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Do non physical things exist?

L

Led Zeppelin

Active Member
arg-fallbackName="Led Zeppelin"/>
Maybe it's better to use this thread to continue a discussion that got off topic in Prophetic Failures thread. ?
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>

Non-physical entity - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In ontology and the philosophy of mind, a non-physical entity is a spirit or being that exists outside physical reality. Their existence divides the philosophical school of physicalism from the schools of idealism and dualism; with the latter schools holding that they can exist and the former holding that they cannot. If one posits that non-physical entities can exist, there exist further debates as to their inherent natures and their position relative to physical entities.[1]
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Describing in philosophical terms what a non-physical entity actually is (or would be) can prove problematic. A convenient example of what constitutes a non-physical entity is a ghost. Gilbert Ryle once labelled Cartesian Dualism as positing the "ghost in the machine". [19][20] However, it is hard to define in philosophical terms what it is, precisely, about a ghost that makes it a specifically non-physical, rather than a physical entity. Were the existence of ghosts ever demonstrated beyond doubt, it has been claimed that would actually place them in the category of physical entities.[20]

Purported non-mental non-physical entities include things such as gods, angels, demons, and ghosts. Lacking demonstrations of their existence, their existences and natures are widely debated, independently of the philosophy of mind.
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I think that pretty much sums it up.

People declare non-physical entities to exist, but they provide no criteria at all by which we could justify that contention. As they are unable to furnish those criteria, it in turn calls into doubt how they could contend the existence of such quantities in the first place. Were we able to find a means of identifying and observing spirits, for example, then the means, manner, and methodology we would be forced to use and to hold as the adjudicating tools would necessarily indicate that spirits are at least partly physical entities. Non-physical = non-measurable, non-testable, non-apparent.

The sole distinction between a non-apparent thing and non-existence appears to be faith. People who believe in these things do not believe in them based on the usual means they'd apply to discerning the world, but instead are motivated by a network of beliefs that, despite lack of evidence, causes them to lend credence to the alleged non-physical quantities.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
Well, my suggestion would be to actually look into the field in depth.

You can look at what various philosophers have said over the last few hundred years to see the discussion we've had with ourselves about these ideas.

Then you can look into the findings of modern neuroscience and see whether the notions of all these clever chaps and chapsesses from the past, who formulated their ideas in an environment absent empirical evidence, stood up to rigorous scrutiny and testing.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
For the first part, here would be a good start and follow relevant links too.

Physicalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

plato.stanford.edu

Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical, or as contemporary philosophers sometimes put it, that everything supervenes on the physical. The thesis is usually intended as a metaphysical thesis, parallel to the thesis attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Thales, that everything is water, or the idealism of the 18th Century philosopher Berkeley, that everything is mental. The general idea is that the nature of the actual world (i.e. the universe and everything in it) conforms to a certain condition, the condition of being physical. Of course, physicalists don't deny that the world might contain many items that at first glance don't seem physical — items of a biological, or psychological, or moral, or social nature. But they insist nevertheless that at the end of the day such items are either physical or supervene on the physical.
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My bold: that's precisely what I was challenging you to overcome - if you want to define something as 'non-physical' - you need to make sure it's not contingent on the physical else your argument's not holding water.

For the second, about the discoveries of neuroscience - I'm afraid that I'm not going to spend the hours searching to provide you with a suite of papers and findings of modern science - however, if you want to make credible claims in the year 2021 about the workings of the human brain, you can't just ignore it all and still expect an argument to float.
 
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arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
I'll ask you a question to get the ball rolling:

Is motion physical?

I'll even give you my answer so you don't need to wonder where I'm going.

Motion isn't a 'thing' in the sense of a discreet object, rather it's the behavior of a thing - its movement through space and time.

Motion isn't a 'thing', but what would it mean to contend that motion is not physical? In what way could motion not be physical?

