Fifty
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What do you think exists, and why?
POLL COMIN'
POLL COMIN'
What's your ontology?
- Thread starter Fifty
- Start date
CaveDweller
troglodyte
atoms and material objects are probably the only things that fit with my understanding of being scientifically provable stuff. void is kind of what 'not stuff' is and therefore 'is not'. Minds are an expression of the functions of stuff (bodies) and god and other abstractions are expressions of minds.
The gunk of which you speak does not fit in with my vague knowledge of quantum physics.
other might include energy because energy and matter is all there is as far as I know. None of the above? not from my perspective.
The gunk of which you speak does not fit in with my vague knowledge of quantum physics.
other might include energy because energy and matter is all there is as far as I know. None of the above? not from my perspective.
Yoda Power
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Fifty - Could you make a deifintion of exist, before I start voting?
Narz
keeping it real
Beyond what I voted for patterns also exist, otherwise we wouldn't be able to speak meaningfully about anything. Maybe I should have voted for "abstract concepts" also, except that I don't think patterns are an abstract concept but a fundamental property of matter & energy (matter & energy forms itself into patterns).
Sir Matzee
Warlord
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People came from genes and culture. Also the location where you live has a big importance
Fifty
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Its difficult to make a non-circular definition of exist, but I'd roughly say "to exist is to be exemplified somewhere in the universe."
Rambuchan
The Funky President
Voted for "your mind", ie. my own mind. For I am that floating man.
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Which is the poll option for: "Fifty's need to look cool and feel superior by using unusual and / or long words, often incorrectly, as in this case, when simple ones would have done just fine"?
Is it "other", or "other minds"?
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Which is the poll option for: "Fifty's need to look cool and feel superior by using unusual and / or long words, often incorrectly, as in this case, when simple ones would have done just fine"?
Is it "other", or "other minds"?
Perfection
The Great Head.
Can you cite an instance of this here?
I'd be especially interested in what you believe to be incorrect usage.
I am not entirely convinced that anything besides my own mind really exists. Nonetheless, I act as though the following exist:
atoms (in the 'indivisible units of matter' sense)
void
abstract objects (numbers, sets, concepts, properties, etc.)
God
other minds
ordinary material objects (tables, chairs, mountains, etc.)
atoms (in the 'indivisible units of matter' sense)
void
abstract objects (numbers, sets, concepts, properties, etc.)
God
other minds
ordinary material objects (tables, chairs, mountains, etc.)
Fifty
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You really believe that is all that exists?
Ontology is a word that pretty much everybody here knows (at least AFAIK, its used fairly often in religion debates), and the rest of the words aren't particularly unusual or long...?
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
If that is your definition of 'exists' then I will have to turn to quantum physics and say that nothing on your list exists, until it is observed. Except for gunk, which doesn't exist and can't be observed.. and void, as you won't be able to find a piece of the Universe that's fully still. If you zoom in far enough, you'll see quantum fluctuations. I'm not sure if that would qualify as void, but I don't think so, so I'm excluding it.
I'm assuming that the many-worlds interpretation of qf is bs and/or that you mean 'our universe'.
Erik Mesoy
Core Tester / Intern
Hmm. I didn't vote for abstract objects in general, but I'd like to vote for the specific abstract object "the number zero" based on this.
Voted for atoms not existing because so far it's gone molecules - atoms - protons/neutrons - quarks - leptons/hardons/bosons - strings ... and there seems to be no end in sight.
Void is probably exemplified more than 15bil light years from the centre of the universe.
Gunk, see atoms.
Abstract objects, no. See above.
God, yes.
My mind, yes.
Other minds, yes.
Ordinary material objects, yes.
(Those last four are articles of faith, fwiw.)
Other: Heaven, of which material objects and the world is a "shadow" or "echo" or whatever word you want to use since it's all metaphorical anyway.
Fifty
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, I want to leave the whole thing open across time, so you can include stuff that will exist or has existed or whatever. Think of the universe as like "all of spacetime" or something like that.
When he said "atoms", he just meant a unit of matter that cannot be broken down any further (the original meaning of the word), not that what we now call atoms cannot be broken down.
Fifty
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Whadya mean???
Erik knows that! Read his explanation more carefully!
Okay, okay, whatever. But someone was going to say it, I'm sure . . .
Rambuchan
The Funky President
Good initial answer from Eran of Arcadia 
Yes, I'm nitpicking. But I'm only doing so in a vain and juvenile attempt to look cool and intellectually superior.
See the mismatch between the thread title and the poll options. None of them is an ontology.
Yes, I'm nitpicking. But I'm only doing so in a vain and juvenile attempt to look cool and intellectually superior.
It's the only one I can be sure of.
Erik Mesoy
Core Tester / Intern
Essentially that it's far more impractical to argue me out of any of them individually than it is to argue me out of a large part of my Weltanschauung or ideology or mind-state or whatever it's called which I don't remember the name of.
Fifty
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Good initial answer from Eran of Arcadia
See the mismatch between the thread title and the poll options. None of them is an ontology.
I see the phrase "x's ontology" used to describe "those classes of things which x believes exist" all the time in philosophy! What term do you think would be more appropriate???So you think 100% sureness is a prerequisite for knowledge???
ahh interesting!
Perfection
The Great Head.
My thoughts
atoms (in the 'indivisible units of matter' sense)
I'm pretty sure the universe runs on these little beasties, so I'd consider them to exist.
void
I dunno, space certainly exists but I wouldn't consider that "void" because it's a dynamic mass/energy system.
gunk (substance that can be divided infinitely)
I hesitate to say it doesn't exist, because it clearly is an extremely useful model of many things in reality, but ultimately it doesn't seem to be "fundamentally true"
ordinary material objects (tables, chairs, mountains, etc.)
They exist, but the nature of thier existance while not contradictory to our decriptions of them is far more complex and fuzzy.
your mind
other minds
Minds seem to me to be physical objects
abstract objects (numbers, sets, concepts, properties, etc.)
Mathematics seems to have an existance in some sort of reality distinct from the merely physical. It seems to encompass not only all the universe but other systems that don't bear semblance to that of the universe. Weird stuff.
god
God alone isn't
atoms (in the 'indivisible units of matter' sense)
I'm pretty sure the universe runs on these little beasties, so I'd consider them to exist.
void
I dunno, space certainly exists but I wouldn't consider that "void" because it's a dynamic mass/energy system.
gunk (substance that can be divided infinitely)
I hesitate to say it doesn't exist, because it clearly is an extremely useful model of many things in reality, but ultimately it doesn't seem to be "fundamentally true"
ordinary material objects (tables, chairs, mountains, etc.)
They exist, but the nature of thier existance while not contradictory to our decriptions of them is far more complex and fuzzy.
your mind
other minds
Minds seem to me to be physical objects
abstract objects (numbers, sets, concepts, properties, etc.)
Mathematics seems to have an existance in some sort of reality distinct from the merely physical. It seems to encompass not only all the universe but other systems that don't bear semblance to that of the universe. Weird stuff.
god
God alone isn't
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