Philosophy Now Forum

godelian wrote: ↑Wed Apr 09, 2025 6:18 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 09, 2025 6:10 pm

godelian wrote: ↑Wed Apr 09, 2025 6:05 pm
Abstract objects leave their shadows in the physical world.

It's the other way around, actually. The physical world is what gives us belief in numbers. Numbers are an idea "abstracted from" reality. That's what "abstract" implies, actually. It's only when you have sheep, or coins, or emus, or pencils, that you have an application for the idea of "19-ness." Plato understood that.

So from what is the concept "Allah" abstracted? If he's a "shadow," what object casts that "shadow"?

It's the other way around. What we see with our eyes are just shadows in the cave. In order to see the truth, i.e. the abstractions, you have to use pure, blind reason.

"Blind?" Well, reason is never that. Reason is disciplined, focused and direct, and uses evidence and logic. It sees its objects, and deduces from them.

The cave is just an analogy. It's not a proof of anything, or even an evidence of anything. It's just a way Plato conceptualized his own situation, speculating on the idea of a "realm of pure forms." But this is old news, and I'm sure you know that, too.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 09, 2025 6:44 pm "Blind?" Well, reason is never that.

Pure reason is blind.

ChatGPT: what is pure reason?

"Pure reason" is a philosophical concept, most famously developed by Immanuel Kant in his work Critique of Pure Reason (1781). Here's a breakdown of what it means:

Pure Reason = Reason Independent of Experience

Pure reason refers to the use of reason without relying on sensory experience. It's about what the mind can know just by thinking—a priori knowledge (knowledge that comes before or without experience).

Examples of Pure Reason

Mathematics: "2 + 2 = 4" is true regardless of experience.
Logic: "If A = B and B = C, then A = C."

These are things we know through thinking alone—not by touching, seeing, or hearing.

godelian wrote: ↑Wed Apr 09, 2025 6:49 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 09, 2025 6:44 pm "Blind?" Well, reason is never that.

Pure reason is blind.

No, it's not. That's an absurd claim. If it were, then to "reason" would be exactly as good and no better than to "make up" or "imagine." Reason has structure and discipline, and takes particular evidence into itself. Like mathematics, it's a procedure, not an object.

You really have to stop using ChatGPT instead of thinking, you know. Somebody else's programming is not better than just taking somebody else's word for things. I'm trying to help you reason things out...which is what you seemed to think you were going to do at the start. So let's do that.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 09, 2025 6:59 pm If it were, then to "reason" would be exactly as good and no better than to "make up" or "imagine." Reason has structure and discipline, and takes particular evidence into itself. Like mathematics, it's a procedure, not an object.

The number 3 is both the trail of the counting procedure as well as an abstract object. In fact, the computation trail is the proof of the existence of the abstract object. A good part of the digital world is indeed "make up" and "imagine". Other parts are a new virtual reality, which is very real in itself. Other parts just try to mirror the physical universe. Pure reason, i.e. computation, can be used for pretty much whatever you want. Pure reason can also be used to see the truth of which the physical universe is just a shadow.

godelian wrote: ↑Wed Apr 09, 2025 7:10 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 09, 2025 6:59 pm If it were, then to "reason" would be exactly as good and no better than to "make up" or "imagine." Reason has structure and discipline, and takes particular evidence into itself. Like mathematics, it's a procedure, not an object.

The number 3 is both the trail

No, a "trail," whether "computational" or actual, is an object. The number 3 is a quantity, not an object.

...the physical universe is just a shadow.

A "shadow" of what?

Every "shadow" is thrown by something. What is that "something"?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 09, 2025 7:32 pm No, a "trail," whether "computational" or actual, is an object. The number 3 is a quantity, not an object.

This is the age-old discussion of nominalism versus (Platonic) realism. My position depends on the systematic reification of abstraction.

godelian wrote: ↑Thu Apr 10, 2025 12:55 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 09, 2025 7:32 pm No, a "trail," whether "computational" or actual, is an object. The number 3 is a quantity, not an object.

