A nation only has claim to land taken on moral grounds to the extent that it remains moral

[barn]

55 minutes ago, SteveSmith said:

Hey guy!

Hello,

55 minutes ago, SteveSmith said:

Well, it would seem to me that we have a different definition of existence then.

That's possible.

56 minutes ago, SteveSmith said:

I'm not sure how useful yours is because based on your definition, almost nothing exists. Neither families, nor companies. How useful do you think such a definition is?

I think it is very useful. I encourage you to consider re-examining yours in order for a more accurate perception of reality.

Because if I thought existence for concepts and physical objects was exactly the same... you, know. Not good.

59 minutes ago, SteveSmith said:

And if a flock of birds doesn't exist, why do we see them? Also, could you tell me what does exist in your opinion?

Oh, sure. I didn't say things don't exist. Or that I don't think of the word 'flock' when watching many birds joyfully scouting for a new place to gather...

Say, I pointed at the ground with two sticks on top of each other. Is it a true statement to say : That’s a 'T'? (In Chinese it definitely isn't )

Maybe, soon you'll see too what I had tried to explain.

[SteveSmith]

7 minutes ago, barn said:

Hello,

That's possible.

I think it is very useful. I encourage you to consider re-examining yours in order for a more accurate perception of reality.

Because if I thought existence for concepts and physical objects was exactly the same... you, know. Not good.

Oh, sure. I didn't say things don't exist. Or that I don't think of the word 'flock' when watching many birds joyfully scouting for a new place to gather...

Say, I pointed at the ground with two sticks on top of each other. Is it a true statement to say : That’s a 'T'? (In Chinese it definitely isn't )

Maybe, soon you'll see too what I had tried to explain.

I understand what you're saying and I agree with it, but still don't think your definition is useful. Numbers shouldn't be confused with physical things. Number 5 doesn't exist physically, only conceptually, but 5 apples exist both conceptually and physically. Same goes for a family, company or a nation.

 

As far as the letter T goes, yes we could say it's a T but it has more to do with semantics of the language. When we say that's a T we mean it represents a concept of a letter T. A concept of a letter T doesn't exist in the physical world, but it's representation in the form of two stick shaped like it, does.

[barn]

1 hour ago, SteveSmith said:

I understand what you're saying and I agree with it, but still don't think your definition is useful. Numbers shouldn't be confused with physical things. Number 5 doesn't exist physically, only conceptually, but 5 apples exist both conceptually and physically. Same goes for a family, company or a nation.

 

As far as the letter T goes, yes we could say it's a T but it has more to do with semantics of the language. When we say that's a T we mean it represents a concept of a letter T. A concept of a letter T doesn't exist in the physical world, but it's representation in the form of two stick shaped like it, does.

Well, I hope you find your answers.

Have a good one!

Barnsley

[SteveSmith]

4 minutes ago, barn said:

Well, I hope you find your answers.

Have a good one!

Barnsley

Thanks, hope to talk to you soon!

[Tyler H]

20 hours ago, SteveSmith said:

I believe that saying that a nation doesn't exist is akin to saying that family doesn't exist, right?

Correct. The individual people exist; the concept family, which describes the relationship the individuals have with each other, does not exist.

 

19 hours ago, Fashus Maximus said:

Your argument is that a collective cannot claim ownership since it doesn't occupy physical space. I'm saying that even a concept can claim ownership.

Any founding member could simply take his or her portion of assets from the collective and leave without consequence, if it is rightfully his. In reality, doing so is embezzlement, and the other members of the collective would enforce the collective's ownership of those assets, even though they themselves have no claim to the embezzled assets either. So who's property rights will they be enforcing? The collective's.

That example is comprised of people making decisions with their own property and agreements with regard to each others actions with said property - the concept owns nothing.  

I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be embezzlement anyway, but regardless embezzlement is not reality, that's another concept describing actions and decisions made by people.

If you can't distinguish the difference between things that exist in reality and concepts then I'm not sure how we can continue this discussion.

[SteveSmith]

11 minutes ago, Tyler H said:

Correct. The individual people exist; the concept family, which describes the relationship the individuals have with each other, does not exist.

 

That example is comprised of people making decisions with their own property and agreements with regard to each others actions with said property - the concept owns nothing.  

I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be embezzlement anyway, but regardless embezzlement is not reality, that's another concept describing actions and decisions made by people.

If you can't distinguish the difference between things that exist in reality and concepts then I'm not sure how we can continue this discussion.

Hey buddy!

 

I agree with you that concepts don't exist in the real world. Like I said previously. The concept of number 5 doesn't exist in the real world. But 5 apples do. So, yes The concept of family doesn't exist in the real world, but a family does, that is, an instance of a family. If we define a family comprising of people, where some are descended of others.

Again, same thing with a car. Individual parts exist. And a sum of those parts is what makes an instance of a car. Now, the concept of a car again doesn't exist physically, but it's instance does.

 

Same thing goes for nations.

[Tyler H]

It's important to make the distinction, because a nation is not a thing making decisions, creating property, or acting on reality - individual people are doing that.  People use concepts to shift the consequences of their actions to abstractions in order to escape said consequences. 

[SteveSmith]

6 minutes ago, Tyler H said:

It's important to make the distinction, because a nation is not a thing making decisions, creating property, or acting on reality - individual people are doing that.  People use concepts to shift the consequences of their actions to abstractions in order to escape said consequences. 

Actually, we can discuss about who is  doing all those things later. I would like to nail down what existence is at this point.

