would mountains still exist without a mind?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

another crack at objective/subjective because it does seem
to be a hurdle for most human beings…

Magnus Anderson wrote, I believe he did anyway,

"Mountains, people, molecules, laws of nature, morality (all objective)

let us focus on Mountains for simplicity’s sake…

How do we know, exactly, that mountains exist without minds
to grasp them? I would suggest that even the very concept of mountains,
is subjective…how would you describe mountains without using
the words, mountains or hills? Something that naturally arises above
the plains and is a part of a natural process… I would claim that
“description” could be one of several things, trees, giraffes, boulders…
I suggest that what we think of as mountains is part of a human construct…
but Kropotkin, mountains exist in nature? and once again, we run into
nature being a human construct…do the laws of nature actually exists?
No, because laws, by definition, cannot exist in nature… they are man-made…
have you ever seen a law, like one might see a dog or a cat?
No, of course not… laws don’t exist in nature… but Kropotkin,
nature seems to follow a certain pattern… and once again,
patterns are a human construct…

Ok, we might say patterns are things that look similar.
But that idea of being similar, that is a human construct…
mountains are a human construct, laws are a human construct…

Ok, let us try this… on an alien world, let us call it Vulcan,
does Vulcan have trees? We have no idea…the very idea of
trees is a human construct…you say, but trees exists in nature?
and how do you know? Because I have seen a tree…
but think back to your childhood… as a parent, I recall that
I had to teach my daughter everything… did she naturally know
what a tree was? no, did she know what mountains were?
no, did she naturally know about hot and cold or what a stove was?
no, everything we teach a child, is a human construct…newborn
babies only have three fears, of snakes, of the dark and of falling…
and we can use evolution to account for those three fears…
survival of the species and all that good stuff…
but concepts of lunches, mountains, water, air, walking,
dogs, life itself, comes from a human explanation or what I
have called a human construct…

The fact is that everything we know or think we know,
comes from an explanation, and explanations are a
human construct…and what about experiences?

we turn experiences into explanations and in doing so,
we turn experiences into a human construct…
I fell in love… that experience is a human construct…
because how do you explain love? Look at every single
word you use to explain love and you see that every single
word used to explain love is just another human construct…

once in ancient Greece, Plato said that man was a “featherless biped”
and later Diogenes plucked a chicken and brought it into the
academy saying that, “behold, I’ve brought you a man”
and were both right? this problem highlights the idea
of definitions being a human construct… our very definitions
are simply human constructs describing something…

you might say, there is a large mountain range in Asia
called the Himalayans…and never having seen them,
I can only take your word for it…but even then, how would
you describe the Himalayans mountains without using
any reference to any other mountain range or hills?
for a reference is simply an explanation that requires
more human constructs to make sense…to compare and
contrast requires something to compare and contrast and
to compare and contrast is just another explanation
which is a… wait for it… a human construct…

to think that something like mountains are objective
is simply not thinking about something correctly…
mountains, people, molecules, laws of nature, morality…
“are not objective” because to the only way to
explain them is to use human constructs/ explanations…

Kropotkin

2

So, with the above in mind, we continue…

we think about other human constructs…
a question that was in play over a thousand years ago,
is the question of universals and individuals…

Universals, dogs, people, mountains, morality,
love…anything that can be applied to anything in
anything in a collective group, people, events, objects,
life… so, we might think of the universals of dogs…
but what is a “universal” it is something that is in fact,
human construct… I have had dogs over the years, but when
asked, I will point out one dog in particular, Troubles…
the dog we owned in my childhood…ask anyone who knew
Troubles and to a person, they will agree that Troubles IS
GREATEST DOG EVER…I cannot know or think about dogs,
as a universal, but I can’t imagine ‘‘all dogs’’ because the idea of
dogs as a universal is an abstraction…

Abstraction: noun… 1. the quality of dealing with ideas rather than event…

think about aliens from space… we have plenty of fictional
aliens to contemplate, abstractions that have no current
reality… from Mr. Spock to Klaatu to My favorite Martian to E.T…
abstractions with no basis in reality…and what will a real life alien
do to these abstractions? No one knows because we don’t have
that reality… yet… Space aliens, at this point anyway, are
just an abstraction… and much of what we believe, are just abstractions,
aliens to the objective, from universals like history, philosophy and
morality/ ethics, god and religions…
these things don’t exist except in the mind, as an abstraction…

Kropotkin

3

How do you know that unicorns have no more and no less than one horn? Noone has ever seen a unicorn. And yet, pretty much everyone knows that unicorns have a single horn.

There is the word “unicorn”. There is a concept attached to that word. And then there are things that can be represented by that word. It just happens that absolutely nothing can be represented with the word “unicorn”. But how do we know what can be represented with that word? We know via the attached concept. Concepts specify what things can be represented by the word ( or symbol ) they are attached to. The concept attached to the word “unicorn” specifies that the word “unicorn” can only be used to represent animals that are exactly like horses except that they have a single straight horn projecting from their forehead. That’s how we know that unicorns have a single horn.

