but no longer is you still exist? Or, if your existence is not yet possible you already exist?

I have already said that X exists entails (possible) X exists, since (necessarily) actuality entail possibility. But there are no times involved. Do you think that if something is a triangle it is "at the same time" trilateral? If you mean by "same time" what it means in that sentence, then sure. But "same time" is there just a figure of speech. There is no time in logic. Logic is a-temporal.

Life is impossible, yet it is actual...And ask: if it is, how can it be impossible... If we cannot do it, or even explain it, then it must not be possible, because words like possible, and their meaning only have meaning to us, just like logic, and is always from a certain perspective....From whose perspective is life possible.... Is that not what we live our live trying to prove at every moment until the last, that life is possible???

Consider your lives and all the moral forms that have no more being than the meaning we assocaite with the word, great or small.. They are not, and they are- impossible, since if they are not Res, things of the physical world then they are not at all... They have their meaning which is the extent of their being from our being which is our lives which are not things at all no matter how well tied to the physical world....

The two of you guys do not impress me a bit because all of your hair splitting does not get you to the point of the matter... Life is a quality we can not explain, nor make reasonable.... All of your application of logic to existence does not get existence closer to proof... Yet, we are faced with the fact that impossible or not, provable or not, we live, and through life -exist as consciousness... How can we make the best of it though we cannot prove it???

People like you two is the reason I will describe myself as a moralist far more often than a philosopher... You are insensitive... You abandon the obvious and practical good for an abstract definition of good, as knowledge is... You both lack what Napoleon described as a fingertip feel for the battle field upon which you war...Terrain is half the battle, and is usually the point where defeat or victory is made certain... Tactile ability, sensitivity, insight, common sense even, are all lacking in you two... You have no feel for the game... You get mired in words and trivial logic whatever is the difference between the two... Consider the first intention...Avoid the second intention as you would the mouth of a python...

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

guigus wrote:
So for you it is perfectly possible that you actually exist without your existence at the same time being possible? That is, if your existence was possible but no longer is you still exist? Or, if your existence is not yet possible you already exist?

I have already said that X exists entails (possible) X exists, since (necessarily) actuality entail possibility. But there are no times involved. Do you think that if something is a triangle it is "at the same time" trilateral? If you mean by "same time" what it means in that sentence, then sure. But "same time" is there just a figure of speech. There is no time in logic. Logic is a-temporal.

What you have is not answered my question.

Fill in the blanks by choosing the correct alternative:

If you neither can actually exist once your existence is no longer possible nor when it is not yet possible, then the possibility and actuality of your existence must be ____________.

1) One above the other.
2) One below the other.
3) Synchronous.
4) Asynchronous.

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@Fido,

Fido wrote:

People like you two is the reason I will describe myself as a moralist far more often than a philosopher...

Whether I am the reason for that or not, you are correct.

1 Reply

@guigus,

guigus wrote:

Fido wrote:
People like you two is the reason I will describe myself as a moralist far more often than a philosopher...

Whether I am the reason for that or not, you are correct.

I am correct... People have an inate sense of morality so the potential for fruitful conversation is unlimited... Tell people you are a philosopher and they look for the exits... Seriously??? Arguing over knives compared to spoons??? Looking at the possible in relation to the actual???You guys need to get it checked... Don't you think that the larger prize gets lost in all your mountains of minutia???

2 Replies

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

guigus wrote:

Fido wrote:
People like you two is the reason I will describe myself as a moralist far more often than a philosopher...

Whether I am the reason for that or not, you are correct.

I am correct... People have an inate sense of morality so the potential for fruitful conversation is unlimited... Tell people you are a philosopher and they look for the exits... Seriously??? Arguing over knives compared to spoons??? Looking at the possible in relation to the actual???You guys need to get it checked... Don't you think that the larger prize gets lost in all your mountains of minutia???

What I think is you have to think.

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

guigus wrote:
So for you it is perfectly possible that you actually exist without your existence at the same time being possible? That is, if your existence was possible but no longer is you still exist? Or, if your existence is not yet possible you already exist?

I have already said that X exists entails (possible) X exists, since (necessarily) actuality entail possibility. But there are no times involved.

"X exists entails X exists" has a different meaning than "X actually exists entails X possibly exists." And of course for symbolic logic there are not times involved since, as you already pointed out, in symbolic logic there is no time. It is like locking yourself in a room while ignoring everything outside of that room, then saying the world is only the content of that room.

kennethamy wrote:

Do you think that if something is a triangle it is "at the same time" trilateral?

Sure it is, and you can easily confirm that: just imagine a closed two-dimensional figure that has three angles. Then ask yourself if it has three sides. Once you notice it has, ask yourself if it must have three sides. To answer that last question, you must remember the two-dimensional figure that has three angles and ask yourself if it would be possible that it had a different number of sides than three (which is called contrafactual definiteness - the very concept of necessity depends on it). A question you can only answer to by realizing that without its three sides a triangle ceases to exist: it must keep its three sides to remain a triangle. So there are not only times involved: they are all over the place - that same "logic" place you repute as atemporal.

kennethamy wrote:

If you mean by "same time" what it means in that sentence, then sure. But "same time" is there just a figure of speech.

This is really funny. So tell me: what such a "figure of speech" is talking about? Let me clue you in: it is talking about an actuality and its necessary possibility being simultaneous (a figure of speech that can only talk about its own rigorous meaning is no longer a figure of speech).

kennethamy wrote:

There is no time in logic. Logic is a-temporal.

What you name "logic" is just an unilateral take on logic that, precisely for denying time, is utterly mistaken.

1 Reply

Are Philosophers lost in the clouds?

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