Mick wrote:Thus, I don't participate in some extra form of deafened ears, but rather there is a privation. My ears do not conform well to the form of human ears; there is a lacking. Thus, we call them bad ears, or that they are not working properly.

That explains why you don't listen.

Anyhoo, this is trivial to poke holes in, because we can point to illnesses that result from the addition of something. But... we've already covered that ground elsewhere, and your position is a stupid now as it was then.

OlivierK wrote:

Mick wrote:

Rumraket wrote:

Mick wrote:
.
I wonder if you really think that constitutes an answer. I am also wondering if you understand the question.

I am asking you to account for why things do as they do (regularly and reliabily) without reference to forms. Telling me that they "simply follow behavior while its doing stuff" is not just humoursly vague-it doesn't even answer the question!

But for a moment let us just try things out with forms. Humor me, k? Forms is that which makes a thing what it is; it gives matter it's direction, capacity, etc.. A giraffe looks the way it does and has whatever properties it does because it "participates" in the form of the giraffe. In virtue of this participation, we can see that it has some restrictions. It cannot breath underwater like a fish, as that is just not the sort of thing it is. However, it can travel on 4 legs, quite unlike fish (well, at least any I know of).

Thus, so far we have accounted for how the material stuff "behaves", its restrictions, its capabilities, and there is more. We can easily account for disease, illness and malformation. Those things are departures from the form. Forms of a thing also give us forms of its parts. When a girafee gets sick, one of its parts is not acting the way its supposed to. If there is a deformity, it is because somewhere down the line, something did not do as it is supposed to do. Thus in the case of my deafened ears, my ears or some part of them are not functioning as proper, human ears.

It is important to see that once science abandoned formal and final causes, the idea of impropriety lost its anchor. A mechanical philosophy and evolution do not account for statements such as "John has a deformed arm" or "mick's ears are not working properly". There is no intrinsic way organs and things ought to be (in the normative sense). Instead, there are just ways that they normally are- in the statistical sense and the way they evolved. To make up for that loss, moderns typically try to anchor disease and whatnot in human values, but you'll find nothing intrinsic there. They project those values; they do not find properity in the things themselves.

This is the most meaningless shit I've read in a long time. It explains nothing, it simply asserts. There is nothing about "the giraffe form gives the giraffe it's giraffeness" that tells us anything about how or why the giraffe works the way it does. You've merely erected another way of stating a useless tautology, that the giraffe is different from something else.

How the fuck this can satisfy you as some kind of anwer for anything is a mystery.

I am accounting for how its matter works the way it does. Play closer attention.

But we know how a giraffe's matter works from biology without any need to invoke "forms". Furthermore in a blinded experiment if you were shown some matter's behaviour, you would not be able to deduce whether or not it had "giraffeness". What does this tell you?

No, You have a partial answer. You can't explain why that interaction over any other, or why that behaviour or property over any other, etc.. Turning to the more basic elements of matter only pushes the question back once again until you get to rumracket's admission of ignorance. That he does not know the answer is precisely because the tools he uses to answer the question (modern science) is not equipped to deal with the question at all. Why? Because it explains things in a strictly mechanical way.it is not a matter of ignorance; science cannot answer the question, in principle. It would be as if You had a metal detector to look for a piece of plastic.

hackenslash wrote:

Mick wrote:Thus, I don't participate in some extra form of deafened ears, but rather there is a privation. My ears do not conform well to the form of human ears; there is a lacking. Thus, we call them bad ears, or that they are not working properly.

That explains why you don't listen.

Anyhoo, this is trivial to poke holes in, because we can point to illnesses that result from the addition of something. But... we've already covered that ground elsewhere, and your position is a stupid now as it was then.

Absolutely. Cancer can result from certain external agents being introduced by the body, but that wouldn't suggest anything I said is wrong. It would still be the case that some part or other would not conform to its form.

Why is a giraffe like the things we choose to label "giraffe". Gee, let me think...

