Physical idealism

[The Grand Nudger]

And when two words mean the same thing.....which is apparently the relationship between your idea and my material...then they're the same thing. You -just- told me there was no difference...I'm simply accepting the truth of that statement. We could flip it the other way round, if you prefer, and say that I'm referring to idealism -as- materialism...but it doesn't matter how we arrange the two in that statement...if there's no difference between them.

[bennyboy]

And when two words mean the same thing.....which is apparently the relationship between your idea and my material...then they're the same thing.

No.  Material is stuff and the properties of stuff.  An idea is a formal principle.  You could say that ideas are properties of some arrangements of stuff, maybe (I'd disagree), but you can't equate materialism and idealism, since they aren't the same.

[The Grand Nudger]

Everything you've referred to in support of or -as- a "formal principle" is something that I would call a material object or material interaction.  

For example, you imagine that the "idea of fishiness" would drive convergent development on alien worlds of exotic life which people would..IDK, -call- fish (though they call dolphins fish here on earth... so I'm not sure if that means anything).  Well, okay...forget that I don't agree with that at all.  What is the "idea of fishiness"?  You keep referring to the liquid water world and strategies for success in a liquid water world.  That's what I'd call a material interaction between biota and their environment.  Your "formal principle" is in no way different from my "environmental selective pressure".  

Is it?

[Mudhammam]

Everything you've referred to in support of or -as- a "formal principle" is something that I would call a material object or material interaction.  

An "idea" of a thing is not the same as the materials and the arrangement from and by which an actual thing comes into being. What you two seem to disagree upon is whether or not it was the case that there were no ideas of things until there were things with ideas.

[The Grand Nudger]

You may think that, I may think that..but a few posts back (#38) Benny told me that this wasn't the case.  That there's no difference between what he would call an idea and what I might call "something else". His idea of fish, is the collection of forces which might conspire on a liquid water world to produce a creature with fins and scales not dependant on dna - which is completely interchangeable with the material interactions which I don't think -would- do that...but easily could. Environmental pressure on "whatever it is" that they have instead of DNA.

[Neo-Scholastic]

However, I do believe that while a nominalist need not be a theist, a logically consistent atheist must be either a nominalist or a conceptualist. Most likely this would not be the case with a deist, so your concerns about having to worship some entity are not a concern.

Platonism is not inconsistent with atheism, though I think it is inconsistent with Christianity.

Equating the neo-Platonic Idea of "The All" (as for example found in Plotinus) with a Christian God after the Council of Nicaea would be a bit of a trick. Despite the early speculations of Augustine, Platonism never really got incorporated into Christian doctrine in the same way that Thomistic moderate realism did.

I am a bit puzzled by your thinking that atheism and Platonism can peacefully coexist. At a minimum, Platonic objects are both supernatural and immaterial, which most atheists would reject. Holding to that sort of minimal Platonism would not, I suppose, require someone to believe an intelligent agent governs the Realm of Forms. At the same time, not doing so seems to stop short of a fully developed Platonism, like that of Plotinus, who to my mind is the epitome of pagan Platonist thought.

[Mudhammam]

I am a bit puzzled by your thinking that atheism and Platonism can peacefully coexist. At a minimum, Platonic objects are both supernatural and immaterial, which most atheists would reject. Holding to that sort of minimal Platonism would not, I suppose, require someone to believe an intelligent agent governs the Realm of Forms. At the same time, not doing so seems to stop short of a fully developed Platonism, like that of Plotinus, who to my mind is the epitome of pagan Platonist thought.

I'm not sure how you could derive the supernatural directly from Platonism unless you simply equate nature with the physical world, rather than allowing certain Platonic objects to equally constitute its form... though, obviously, none so extravagant as some deities are so defined. There's nothing intrinsic to the idea of immaterial beings (such as geometric figures) that must be excluded in one's rejection of entities represented by the admixture of attributes oftentimes annexed to the various gods. Plotinus, if I recall, also believed that neither existence nor non-existence, being nor non-being, could be predicated upon "the One" or the "All", as it was wholly incomprehensible. In other words, it was a meaningless proposition, in much the same way that I take the claim that the universe came from nothing to be a meaningless proposition.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I'm not sure how you could derive the supernatural directly from Platonism unless you simply equate nature with the physical world...

That was pretty much what I was doing. To me the natural world is defined by all that which is governed by physical interactions. This definition seems to be consistent with what most atheist members of AF believe. That would make any aspect of reality outside of the physical, like geometric figures as-such, supernatural.

There's nothing intrinsic to the idea of immaterial beings (such as geometric figures) that must be excluded in one's rejection of entities represented by the admixture of attributes oftentimes annexed to the various gods.

On first blush that would appear to be the case. The Divine Mind enters the picture if one believes, like I do, that neither the fully transcendent Ideas of Plato or the fully manifest forms of Aristotle addressed the problem of Universals in a satisfactory way.

Plotinus, if I recall, also believed that neither existence nor non-existence, being nor non-being, could be predicated upon "the One" or the "All", as it was wholly incomprehensible.

Yes. It would be fair to call Plotinus a mystic in that sense.

[The Grand Nudger]

I am a bit puzzled by your thinking that atheism and Platonism can peacefully coexist. At a minimum, Platonic objects are both supernatural and immaterial, which most atheists would reject.

No matter how many times people tell you this.........

There are atheists who believe in the supernatural and the immaterial.  Atheism is not a position on the supernatural or immaterial.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I am a bit puzzled by your thinking that atheism and Platonism can peacefully coexist. At a minimum, Platonic objects are both supernatural and immaterial, which most atheists would reject.

No matter how many times people tell you this.........

There are atheists who believe in the supernatural and the immaterial.  Atheism is not a position on the supernatural or immaterial.

Emphasis mine. Last time I checked "most" does not mean "all".