Okay, lets just use physics for an example. Do any of you think that words could carry sufficiant meaning to be able to explain unolved or unsolveable problems?

Sure.

The number "2" has at least three meanings:

1. The cardinal number next after one.

2. The abstract number equal to one and one.

:flowers:

The numeral two is what has meaning, and the numeral two is what has a referent. Just as words have meaning, so too do numerals. Just as the referent of the word two doesn't have meaning, neither does the referent of the numeral two. The number two doesn't mean anything.

A concept is a mental entity. Mental entities reside, we're told, in the mind, although that too is a bit of a misnomer, since not even the mind has a location, but the point is that a concept, a mental entity, which is brain dependent, is human dependent. Numbers, however, are not human dependent. Numerals are human dependent.

You would do well to distinguish between a concept of a number and a number.

We have no proof that the mind is part of the brain. We have proof that the brain controls the body, but conciousness has yet to be explained.

We have no proof that the mind is part of the brain. We have proof that the brain controls the body, but conciousness has yet to be explained.

Nor will we. The mind is a product of the brain. The mind is not part of the brain.

Your proof that the mind is a product of the brain?

fast;117349 wrote:

Nor will we. The mind is a product of the brain. The mind is not part of the brain.

Your proof that the mind is a product of the brain?

There are no minds without brains.

Our brain is a physical object that gives rise to our mind that itself is not a physical object. If you smash the brain of another, then so too goes away the mind of another.

---------- Post added 01-05-2010 at 11:52 PM ----------

[QUOTE=Fido;117463]Is there anything to be gained from this talking of the concept apart from the reality as though it were the reality, [...]

cws910;117417 wrote:

There are no minds without brains.

Our brain is a physical object that gives rise to our mind that itself is not a physical object. If you smash the brain of another, then so too goes away the mind of another.

---------- Post added 01-05-2010 at 11:52 PM ----------

Concepts are real. So are ideas and thoughts. They are all real, and they all exist. Numbers are real too. They even exist. And words; they are real, and they exist. Strawberries; they are real, exist, and taste good! Yum yum.

Not true, and that is were much of the confusion rests, with people who cannot distinguish their reality from their conception of it...This is easy enough to do with math, as the Pythagoreans discovered, since they could not tell the difference between their reality and the numbers used to conceive of it...But to conceive of reality is an active process which we carry on all of our lives, and yet we must at any time say of such concepts as mind, that they are only a concept formed to serve a specific purpose, and that people think with their brains, perhaps even their whole nervous system, which is indistinguishable from their being...

I grow strawberries, and I agree they are real, but I could not say their name, nor grow them without some concept of them...We only know so much of reality as we can abstract, which we do as concepts/forms/ideas...

There is most certainly a difference between reality and our perception of reality, which is not to deny, of course, that our perception of reality is real as well.

Here's an example. A mugging took place, and there were five different people that were present during the very same event; however, one was drunk, and another was stoned at the time. A third saw it but didn't look until it was almost over. A fourth was half asleep, and the last person saw it but from across the street.

Each person did not have what I suspect you call his or her own realities. What each person had was his or her very own perception of reality. Reality would be, simplistically, the event that actually took place.

But, this is an entirely different confusion from the one I was discussing. When I look at a person, I'm not seeing a concept of a person. What I see is a person. What shouldn't be confused is the actual person with our concept of people.

If you're saying knowledge implies truth, but truth does not imply knowledge, then I agree.

Your proof that the mind is a product of the brain?

Our perception is, I would have thought, quite reliable. It's not unfaulty, and there are sometimes certainly some variances between people's accounts of actual events, but reliable, I think they are.

I'm not really sure what you mean when you say perception is unreal. If I didn't know better, I'd say it comes across as an exclamatory remark, almost as if you are in awe, but I'm pretty sure you don't mean that, so what do you mean? That perception is not real? Why would you think such a thing? Rhetorically, can't you perceive the road when you're driving? Perception is a real phenomenon, even if it's not a thing per se.

When you say that concepts are not things, that brings to mind a very important point. You're right. It's not a thing (in the narrow sense of the word, "thing") (i.e. it's not some thing like a chair or a tree that you can touch). But, it's something. It's not some thing per se, but it is something. In fact, "some thing" implies "something", but "something" doesn't imply "some thing."

If our perceptions were at all accurate the first scientific instrament would never have been built...