I guess my ontological world views line up with what would supposedly be called a "mereological nihilist". To the question wether essence or existence predates the other, the mereological nihilist says that there is no essence at all, only existence. Things are things because we call them that, but the things themselves do not actually exist. There are no ontological connections between the parts of a whole object, like the legs and the plate of a table. There are only the legs and the plate, we simply call them "table" when they are arranged in a specific way. (Of course the legs and the plate are also just made up of other, smaller parts, but I just wanted to give a quick example for explanation's sake.)
Now, according to that, the "ship of Theseus" paradoxon can simply be explained away as a purely linguistic one - there was never a ship, just something we arbitratrily called "ship", and we can now choose to call something else "ship" if we feel like doing so.) Linguism however would be awarded existence, by that explanation, and extending from that, I must admit that such a thing as "information" exists. Even when I say that "humans" do not exist, there exists something, a structure of matter, that perceives itself as human. This self-perceiving structure of course is just that, a structure of mass, but that structure is kept intact by constantly exchanging pieces of matter. So there would be two categories: matter (that physically exists) and information (that is a preserved structure of said matter).
Now I suppose my question is: what do I do with "information" in that ontology? Does it "exist"? Is it neglectable and just a by-product of the existence of matter? How do other materialistic or nihilistic philosophers tackle the issue of information being there despite not physically existing? Hell, what is information anyway?
Give me some book recs on the subject please (so we can keep this Veeky Forums). Picture unrelated.
>I guess my ontological world views line up with what would supposedly be called a "mereological nihilist".
okay
Juan Wood
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to come across as edgy as that line seems to be in hindsight.
Henry Perez
>mereological nihilist says that there is no essence at all, only existence
that's not mereological nihilism. mereological nihilism is the belief that there are no composite objects or, in other words, the belief that there are only simple objects (mereology is the study of parts and wholes). so, a mereological nihilist does not believe in tables, but if there are partless physical particles they do believe in those and those might well have essences.
the idea you mentioned is more like sartre's definition of existentialism (that existence precedes essence, at least for human beings).
Nicholas Bailey
Surely information is just the "human" way of interpreting what is?
Nathan Howard
>so, a mereological nihilist does not believe in tables, but if there are partless physical particles they do believe in those and those might well have essences. I see. Thanks for clearing that up.
Yes, but that "interpreting" still is something that "exists". I mean, it is not really a physical thing, but it still does affect the physical world.
Isaac Thomas
>Give me some book recs on the subject please
not a book and not directly relevant to mereological nihilism, but if you want to begin thinking about information this is a good place to start:
a mereological nihilist should be able to endorse any of the standard theories of meaning, although they might require some extra complexities (e.g. references to persons would have to be replaced with complex statements describing the physical simples normally taken to compose persons, and so on)
Jeremiah Peterson
>but it still does affect the physical world Does it?
Parker Lee
Thanks. I will look into that.
Yes, it very much does. It allows me to talk to you right now.
Adrian Gutierrez
So you hate the weather or something?
William Walker
It sounds as if someone fell for Heraclitus, but can't quite let go of Protagoras. They have a metaphysical urge for an earth-residuum.
Carson Torres
user, it isn't that there are many small particles and your mind groups them together to form abstractions.
But rather, that there is a whole and your mind draws arbitrary lines to separate the total into objects.
Luke Long
I think that is fundamentally the same thing. Holism and reductionism have the same end point.
Brayden Wood
No, because language is constructed by humans, just like the ship. But instead of physical building blocks, we use speech. Or the written word, which is based on physical building blocks.
Connor Young
But how do we do that?
Anthony Kelly
How do we do what?
Ayden Foster
How does information work?
Jacob Lewis
Not really.
Juan James
>Hell, what is information anyway? Not philosophy, but this book provides a nuanced explanation.
Andrew Bailey
It's a way to tell others about the world, it is completely a human construct.
Michael Ross
Being and Time is the book you want.
Anthony Wood
What should one read beforehand to understand it, if anything?
Kayden Cook
but how do human constructs exist? read the op. are ideas (human constructs) simply a byproduct of the process of the physical matter of our bodies or does information/ideas/constructs have a physically independent existence of it's own?
Jacob Adams
bump
Bentley Peterson
What's the point of even trying answering this question without any clearly defined conception of matter? Any advances in mereology are probably predicated on resolving longstanding issues in that regard.