In the same exact way, we know that mountains exist outside of minds. The concept attached to the word “mountain” says that the word “mountain” can only be used for things that exist outside of minds. End of story. It’s a separate question whether or not mountains actually exist. You might be one of those people who think that only minds exist [ solipsists ]. If solipsism is true, then mountains do not really exist. Instead, what exists are perceptions of mountains.

“The concept of mountain” and “mountain” represent two different things. The former is subjective because concepts exist within minds. The latter is not – the latter is an objective phenomenon.

A human construct is a thing that was constructed [ i.e. created ] by humans. The concept of mountain is most definitely a human construct – human concepts were created by humans. But are mountains human constructs? Were they created by humans? Mountains existed long before humans did, so at least some mountains aren’t human constructs. I don’t know about modern day mountains. Maybe they were designed by a technologically sophisticated elite that controls the world but that we’re not aware of. Who knows . . .

The word “law” is another word for “regularity”. Thus, “laws of nature” means “regularities ( or repetitions ) in nature”. Actually, it is probably closer to something like “fundamental regularities ( or repetitions ) in nature”, but I think we can ignore that for now, because I don’t think it’s important for our discussion.

Can we see a regularity or repetition? Of course we can. We do it all the time. Of course, these things aren’t physical objects, like dogs and cats are, but they are nonetheless things that can exist in nature and that can be directly or indirectly observed. Not everything that exists is a physical object. A couple of examples: change, motion, behavior, mind, love, etc. Change exists, right? You can see it too. You can’t touch it – because it’s not a physical object – but that does not mean it’s not real.

A law of nature is most commonly a casual relation of the form “If X happens, then Y follows”. An example of a casual relation found in nature would be “If a man doesn’t drink water, he will die within 3 days”. According to you, that casual relation was created by humans. But is that the case? Do you really believe that someone sat down and thought to himself, “Okay, from now on, humans will die if they don’t drink water. Let’s make it reality”? Perhaps you think Anunnaki made us that way. ( But they weren’t human, as far as I recall. )

Humans perceive laws of nature ( correctly or incorrectly ) and they document them. Their perceptions and their documents are indeed human constructs but laws of nature themselves aren’t.

Similarity is not a human construct.

You are conflating the concept of tree with trees themselves. Concepts are indeed human constructs, and I agree that they have to be taught to children, but trees aren’t concepts.

A non-sequitur. “Because you have to use language, which is a human construct, in order to be able to talk about things, it follows that everything is a human construct.”

Are you aware you’re a solipsist?

4

Way back 500 years ago there was a population of humans, and there were terrain features known as mountains. ALL of those people have died, and their minds no longer exist, yet the mountains persist. ALL the people alive today can verify that the old minds died and the mountains still exist today.
Tomorrow some people will die, and their minds will no longer exist.

So we know for a fact that the existence of mountains has nothing to do with whether human minds exist.

What you are proposing is that mountains can exist as long as there is at least one mind alive, but if that mind dies the mountains no longer exist. You are saying that the existence of mountains vanish when the last mind dies.

You should seek professional help, your cheese has fallen off your cracker.

5

Kropotkin, “I cannot know or think about dogs,
as a universal, but I can’t imagine ‘all dogs’ because the idea of dogs as a universal is an abstraction.”

You said you cannot know/think AND you cannot imagine. If that is the case, how are you even talking about dogs, or a dog? Is there a typo in there somewhere?

You can distinguish (discriminate) one dog (singular) from all other dogs (plural) because you have a generalized concept of what is common to all dogs that is made possible by how your brain is wired for memory storage/connection, and you have a dog in front of you (or a recalled memory of a particular dog) that is not a perfect match to your generalization, which allows you to identify differences (despite similarities) between different instances of dogs.

There has to be something in front of you in order for the memory to get in, at least initially, unless the memory was part of your default programming (implying a programmer if it had to exist before, say, a dog, could exist “for you”).

The genius of Kant :wink:

6

Upon further reflection, I believe I am right in
this matter…

we have human beings and their words, and we have
objects, events, people… again, let us take mountains…
look at a tree or the mountains if you can…you identify
them by already held preconceived notions… notions we were
taught as children or as adults…the act of identifying a tree or
a mountain, is the act of interpretation… you were taught as a child,
what a tree is… and that is your base point of being able to identifying
trees or mountains…

as Husserl would suggest… bracket it out, don’t name it, don’t
identify it…just look at it…by just looking at a tree, can you
identify it as such… without the words… without the childhood training/
indoctrination, teaching us what to name objects, people, events…
what would we call a tree? We are mistaking our naming, our identifying,
our childhood indoctrinations, the words we use as the objects themselves…
when I look at a tree or the mountains, I am responding to, reacting to,
the words I have, describing, identifying the tree or the mountains,
I am not responding to the tree or the mountains themselves, I am
responding to the words I have, to the interpretations I have of trees
or the mountains… I might say, boy is that tree beautiful or aren’t
those mountains beautiful… but what am I really responding to?
the word mountains, the word tree… and what is does the word
beautiful actually mean? It is just another interpretation of something…
in saying, mountains are beautiful, you are comparing, contrasting
mountains to something else…comparing, contrasting, interpreting,
are all aspects of the mind, of meanings we were taught…
these things don’t have a separate meaning/existence
beyond out words, beyond our interpretation of those words…
we identify mountains as such, because we are indoctrinated to do so…
do mountains have a separate meaning/existence outside of those words?

