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ANightmareOnBakerSt t1_j9wsg3m wrote

Reply to comment by Otto_von_Boismarck in Reality is an openness that we can never fully grasp. We need closures as a means of intervening in the world. | Post-postmodern philosopher and critic of realism Hilary Lawson explains closure theory. by IAI_Admin

I call it a bottle only so that others may know what I am talking about. The actual word or wording I use for the name is irrelevant it could be bottle or botella if I was in Mexico. Saying it is a collection of particles, is just another way of describing the thing I am calling a bottle. If a less common used way of describing the thing that I am calling a bottle. It seems to me that your comment further proves that this is essentially a semantic issue.

Further, I would insist that the thing I am calling a bottle exists and I only describe it with the language I have using the data from my senses.

It seems to me though, that you seem to think, that the language I use, and the data I collect, from my senses are what the thing I am calling a bottle actually is.

The world around us is not the data from our senses. The data from our senses only informs us of what the world around us actually is.

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Otto_von_Boismarck t1_j9ydgib wrote

Youre missing the point. There simply isn't an actual "thing" called a bottle, it's simply a category for a collection of extrinsic properties. The bottle only exists so far as it exists in the construct of your mind.

You keep trying to talk about this "thing" called a bottle, but it doesn't exist. I could use a flame thrower on the bottle and it would change into something entirely different, but would still broadly exist of the same subatomic particles. Just with different extrinsic properties, and therefore looking like something different to us.

Yes of course our mind doesn't actually make an accurate and realistic version of the universe. That's why we see "things" and not just clumps of fields interacting with each other. We can't actually see subatomic particles after all. But plenty of evidence suggests those exist.

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ANightmareOnBakerSt t1_ja7cy2l wrote

Things either exist or they do not. It’s seems incoherent to say the bottle does not exist except in my mind and also to claim that thing in my mind exist as a bunch of fundamental particles. This seems to me what you are claiming is the case.

It is almost like you are saying the thing I am calling a bottle exists but not in the way I think it does. But, I do realize that the thing I am calling a bottle is made of a bunch of fundamental particles. It is just that is of no utility to me or anyone else to describe individual objects as a collection of fundamental particles, because that is such a general description that it could be used for any thing.

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Otto_von_Boismarck t1_ja7o5qa wrote

Well no the mind is obviously also not real. It is also extrinsic. And our own mind interprets itself as a "thing". But regardless that wasn't the original subject of discussion. And yes you're right that it serves no utility. I don't deny that. The reason the human brain thinks in "things" is exactly because it serves a useful evolutionary purpose.

In general, it is a hard subject to talk about because our mind constantly wants to categorize EVERYTHING.

Edit: I have a way to explain it better. Essentially our mind constructs are an emergent property from our brain, while our brain itself emerged from biochemistry, while biochemistry emerged from chemistry and so on. They are all extrinsic, and somewhere down there there's "things" (again I use that terminology because our minds are simply limited in that way) that are in fact intrinsic. Electrons seem to be one for example. Meaning there is nothing that electrons themselves emerge from. And again, this might change based on developments in science.

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