Statistically speaking in a room of 2000 people, assuming thereâs a representative sample of the population of the world, thereâs going to be a few cleverer people than me. No shame felt here. Does the same work for 2000 years?
It very well may do, and given the potential existence of statistical outliers, itâs perfectly possible in theory. Given that over the past 2000 years people have been being selected at least in part for intelligence, and there have been recorded upward trends in IQ in only the past few generations (the Flynn effect), itâs also perfectly possible that a great deal of todayâs living people are smarter than a great deal of people who lived 2000 years ago - maybe even myself! I donât have to be a man or otherwise to maintain reasonable doubt that 2000 year of philosophers may not be a match for at least some of their successors, just aware of trends in general - or even simply aware of ideas that have followed the Ancient Greeks! Statistics aside, knowledge of the actual content is enough.
I mean come on, man. Have you not even read any philosophers since Plato? Do so, immediately. Iâm not saying theyâre right, even if they were/are smarter, but at least just gain some balance and context in reasoning and logic beyond just one set of old ideas that you kinda like.
Iâm not even saying that in a trillion years someone may find something different, Iâm saying we already did. Several times. Humility is your friend.
But one has to remember not to get too caught up in it because it can lead to thinking that real physical âobjectsâ and real relationships are somehow inadequate.
Itâs just a tool. And tools can be dangerous if improperly handled.
forms may mean formal thinking, or, using various precedent constructions of reality , or any number of things. It may even imply a absolitely held reality.
So the question of absolute may not necessarily imply the other versions.
The degree of freedom of choosing levels may vary as well, in situ.
I never denied it either but I think they exist and I believe they have existed in the past. One such example that is hard to doubt is Nietzsche. How about I draw on what he said in one of his books, say âTwilight of the Idolsâ?
You are asking me to show you that we already found something that doesnât need a hypothetical about a trillion years into the future. This âsomethingâ related to a doubt of Platonic forms that philosophers have already raised, such as Nietzsche. I have already shown you doubts from my own thoughts that youâve not even addressed, but youâre still asking to be shown, so maybe he will help? Itâs a real struggle to extract any sense from you about both your own explanations or even your requirements for proof, so all I can do is add to the pile of what Iâve already offered with the following.
He goes on to sum up the mechanism by which the âmonstrum in fronte, monstrum in animoâ turn away from life in âHow the âReal Worldâ at last Became a Mythâ.
This is just the beginning of one book by one more recent philosopher - I only stick to Nietzsche because itâs him that I know best. There are plenty of others to pick from, just pick one and go from there. I may attack your ideas, but I am not your enemy, I am trying to help.
Iâm not vitriolic or hating, though I am uncompromising in the expression of my frustration with characters such as yourself who present themselves as having easy answers like some kind of prophet or saviour whilst having little to no real substance to back it up - as elucidated by the kind of rigorous deconstruction that I admittedly take joy in providing. Itâs hard not to develop an ego when you have put a lot of time and energy into getting particularly good at doing this, but I genuinely try to hold it back as much as I can - my apologies if it slips through.
These really ancient philosophers realized that you can be hit by four sticks, but you cannot be hit by the number four. The number four cannot be found in space or time, so it must exist outside space and time. An eternal realm that doesnât begin or end.
You truly are underestimating the brilliance of these people.
Not sure. Did I have to read something else to answer honestly?
Loosely acquainted with the notions of idos, the essence of which makes a thing a thing. But maybe you want to spell it out here instead of doubting you regarding someone elseâs thinking.
Numbers are products of the mind as are all thoughts and ideas and concepts
By your logic then all of human thinking must exist outside of space and time
Just as logic is not aware that it exists, but we can apprehend it, logic is not sentient, we are, numbers are not properties of sentience, they however can be apprehended by sentient beings.
One of the platonic forms, which we can all demonstrate is the field of imaginary, we can have the field of the platonic form of a real tree or the field of an imaginary tree.
Thoughts are electrochemical signals occurring in the brain so they are physical
The thing that is being thought of however is not physical but merely imaginary
Like I said, itâs a struggle to extract what youâre actually talking about - the title of the thread is whether any of us still doubt you about platonic forms and I was giving you reasoning to doubt platonic forms.
