frank

Nietzsche by the lake with friend https://i.imgur.com/2f3jsjE.jpg

Jesus with fish https://i.imgur.com/YZI08ix.jpg

Nietzsche with frog https://i.imgur.com/covtbRY.jpg

I know. The notion that we've made philosophical progress in the last 2400 years is an illusion. I guess I do identity with an internal locus. Plus I'...

That makes sense. For me, despite my attempts to see the issue in a neutral way, I lean toward realism, by which I mean that what each of us is direct...

Interesting. Some see in Plato's Forms a hint of the real anti-democratic sentiment of Plato. I guess the accompanying folklore is that Plato saw in S...

I agree. My point is that he'll continue to speak in terms of universals and abstract objects while maintaining that the things he's referring to don'...

I'm sure you realize stones don't have any weight in outer space. By your account, the nominalist is pretty confused.

Sorry, I should have said his account is an alternative to traditional nominalism like Occam's. He didn't believe in objects. A thing is a bundle of p...

Hume gives a non-Platonic alternative to nominalism. I wasn't really interested in pushing any particular account of abstract objects and universals. ...

Sounds reasonable.

I've lost track of your point. It seems like you're constructing word salad. My question to NOS about whether spin, as an essential property of electr...

First Italian American president: Ron DeSantis

Yes, there's a difference. Saying that tops have the property of being able to spin is not the same as saying that tops sometimes spin. You could have...

Good plan.

I wasn't being dismissive. I just didn't have any response.

I think you're saying that you're satisfied that things sometimes spin. That tops have the property of being able to spin is a different proposition, ...

Then there's no real foundation for descriptions. Right?

NOS has been more gracious than I could ask for. He's rational, to the point, and eminently non-abusive. :up:

The whole discussion takes place in the shadow of Plato. You're offering his middle period view.

I don't know how they exist, although I have speculations. I just know there's a logical problem with denying that they exist, which is the nominalist...

Propositions are the primary truthbearers. It's the content of an uttered sentence. Multiple sentences can be uttered to express the same proposition....

The argument comes down to insisting that you can't think or communicate without using universals and abstract objects.

@"Jamal" If you ever decide to sell TPF merch, I can supply AI generated art for t-shirts. There are options in the lounge AI thread.

They would allow that some tops spin some of the time. Their starting point is that there are only individual entities. Think of M. Thatcher saying th...

It would probably bring clarity if you explained what you think a proposition is.

The spin of an electron isn't like a top spinning. Electrons don't actually spin. So to address your question, let's think of tops. One of the propert...

More AI generated art: Socrates' (I really like this one) https://i.imgur.com/907jamf.jpg Nietzsche as a Russian icon: https://i.imgur.com/gFi0XCv.jpg...

A proposition is a state of affairs. Propositions transcend time and space by definition. It's easy to demonstrate that they can't be the product of a...

I agree we can't escape the use 9f abstract objects and universals.

A description is an abstract object, since it's made of propositions, so you're confirming the existence of at least one independent abstract object. ...

In the OP, I offered to take either side of the debate. I'm interested in where the arguments lead.

Sometimes things have contrary properties, but the forms don't. :grin: That's from Plato's Parmenides. This suggests that the whole issue is beyond ou...

Spin is a particular kind of momentum, which is mass times velocity. Spin is represented as a vector. The electron itself is a point particle. It does...

Are you saying that speaking of a specific electron's movements is sufficient to give the word "electron" its conventional meaning?

You'll have no way to explain what an electron is in real terms. It becomes blank. See what I mean?

You've moved to shifting the burden instead of answering my question. That doesn't bode well for your argument.

Was I supposed to get that from the Tim Jones song?

I haven't made any claims. I was simply asking if the spin of an electron is real, unreal, or some third option. I was aiming to explain that if you r...

Is the spin real or not?

I'm not ignoring your post, but NOS made a specific claim that I'm working back toward.

So the spin of the election is not real?

So when you talk about electrons, which have the property of spin, you speak of spin as if it's something real, is that correct?

Long, drawn out fart noise.

Which would be impossible if it were outlawed by a global government. See how nice?

But can you really escape universals and abstract objects? When you separate the universe down to its tiniest parts, what do you call those parts?

Long, drawn-out fart noise.

Which would be impossible if it were outlawed by a global government.

:up:

What kind of realism are you referring to?