Mick wrote:I am asking you to account for why things do as they do (regularly and reliabily) without reference to forms. Telling me that they "simply follow behavior while its doing stuff" is not just humoursly vague-it doesn't even answer the question!

we can address this with much simpler entities than giraffes. You are basically asking why a round peg fits a round hole while a square peg does not. Particles fit together in particular ways because of the patterns of their properties (spin, charge etc). i.e. all matter has a shape and shapes fit together by virtue of that geometry. The same applies to atoms, molecules, compounds, materials, structures, cells, organs, mountains, and even DNA, chromosomes, proteins all the way to giraffes and beyond.

Some geometries are more stable than others. Some happen to replicate themselves. We see the more of the stable replicating examples.

Why do some theists think that 'the design for the universe' is any more likely to just happen to exist eternally in a changeless god-mind than is the universe, or some simple proto-universe? Asuming 'a mind' is highly unparsimonious.

OlivierK wrote:Why is a giraffe like the things we choose to label "giraffe". Gee, let me think...

He will never get it.

GrahamH wrote:Why do some theists think that 'the design for the universe' is any more likely to just happen to exist eternally in a changeless god-mind than is the universe, or some simple proto-universe? Asuming 'a mind' is highly unparsimonious.

I'm about to go to work now; and so I can't respond much today, but I wanted to pop in and say that I didn't mention god or design.

GrahamH wrote:

Mick wrote:I am asking you to account for why things do as they do (regularly and reliabily) without reference to forms. Telling me that they "simply follow behavior while its doing stuff" is not just humoursly vague-it doesn't even answer the question!

we can address this with much simpler entities than giraffes. You are basically asking why a round peg fits a round hole while a square peg does not. Particles fit together in particular ways because of the patterns of their properties (spin, charge etc). i.e. all matter has a shape and shapes fit together by virtue of that geometry. The same applies to atoms, molecules, compounds, materials, structures, cells, organs, mountains, and even DNA, chromosomes, proteins all the way to giraffes and beyond.

Some geometries are more stable than others. Some happen to replicate themselves. We see the more of the stable replicating examples.

No, I am not asking anything like that. The hole and the peg are two distinct entities. My question is more like asking why the leg is round, but the obvious answer here is in reference to our intentionality. But a more thorough answer would talk explain why the peg was able to be round in the first place, and what makes it a peg.

As I mentioned earlier, the attempt here just pushes a question back. Why those properties? Why those patterns? Your attempts are futile unless you abandon the stress on mechanism alone.

I will post again later tonite or tomorrow.

Mick wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

Mick wrote:I am asking you to account for why things do as they do (regularly and reliabily) without reference to forms. Telling me that they "simply follow behavior while its doing stuff" is not just humoursly vague-it doesn't even answer the question!

we can address this with much simpler entities than giraffes. You are basically asking why a round peg fits a round hole while a square peg does not. Particles fit together in particular ways because of the patterns of their properties (spin, charge etc). i.e. all matter has a shape and shapes fit together by virtue of that geometry. The same applies to atoms, molecules, compounds, materials, structures, cells, organs, mountains, and even DNA, chromosomes, proteins all the way to giraffes and beyond.

Some geometries are more stable than others. Some happen to replicate themselves. We see the more of the stable replicating examples.

No, I am not asking anything like that. The hole and the peg are two distinct entities. My question is more like asking why the leg is round, but the obvious answer here is in reference to our intentionality. But a more thorough answer would talk explain why the peg was able to be round in the first place, and what makes it a peg.

As I mentioned earlier, the attempt here just pushes a question back. Why those properties? Why those patterns? Your attempts are futile unless you abandon the stress on mechanism alone.

I will post again later tonite or tomorrow.

Graham is answering what you are asking. He is responding by pointing out physical compossibilities.

lobawad wrote:

Mick wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

Mick wrote:I am asking you to account for why things do as they do (regularly and reliabily) without reference to forms. Telling me that they "simply follow behavior while its doing stuff" is not just humoursly vague-it doesn't even answer the question!

we can address this with much simpler entities than giraffes. You are basically asking why a round peg fits a round hole while a square peg does not. Particles fit together in particular ways because of the patterns of their properties (spin, charge etc). i.e. all matter has a shape and shapes fit together by virtue of that geometry. The same applies to atoms, molecules, compounds, materials, structures, cells, organs, mountains, and even DNA, chromosomes, proteins all the way to giraffes and beyond.