This is the age-old discussion of nominalism versus (Platonic) realism.

No, it's actually not. And it's much simpler than you'd apparently like to make it. It's just the question of whether or not God is real. I say yes, you seem to say that God is a concept, an abstraction, just an idea.

You're making what's called "a category error," which means "treating something that's in one category as if it were in a different one."

Number 3, or 19, or whatever, are abstractions. They're quantities. They do not specify the nature of the noun they modify, and will equally modify any noun. And they never cause anything.

God, on the other hand, is claimed to cause all kinds of things, including the very Creation itself, and you. If God is an abstraction, then He would be just a concept, an idea...and nothing specific. In fact God (or Allah) would not even be a noun, and would not be capable of causing anything.

Is that your view of God?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 10, 2025 1:42 am

godelian wrote: ↑Thu Apr 10, 2025 12:55 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 09, 2025 7:32 pm No, a "trail," whether "computational" or actual, is an object. The number 3 is a quantity, not an object.

This is the age-old discussion of nominalism versus (Platonic) realism.

No, it's actually not. And it's much simpler than you'd apparently like to make it. It's just the question of whether or not God is real. I say yes, you seem to say that God is a concept, an abstraction, just an idea.

You're making what's called "a category error," which means "treating something that's in one category as if it were in a different one."

Number 3, or 19, or whatever, are abstractions. They're quantities. They do not specify the nature of the noun they modify, and will equally modify any noun. And they never cause anything.

God, on the other hand, is claimed to cause all kinds of things, including the very Creation itself, and you. If God is an abstraction, then He would be just a concept, an idea...and nothing specific. In fact God (or Allah) would not even be a noun, and would not be capable of causing anything.

Is that your view of God?

Any physicalist would typically make these objections. But then again, a physicalist is not likely to believe in God, to begin with.

Just like numbers, God has no physical body. This is a core belief in Islam. God is active too, and takes initiative, unlike a number.

As I have pointed out already, I believe that God is an active abstraction.

godelian wrote: ↑Sat Apr 05, 2025 4:59 am The emperor of Japan is not a god. He never was, and he will never be. The same is true of Christ. He was not a god, and he will never be.

There simply are no divine humans.
Get over it!

That word does get thrown around a bit too loosely but it can be appreciated as a compliment if circumstances warrant.

"God is active too, and takes initiative"

Now how one understands this determines (and reveals) whether they view 'god' as a transcendent seperate thing acting on the material world or an immanent thing acting with and through the world. That whole natura naturatus or whatever thing.

If the former view is taken, then one ends up dividing the world into events caused by 'god' and events caused by his nemesis, the gotdamn devil!, so that there can be an excuse for evil in the world without blaming 'god'.

I believe this reasoning is paltry and abhorent. It identifies 'god's' activity in the world selectively and with bias (the exodus was good or bad depending on who you were, or the slaughter of those other folks, etc). In fact, perhaps that very feature of this former kind of view - that problem with using a monotheism and needing another bad god to blame the evil stuff on - is what brought the three abrahamic monotheisms to life. An anthropomorphic transcendental view of Aquinas's 'god' at the core of its metaphysics.

So when 'god' takes initiative, that initiative is identified as whatever suits the believers of that religion; sometimes, he intervenes and performs miracles. Other times, he punishes or rewards. But he doesn't ever, or is never active in, rather, creating and disseminating evil in the world. That's the gotdamn devil! that does that.

Ergo, the prob. You now have that judgement-relativity affecting the evaluation of 'god's' activity. One religion claims 'god' was active in the destruction of the world trade centers while another believes that was an evil act shirley not caused by 'god'.

