Philosophy Recommendations

[Istvan]

His argument can be summed up blah blah blah

You ignored every word I wrote, so kindly allow me to return the favor.

[HappySkeptic]

Since you took issue with me calling the video crap, I elaborated on the video.

I don't usually do blow-by-blow quoting and refutation. That isn't my style, and leads discussions off into strange places that miss the main point.

Was there really something you wanted me to refute in your text? I don't really mind your view. Science is indeed a human endeavor, but it is "about" something that is real. There are potentially infinite theories that are consistent with observation, but almost all of them are not useful, elegant and concise.

[Elek_the_Chthonaut]

Pretty neat, wish I could bookmark

[Elek_the_Chthonaut]

His argument can be summed up as saying that there are an infinite number of ways to conceptualize relationships. I'm not sure this is true, but it is certainly a huge set, if not infinite.

He then argues that these concepts are "actual reality", and do not exist in the underlying universe as "something in space-time".

From a scientific point of view, this makes no sense.

First, concepts can either be about "actual" observed relationships, or they can be about imagined relationships that do not exist. Observed relationships, like the Earth being bigger than the Moon DO exist in spacetime.

The philosophical Jiu-Jitsu of changing the words "observed relationship" to "concept" makes it seem like the relationship only exists in our mind. No, the Earth is bigger than the Moon, and this affects their orbits, what objects fall into them, and results in the Moon not having an atmosphere. Unless Gabriel is a Sophist, those relationships exist whether he thinks of the "concept" or not.

There is a tendency for religious (and it seems philosophers) to reject physical reductionism, because so many of the relationships we see in the world (especially involving living things) is difficult to explain in reductionist terms. That is because of emergent properties. State changes in systems, especially chaotic systems, result in properties that are only understandable in principle (though perhaps can't be calculated) from the reductionist principles, the description of the system, and knowledge of the past system state.

Yes, reductionism only gives you the to most basic tools on which all the interesting things get built up. But, all those interesting things owe their existence to a complex mapping of fundamental quantum relationships. Yes, the ways these interactions can combine are huge (though I don't think infinite). That doesn't mean those "actual observed" relationships do not already exist in the universe.

I prefer to call "emergent properties" collaborative properties because "emergent" implies some type of metaphysical plane from which these properties emerge rather than fromlatent properties in the separate entities having a "chemical reaction" so to speak.