Some geometries are more stable than others. Some happen to replicate themselves. We see the more of the stable replicating examples.

No, I am not asking anything like that. The hole and the peg are two distinct entities. My question is more like asking why the leg is round, but the obvious answer here is in reference to our intentionality. But a more thorough answer would talk explain why the peg was able to be round in the first place, and what makes it a peg.

As I mentioned earlier, the attempt here just pushes a question back. Why those properties? Why those patterns? Your attempts are futile unless you abandon the stress on mechanism alone.

I will post again later tonite or tomorrow.

Graham is answering what you are asking. He is responding by pointing out physical compossibilities.

I am afraid not. He roots his explanation in their properties. But I am asking this: why those properties? And why those "fittings"? Forms explain why matter acts this way or that way, and it explains its operations. But in the absence of form, that it acts some way or possesses some property, or is restricted and capable of acting in such-and -such way remains elusive. You can only push the question back; you can't answer it in mechanistic terms alone.

I am not entirely sure what he has in mind with his reference to geometry. But he needs to be careful not to make this a matter of necessitation. Otherwise, he risks no recourse in an explanation for the diversity of things.

So every atom and every molecule have their corresponding 'forms', and every distinct thing that is made up of atoms also have their 'forms'? How is this different then from 'properties', 'attributes', and 'characteristics'?
How exactly does the 'form' of an atom or molecule explain its operations? Examples?

Mick wrote:

lobawad wrote:

Mick wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

we can address this with much simpler entities than giraffes. You are basically asking why a round peg fits a round hole while a square peg does not. Particles fit together in particular ways because of the patterns of their properties (spin, charge etc). i.e. all matter has a shape and shapes fit together by virtue of that geometry. The same applies to atoms, molecules, compounds, materials, structures, cells, organs, mountains, and even DNA, chromosomes, proteins all the way to giraffes and beyond.

Some geometries are more stable than others. Some happen to replicate themselves. We see the more of the stable replicating examples.

No, I am not asking anything like that. The hole and the peg are two distinct entities. My question is more like asking why the leg is round, but the obvious answer here is in reference to our intentionality. But a more thorough answer would talk explain why the peg was able to be round in the first place, and what makes it a peg.

As I mentioned earlier, the attempt here just pushes a question back. Why those properties? Why those patterns? Your attempts are futile unless you abandon the stress on mechanism alone.

I will post again later tonite or tomorrow.

Graham is answering what you are asking. He is responding by pointing out physical compossibilities.

I am afraid not. He roots his explanation in their properties. But I am asking this: why those properties? And why those "fittings"? Forms explain why matter acts this way or that way, and it explains its operations. But in the absence of form, that it acts some way or possesses some property, or is restricted and capable of acting in such-and -such way remains elusive. You can only push the question back; you can't answer it in mechanistic terms alone.

I am not entirely sure what he has in mind with his reference to geometry. But he needs to be careful not to make this a matter of necessitation. Otherwise, he risks no recourse in an explanation for the diversity of things.

I have already explained: physical compossibility. The properties Graham references arise from "fittings", the fittings from properties, all the way down to whatever the "stuff" of it all might be. Nothing more than some non-symmetry at some deep or deepest level is necessary in this model. You look for metaphysical answers to things and you would deny that the fittings of things must be compossible?

Mick wrote:That is useless to me. Give me a quote from a medical dictionary or a biology dictionary, or anything of that sort, and show me that it gives your understanding of deformity. A simple search for that online supports my ideas, not yours.

Suddenly we want others to give us quotes from larger bodies of work.

Fallible wrote:

Mick wrote:That is useless to me. Give me a quote from a medical dictionary or a biology dictionary, or anything of that sort, and show me that it gives your understanding of deformity. A simple search for that online supports my ideas, not yours.

