litewave

"Nothing" in the absolute sense (absence of everything) is logically inconsistent and therefore impossible. If there were absolutely nothing then ther...

We are able to put arbitrary thoughts, words or sounds together but that doesn't mean that these collections refer to something in reality.

Harry Potter exists in a certain way, for example as a collection of qualia in our consciousness. Whether he also exists as a concrete person in the p...

An act of thinking exists as a collection of qualia in one's consciousness. But if they refer to impossibilities such as a triangular circle they refe...

Because its non-existence would result in logical inconsistency, like a triangle being a circle. The ultimate reason for why anything exists is logica...

I think it also tells me why the thing exists: the thing exists because it is identical to itself and different from other things.

How about taking logical consistency as a "brute fact"? That means, something exists iff it is identical to itself and different from others. This "br...

But it seems he at least acknowledged there are stable regularities in nature. To me this seems the same as acknowledging there are laws in nature, ev...

But why would a conjunction of events be regular? Did he think there are regularities like the law of gravitation?

How did Hume explain the observed fact that when you drop an apple it always falls down? That it's a coincidence?

If it is a fact that the world is a certain way, then I would say that it is objectively true that the world is that way. This seems to be the usual c...

As I said, non-finite clauses have a subject-predicate structure too, just not explicit.

But what are facts if not objective truths?

But I guess he didn't think that it was a fact and simultaneously that it wasn't true.

Non-finite clauses have an implied subject-predicate structure too, and they can be reworded to make the structure explicit. That was just an example ...

I don't know anyone who would think that it is a fact that you will fall when you jump out of a window, and at the same time doubt that the propositio...

They have, but their meanings are in reality, in facts.

Propositions have a subject-predicate structure, for example "Surrealist art is exhibited in the local gallery." "Surrealist art" is subject and "is e...

What I called instantiated propositions is what you called facts. If you jump out of a window you will fall - that is a fact and a true proposition.

Ok but I don't see how subjective truth is useful. I am interested in reality, not in beliefs.

But if it is a fact that there is a window then the proposition "There is a window" is true. And if it is a fact that there is no window then the prop...

I don't agree with your view that it is a matter of subjective judgment whether there is a window in a wall or whether you will fall if you jump out o...

I would say that any things that are differentiated from each other make up a "space" of some kind, in which they are differentiated from each other. ...

First, you need to differentiate between proposition and statement. Proposition is a feature of reality, completely mind-independent. Its truth in a w...

I didn't say they refer mind-independently. It takes a mind to assign referents to words.

The subject-predicate structure is the structure of the window existing in the wall. It is a feature of reality. It is mind-independent. The sounds or...

Or we can say that one abstract line is instantiated in four particular lines. The abstract line and the four particular lines are five different thin...

Words are just our names for things and relations in reality. For example, people in English speaking countries agreed to use the word "window" as a n...

"If you jump out of window you will fall." It is well known what the words in this statement refer to. Do you think that the truth of this statement d...

A space can consist of identical points, that is, points that are the same except for their position in the space they make up. Now imagine that the p...

Words have their referents in reality. Once it is chosen which words refer to what in reality, it is an objective fact whether a statement made of tho...

But a statement is true if it corresponds to reality. It is irrelevant whether anyone subjectively judges it as true.

Do you think there is no objective truth? No external reality?

You can have copies of a world that are the same as that world. Their only difference would be their different position (place) in reality.

Propositions are the meanings of statements, that is, the referents of statements in reality. Take the proposition "There is no unicorn on Main Street...

Propositions are a kind of properties of reality. People's statements refer to these properties.

It is coming from the same source as the proposition that a circle is not a square: from reality. Every thing exists in the sense in which it is defin...

"contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction So if in one s...

It is contained in the definition of a unicorn that it doesn't exist on Main Street (at least in our world), just as it is contained in the definition...

I said nothing about the area of a circle or a square. I said a circle is a square, which is a clearly inconsistent statement. The statement "There is...

So you would say that Joe's idea that a circle is a square is consistent?

Joe has the idea "There is a unicorn on Main Street". He may not know that there is no unicorn on Main Street, but his not knowing it doesn't make his...

But his idea is inconsistent, because it is about an inconsistent thing (a unicorn on Main Street).

A consistent something, whether it is abstract or concrete, exists. An inconsistent "something", whether it is defined as concrete or abstract, doesn'...

I am not sure what you mean by "instantiation". I mean the instatiation to be the relation between an abstract (general) thing (property) and its inst...

If someone imagines a unicorn existing on our planet, then they define it inconsistently, even when they are not aware of the inconsistency. They defi...

Whenever you have an idea of a thing, you define that thing. You define what that thing looks like, its properties, its parts, its environment etc.

An inconsistent idea defines something as not being what it is. For example the idea of an apple that is not an apple. That's why it has no referent i...

An inconsistent idea is a collection of thoughts/qualia that doesn't refer to anything in reality. The collection of thoughts/qualia itself is consist...

If the idea requires environmental conditions that are inconsistent with the existence of a unicorn then the idea is inconsistent.