So now plug back in 'love'. Not a thing, but a behavior of a thing, and cannot possess any meaning absent its physicality. Love is wholly physical.

Prove me wrong.
 
arg-fallbackName="Led Zeppelin"/>
So if I get this right, I think Sparhafoc kinda furthered a point Hackenslash was making where even though the biochemical metrics of love might be very close or identical to same effects of eating chocolate they are different because one case the effect is caused by eating something and in another case you might feel you are in love when a girl is giving you a blow job. And also it make might you think that a girl loves you when she is giving you a blow job but in reality all she is trying to do is manipulate you.

Hopefully I got this right because I think these are probably very good points. Im sorry if this sounds vulgar but I dont really see a problem with it.
 
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arg-fallbackName="Led Zeppelin"/>
Sparhafoc said:
Not really connected with anything I said, actually.
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Well, I wish things were different. I guess even though I disagree I think I that I have pretty much said everything I wanted to say and that everyone can decide for themselves what they want to think.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
Led Zeppelin said:
Well, I wish things were different. I guess even though I disagree I think I that I have pretty much said everything I wanted to say and that everyone can decide for themselves what they want to think.
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You just opened the thread and said you'd take a day and then do something ambitious.

I think it's taken as granted that everyone can decide for themselves what to think.

What isn't clear is that you've actually attempted to mount a case to defend your contention. That's fine as it was hardly likely to convince anyone here, but the act of trying to do so might have introduced you to a suite of problems that your ideas run into, and the attempt at solving them might have shown you why your ideas are deeply flawed.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
Led Zeppelin said:
Your point about motion is also good. I would probably ask you a similar about Justice.
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Justice is really simple.

Part evolutionary heritage - punishing those who take but don't give back to the group.
Part human codification and verbal discussion.

What justice is not: an atom hanging around in probability space waiting to imbue an event.
 
arg-fallbackName="Deleted member 619"/>
Led Zeppelin said:
[snip]you might feel you are in love when a girl is giving you a blow job[/snip]
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It's hard to know where to start after this. This is suggestive of a very Pornhub view of what love is, and you want to delve straight into ontology?

Let me ask you, would you risk your life for a blowjob? Do you even realise that this is the implicit comparison you've made?
 
arg-fallbackName="Deleted member 619"/>
Sparhafoc said:
Well, my suggestion would be to actually look into the field in depth.
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I find myself wondering whether I really want to start on a brand new JamesT from the ground up all over again... o_Oo_O:D
 
arg-fallbackName="Dragan Glas"/>
Greetings,

First, I think it's worth clarifying the term "non-physical things".

"Beings" are a sub-set of "things".

So let's look at "things" other than "beings" in the context of non-physical.

Magnetic lines of force are "non-physical" - however, they are associated with magnets, which are very definitely physical. Indeed, they are contingent (dependent) on something physical to generate magnetic lines of force. Or, as philosophers would put it, magnetic lines of force supervene upon something physical to generate them.

Gravity is another example - it's dependent on mass (matter).

These are wholly physically-based non-physical phenomena.

It is quite another thing to claim that non-physical - as in "supernatural" - things exist.

Where is the evidence? How does one gather such?

Belief-claims - as I, and others, have explained elsewhere - don't (can't) count.

Kindest regards,

James
 
arg-fallbackName="Deleted member 619"/>
Dragan Glas said:
Greetings,

"JamesT"?

Kindest regards,

James
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James is the ultimate armchair philosophy expert who can't even manage to formulate his own favourite philosophical notion without mangling it into incoherence, despite it having been corrected and re-corrected a bazillion times (at least as many times as I've been warned about exaggerating). We've (the royal we here, referring to a lot of extremely knowledgeable people) been working on him for well over a decade, and progress is measured on the Planck scale.
 
arg-fallbackName="Dragan Glas"/>
Greetings,

Ah, The Standard, against which all others are measured, it seems...!?

Kindest regards,

James
 
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