[Serious] Thomism: Then & Now

[emjay]

Mereological nihilism posits that there is no object with proper parts.  There are no chairs, no tables, no consciousness and no gods, too.  That we like to carve things up, but that's not the way they are in reality.  

Consciousness is a good example of that, regardless of whether people will argue it forever.  Gods, and beings in general - such as the first, necessary, or ultimate being each of the five ways is powerfully motivated to conclude with, are also examples of proposed objects with proper parts.  In fact, it's the overriding thesis of thomistic argument that these are the parts by which we can know of a god.

Okay, I think I see now... that's a bold claim. I'll have to think hard about that to get my head around it, but first impression is that sure there may be these fuzzy edges of definition, but there is something in reality... something for instance qualitatively different between consciousness itself and anything outside of it (ie mind vs matter)... so what I'm saying is, even if you can't put a box around it and say 'this is a thing' in mereological nihilism, in some situations at least, there clearly is some differentiable 'thing' there to explain (ie 'mind' or 'matter' in this example), even if that's not the case at the fuzzier edges when definitions/boundaries get harder to define. IOW some sort of undeniable core, at least for some 'things' especially if they are qualitatively different.

I'm sorry... I realise on reflection this question doesn't make much sense. Perhaps it shows that sometimes I shouldn't actually give my first impressions because they often fixate on the wrong aspects of what is being said. As I said, I don't claim to have the sharpest intellect. And I may still be wrong as to what you mean; but I presume what's dumb about my question here is that mereological nihilism has no difficulty differentiating/identifying the qualitiatively different 'things' we generally recognise as 'things'? Ie it knows what is generally meant by the chair (as differentiated from everything else that is not a chair), it just has a different perspective on what that means.  

This may be another dumb question, perhaps similar but hopefully better posed than the first one, does this theory have implications for what I'm calling 'differentiation'; ie if instead of a room containing traditional objects X, Y, and Z with 'proper parts', you have a room containing objects X, Y, and Z all composed of 'simples' arranged X, Y, and Z-wise, respectively, and for the sake of argument say there's no space between those objects (ie no 'void'... if that would complicate things), then compositionally what would appear to be the case is that you just have a undifferentiated mass of 'simples', not that much different from if you were imagining the world just in terms of atoms, but where there is still differentiation at the level of perception, ie objects X, Y, and Z (even if arranged, X, Y, or Z, -wise)... or am I missing the point again and that such a collection of objects... which is a composition in a sense, but not the same sense as wholes to parts of individual things... might be further reduced in mereological nihilism to something like 'simples arranged (XYZ)-wise'?, allowing therefore for all sorts of hierarchical or otherwise compositions of 'things' to be reduced to one undifferentiated construct on the one hand, and one undifferentiated mass of simples on the other? Sorry if I've just gone down a rabbit hole, or worse, the wrong rabbit hole feel free not to answer if that's the case, but just showing you my thought process if nothing else, however right or wrong it may be.

Basically, all I know about it is what I've read on the Wiki and what you've told me, so beyond the basic takeaway for me of it being a practical theory if nothing else, that looks like it would help deal with some of the arbitrariness of defining the composition of things (as would its opposite, mereological universalism, but in a different way), I don't know the deeper history or other motivations there were for creating the theory, so I know I may still be missing the big picture of what it's about.