Suddenly we want others to give us quotes from larger bodies of work.

And besides that, what Mick is asking for is easily found. Here are the definitions of deformity from the first two medical dictionaries on Google:

deformity /de·form·i·ty/ (dĕ-for´mĭ-te) distortion of any part or of the body in general.

Source: http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictio ... /deformity

Any malformation or distortion of part of the body. Deformities may be congenital (present from birth), or they may be acquired as a result of injury, disorder, or disuse. Most congenital deformities are relatively rare. Among the more common are club-foot ( talipes) and cleft lip and palate. Injuries that can cause deformity include burns, torn muscles, and broken bones. Disorders that may cause deformity include nerve problems, some deficiencies, such as rickets, and Paget’s disease of the bone. Disuse of a part of the body can lead to deformity through stiffening and contracture of unused muscles or tendons. Many deformities can be corrected by orthopaedic techniques, plastic surgery, or exercise.

Source: http://meddict.org/term/deformity/

They are simply descriptive definitions that make no reference to values or ends.

Mick wrote:

lobawad wrote:

Mick wrote:

GrahamH wrote:

we can address this with much simpler entities than giraffes. You are basically asking why a round peg fits a round hole while a square peg does not. Particles fit together in particular ways because of the patterns of their properties (spin, charge etc). i.e. all matter has a shape and shapes fit together by virtue of that geometry. The same applies to atoms, molecules, compounds, materials, structures, cells, organs, mountains, and even DNA, chromosomes, proteins all the way to giraffes and beyond.

Some geometries are more stable than others. Some happen to replicate themselves. We see the more of the stable replicating examples.

No, I am not asking anything like that. The hole and the peg are two distinct entities. My question is more like asking why the leg is round, but the obvious answer here is in reference to our intentionality. But a more thorough answer would talk explain why the peg was able to be round in the first place, and what makes it a peg.

As I mentioned earlier, the attempt here just pushes a question back. Why those properties? Why those patterns? Your attempts are futile unless you abandon the stress on mechanism alone.

I will post again later tonite or tomorrow.

Graham is answering what you are asking. He is responding by pointing out physical compossibilities.

I am afraid not. He roots his explanation in their properties. But I am asking this: why those properties? And why those "fittings"? Forms explain why matter acts this way or that way, and it explains its operations.

No, it really doesn't. It is a mystery to me how you have convinced yourself that this forms crap constitutes an explanation for anything at all. It is nothing but an ad-hoc rationalization.

And history has borne that out: the theory of forms has zero predictive power about the behaviour of matter (Mick: feel free to provide an example of how the theory of forms allows us to successfully predict a material behaviour that is in any way different to what we would expect from biochemistry, physics, etc).

There's a reason that the theory of forms didn't survive the scientific revolution: under science, ideas that are demonstrably useless or wrong are disposed of. The theory of forms makes testable claims about the behaviour of matter, none of which are demonstrable. It's a falsifiable theory that's been falsified. It's no better an explanation for the behaviour of matter than phlogiston, or prayer.

Mick wrote:

Deformity is a privation of a form, not a form itself. Thus, I don't participate in some extra form of deafened ears, but rather there is a privation. My ears do not conform well to the form of human ears; there is a lacking. Thus, we call them bad ears, or that they are not working properly.

So, you would not call a man deformed merely because he has three ears.

If you are to answer this by saying no, the form of human ears demands no more or less than two ears, and so this unfortunate sould is indeed deprived of this form, you have occluded evolution, for mutation may augment as well as diminish or reshape.

If you are to counter this by saying that forms do not shoulder aside evolution at all, for forms are bound to the final state of the evolved, you must then choose between claiming that all which evolves is already evolved to its end, or conceding that we can not evaluate form in the world by observation (except in the case of the remains and traces of things already extinct).

Mick wrote:No, You have a partial answer. You can't explain why that interaction over any other, or why that behaviour or property over any other, etc.. Turning to the more basic elements of matter only pushes the question back once again until you get to rumracket's admission of ignorance. That he does not know the answer is precisely because the tools he uses to answer the question (modern science) is not equipped to deal with the question at all. Why? Because it explains things in a strictly mechanical way.it is not a matter of ignorance; science cannot answer the question, in principle. It would be as if You had a metal detector to look for a piece of plastic.