Now youâre telling me I didnât talk about what you were speaking about⊠- was I not thus approaching your thoughts logically?
1)i) Sticks in space and time
ii) Sticks can be observed individually as different events
iii) These different events can be differentiated as one, then two, then three, then four
iv) These numbered events are not the sticks themselves in space and time
v) The classifications of one, two, three and four can be used generally for not just sticks
vi) Oneness, twoness, threeness and fourness are not bound specifically to that which they denote in space and time
2) One, two, three and four (and all numbers in general) themselves do not have the same reality as sticks in space and time
3) If numbers donât have spatio-temporal reality like sticks, they exist outside space and time
Thereâs presumably at least this number of layers to the abstraction of something such as numbers into Platonic forms. Donât think the âlogicâ isnât apparent to those who see a problem with it - and by all means we should respect it in its historical context as brilliant for the time.
I bring up Nietzsche because he truly brings philosophy back in touch with its physiological origins, psychologising in these terms only to diagnose the mentality of inverting reality with the imaginary. This is what Plato did when he proposed âan eternal realm that doesnât begin or endâ, and the added sense of âmeans, motive, and opportunityâ really puts into perspective the musings about whether such a conclusion is valid.
In terms only of the validity of the conclusion, looking at the logical progression that I reeled off above from the top of my head, I think itâs something that goes on at around 1)vi)
There has to be a sleight of hand performed at some point that removes âthe generalâ from the embedded reality of âthe specificâ.
Only then can you jump to a notion of âthe essenceâ of numbers as removed from space and time, and thus conclude that they exist outside of space and time.
Allow me to put the whole process in real terms - are you ready?
Numbers and any words that âdenoteâ a real, tangible, physical thing are in themselves real, tangible and physical. On the surface they are a sound, a visual symbol, a tactile impulse such as with braille and so forth. They are a sensation of a specific codified type that is not the same things as that which they denote, but which is much easier to deal with and more compact - e.g. you can write about a whole world in something as portable as a book. But âunderneath the hoodâ, the brain is merely reinforcing (myelinating) neural pathways that occur more often, such as the one that connects âthe signifiedâ and âthe signifierâ. This is why kids love asking âwhatâs that?â constantly - they are myelinating together their reality with the code of language. âOneâ stick ends up lighting up similarly to âoneâ stone, and so forth, until the sensation of âonenessâ in your mind is consolidated into its own neural pathway in and of itself - without necessarily applying to something in particular. Thatâs how the brain works: association.
Thus numbers are entirely real as a chemical response that feels like ârecognitionâ, with or without a code (e.g. the written symbol â1â) that âsignifiesâ something âsignifiedâ such as a single stick.
The error in thinking is the conception of reality as the âsignifiedâ as separate from the âsignifierâ, which by black-and-white contrast can be lumped into ânot realityâ. Perception occurs in the brain, not in the eyes and ears etc. and âstickâ and âoneâ are not one bit different in this respect. Given this fact, Plato et al. need only re-conceive what reality is - except âtragicallyâ they did not have access to the scientific knowledge that we have today.
1.) Something cannot come from nothing
2.) If something comes from something else, itâs first substantiation still solves as it coming from nothing, unless there is a way in which it has always been there
What this does is put a force on platonic forms, or rather, eternal forms, without which, everything is concluded to come from nothing. Nothing at all isnât there for anything to come from, so this possibility and the possibility of something coming from something else are out. The thing must come from the thing itself. The best theory for this is that the thing itself occupies many different dimensions at once; one of them being eternal.
My way isnât a shortcut at all, it just keeps things within the realm of whatâs testable with complete sufficiency.
Your way tries to be a shortcut by casting away answers to some other untestable realm. âThe answers are there, but out of your reach to disprove themâ - how convenient. And says who? Why should we believe you when theyâre just as inaccessible to you? You only say they logically must be because theyâre there but not here. Firstly, that isnât a necessary logical sequitur, and secondly I showed you why they are here after all, you just need to change your perspective to something that better fits the reality of our own testable realm. 2000 years of thought and searching can do that to old ideas, smart as they appeared to be in their own time.
