Physical idealism

[Edwardo Piet]

That's my favorite Python sketch.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

That's my favorite Python sketch.

Better than the Ministry of Silly Walks?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV2ViNJFZC8


The Dead Parrot?

The Military Fairy drill team?

Tough choices.

[Edwardo Piet]

I don't understand. I walk like that all the time. LOL

I love the argument clinic.

The Dead Parrot is excellent but I've seen it about 40,000 times. Hehe.

P.S. I've never seen that one before!

[Mudhammam]

You seem to think I'm against materialism when I use the word "idealism" but I'm not-- because to me, they are not mutually exclusive.

I'm a bit confused as to what you mean by these terms. My understanding is that they are mutually exclusive: materialism, at the very least, proposing matter to be a substratum of all being, in which case ideas may or may not be reducible to a physical process (perhaps mind is a non-reducible property of matter); idealism, however, putting forth the contrary notion that ideas, or formal principles, are the fundamental and immaterial substance from which matter derives its being and acquires its particular attributes (there is a explanatory gap problem either way this is approached); these being alternatives to substance dualism which says mind and matter are both fundamental and non-reducible substances upon which all else is predicated (though an interaction problem still surfaces), or neutral monism, which suggests that neither mind nor matter are fundamental but that each are distinct and non-reducible properties or attributes of a single, unknown substance. And metaphysical views that do away with substances altogether and take the "qualities" of objects to be all that reality consists of, I think, must be, or probably tend to be, idealistic. At least those are the primary alternatives as I see them.

[bennyboy]

Right, when I talk about "physical idealism," I'm not giving an alternate explanation to either idealism OR materialism. This is not a cosmogonic theory, but a description of the relationship between chaotic systems, time, and persistence in a material universe (although it would be the same in an idealistic universe given chaos, interactions, and time).

I think the problem is that the OP isn't as deep as some people are making it. I was only saying that the DNA consists not of a complete map of the human body, but rather a collection of ideas about how a body is made: what a limb is, for example, with layers of modification on top of that. Just to say "Oh, well, the DNA has adapted through time, and in an individual, the DNA determines what and how proteins arrange themselves" etc. is to miss the point: that statistical moments in our evolutionary history have led to genetic ideas which are foundational-- and that a human being is not so much an expression of his DNA but of all those many ideas, with the DNA being the medium of persistence of those ideas through time.

In essence, I'm saying the egg comes before the chicken.

[Mudhammam]

Forgive me if I am missing the point but do you mean that, in other words, the "idea" or "formal principle" of limbness precedes the arrangement of genetic materials by which actual limbs are produced? Is it besides the point whether or not the success of certain genetic arrangements slowly refined such "ideas" as that of limbs until these came to be encoded as the distinct "ideas" of which they now appear?

[bennyboy]

Forgive me if I am missing the point but do you mean that, in other words, the "idea" or "formal principle" of limbness precedes the arrangement of genetic materials by which actual limbs are produced?

"Limbness" is a composite idea, and I wouldn't say that it is likely to be floating in the ether. That being said, there was never a time when any composite idea wasn't a derivation of a more primitive idea, extending way back to before even abiogenesis.

I''d say the difference is in "chunking," where a composite idea takes on meaning as an individual unit. So in the OP, I don't think it's just that some disorder cause the happenstance growing of extra fingers. I think that the "finger" idea was applied a different number of times than it is in most people.

Is it besides the point whether or not the success of certain genetic arrangements slowly refined such "ideas" as that of limbs until these came to be encoded as the distinct "ideas" of which they now appear?

One of my ideas in this thread is that an idea, while requiring a medium, is independent of its mechanism. So an .mp3 song is still one whether it's recorded in RAM, or on a CD, or in an arrangement of colored shells on a beach on a distant planet. I'm pretty sure that if you ran an evolution simulator with Earthlike parameters, you'd still end up with limbed organisms, despite the lack of DNA.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm far less certain that earthlike conditions would produce limbed creatures.  We're a minority here..in earth conditions.  Our existence has never been and is still not guaranteed.   The mechanism in your example....the requirement -you- placed, would be earthlike conditions, wouldn't it? How is the "idea of limbness" independent of a mechanism, in that example?

(I'd ask the same question regarding the song, and it's mp3, cd, ram....and shells on the beach, ofc)

[Whateverist]

And here on earth there are lineages with six or eight or many legs as well as no legs at all. But personally I like my five appendages just fine so I'm happy to be part of the Chordate tribe, especially the subset of bipeds (hold the feathers).

[bennyboy]

I'm far less certain that earthlike conditions would produce limbed creatures.  We're a minority here..in earth conditions.  Our existence has never been and is still not guaranteed.   The mechanism in your example....the requirement -you- placed, would be earthlike conditions, wouldn't it?  How is the "idea of limbness" independent of a mechanism, in that example?

It's not independent of "a" mechanism. It's independent of "its" mechanism, in the sense that the idea will be represented, but not necessarily by DNA (or a CD or whatever). However, my idea is that given similar enough environmental conditions, the statistical chance of similar (or identical) ideas developing would be very high.

What I'm not sure about is whether DNA might be so overwhelmingly likely given Earthlike conditions that we might find something much like it in any water-covered planet with similar chemistry which has life.