Strictly speaking, do aggregate bodies "exist"?

[Ħ]

Right now you're typing on what you call a "keyboard". But is there really a keyboard there, or is the word "keyboard" a label that helps us live in a macroscopic world? After all, a keyboard is just an arrangement of a number of particles in a specific way.


I think the answer is that a keyboard is there, that it does exist. If you define a keyboard as an object that has a set X of properties, and you show that what you are typing on has that set X of properties, you therefore can have confidence that you are typing on a keyboard.

[eric42434224]

wow...that is the kind of questions I ask after I use the arrangement of particles that has a certain set of properties, and is an aggregate body I call a "bong".

[rumborak]

I personally just view it as a shorthand for humans to conveniently label their environment. Take a river; does it exist? 5 minutes after you looked at it the first time none of the elements you had just labeled "river" are there anymore. Yet you would call this completely different entity being the very same river.
So, nothing ever is *the* river. Which makes it difficult to justify the concept as anything more than a convenience label, based on plain appearance.

rumborak

[eric42434224]

Its just language.

[Ħ]

So....does a keyboard exist or not?

[SeRoX]

It's just language, I think. Pratically you can create your own language and name it a another name. Existing is another deep matter. If you identify it with one of your sense organs it exists.

[eric42434224]

So....does a keyboard exist or not?

The thing that out language calls a keyboard does exist.  If you want to call that arrangement of particles a spoogeflopper, it still exists exactly as it does as a keyboard.  What you call it is just a label.  The Dog existed long before it was called an antelope.  It also exists, in exactly the the same way, when Rumborak calls it a Hund.

It's just language.

[Adami]

So....does a keyboard exist or not?

For some people, I really wish it didn't. (not you cutie)

[Scheavo]

https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=32236.0

Do we really need two threads about pretty much the exact same thing?

[Ħ]

So....does a keyboard exist or not?

The thing that out language calls a keyboard does exist.  If you want to call that arrangement of particles a spoogeflopper, it still exists exactly as it does as a keyboard.  What you call it is just a label.  The Dog existed long before it was called an antelope.  It also exists, in exactly the the same way, when Rumborak calls it a Hund.

It's just language.

Okay. So playing the deductive argument game:

1) The arrangement of particles X is a keyboard.
    - I'm free to define whatever I'd like.
2) The arrangement of particles X exists.
    - Seems obvious.
--------
3) A keyboard exists.

[Scheavo]

Would you say existence is universal? I.e. if something exists, both you, I and another would agree that something is "a keyboard"?

[Ħ]

If the common definition of a keyboard (i.e. the properties commonly ascribed to a keyboard) is understood by all of us, then yeah, we'd all be in agreement on the existence of a keyboard.

[Scheavo]

Then the existence of something dependent upon human language, the human experience, and not something "objectively" there. Which I don't have a problem with, but I think that's one of way of understanding how the concept of a keyboard doesn't exist in reality.

[Ħ]

Human language is just a tool used to connect the dots. Our applying of definitions is liberal, because we can define anything any way we want.

To say "A keyboard exists" is to say "a platform with such and such width and length and little square buttons scattered such and such way exists" is to say "a collection of particles shaped keyboard-wise exists". I'm just using the principle of substitution there. If the last statement is true, then "A keyboard exists" is also true.

[rumborak]

It's kinda hard to say it's "objective" if the definition is framed in human terms and only relevant to humans. To a dog it's a meaningless thing.

rumborak

[Scheavo]

The best way I think I can explain this is via color. We all experience blue, and it's something which we can agree on. We'll both agree the sky is blue. But does "blue" exist? It's hard to say that it does, because it's an evolutionary adaptation and interpretation of a certain frequency and wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum.

So blue "exists," but it doesn't exist as a true, objective feature of reality.

Really, we probably need to step back and clearly define what it means for something to exist, etc. Otherwise, we might just well be talking past each other. Personally, when something only is something becuase of human interpretation or language, I wouldn't say that that "something" exists. Buddhism probably gives the best "argument" I can think of to explain this: https://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/sbe35/sbe3504.htm.

[Ħ]

It's kinda hard to say it's "objective" if the definition is framed in human terms and only relevant to humans. To a dog it's a meaningless thing.

rumborak

Sure, but the substance we label "keyboard" exists independently of what anyone else thinks.

[eric42434224]

It's kinda hard to say it's "objective" if the definition is framed in human terms and only relevant to humans. To a dog it's a meaningless thing.

rumborak

Sure, but the substance we label "keyboard" exists independently of what anyone else thinks.