No…and why not? because the very word, mountain, is a human construct,
a word we use to identify mountains and that identification relies on,
depends on our words, not on the mountains themselves…

so when someone says, mountains exist outside of our conscious mind,
they exist regardless of if we know it or not, if there were no humans alive,
mountains would still exist, that is not true… the very word mountains,
creates its own reality of what mountains are… we think mountains exist
whether we notice or not, isn’t true because the very idea of mountains,
is a human construct… without words identifying mountains as such,
mountains don’t exist… they are objects, which itself isn’t true, because
the very word ‘‘object’’ requires a human construct to make sense…
the words we use defines the reality we live in/see… so what are
mountains without that human construct? who knows… we certainly don’t know…

existence exist, because we have defined it, we have named it,
we have constructed it… otherwise, there is no existence per se…
existence is a human construct because without the words, without
the interpretation of our words, without the childhood indoctrinations
we receive, we cannot explain or understand what it means to exist…
and we cannot know or understand anything outside of our
explanations, our interpretations, our words…existence requires,
demands our words to exist or there is no existence…

Kropotkin

7

Just because you can’t talk about something ( because there are no words for it ) and because you can’t think about it and perceive it ( because there are no concepts for it ) does not mean that those things don’t exist.

8

Kropotkin:

We can distinguish (discriminate) a mountain from a molehill because we have a generalized concept of what is common to all mountains versus molehills that is made possible by how our brain is wired for memory storage/connection, and we have a hill in front of us (or a recalled memory of a particular hill) that is somewhere between a mountain and a molehill, which allows us to identify differences (despite similarities) between different instances of mountains/molehills. You can think of them as different breeds of dogs… you can think of a mole hill (miniature poodle) as a miniature mountain (poodle). It’s a measure of difference that also measures sameness—it has to do both to do either (mutual production). Is it artificial? That would imply artifact. But if the measuring of difference is a condition with which we are born, or else we could never contact/experience, well, dot dot dot, man.

There has to be something in front of us in order for the memory to get in, at least initially, unless the memory was part of our default programming (implying a programmer if it had to exist before, say, a mountain/molehill, could exist “for us”).

The genius of Kant (and maybe Husserl) :wink:

P.s. Agree with Magnus Anderson.

9

K: if you can’t talk about something, and you can’t think about it,
how does it exist? you have human beings, you have the words, the concepts
of something, and you have the something…a three step process…
but without the words, the concepts, what is it we are talking about?
it is a nameless, unidentifiable thing that has no meaning without
words or concepts… and it is conceptually no different than
any other thing we might see…and unable to identify in any case…
Now, you might say, it is mountains, now to make that identification,
we already have to have some sense of, some idea of what it is already…

earlier, you brought up the point of unicorns…
and that unicorns have one horn… but we know this from
our own concepts of, our own definition of unicorns…
unicorns themselves don’t exist but the definition does exist…
and you are reacting to the definition, not to the unicorns because
unicorns don’t exist… and the exact same thing happens when
identifying mountains that supposedly exist even if we don’t see them…
it is the word mountains that you are reacting to, not to the
mountains themselves…something must exist because we have
a word for it… don’t mistake the word for the actual thing…
just because we have the word unicorn, doesn’t mean unicorns
exist…

Kropotkin

10

Sartre addressed this when he talked about the dude in the coffee shop that was supposed (expected) to be there, but there’s this absence where he isn’t. This is gestalt stuff. So you can talk around the thing for which you have no adequate words. The absence of the dude in the coffee shop did not destroy anything (Being remains untouched). The absence is illusory. Just like hunger implies satisfaction, not a lack of actual food. There had to have been food long enough to develop a hunger for it. Apply that to angst/despair or whatever Sartre’s term for existential hunger was. Did Sartre have Anfechtung (Kierkegaard, Luther)? Different language, but. Anyway.

11

It seems to me that you’re saying that definition is a kind of abstraction and that we don’t need a definition in order to concretely know something. Otherwise how do birds know nests and spiders know webs, right? But in terms of being able to talk about it and say/explain it, you need more than just concretely knowing something—but you do at least need the concrete knowing, or else you’re defining into the wind.

You need both or you know you know neither.

Justified (defined, supported, evident)
True (concrete…it sticks)
Belief (it matters enough to remember/hold it)

12

I really don’t know what to tell you.

13

Existence is independent of your mind. Galaxies exist in this universe that have not yet been discovered, and probably never will be discovered. They exist independent of your mind.

Just because you have never seen your new neighbor, and don’t know his name, does not mean he doesn’t exist. He has existed since he was born and you have no clue that he ever existed. Your thoughts are irrelevent to his existence.

Again, there are things in this universe that exist, and you will never know they ever existed. Your ignorance of their existence does not mean they don’t exist.