It doesn't seem to me that the idea of forms offers an explanation that is any more complete, however. In a way, by "taking the fluff out", as you put it, Aristotle removed the explanatory power of the idea as well (to the extent that it has any explanatory power at all, of which more below). If the forms are not some metaphysical, transcendent entities towards which material manifestations thrive, then how do these forms explain the fact that giraffes properly have four legs? How do we know that they should not have five or six legs, and because of a ubiquitious disease or disorder they all end up having only four?

Or, put differently, if forms are immanent within objects, then I fail to see how that differs from the empirical approach you described earlier of basing proper form and function on statistical evaluation of what is observed.

That said, I agree with you that science is not able to answer the questions of "how" or "why" matter behaves as it does. I disagree, however, over whether metaphysics or any other discipline is able to answer it. There is a difference between the manner of "explanation" biology, genetics and evolutionary theory offer to the question of how giraffes come to exist in a particular physical manifestation, and the type of "explanation" an idea like "forms" offers. The difference being related to emprical verification, utility and predictive value. Metaphysical "explanations" are really no more than myths or a Rudyard Kipling "just so" story. They are useful for entertainment or for placating the anxities of those who insist on complete "explanations" of the universe, but no more than that.

I must confess that I'm not too familiar with the concept of forms, and Wikipedia was not entirely helpful on the subject. Mick, if you don't mind, could you answer a few of the questions I have?

How do we know what a form is?
*If we only see the shadows in the mouth of the cave, how can we tell anything of the complexities that may not be shown in the silhouette? E.g. what can the shape of a giraffe tell us about what a giraffe actually are (that, for instance, biology cannot)?
*How can we know if there are any such complexities at all, and that the shadow is not a complete representation of the form? E.g. how do we know that the form of a giraffe doesn't happened to be the "perfect" form a giraffe?
*How do we know if two shadows that look completely different are not outlines of the same form from different angles? E.g. how do we know that "deformed" giraffe actually diverges from the form of giraffe, and not simply is another aspect of it? How do we know which one is (the most?) correct?
*How do we know that two shadows that look the same are not of different forms? E.g. how do we know that there is a form for giraffe, and not simply a form for each individual giraffe that happens to be very similar to each other? Then how can we tell if a giraffe is deformed?
*Are concepts formed in the mind also just shadows of forms? Either way, how can we tell the difference between the human understanding of a form and an arbitrary human-invented category?
*Finally, how do we know that the shadows actually represent forms at all? Why can't the forms be something completely different that we only may glimpse some faint details of, e.g. how do we know that the fundamental forces of physics isn't the basic forms? How can we tell that there is something casting a shadow rather than that the "shadow" is in fact the entire object?

How does form interact with matter?
*Is there any observed occurrence of form interacting with matter? If so, what? Interaction with matter is, more or less by definition, a change of state in energy and/or matter, so it should be possible to measure.
*Does form interacting with matter obey the first law of thermodynamics?
*What different interactions are available for molecules/atoms/fundamental particles when they are arranged in the form of a rock and when they are not? How are the possible sets of interactions imposed on molecules/atoms/fundamental particles depending on what form they adhere to?
*How does the form of a circle affect the paper and ink when I draw a representation of a circle? What is the fundamental difference between ["draw a circle" compared to "draw a squiggly line"] and ["draw a squiggly line" compared to "draw a different squiggly line"]?
*What extra functions does your web browser gain by being in the form of a web browser (rather than say a word processor) that wasn't anywhere in its lines of programming?
*And, correct me if I'm wrong, you seem to be saying (here for instance) that science will only push the question further back. How can you be certain that it is forms that fills the gaps, rather than anything else (or, indeed, that we do or can know what fills them)? This sounds very much like a god-of-the-gaps argument, although I guess I should call it forms-of-the-gap in this case.