âSomething cannot come from nothingâ
Obviously eternal forms are supposed to be âsomethingâ just as much as the âapparent worldâ, and the proposition is that neither can come from nothing.
âSomething can come from somethingâ
This is intended to apply to the âapparent worldâ, but not âeternal formsâ. Eternal forms are supposed to render the proposition invalid: âcomes fromâ doesnât apply to it. They neither âcome fromâ something nor nothing, they always were.
The implication is that the apparent world has to come from âsomewhereâ (supposedly from eternal forms), but why do eternal forms escape the validity of the question but the apparent world does not?
If the apparent world was eternal, then âsomething cannot come from nothingâ is equally invalid to say about it as it is to eternal forms.
An alternative is that âcomes fromâ is valid not just for the apparent world.
Are eternal forms themselves something that has to come from something? Do they themselves have eternal forms? Can something come from itself? Canât the apparent world continually unfold unto itself? Thatâs how it appears at least, so if it is implied that it comes from something why does it need to come from a thing thatâs different to itself (e.g. eternal forms)?
So we have 3 questions:
Is âcomes fromâ a necessity?
If so, can something âcome fromâ itself?
If neither, what is the âsomething elseâ that something âcomes fromâ?
You have to answer âyes for the apparent world, but no for the eternalâ, ânoâ and âsomewhere that you canât prove it doesnâtâ. Thatâs just 1 answer and not the âbest theoryâ by any stretch. You have to prove the apparent world isnât eternal for the first question, you have to prove something canât come from itself for the second, and you have to prove that where it comes from is out of all possible things âsomewhere that you canât prove it doesnâtâ - which by definition you canât!
The better theory is that if âcomes fromâ is a necessity, the apparent world comes from itself, continually unfolding unto itself exactly how it appears and completely within the real realms of testability.
When you put a spoon in a bowl of soup, and put it to your mouth to slurp, has the spoon always existed?
Has the soup? This is a very critical point here, if it hasnât always existed, then it came ex nihilo.
If it has always existed, then motion cannot occur in existence, everything freezes, becomes nothing at all. Remember, this part is the world you said is verifiable and testable that comes from itself⊠a world that has to freeze in order for existents to not come from nothing at all, thus becoming nothing at all.
So either it comes from nothing at all, or it is nothing at all.
How do you escape this trap?
Eternal forms donât have infinite regressâŠ
There isnât the spooness of the spooness of the spoonessâŠ
So that was a straw man.
Nothing by definition:isnât
So then weâre left with eternal forms to explain the somethingness of everything.
Somewhere, to avoid contradiction, that spoon and that slurping exists outside space time in an eternal dimension.
The spoon and soup are constituted of matter/energy that have always existed, and certain configurations are recognisable as âspoonâ and âsoupâ due to the fundamental forces holding them together in various stable ways.
Your problem is that youâre thinking in terms of labels (e.g. âspoonâ and âsoupâ) and not the real constituent parts that merely need to reconfigure to cause the different things to exist that you can label. The labels arenât the reality, the testable constituents are.
If two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom have always existed, they can still move relative to one another, however relatively frozen they are in their stable states, and the fundamental forces are all you need to add for the different arrangements to amount to all the multitude of sensory outcomes that we enjoy at the unassisted human level of perception and beyond.
Youâre advocating the need for frozen labels for your conception to hold, and yet nothing in reality ever exactly matches these ideal forms. The forms arenât even possible - there is no perfect spoon or soup, thereâs just different arrangements of the world that are sometimes loosely but closely enough identifiable as spoon, soup etc.
Thereâs really no need to escape the real world in hope and wonder of a âmore realâ world that has all the answers. Donât be such a Christian. Everything you need is right here if you just look a little more closely and rigorously, and like Nietzsche diagnosed, if you canât cope without your inversion of cause and consequence, you are sick. At least Plato had the excuse of not yet knowing about modern science.
If a particle ends up somewhere that itâs never been before, causing a new substantiation of the universe as a whole, itâs the very nature of the newness, something coming from something else, that forces something coming from nothing, unless it has always existed in that state, which is also nothing, moving from soup to particles doesnât change the unassailable logic.
Also, platonic forms are templates, not perfections.