 

If we take your approach, then only entities that act upon something exist. This it follows that cars and material property doesn't exist in general. So how can people act on something that doesn't exist?

 

Did you think that at this point we should discard your definition of existence and move on to something more practical?

[Mister Mister]

Nations are a concept but unlike many political concepts they have a basis in biology and reality.

 

Sorry but a lot of this is kind of silly and pointless.  Though I accept anarchy on philosophical grounds, I also acknowledge that history is made by great men who project their will into the world, not armchair philosophizers who pontificate about the ethics of things that happened centuries ago.

[Mister Mister]

6 hours ago, Tyler H said:

It's important to make the distinction, because a nation is not a thing making decisions, creating property, or acting on reality - individual people are doing that.  People use concepts to shift the consequences of their actions to abstractions in order to escape said consequences. 

Sure a nation doesn't exist in the same way a family doesn't, a society doesn't, a civilization doesn't, etc.  Have fun being an individual in the years to come

[SteveSmith]

17 minutes ago, RoseCodex said:

Nations are a concept but unlike many political concepts they have a basis in biology and reality.

 

Sorry but a lot of this is kind of silly and pointless.  Though I accept anarchy on philosophical grounds, I also acknowledge that history is made by great men who project their will into the world, not armchair philosophizers who pontificate about the ethics of things that happened centuries ago.

I agree with you, especially on the part that this diffusion about existence of nations is rather pointless.

 

If we are to take Tyler's logic further, we could basically say that nothing that is composed of parts exists, so neither does him, since he is composed of organs, which is meaningless. On the other hand, should Tyler claim that only things that can decide exist, then his definition is basically equal to definition of living beings, which is rather irrelevant since we have that definition and we use it for something else.

 

What we are then interested in is how to tell things which are present in the real world and which are not. His definition would only included living beings, but clearly, we notice the presence of many other entities, so it's a completely impractical definition.

 

I propose that we drop this discussion altogether and focus on why Tyler has a problem with nations. I believe that he thinks that nations shouldn't have any claims or rights of their own. Thus, if that is the case, I think Tyler should pick up the discussion from there.

[Mister Mister]

Yes well moreover I was trying to make the point that, if you go back far in history enough, it's just apes hitting each other with rocks.  It's pointless to analyze the morality of how we got here, we just have to figure out how to act as philosophical people in a mostly anti-philosophical world.  And in my opinion, clinging to this idea of "we're all just individuals, man", is not a good strategy, especially as things start to unravel in the next decade or two.

[SteveSmith]

Quite right, the whole is more than the sum of its parts in this case. Groups of people can do more than each individual can, thus groups are important. That's probably why you see people forming companies in the first place. Once we do that, a very important thing becomes possible and that is - division of labor. You can't do everything by yourself that you need, but a group can, if work its divided appropriately.

 

Now, I understand why some people might hold grudges against groups. Fundamentalism and blind obedience come to mind because they are often associated with group thinking. But the fact of the matter is, nothing is perfect, everything has its good and is bad sides so choose appropriately what and how you want to proceed.

[Jsbrads]

SteveSmith, obviously at some resolution it exists, but don’t get too dependent on it.

[SteveSmith]

1 hour ago, Jsbrads said:

SteveSmith, obviously at some resolution it exists, but don’t get too dependent on it.

Getting too depended on anything is a bad idea. I just want to make it clear that treating nations as non-existing entities is not practical or particularly useful.

If we agree on that, then we can continue with criticisms of nations, or any other group for that matter, versus individualism.

[Mister Mister]

On 2/20/2018 at 5:51 PM, Tyler H said:

Correct. The individual people exist; the concept family, which describes the relationship the individuals have with each other, does not exist.

If a man says "I have to do what's best for my family" do you respond with "AYKCHUALLY, your family doesn't exist.  Only individuals do, it's impossible to do 'what's best for' a concept that doesn't exist in reality"?

 

[Fashus Maximus]

On 2/20/2018 at 8:51 PM, Tyler H said:

That example is comprised of people making decisions with their own property and agreements with regard to each others actions with said property - the concept owns nothing.

Again a contradiction: the owners forfeited ownership of their assets to the collective when founding it. They can't own their assets and not own their assets at the same time.

Also, some concepts have emergent properties outside of any person's control. Such as, the concept of foregoing control over your property.

On 2/20/2018 at 8:51 PM, Tyler H said:

embezzlement is not reality

Conversation does not occupy physical space, and yet you're having one. By using conversation as a medium of information transfer, you have accepted its existence outside of physical space.

Contradiction again.

On 2/20/2018 at 8:51 PM, Tyler H said:

If you can't distinguish the difference between things that exist in reality and concepts then I'm not sure how we can continue this discussion.

As per your definition, reality = existence = occupies physical space. Yet, you've accepted the existence of this discussion.

I'm just trying to help you here, I'm baffled at how you can contradict yourself every other sentence and claim that I'm having difficulty distinguishing reality and concepts. How can you even know that I can't distinguish reality and concepts when you didn't care to hear about my own theory on the subject?

The problem is that you have a bunch of axioms and definitions and all you have to do to prove them is to prove your axioms and test your conclusions against each other. You would have seen all the contradictions in your theory if you held yourself to that standard of rigour. I guess it really is true that some people are more convinced of their own beliefs when presented with counter-evidence.

[ofd]

Quote

between things that exist in reality

That's a popular mistake among philosophical novices. Saying that something exists doesn't add more information.

'This apple here is red and it exists' contains the same information as 'This apple here is red'.