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Technically true, as long as it doesn't devolve in postmodernism absurdity A chair doesn't really exist, it's just a collection of atoms arranged in a way that

Technically true, as long as it doesn't devolve in postmodernism absurdity A chair doesn't really exist, it's just a collection of atoms arranged in a way that can sit on it and along with the gazillions of other arrangements of atoms that can do the same thing we call it a "chair" because it's a very useful way to call things. There is really not much interesting in the gazillions of microscopic variations of placements of atoma that give shape to the same large scale behavior. You don't care about the individual momenta of the atoms. What you really care about is that you don't freeze or burn your bottom as you sit on the chair. So while those properties do depend on the observer (because they are meaningful to the observer) that doesn't mean they are arbitrary and any observer can just choose how to see things. That's why emergence is an interesting phenomenon. Emergent properties are still objective, because we can all agree on them regardless of our mood or culture or agenda It's a "real pattern", as real as the underlying things it's "layered" on

reliablereason 3y ago
Yeah, seams like you and I agree. Even if I would not say that "A chair doesn't really exist". But it seams like that was more like a rhetorical argument from you given your last paragraph.
mannykannot 3y ago
These discussions, if kept going long enough, usually (in my experience) move on to being about the true definition of 'real' and 'exists'. Oops! - that's just added 'true' and 'definition' to the list...
lo_zamoyski 3y ago
> A chair doesn't really exist, it's just a collection of atoms If a particular arrangement of the atoms doesn't make a chair a chair, only its use determines identity, then are you also a chair if someone decides to use you that way? If to be a chair is to be "just a collection of atoms arranged in a way that [we] can sit on it", then what is a human being? Are you also not nothing but an collection of atoms? What makes you different from the aggregate of atoms you call a chair? How can both you and I share humanity? Is this a matter of convention? Why this convention? And if usefulness is again the criterion, toward what end? If I can burn a chair in my furnace, why not you? You're both just collections of atoms, aren't you? Is your mind just a collection of atoms? If so, how can it entertain these notions, like models or patterns or usefulness or meaningfulness, that are not just collections of atoms? What are atoms? Are they also collections of atoms? How did you, a collection of atoms, come to know that atoms exist, that everything is just collection of atoms? And how is it that you know everything is just a collection of atoms, but the existence of anything else is a matter of "models" or convention? And why are atoms privileged in this way? [0] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/04/nothing-but.html https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/04/nothing-but.html [1] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2023/10/cartwright-on-reductionism-in-science.html https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2023/10/cartwright-on-reduc...
ProllyInfamous 3y ago
"Everything we call `real` is made of things that cannot be regarded as real." —Niels Bohr (Physicist) As a beekeeper, I am truly humbled at our own specie's usual hubris in exploring "meaning" beyond "just is."

reliablereason 3y ago

Yeah, seams like you and I agree. Even if I would not say that "A chair doesn't really exist". But it seams like that was more like a rhetorical argument from you given your last paragraph.

mannykannot 3y ago

These discussions, if kept going long enough, usually (in my experience) move on to being about the true definition of 'real' and 'exists'. Oops! - that's just added 'true' and 'definition' to the list...

lo_zamoyski 3y ago

> A chair doesn't really exist, it's just a collection of atoms If a particular arrangement of the atoms doesn't make a chair a chair, only its use determines identity, then are you also a chair if someone decides to use you that way? If to be a chair is to be "just a collection of atoms arranged in a way that [we] can sit on it", then what is a human being? Are you also not nothing but an collection of atoms? What makes you different from the aggregate of atoms you call a chair? How can both you and I share humanity? Is this a matter of convention? Why this convention? And if usefulness is again the criterion, toward what end? If I can burn a chair in my furnace, why not you? You're both just collections of atoms, aren't you? Is your mind just a collection of atoms? If so, how can it entertain these notions, like models or patterns or usefulness or meaningfulness, that are not just collections of atoms? What are atoms? Are they also collections of atoms? How did you, a collection of atoms, come to know that atoms exist, that everything is just collection of atoms? And how is it that you know everything is just a collection of atoms, but the existence of anything else is a matter of "models" or convention? And why are atoms privileged in this way? [0] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/04/nothing-but.html https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/04/nothing-but.html [1] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2023/10/cartwright-on-reductionism-in-science.html https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2023/10/cartwright-on-reduc...

ProllyInfamous 3y ago

"Everything we call `real` is made of things that cannot be regarded as real." —Niels Bohr (Physicist) As a beekeeper, I am truly humbled at our own specie's usual hubris in exploring "meaning" beyond "just is."