Do you folks still doubt me about platonic forms?

Or this guy…

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plotinus

Today’s people learn about Plato to learn about rudimentary attempts at philosophy. Calling out Plato has been a staple of all kinds of criticism from countless philosophers since then. You gonna accuse all of them of being less smart than him just because they realised the flaws in early philosophical argumentation?

Get real. Literally.

Just because you’re stuck in the relative stone age of philosophy, doesn’t mean people who find fault in your assertions aren’t smart. Learn your basics from a kind of golden age of philosophy, by all means. But my arguments had clear and valid reasoning like many before me. The fact that you’re saddened by my not agreeing with the medical equivalent of the “4 humours” in the wake of modern medical advancements is in itself sad. No troll. Genuinely.

It’s a general trend of his that’s being picked up on here. Sure, talk about Plato, he’s philosophy and worth talking about, but there’s much much more than him going around since.

If you actually read the enniads, he comes the the same conclusion as me, that all existents have platonic forms, including all humans.

Well if an old collection of writings says it, it must be true!

You realise your argument is “it’s been said by at least two people who lived nearly 2000 years ago! Therefore it’s true!”, right?

You think nobody built on that or revolutionised or even re-invented/inverted philosophy since then? Keep learning about the Ancient Greeks, by all means - then move on to newer philosophy and see what you think then.

Maybe in a few years you’ll be worth talking to. Not to discourage you - I want you and everyone to grow - just… don’t act like you’re already there.

You sound like iambiguous… "it can’t be true because in a trillion years someone may find something different … and that can’t be true either because in a trillion more years, someone might find something different… ad nauseum…

I’m man enough to say that people 2000 years ago may have been smarter than me. Are you?

Statistically speaking in a room of 2000 people, assuming there’s a representative sample of the population of the world, there’s going to be a few cleverer people than me. No shame felt here. Does the same work for 2000 years?

It very well may do, and given the potential existence of statistical outliers, it’s perfectly possible in theory. Given that over the past 2000 years people have been being selected at least in part for intelligence, and there have been recorded upward trends in IQ in only the past few generations (the Flynn effect), it’s also perfectly possible that a great deal of today’s living people are smarter than a great deal of people who lived 2000 years ago - maybe even myself! I don’t have to be a man or otherwise to maintain reasonable doubt that 2000 year of philosophers may not be a match for at least some of their successors, just aware of trends in general - or even simply aware of ideas that have followed the Ancient Greeks! Statistics aside, knowledge of the actual content is enough.

I mean come on, man. Have you not even read any philosophers since Plato? Do so, immediately. I’m not saying they’re right, even if they were/are smarter, but at least just gain some balance and context in reasoning and logic beyond just one set of old ideas that you kinda like.

I’m not even saying that in a trillion years someone may find something different, I’m saying we already did. Several times. Humility is your friend.

You’re making a lot of assumptions about me.

I used to care about IQ. Now I don’t, it’s a logical fallacy “argument from authority”

You have quite the ego on you, and a vitriolic hatred.

I’m not that man anymore. You’re talking to a ghost of me

Show it to me “genius”

One can think in terms of platonic forms.

But one has to remember not to get too caught up in it because it can lead to thinking that real physical ‘objects’ and real relationships are somehow inadequate.

It’s just a tool. And tools can be dangerous if improperly handled.

forms may mean formal thinking, or, using various precedent constructions of reality , or any number of things. It may even imply a absolitely held reality.

So the question of absolute may not necessarily imply the other versions.

The degree of freedom of choosing levels may vary as well, in situ.

I never claimed to be a genius.

I never denied it either :wink: but I think they exist and I believe they have existed in the past. One such example that is hard to doubt is Nietzsche. How about I draw on what he said in one of his books, say “Twilight of the Idols”?

You are asking me to show you that we already found something that doesn’t need a hypothetical about a trillion years into the future. This “something” related to a doubt of Platonic forms that philosophers have already raised, such as Nietzsche. I have already shown you doubts from my own thoughts that you’ve not even addressed, but you’re still asking to be shown, so maybe he will help? It’s a real struggle to extract any sense from you about both your own explanations or even your requirements for proof, so all I can do is add to the pile of what I’ve already offered with the following.

Right at the beginning of the fore-mentioned book, in “The Problem of Socrates” Nietzsche writes that he “recognized Socrates and Plato as symptoms of decay” standing “in the same negative relation to life”: “It was he who handed himself the poison cup”. This continues to be advanced shortly later in “The Four Great Errors” that begins with “There is no more dangerous error than that of mistaking the consequence for the cause”. An example of this error is mentioned just before in “‘Reason’ in Philosophy”: “The ‘apparent’ world is the only one: the ‘real’ world has only been lyingly added…” as he draws from Heraclitus. Plato inverts this, mistaking the consequence of seeing similar “forms” caused by “the apparent” as “Platonic forms” that cause “the apparent”. In true Nietzschean style, he is merely diagnosing sickness and decadence in the kind of intellect that demotes the real to mere illusion that is “in fact” caused by a “more real reality” that lurks beneath - which they aspire to reach in just the same way as the Christian does. Back to “The Problem of Socrates”: “To have to combat one’s instincts - that is the formula for décadence”.

He goes on to sum up the mechanism by which the “monstrum in fronte, monstrum in animo” turn away from life in “How the ‘Real World’ at last Became a Myth”.

