tonyenglish7 wrote:OK, if you are sitting at home laughing at me because I think you are serious you have to understand that much of the stuff that materialist throw at me is silly.
I'm not laughing at you. I'm just trying to understand your position.
I did mean what I said about your argument to be seemingly materialistic: it seems like you're arguing that the existence of anything, even something as non-physical as a concept, requires some sort of physical expression... in this case, in the form of a God. And while that God might not be made up of the sub-atomic particles like matter of this universe, it's still an existant thing with physical effects; in fact, all physical effects would be traceable back to this God, right?
IMO, this is materialism through the back door. The materialistic position is that only physically real things exist. The "standard" expression of this is to say that if a thing isn't physically real, it doesn't exist; it seems like your take on it goes the other way: if a thing exists, it is physically real.
tonyenglish7 wrote:OK, you said, that you didn't see why concepts had to be real? I am not sure how to respond to that but maybe the idea that there are no concepts is the only real concept? Ugh, see it is so ridicules that I can't even wrap my mind around the thought that concepts are not real. A unicorn may not be real but the thought of one is. Are your thoughts real?
Depends on what you mean by "real". If you mean "not imaginary", then no, a unicorn is not real, whether you're talking about the actual creature or the concept of one. In other senses of the word, I might agree that a physical unicorn is not real but the idea of a unicorn is.
Here's the thing: I think that the terms we're using here are ambiguous in ways that matter for the discussion. When you say "exist" or "real", in what sense are you using those words? Are we really using them in the same sense when we say "concepts exist" as we do when we say "minds exist"?
And for that matter, it seems like you're using a definition of "concept" that's roughly synonymous with "thought" in some ways but not in others. Is a logical law a "concept" if there's no human being to think of it? In the sense that "concept" means "a thing conceived", probably not. Does this mean that the existence of people has an effect of the truth or falsehood of that logical law? I don't think so.
This is why I felt like there are semantic games going on here. I mean, look at how we define the word concept: it's all wrapped up in thought, recognition or perception... i.e. things that require minds. The more I think about it, the more I think that something ceases to be a "concept" when there's nobody around to think about it. This doesn't mean that the underlying physical or logical law stops being true, but it means that the term "concept" no longer applies.
Look at it this way: underlying truths or laws (such as logical absolutes, if they actually work as absolutes) can be thought of as the terrain. Concepts can be thought of as the maps to describe that terrain. The map is inexorably dependent on the terrain, but it's also the creation of a mind for its own purposes. And while a map
would imply a mapmaker, it's completely possible to have a terrain without a map.
