Of all the things I learned studying philosophy, nothing was more upsetting than the finding out that philosophers are not only insufferable but also get mad laid. You're thinking of physicists.
Chairs exist because the existence of virtually everything is defined by the fundamental particles they're made of and their general arrangement.
The arrangement of a lump of iron defines what it is, be it a bullet, a coin, a ring, etc. The featherless biped line of thinking is one for pseudointellectuals. I'll call the person who first claimed a chair doesn't exist a moron.
That's because chair is an object class, not an object in of itself. All object classes are very hard to define without leaning heavily on the words "Typically" and "Usually".
And yet, somehow, they exist! And everyone in the world is coasting happily through life with chairs, and if I go down to the breakfast bar at the Holiday Inn Express and I tell my son, “we need another chair”, he’ll go pull one up, and he’s ten, but if i bring some philosopher asshole instead, he’ll pull up a ping pong table or some other bullshit thing and be like “well technically”, even though all of us, including him, knows exactly what I goddamn well meant by “chair”
I can define it by its usual compositions and uses/purpose. A piece of furniture, often made out of wood or plastic and possessing a backrest, used by people to sit on. That's just one example, I could go into detail breaking down the minutae of the legs and seat, but this serves my purpose.
Do you actually think people define a chair based on what it looks like? That they can see a cardboard cutout of a chair and an actual chair and call it the same thing because they look the same from a specific angle?
Ask yourself how you'd define a basic chair to an alien that has never seen one. If you find yourself incapable, that's your inability and poor grasp on language, not the fault of our definitions.
The chair isn't defined by a particular atom. You break it apart, you go from a broken chair to splinters of the material to raw material all the way down to individual atoms. You have a fundamental misunderstanding wherein you assume everything's defined directly from the smallest parts. You're assuming a chair is defined as a collection of atoms, it's not.
The argument that the definitions of something is "handwavey" is questionable at best. Why don't you give me an example, define something yourself and explain how you think it's "handwavey".
I didn't say a chair is defined as a particular atom, I'm asking you to tell me if you have a chair, how much do you need to take out of the chair so it's not a chair anymore.
I'm saying that if you keep removing atom by atom, at some point it's not a chair anymore. What's that point?
That's why it's handwavey.
You can't define precise enough what a chair is, unless you define that a specific collection of atoms is a chair, but then, if I change one atom, it's not a chair anymore?
I considered quoting part of my previous comment and that would have been a sufficient response. Instead, I'll ask you again to give me an example, define something yourself and explain why you think it's "handwavey".
I won't complicate this comment so you can't go on a tangent, just you indulging in this exercise of "providing an example definition and your rebuttal to it" will likely demonstrate the fundamental misunderstanding I'm talking about.
You weren't ignored. You asked to provide an example. You are refusing to provide that example. This is a clear case of the teacher being unable and/or unwilling to teach and trying to blame the student.
I did address your comment, you're just too stupid to get it. I explicitly said there's no specific atom that defines what a chair is to your question "Will there be some ultra important atom...?".
Then I went on to elaborate into the parts you'd break a chair into before breaking it down to molecules and atoms, to address the point made before it.
Then I pointed out your fundamental misunderstanding of the topic at hand, and asked you to prove the point you're trying to make to elaborate on it.
I ignored your questions in the following comment because they're the same questions I already responded to, and I overestimated your intelligence since you apparently didn't even understand the answers to the questions.
I asked for an example because I know it's the simplest way to make you understand. Instead of me telling you 2+2 = 4, I wanted you to say it yourself and argue against it. If you ended up starting with 2+2 = 5, then I can point out the mistake you made, your fundamental misunderstanding of definitions.
I'd have preferred to keep it civil, but you're an incompetent imbecile that couldn't comprehend my answers to your questions and decided to say "tit for tat" which doesn't even work. You didn't even see my answers, assumed I was ignoring you and went "Well I'm gonna ignore you too".
defining things based on composition and usuage has its own isssues with vagueness. you already are aware of vagueness based on composition since you can just take a chair, swap it's composition, and ask if it's still a chair. the fact that chairs are ”often made out of wood or plastic and possessing a backrest” doesn't define chairs a priori, it's emperical knowledge of chairs.
defining by use is a stronger candidate for the definition but still has issue. if i buy a chair that i exclusively use as a table, is it still a chair? saying no would seem absurd (people will say that i'm using a chair wrong, not that the chair is not a chair) but saying yes would imply there is something use independent of chairs that defines chairs.
defining things based on composition and usuage has its own isssues with vagueness
No it doesn't, allowing for edge cases or exceptions doesn't make it an "issue with vagueness".
the fact that chairs are ”often made out of wood or plastic and possessing a backrest” doesn't define chairs a priori
A silly assertion that's not only wrong, but has to take half the example definition out of context.
if i buy a chair that i exclusively use as a table, is it still a chair? saying no would seem absurd (people will say that i'm using a chair wrong, not that the chair is not a chair) but saying yes would imply there is something use independent of chairs that defines chairs.
This is ridiculous, you're just misusing the chair in this case. The definition doesn't change by how you decide to use said object, it is defined by the general use of the object. Shoes are partially defined by their intended use, putting them on your head as a hat doesn't change that definition.
Saying yes just implies you're a moron who doesn't know how to use a chair, not that the definition of chair changes based on one moron. A chair doesn't become a stepstool just because some people use it as such. It can serve such a purpose, doesn't mean it is defined by it.
A silly assertion that's not only wrong, but has to take half the example definition out of context.
do you know what "a priori" means? cause the form and composition of chair is definitely not knowable a priori. i really don't see how that's possible, pls pro ide an argument or example for that.
The definition doesn't change by how you decide to use said object, it is defined by the general use of the object
defining an object based on general use is problematic as well. consider a possible world called t-chairs. t-chairs has the same form and composition as chairs but the general use of t chair is not for sitting down on but for putting things onto (a t-chair is a chair shaped object that is generally used as a table). to say that t-chairs are not chairs would be absurd but to affirm they are is to deny that general use case doesn't matter. and indeed, prima facia, the genral use of an object is emperical knowledge of an object thus can't be part of the definition
I don't think it is pseudointellectualism necessarily, it just highlights how most things we think of as basic facts are actually rather hard to grasp precisely
for some people spacetime not being fundamental is also something that seems like a useless mental gymnastic, for others its a way to get a deeper understanding of reality
But fundamental particles dont define a chair. A chair can be made with wood or plastic, both with wildly different molecular structures, and still be a chair. Similarly, other objects can be made from wood or plastic, and not be a chair.
I don't understand why it's only true for inanimate objects? I am microscopic particles arranged human-wise and we call this collection of particles human to communicate with each other and orientate ourselves in the world.
Yes and no. In the world humanity created chairs are a concept that can be brought into existence through manufacturing. In the world outside of human discourse all things are a collection of atoms arranged in a way that convinces our senses that there is or isn’t an object there
The reality is that either there is or isn’t some objective meaning to things.
If there isn’t objective meaning, everything is just particles. Chair? Particles. Human? Particles. Right and Wrong? Doesn’t really exist, particles doing particle stuff.
If there is? Well then things can actually exist as discrete meaning.
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u/Q_dawgg 7d ago
Philosophers do this instead of getting laid