(September 15, 2014 at 6:33 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: I say that holes are a good example of something that both exists and is immaterial. A hole is known with respect to something material but is not itself material. It is possible to know about something that is indeed immaterial through observation of something that is material. As such a hole is defined by what surrounds it, but the hole itself is not the same as the surrounding material.
The main concern I have with bringing this up is to show that someone can deduce the existence of immaterial things from material things. Likewise people can deduce the existence of material objects from personal experience which is not a material thing. Thus people can go back and forth trying to define material things, like brains, and immaterial things, like minds, in terms of the other without reaching any conclusion as to which is primary. They thus remain forever stuck in paradox. (No matter, never mind) The simpler solution is to accept both materiality and immateriality are part of one larger reality that is a hypostatic union of both.
Holes, and similar things like gaps and tears, do not depend on specific substances for their existence. This property allows people to say things like, this hole in the metal is the same size as that hole in this paper. If you insist that holes do not properly exist, then you simultaneously and tacit deny the existence of other forms, like triangles, and categories, like unity and extension.
Ooooh, look! A shiny new fallacious argument to play with!
A hole, or rip, or tear has no existence other than as a descriptive aspect of that which is described as having that hole, rip, or tear.
Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.
Science is not a subject, but a method.