This is just the beginning of one book by one more recent philosopher - I only stick to Nietzsche because it’s him that I know best. There are plenty of others to pick from, just pick one and go from there. I may attack your ideas, but I am not your enemy, I am trying to help.

I’m not vitriolic or hating, though I am uncompromising in the expression of my frustration with characters such as yourself who present themselves as having easy answers like some kind of prophet or saviour whilst having little to no real substance to back it up - as elucidated by the kind of rigorous deconstruction that I admittedly take joy in providing. It’s hard not to develop an ego when you have put a lot of time and energy into getting particularly good at doing this, but I genuinely try to hold it back as much as I can - my apologies if it slips through.

You didn’t talk to what I spoke about.

These really ancient philosophers realized that you can be hit by four sticks, but you cannot be hit by the number four. The number four cannot be found in space or time, so it must exist outside space and time. An eternal realm that doesn’t begin or end.

You truly are underestimating the brilliance of these people.

Not sure. Did I have to read something else to answer honestly?

Loosely acquainted with the notions of idos, the essence of which makes a thing a thing. But maybe you want to spell it out here instead of doubting you regarding someone else’s thinking.

Numbers are products of the mind as are all thoughts and ideas and concepts
By your logic then all of human thinking must exist outside of space and time

:-k Does an animal with the body of a moose and the head of eagle exist because I can think of it?

Is that mooseagle a platonic form?

What does “existence” mean for ‘stuff’ that is non-physical?

Just as logic is not aware that it exists, but we can apprehend it, logic is not sentient, we are, numbers are not properties of sentience, they however can be apprehended by sentient beings.

One of the platonic forms, which we can all demonstrate is the field of imaginary, we can have the field of the platonic form of a real tree or the field of an imaginary tree.

Thoughts are electrochemical signals occurring in the brain so they are physical
The thing that is being thought of however is not physical but merely imaginary

That means “thoughts being electrochemical signals in the brain” is also imaginary, based on that logic.

Like I said, it’s a struggle to extract what you’re actually talking about - the title of the thread is whether any of us still doubt you about platonic forms and I was giving you reasoning to doubt platonic forms.

Now you’re telling me I didn’t talk about what you were speaking about… - was I not thus approaching your thoughts logically? :-k

1)i) Sticks in space and time
ii) Sticks can be observed individually as different events
iii) These different events can be differentiated as one, then two, then three, then four
iv) These numbered events are not the sticks themselves in space and time
v) The classifications of one, two, three and four can be used generally for not just sticks
vi) Oneness, twoness, threeness and fourness are not bound specifically to that which they denote in space and time
2) One, two, three and four (and all numbers in general) themselves do not have the same reality as sticks in space and time
3) If numbers don’t have spatio-temporal reality like sticks, they exist outside space and time

There’s presumably at least this number of layers to the abstraction of something such as numbers into Platonic forms. Don’t think the “logic” isn’t apparent to those who see a problem with it - and by all means we should respect it in its historical context as brilliant for the time.

I bring up Nietzsche because he truly brings philosophy back in touch with its physiological origins, psychologising in these terms only to diagnose the mentality of inverting reality with the imaginary. This is what Plato did when he proposed “an eternal realm that doesn’t begin or end”, and the added sense of “means, motive, and opportunity” really puts into perspective the musings about whether such a conclusion is valid.

In terms only of the validity of the conclusion, looking at the logical progression that I reeled off above from the top of my head, I think it’s something that goes on at around 1)vi)
There has to be a sleight of hand performed at some point that removes “the general” from the embedded reality of “the specific”.
Only then can you jump to a notion of “the essence” of numbers as removed from space and time, and thus conclude that they exist outside of space and time.

Allow me to put the whole process in real terms - are you ready?

Numbers and any words that “denote” a real, tangible, physical thing are in themselves real, tangible and physical. On the surface they are a sound, a visual symbol, a tactile impulse such as with braille and so forth. They are a sensation of a specific codified type that is not the same things as that which they denote, but which is much easier to deal with and more compact - e.g. you can write about a whole world in something as portable as a book. But “underneath the hood”, the brain is merely reinforcing (myelinating) neural pathways that occur more often, such as the one that connects “the signified” and “the signifier”. This is why kids love asking “what’s that?” constantly - they are myelinating together their reality with the code of language. “One” stick ends up lighting up similarly to “one” stone, and so forth, until the sensation of “oneness” in your mind is consolidated into its own neural pathway in and of itself - without necessarily applying to something in particular. That’s how the brain works: association.

Thus numbers are entirely real as a chemical response that feels like “recognition”, with or without a code (e.g. the written symbol “1”) that “signifies” something “signified” such as a single stick.

The error in thinking is the conception of reality as the “signified” as separate from the “signifier”, which by black-and-white contrast can be lumped into “not reality”. Perception occurs in the brain, not in the eyes and ears etc. and “stick” and “one” are not one bit different in this respect. Given this fact, Plato et al. need only re-conceive what reality is - except “tragically” they did not have access to the scientific knowledge that we have today.

Your way is not the shortcut.

1.) Something cannot come from nothing
2.) If something comes from something else, it’s first substantiation still solves as it coming from nothing, unless there is a way in which it has always been there

What this does is put a force on platonic forms, or rather, eternal forms, without which, everything is concluded to come from nothing. Nothing at all isn’t there for anything to come from, so this possibility and the possibility of something coming from something else are out. The thing must come from the thing itself. The best theory for this is that the thing itself occupies many different dimensions at once; one of them being eternal.