To abolish this most paltry and abhorent of philosophical problems, we must make Spinozean modifications to our Aquinasean monotheistic model. By 'god's initiative', we understand that which is the active organizing principle in nature rather than a principle acting upon it from a distance. Thus, even inactivity, absence, or the negation of a property or capacity (a person has no sight or lives a very short miserable life and are thought to be 'lacking') is still a postive and complete expression of nature. There is nothing lacking in either case. It is only our sentiments and sympathies that bring us to this conclusion, and so we misunderstand necessarily.

Under this view, every event, every thing, is perfectly and precisely what it is in full positivity of being. Something only seems incomplete or malformed when we assign it to a similar type and compare... but there are no types (nothing is equal enough to form these sets), only individual things and events.

So now we have a world that seems at times horrible, and this is not the work of a 'god' or a gotdamn devil! but the unintelligent impersonal organizing causal force pervading all zat eegzists.

Does 'god' take initiative. Yes and no. More like 'god' IS the initiative, not an initiative acting toward some end, on or with a thing.

godelian wrote: ↑Thu Apr 10, 2025 1:55 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 10, 2025 1:42 am

godelian wrote: ↑Thu Apr 10, 2025 12:55 am
This is the age-old discussion of nominalism versus (Platonic) realism.

No, it's actually not. And it's much simpler than you'd apparently like to make it. It's just the question of whether or not God is real. I say yes, you seem to say that God is a concept, an abstraction, just an idea.

You're making what's called "a category error," which means "treating something that's in one category as if it were in a different one."

Number 3, or 19, or whatever, are abstractions. They're quantities. They do not specify the nature of the noun they modify, and will equally modify any noun. And they never cause anything.

God, on the other hand, is claimed to cause all kinds of things, including the very Creation itself, and you. If God is an abstraction, then He would be just a concept, an idea...and nothing specific. In fact God (or Allah) would not even be a noun, and would not be capable of causing anything.

Is that your view of God?

Any physicalist would typically make these objections.

I'm not a physicalist. That physicalists might make an objection also doesn't imply that objection isn't fair. It just means it's an objection physicalists would share with people of other belief systems.

Just like numbers, God has no physical body. This is a core belief in Islam. God is active too, and takes initiative, unlike a number.

Judaism and Christianity also insist God is not physical. But that's not the question: the question is, "Could God become a man, if He chose to do that, or would that be impossible for the putatively omnipotent God to do?"

I can't see why it would even be difficult. If God is the creator of all men, what's the particular challenge in His becoming a man?

I believe that God is an active abstraction.

"Active abstraction" is a self-contradiction. If something's "abstract," then it cannot be "active." If it's "active" in the world, then it's not "abstract."

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 10, 2025 1:42 pm If God is the creator of all men, what's the particular challenge in His becoming a man?

The challenge is not becoming a man. The challenge is that he must also stop being God. The term "to become" implies that you stop being what you were before.

godelian wrote: ↑Thu Apr 10, 2025 4:33 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 10, 2025 1:42 pm If God is the creator of all men, what's the particular challenge in His becoming a man?

The challenge is not becoming a man. The challenge is that he must also stop being God.

Why?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 10, 2025 4:53 pm

godelian wrote: ↑Thu Apr 10, 2025 4:33 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 10, 2025 1:42 pm If God is the creator of all men, what's the particular challenge in His becoming a man?

The challenge is not becoming a man. The challenge is that he must also stop being God.

Why?

If God grabs total control over a man, he does not "become" that man. He just controls him. He is still there in his original form. It is only when his original form disappears that he "becomes" something else.

godelian wrote: ↑Thu Apr 10, 2025 5:02 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 10, 2025 4:53 pm

godelian wrote: ↑Thu Apr 10, 2025 4:33 pm
The challenge is not becoming a man. The challenge is that he must also stop being God.

Why?

It is only when his original form disappears that he "becomes" something else.

Wait. First you said that God HAS no form (or "body"), and now you say he needs an "original form" (or some kind of "body") so badly that if he abandons it he becomes something different? Make that make sense, if you can.