Re: Fw: Something for Platonists

From: James N Rose <integrity.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 10:13:00 -0700

Joao Leao wrote:
>
> James N Rose wrote:
>
> > Joao wrote:
> >
> > "Speaking as a devout Platonist ..."
> >
> > About 7 years ago I realized there was
> > a severe contradiction resident in modern
> > concepts of Being.
> >
> > Godel's Incompleteness Theorems have
> > established a condition-of-knowledge which seem
> > to challenge if not negate Platonic thought.
>
> That just happens to be totally orthogonal to what
> Godel himself expressed as his own opinion on the
> consequence of his theorem... Godel is possibly
> the most consequent of all XXcent. self professed
> Platonists.
>
> >
> > I'd like to get your ideas on the following:
> >
> > Consider the Platonic Ideal of 'apple'. I can
> > almost guarantee that your mind immediately came
> > up with an image of 'apple' including stem, colorful
> > skin, other qualities, etc.
> >
> > As Godel designated -system internally consistent-,
> > we might at first presume the two depictions to be
> > isomorphic.
>
> Why? Is there any reason why my "apple" need to
> fit a consistent system of "appleness"? I don't think so...
>
> > But I submit that per Godel, 'apple' includes only
> > those characteristics or qualia evident up to
> > but not external to the bounds of the system,
> > whatever they may be.
> >
> > That being the case, 'color' of any existential
> > ideal-apple exists only in the out-space where the
> > platonic apple per se -does not-.
> >
> > Therefore 'color' and 'apple' - in any platonic sense -
> > must be mutually exclusive. Which seems to press the
> > 2500 year old standing impression of 'ideal apple'.
>
> Not at all. You are confusing images with things and
> forgetting a good deal of what platonism is about. An
> apple, this apple, the apple I am thinking of, all partake
> the form of "appleness" whatever that is. The color of
> this apple, the color of that bird, this red, the "red" you
> are thinking of right now", all partake of the form of
> "redness" in the Patonic world. There is no contradition
> here. There are no forms here!

You have glossed over the issue I was establishing.

Godel pretty well specified a disconnect between
certain ceptualizations - uniform agreements
even with varieties involved - in that specificities
are subject to alteration upon inclusion of
external (not currently available) information.

Platonic thought - to satisfy the extensive nature and
the inclusive scope you indicate in your remarks -
requires that all possibilities, all variants, all
potentia, be taken into consideration, in order
to (asymptotically) such "ideal" of whatever designated.

Or, to restrict it according to the regulations
you jibe about in remarks further along in your
reply (a table can be sat upon, but it is not a
'chair').

The ideality of 'apple' includes the former condition
of being 'ideal' only when the totality of environments
are included - the exterior realm which Godel says
can -never- be holistically involved in any ultimate
_experiential_ sense.

So if Godel counted himself a Platonist, he necessarily
had to conclude that no platomic ideal (conditions-of-knowledge)
could have any relevance with the material (conditions-of-being)
since there would be no way to secure - permanently
and reliantly - what 'ideal' would be expansive enough,
and, because any window to 'ideal' cannot help but
be rooted in (conditions-of-being) .. the expeiential.

I.e., there would be no way of knowing if any
'knowing' a mind held had any real mappings
with a purported 'ideal'.

My personal arguement with Platonism is
that Plato never took into consideration
the requisite conditions relative to information
conveyance and the issues established by
Heisenberg and quantum mechanics. Not only will
information influence and alter other information,
but there is unavoidable connectivity in order
for there to be information conveyance (knowability)
in the first place.

There is mechanism and process involved (one of Plato's
prime beliefs). In fact, all-is-process.

"There is no one thing, no some thing, nor such a thing
whatsoever. But it is from motion or being carried along,
from change and from admixture with each other that everything
comes to be that which we declare to ‘be’ (speaking
incorrectly), for nothing ever ‘is’, but always becomes."
                      (Plato, Theaitetos 152d)


In a sense, in fact, to be true to such an extreme
idealism - unless one were willing to compromise -
if there 'no such a thing whatsoever', then there
would be no corresponding 'ideal' ... whatsoever.

But, to keep to the argument, even in the Cave,
intervening air and lightwaves are conveyors
of ideal to real .. which must perforce have
relation with both the ideal realm and the real
realm .. or whatever conveyor you might agree
correlates with the physical indicia of waves.


> >
> >
> > Another discontinuity.
> >
> > If you climb Mount Everest and sit down on it,
> > does the mountain now satisfy the platonic ideal
> > of "chair"?
>
> No, why should it? The form of a chair is not the
> form of "anything I sit on"! You can sit on a table
> or on your head for all I care... This is a different in
> "extension" which is much easier to grasp than one
> of intention, but it is the same think.
>
> > Thanks in advance for your thoughts,
> >
> > James Rose
>
> I am afraid you are obviously confused about the basis of
> platonism and the dispute with kantianism, if you will.
> I suggest you read Stanley Rosen's "Antiplatonism" in
> his collection "The Ancients and the Moderns" for a
> recent and detailed review of the issue you raise, namely
> conditions-of-knowledge as conditions-of-being, a
> sibject prone to post-kantian confusions....
>
> Regards,
>
> -Joao Leao


James Rose


> --
>
> Joao Pedro Leao ::: jleao.domain.name.hidden
> Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
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Received on Mon Jun 16 2003 - 13:14:05 PDT