geoff

If metaphysical naturalism and contemporary evolutionary theory (N&E for short) are true, then all that exists or putatively exists can be reduced to physical phenomena or that which is supervenient upon the physical.*

Thus, our mental constructs, e.g., are nothing but the physical products (if we can even call them that) of some physical process occuring in our physical cognitive center (i.e., our brain). Taking N&E to be true, how can we account for the existence (however construed) of abstract entities, if abstract entities are logically necessary, immaterial objects? That is, if people never existed (we are contingent beings after all) then abstract objects would not exist (because there is no mind thinking them). But this doesn't seem to jibe with the idea we already posited that abstract objects are logically necessary.

*For those who take issue with my definition, cf. Keith Augustine, "A Defense of Naturalism", available in the infidels library.

Wizardry

I await your proof that abstract entities independent of physical processes are logically necessary.

I needn't tell you that until such a proof is presented, your issue with naturalism is nothing more than a very basic hypothetical.

Peace out.

Wyrdsmyth

Or, maybe it's the reverse.

Maybe all of reality is reducible to ones and zeroes.

"Let's not order out tonight. Let's just stay in, and eat the menu."

tronvillain

I see no reason to grant that abract entities are logically necessary immaterial objects.

Vorkosigan

Taking N&E to be true, how can we account for the existence (however construed) of abstract entities, if abstract entities are logically necessary, immaterial objects?

<a href="http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/primer.html" target="_blank">Website with Primer on Evolutionary Psychology</a>

Vorkosigan

[ May 23, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]</p>

snatchbalance

Let's just stick to the particulars please.

Vorkosigan

Snatch, what is it you mean by this statement?

Vorkosigan

James Still

There is no contradiction between metaphysical naturalism and the subsistence of abstract objects like numbers, triangles, or concepts. Even if abstract objects were to exist (are really "real") rather than subsist, this poses a problem only for materialism and not metaphysical naturalism. Naturalism claims that the realm of being is exhausted by existents and abstract objects (no room for the supernatural). Think of your own consciousness. Reductionism aside, if it is an abstract entity and an emergent property of the physical brain, who would deny that it is not also a naturalistic phenomenon?

[edited for "claim" to read "deny"...]

[ May 23, 2002: Message edited by: James Still ]</p>

Wyrdsmyth

Once again, we're back in dualism, the biggest Wild Goose chase of Western philosophy.

In our context, here, the way we usually see dualism presented is embedded in claims like "numbers and/or abstraction can only be accounted by an appeal to the supernatural." But, like James Still has pointed out, what is often being addressed is materialism, rather than metaphysical naturalism.

There is a tendency on the part of many of our theistic visitors to equivocate atheism with evolutionary theory with metaphysical naturalism with materialism, to roll it all up into one big ball. But, they're not all the same.

Not all atheists are materialists, or even evolutionists. I know an atheist who believes in the supernatural (just not gods). I know of theists who accept the theory of evolution and the fact that the earth is billions of years old, rather than a few thousand. I know of atheists who are proponants of ID theory. There are atheists who repudiate materialism, and who might in some way be called dualists, who think physicality and abstraction both exist in different 'realms.'

I tend to be one of those atheists who thinks the theory of evolution is true (but incomplete), who subscribes to metaphysical naturalism, and even perhaps what is called materialism. But I don't know that abstraction really is all that damning to materialism. What do we mean when we say 'material'? That all is fundamentally matter and energy? Well, that might be true. But I don't know of any materialists who are going to deny that 'form' is less relevant than 'stuff,' to the equation of everything.

We abstractify 'stuff' and that's how we perceive 'form.' That's where we get numbers from. We abstractify 'one' from, say, 'one apple' or something we perceive as a single thing. And we abstractify 'two' from 'two apples' or what we perceive as two individual things. And it goes from there.

But I just don't see how it follows that materialists can't add, or are unable to add, or are unable to justify addition, simply because they don't posit something like a 'separate reality of abstraction,' a different 'realm of reality' that somehow co-exists with material reality, and yet is also distinct from it. More to the point, I don't see how a belief in such supernatural things as gods and angels and spirits is somehow 'superior' in accounting for these things than what is called 'mere materialism.'

When it comes to belief in gods, angels, souls, etc. maybe I'm just being hard-headed, but I want something more than someone pointing at numbers and saying, "Look, here, materialism, as I understand it, has some difficulty in making sense of such abstract things as numbers." I think what I want is something more along of the lines of proof positive that those gods, angels and spirits exist, rather than a kind of negative approach, an attempted critique of materialism.

So, let's see the proof. The evidence. The burning bush.

owleye

geoff...

I'm not entirely sure why evolution by natural selection is independently required for characterizing the problem you wish us to consider, but I don't think it is necessary to demand of abstract objects that they exist independent of any physical state. If all abstract objects are types, it is reasonable to expect that they exist in their physical instances as tokens of a type. Of course, to gain a full appreciation of this we need to have at hand how types are tokenized through consciousness. For this, concepts seem ready at hand to provide this capability for us. Since concepts consist of rules of one sort or another, that when applied through thought (and language) to their objects, so as to give them meaning, we would probably look to the structure of language as it is physically instantiated, and as it is formed from processes in our neural network, in order to find therein the tokens of these concepts.

Now, since abstract objects, insofar as they provide regulative norms for that which we wish to apply to them, will generally outlive any particular instantiation of them. For example, juridical laws are undoubtedly abstract objects and while their meaning may derive from legislative intent, it lives on, past the original legislation, through some or another text that records it -- and these sometimes sacred documents represent their current instantiation, in much the same way that a genetic code (also an abstract object) is instantiated in one or another of its copies.

owleye