Then you have your answer.

[theseoafs]

Does the keyboard exist? Well, yeah, obviously. I'm typing on it now. I press the buttons to make the screen change and the screen wouldn't change if the keys didn't exist so there.

The more interesting question is whether the idea or concept of a keyboard exists. The answer to that is "not so much". It's humans that assign meaning to their environment. It's just an organized hunk of plastic, and if there were no humans, then it wouldn't have a purpose and would be indistinguishable from a collection of rocks or sticks or tortilla chips.

[Ħ]

Does the keyboard exist? Well, yeah, obviously. I'm typing on it now. I press the buttons to make the screen change and the screen wouldn't change if the keys didn't exist so there.

The more interesting question is whether the idea or concept of a keyboard exists. The answer to that is "not so much". It's humans that assign meaning to their environment. It's just an organized hunk of plastic, and if there were no humans, then it wouldn't have a purpose and would be indistinguishable from a collection of rocks or sticks or tortilla chips.

Wait, of course the concept exists. I have a concept of a keyboard in my head right now.

I think what you are really asking is whether an ideal keyboard exists. For example, a keyboard that has perfect right angles in its corners. That keyboard doesn't exist.

[theseoafs]

Not really. I couldn't care less about an ideal keyboard. This one is fine.

I'm saying the concept doesn't exist because it doesn't exist. You're picturing a keyboard but your thoughts don't take place on the physical plane (obviously). If you want to count your thoughts as having existence, I suppose I amend my statement to say that "Aggregate bodies exist only as much as human thoughts do".

[Ħ]

Wait what? At the moment I think that my thoughts exist - they're carried by neurons. And I'm not sure what you mean by your amended statement. If it were true, that would mean that trees didn't exist before human minds existed.

[theseoafs]

Your neurons exist, but your thoughts do not. When you picture a keyboard, you, like everybody, can close your eyes and imagine what it would be like to see and feel a keyboard if you were in front of one. That doesn't mean that that keyboard exists or has ever existed -- and by "exist", I mean, of course, that it lies somewhere on the physical plane. To say that your thoughts exist would be to say that you could pick them up if you wanted to, which is nonsensical.

[XJDenton]

Can you pick up an electric field?

[theseoafs]

^ Damn, that is a stupid-ass thing I posted up there. Forgive me, it was late.

Anyway I still don't think your thoughts exist, but not for that reason. I'll mull it over.

[Ryzee]

wow...that is the kind of questions I ask after I use the arrangement of particles that has a certain set of properties, and is an aggregate body I call a "bong".

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

Take a river; does it exist? 5 minutes after you looked at it the first time none of the elements you had just labeled "river" are there anymore. Yet you would call this completely different entity being the very same river.

So 5 minutes from now, when new replies have been posted, can this thread stop existing?  I have my fingers crossed.

[Chino]

Am I typing this on a keyboard or an iPad?

[theseoafs]

^ Damn, that is a stupid-ass thing I posted up there. Forgive me, it was late.

Anyway I still don't think your thoughts exist, but not for that reason. I'll mull it over.

Basically, whether your thoughts strictly exist doesn't concern me so much as whether the things you think about actually do. The keyboard in your thoughts doesn't exist on the physical plane, the nuances of how your brain interacts with its neurons aside.

EDIT: It might be helpful to look at something that we haven't been trained to see significance in. Let's define a "forkle" as being "two rocks next to each other". Every time in history that two rocks have been next to each other, it was a forkle. So do forkles exist?

[eric42434224]

Before we called a rock a rock, did rocks exist?
Yes they did exist.  So did the two rocks next to each other.

[theseoafs]

I'm asking whether a forkle exists, not whether there were two rocks next to each other. The question is whether the aggregate body exists.

[eric42434224]

Reply hazy, try again

[theseoafs]

A forkle is a much simpler system than a keyboard. A forkle is two adjacent rocks. A keyboard has keys, a base, and a bunch of technological junk on the inside. They are both aggregate bodies without any inherent significance other than that which humans assign to them.

The question isn't whether the parts of the keyboard exist or the rocks in the forkle exist. That isn't what's being debated here. The question is whether the aggregate bodies themselves exist.

Does a keyboard exist? The only correct answer is: only as much as a forkle does.

[eric42434224]

Does a keyboard exist? The only correct answer is: only as much as a forkle does.

You may rely on it

[Omega]

https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=32236.0

Do we really need two threads about pretty much the exact same thing?

To point out, the topics discussed in this thread and the one you linked may appear similar, but they are not.