(December 5, 2021 at 2:44 am)Ferrocyanide Wrote: You seem to be talking about design in this case.
A design (blueprint) is not a physical thing. It is not made of atoms.
But the actual chair is made of atoms. The collection of atoms is a representation of a chair.
The reason philosophers choose ordinary objects to talk about the issue is because it simplifies things. Philosophers posit that the chair is "made of simples"... some constituent parts: atoms... or quarks or whatever particle, quantum field, or what have you, that is most fundamental.
But "atom" is a conceived of object just like the chair. All you are doing by saying that "atoms are real" is shifting the metaphysical burden to a different ordinary object. "Are atoms real?" is just as a metaphysically salient question as "Are chairs real?"
Quote:Instead of calling it design, you can call it information as well.
Words are pieces of information as well. They aren’t made of atoms.
However, you can take some ink and put it on paper and you have a representation of the word. The ink and paper is made of atoms.
Is design real? Is information real? (Again) are atoms real? All these are concepts. Just like chair. We're focusing on chairs because it's a simple thing.
Quote:Music is also information. It is non-physical.
Music is a physical phenomenon. A disturbance. A wave traveling through air molecules. Music is sound. Sound is a physical phenomenon.
Quote:Stories in books, musics, the blueprint for an airplane, a circle, letters and languages and basically anything has a design component and a physical component.
Do stories exist? I would say yes and no. It depends on how you look at it.
Maybe it doesn’t exist as long as it isn’t written on paper or in the mind of a person.
Normally I say no to make it clear to people I make a distinction between information and reality (atoms).
Does a god exist? Yes, in the minds of people. Smurfs exist in the minds of people as well.
If you want to argue that songs, chairs, stars, black holes, atoms and other ordinary objects exist, I pretty much agree with you. Gods are a different story. I'm highly suspicious of the category error claims being advanced by Bel and Neo. I did want to step in and defend the assertion that metaphysical assumptions (such as "chairs exist", "chairs don't exist", "atoms exist", "atoms don't exist") don't depend on empirical findings to be proven true or false. I agree with them on that, but little else.
I think the comparison of God to a tooth fairy is apt. If someone thinks God hears their prayers like a person does, and answers (or doesn't answer) those prayers like a person would, then I think the best conclusion is that they are talking about an imaginary being.
Quote:For a social convention to exist, you need a population of humans and humans are made of atoms.
Is a social convention real? Are atoms real? Shifting the metaphysical burden doesn't resolve the issue. That's why we keep it to something simple like chairs. Philosophers understand that things are composed of atoms and atoms are composed of subatomic particles. We aren't idiots. If atoms solved the problem, we could figure that out. And there are several good solutions to the problem. You should watch the vsauce video. One of the proposed solutions will appeal to you. I can almost guarantee.